How Religion Lost Its Monopoly On Purity
Before my interest in theology, I was an occasional dabbler in the thoughts and practices of the ‘New Age’ as well as a keen user of Instagram. Like many other women of my generation, I was oft swept up in fashionable but vague trends concerning my ‘wellness’, an umbrella term for various diets, types of exercise, meditation, pseudo-religious philosophies and even skin care products.
This phenomenon was explored in depth by theologian Tara Isabella Burton in her excellent book, Strange Rites. Before I had even read Dr. Burton’s book, however, I had already noticed this creeping mix of crystals, yoga, veganism, tarot cards, and influencers — all of whom were attractive, thin, and young white woman, using words and phrases like ‘manifestation’, ‘self-care’, and ‘living your truth’.
As Burton points out, these online communities behave like religions. Healthy eating gurus, for example, might use the phrase ‘clean eating’ to describe eating foods that are natural and unprocessed. The choice may be a healthy one, but the phrase can imply that those who do not or cannot make these same diet choices are, by default, unclean or impure.
In 2019, Yovana Mendoza, an influencer who claimed to eat only uncooked vegan food, was caught enjoying cooked fish at a restaurant in another influencer’s video and was subsequently hounded for days…
