Recently a friend and her husband divorced, ripping the family apart and throwing everything into chaos. The two oldest children were over 18 years of age so were already moving out of the house into university and the workplace when the split happened, but the youngest child, we shall call her, Beth, was aged 14 when her world tore apart. Slowly we watched Beth do many of the things that one does to try to find purpose, identity, and to make sense of the chaos. On the inside, she began growing rude to her mother and grandparents, distant and cold in her interactions with others, selfish in her pursuits, and drowning in endless, mind-numbing Tik Tok videos and Instagram posts. On the outside, Beth began dressing provocatively, dying her hair an abnormal jet black, pasting on 3cm plastic nails, glueing on 2cm fake eyelashes, whilst beginning to study in the eyelash beauty industry. As her inner soul experienced turmoil, chaos, purposelessness, and a confusion of identity, so her external self-reflected the reality of this internal void. In this internal and external transformation, I noted something interesting. Beth’s natural God-given beauty was tossed out in exchange for an external, falsified, man-made “beauty,” which was anything but beautiful. In fact, Beth grew ugly on the outside.
This similar transformation, from the beautiful to the ugly, has been noticed in the world of art. Alongside the Reformation era of rediscovering God and the Bible, Renaissance art experienced a re-birth as well. Renaissance art holds some of the most beautiful paintings and sculptures depicting light, lifelike realism, and greater heights of emotion portraying the natural world and human beings often through biblical, mythical, or everyday scenes. From Raphael to da Vinci and Michelangelo, these works of art still sell for millions and draw tourists to glimpse their awe-inspiring beauty. Contrast this with the abstract Modern Art of today. One only needs to look at artists making “action” art, like Jackson Pollock, who splatter and drip paint on a canvas, declaring it art. Or Roman Signer ‘s Sand Column, with 8–12 red buckets of sand stacked on top of each other. As the bottom bucket leaks sand out of a hole in its side, the tower eventually falls over with the audience applauding the mess on the floor as art.[1] Or Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian, which simply duct-taped a banana to a wall and was auctioned for $6.2 million.[2] Modern art mirrors chaos and deconstruction, with items breaking or falling over, decomposing over time. As Western society has slowly rejected God from the center of its public arenas and cast him to the sidelines, human progress, achievement, and brilliance has been exalted in God’s rightful place. And the result? Artistic beauty has eroded into the ugly, exalting creation has given way to exalting disintegration, art that captivates the mind and fills one with inspiration has transcended into empty mindlessness.
The same is true in architecture. One can visit awe-inspiring cathedrals or palaces from the Baroque era[3] (launched by the Catholic church as a Counter-Reformation) with its complex architecture, lofty and ornately painted ceilings, use of shapes and rich colors, and its dramatic use of light that inspire awe, captivate the senses with grandeur, and fill the soul with deep emotion. Contrast this with the architecture of the former Communist bloc countries. From Serbia to Poland, Slovakia to Romania, Communist regimes did not allow the people to have religion. These countries built grey, cement, flat, and functional block-style apartment buildings with no color, no ornate shapes, little design, and no beauty. Communism de-created a drab world without color, absent of hopeful aspiration, leaving the human soul barren and void.
Is it so surprising, then, that we see the same is true in people? As the inner person rejects God and turns toward the god of self––seeking self-meaning, self-purpose and self-identity––the outside of a person can often grow ugly as the inner turmoil becomes more and more displayed on the outside: body tattoos and multiple piercings cover over and decorate the skin; fanciful and fake hair dyed extremely unnatural or multiple colors; make-up plastered faces; bodies mutilated in trying to become a desired gender; ripped and tattered, black and colorless clothes; personally designed eyebrows, unrealistic eyelashes, and extended, unnatural fingernails, etc.
The conclusion is simple yet deeply disturbing: as humanity rejects God and sin takes over, beauty erodes. For evil abhors beauty, destroying it at every turn.
This reality is subtly displayed in the Bible. For John 10:10a (NIV) describes Satan as a thief who “comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” The first glimpse of such theft is found at the Garden of Eden. This first God-created temple of handcrafted beauty and brilliance was stolen forever due to sin, sending mankind out into the wild thistles and untamed thorns. As evil and sin began to reign in the hearts of all mankind, a flood was sent to destroy all existing nature and life itself, except for those preserved inside the ark. As a sinful people continued unabated in their rebellion to God, the kingdom that David and Solomon had built, with its beautiful palace, ornate temple, and strong city walls, was eventually destroyed. Stone upon stone was torn down as the Babylonians came breaking down its walls, stealing its treasures, and killing and deporting its people. Finally, humanity’s sin and rebellion nailed a beautiful and selfless Christ to a cross, torturing and dehumanizing, killing and demolishing. Satan steals, kills, and destroys all things beautiful.
When Beth was a child, she attended the summer church camp my mother has directed for decades. After the camp, Beth came home excitedly declaring to her mother, “Mom! I know what I want to be one day––a pastor!” Though this dream seemed lost throughout the ensuing years of traumatic divorce with the child we once knew seemingly lost as well, there has recently been a slow change in Beth’s 17-year-old heart. She began expressing a desire again for church, she has started daily reading her Bible, and she insists upon praying over every meal. Through the ministering of her believing aunt and uncle, who have reached out to her, Beth has expressed a desire to be baptized, which has recently taken place. And slowly, as we are watching the inner transformation of her heart, we are witnessing an outer transformation occurring as well: the fake eyelashes have come off, the nails are back down to a realistic size, the hair dye is growing out as her natural color is being allowed once again, and the clothes are changing to suit her age and body. This phenomenon is not only something I’ve noticed in Beth, but I have noticed this same reality with many who receive Christ’s salvation and forgiveness, adoption into his family. As beauty is being internally restored to Beth’s soul, her God-created beauty is being externally reconstituted. Even Beth herself recognizes the true source of this beauty, for when her mother commented about how beautiful she is looking again with her natural hair color, Beth responded, “It’s because I have the light of Christ in my heart.”
Though evil abhors beauty, destroying it at every turn, there is another reality at play: as humanity returns back to God, beauty is resurrected from the ashes, returned to its rightful owner, and restored to its original intention. Jesus counters Satan’s thievery by declaring, “I have come that they may have life and have it to the full (John 10:10b NIV).” For God, the author and creator of all things lovely, adores beauty.
Sources:
[1] “Countdown,” CCS Bard, Accessed 19 January 2026, https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/44-countdown.
[2] The Associated Press, “A duct-taped banana sells for $6.2 million at an art auction,” NPR, 21 November 2024, https://www.npr.org/2024/11/21/nx-s1-5199568/a-duct-taped-banana-sells-for-6-2-million-at-an-art-auction.
[3] Britannica Editors, “Baroque architecture,” Britannica (Accessed 19 January 2026): https://www.britannica.com/art/Baroque-architecture.
Disclaimer: The views presented in this blog are those of the speaker and do not necessarily represent the views of SATS.