Selfies & The Image of God

Today I want to reflect on ourselves. And there are many ways that we can see ourselves, and most of the time that requires reflection. One contemporary way of doing that is to take a selfie. What is a selfie? you may ask. Well, a selfie is a photo that you take, usually with your front-facing camera…

Wait I can just show you. You take out your phone and take the photo.

Usually, you would post it on some social media platform. But as it is 2021, now the most you would do with a selfie is slap it on an instagram story because you are in a cool part of the world, or your baby, or with a funny filter.

I digress.

However, in a recent college survey, people described selfies using words like “arrogant, self-absorbed, disgusting, degrading, ridiculous, vapid, useless, selfish, shameless, vain and hedonistic.”

Selfies nowadays have a bad rap. It is seen as a negative thing. It’s too indulgent.

But I think there is another way to look at selfies. In a recently released song, the rapper Jay-Z said,

God in my cells, that's my celly
Made in the image of God, that's a selfie

“Jail” by Kanye West feat. Jay-Z in Donda

I think that a poetical way to look at ourselves as made in the image of God. The public intellectual Craig Detweiler wrote a book called Selfies: searching for the image of God in a digital age, where he says,

Selfies are a search for God via God’s image: us. . . . Our selfies can be redeemed. May we cast aside our old, manic, false selfies in order to put on a new selfie, in Christ and for the community.

I invite you and challenge you to view your smartphone in a new way. Don’t look at it as a way to be vain, but instead imagine Jesus behind the lens pouring affirmation upon you. Look into the lens as if you’re gazing into the loving eyes of Jesus. Let us take more selfies––we are made in the image of God.