Nip, Pray, Tuck

Allow us to conjure a scene: It’s Sunday morning at an evangelical Christian church — Methodist, Baptist, pick your flavor. The pews are packed with the pious and the polished. But the Sunday-best facade goes beyond old-school primping. The lips are pillowy. The cheekbones are snatched. The décolletage is divine. The foreheads are smoother than the baby who’s waiting to be baptized, the lashes longer than a Palm Sunday frond. A question hangs in the air: Are these features a gift from God — or from a surgeon or injector?

Across the country, Christians are grappling openly with the question of plastic surgery. The debate is a timely extension of long-held conversations around faith and body image, modesty, and makeup — now amplified under the bright lights of the Christian-right/Trump-administration coalescence and its embrace for Mar-a-Lago face. It all seems to boil down to one potentially slippery line of questioning: If God built believers perfectly in his image, is it wrong to want to tweak what he created? And if so, when does self-improvement shift into self-indulgence?

Absent, of course, any direct references to modern plastic surgery or other cosmetic procedures in the Bible, believers are left to interpret its text for themselves — and there is no one-size-fits-all consensus, as a quick survey of TikTok will tell you. Some Christians have absolutely zero regrets about their surgeries; others wish everyone were more comfortable in the skin that God gave them. Some question if it’s a sin; others believe it’s a personal decision that requires prayer and consulting scripture. Another camp denounces it entirely to “give up the idol” of vanity; and then there are the people who swear it is downright demonic. (Exactly how many Christians undergo cosmetic surgery is hard to pin down, but a recent Utah State University study found that Mormons — who often self-identify as Christians, though they are a more specific community with their own cultural values and pressures — undergo major cosmetic procedures at more than triple the estimated national rate: 14% compared with 4% of Americans overall.)

“A lot of us believe we need to be content with how God’s created us. But at what point does contentment become complacency — a license to not really put your best foot forward?”

This year, Lydia Dupra, founder of a cosmetics company and social media creator, faced the crossroads of belief and beauty firsthand — sitting in a plastic surgeon’s office, contemplating her second Brazilian butt lift. Yet this time, before moving forward with the procedure, she experienced — most literally, the way she tells it — a divine intervention.

“God kept blocking it,” she says. “He kept saying ‘no.’ And it doesn’t matter what I want — it matters what God wants for me.”

Three years ago, during a particularly low period, Dupra converted to Christianity. Her faith has since transformed her outlook on many aspects of her life, including plastic surgery. “I’m a Christian living under grace,” the 35-year-old says. “Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. When we get plastic surgery, we shouldn’t be doing that on our own. We have to talk to God first.”

Take, for example, that God allowed Dupra to undergo an upper blepharoplasty — a surgical procedure that removes excess skin from the upper eyelids this year. Days after recovery and still swollen, stitched, and bandaged, she posted a TikTok for her 946,000 followers, breaking down her decision with her faith in mind. “My eyelids were, like, hanging down; I felt like 35 was hitting me hard,” she tells me of her mindset. “I thought, ‘I do a lot of livestreams where I preach the gospel.’ Maybe he’s fine with me having a little more confidence in front of the camera.”

Put another way: “I’m advancing the kingdom,” she says of getting an upper bleph. “But how am I advancing the kingdom with my butt?”

Few of God’s children, however, are in the unique position of considering this intersection as someone who also makes a living performing plastic surgery. Dr. Matt Chetta, M.D., a board-certified plastic surgeon based in Greenville, South Carolina, is one such doctor — and the founder of the Fellowship of Christian Plastic & Reconstructive Surgeons, a subset of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations that strives to “encourage, support, and build up Christian plastic surgeons spiritually and professionally.” While Chetta largely performs reconstructive work, he believes aesthetic cosmetic surgery is acceptable for believers when it serves a restorative purpose — when it helps return the body to the way it was before being altered by childbirth, aging, or other natural effects of living in a fallen world.

It follows, then, that investing resources into one’s bodily temple could glorify the Creator. “A lot of us believe that we need to be content with how God’s created us,” Chetta says. “But at what point does contentment become complacency — a license to not really put your best foot forward? And if we want to present the best version of ourselves, what does that mean? Does that mean we wake up and put gel in our hair or put on deodorant? Does that mean we keep a youthful appearance for as long as possible, or do we completely let ourselves go? Each person will have to decide for themselves what that means,” he says.

“The sinful part for me was the reason behind it. I wanted them for male validation, for female validation — for validation from people and not from God.”

Surgeons who take to social media to unpack the potential tension at hand are as effusive in their message as they are few in number. Among them is Dr. Nneamaka Nwubah, M.D. Known to her 444,000 TikTok and Instagram followers as Dr. Amaka, the 39-year-old is a board-certified plastic surgeon based in the Nashville metro area and a lifelong Christian. “I’m very avid about plastic surgery, but also about my faith — those are probably the two most common things I talk about on my platforms,” she says. “I often get comments or questions saying, ‘Is plastic surgery a sin? What do you think about being a Christian woman and altering people’s bodies?’ I haven’t thought twice about those questions. Like anything in life, I feel like people often try to polarize — that it’s all good or all bad.”

Nwubah believes that, above all, patients of all stripes should feel emotionally ready for plastic surgery — and that, for other Christians, this should include examining their personal reasoning and relationship with God. “Everybody's journey is unique,” she says. “It’s all about your why: Why do you want to do this? Often, your motivation is going to answer whether this is sinful or within God’s will. That’s a conversation between you and God that I can’t answer for you.”

Nwubah believes that her faith makes her a better doctor. “My faith helps keep me grounded, helps me stay focused. Maybe something’s going on with [a patient’s] anesthesia — that’s the moment where I’m like, ‘OK, I'm going to act quickly, but I’m also going to call on the Lord.’” It has also, she says, helped her connect with patients more deeply. “Patients feel like they can come in and just open up. I’ve had many tell me that they’ve shared more with me than they’ve shared with their therapist,” she adds. “There’s a spiritual healing component that happens.”

For some, the pursuit of outer beauty and the pull of faith can inspire a journey from regret to redemption. Take Skye Gorena, a director at a TikTok livestreaming agency, who believes plastic surgery can lead to both spiritual downfall and growth. Raised in a Christian household, she felt caught up in the idea of physical vanity at a young age, largely due to social media. During a “rebellious stage” that began in college, she underwent multiple plastic surgeries, including a double-D breast augmentation and a Brazilian butt lift — the latter of which, she says, was a terrifying experience that left her scared for her health. (BBLs are infamous for the potential risks they pose. Like any procedure, they can be dangerous if not done properly.)

Gradually, Gorena reached a point of searching for deeper meaning. She grew closer to God and read the Bible cover to cover. Her perspective on her surgeries quickly shifted. “The sinful part for me was the reason behind it. I wanted them for male validation, for female validation — for validation from people and not from God.”

“God kept blocking it. He kept saying ‘no.’ And it doesn’t matter what I want — it matters what God wants for me.”

Now 31, she’s concluded that in the future, she wants to undergo more surgery — but to reverse the procedures she’d had in her early 20s. “I don’t want girls to look at me and think ‘Oh, she got that done — maybe I should get it done [because] her body looks really good.’ I really want people to look at me and think that my body’s natural.”

Still, at her home church in Houston, Texas, she finds herself in the minority. “I do have friends in the community who are still very caught up in the cosmetic side of things and wanting to look a certain way,” she says. Even when they’re packed together in the pews, “I’m very much like a lone wolf.”