The following are the views expressed by Olufemi Oguntokun in the June 22, 2026 episode of the On the Lord’s Side Podcast — Christian perspectives on news and current events.
ON FAITH BLENDED WITH COSMETIC SURGERY
Good morning to you once again. It is Monday, the 22nd of June 2026.
One of the developments on social media in Nigeria that got many people talking yesterday was the video released by one Dr. who specialises in what is popularly called BBL — Brazilian Butt Lifts. The reason it caught the attention of so many Christians is that it was a blend — and I use the very word the X algorithm itself employed — a blend of cosmetic surgery and faith. That is exactly how X headlined it: “Lagos clinic launch video blends cosmetic surgery and faith.” The June 21 video, shared by a Nollywood fan account, highlights the doctor’s techniques like fat transfer for the Brazilian butt lift, with before-and-after reviews and a model posting about her own procedure. The doctor, founder of GCE Healthcare [name per transcript — confirm], stresses safety, patient confidence, and a decade of enhancement experience, amid a pastor calling the event grounded in the Word of God. Reactions split between critics questioning faith in ungodly pursuits and supporters defending personal choice — which reflects Nigeria’s booming cosmetic surgery scene and its risks, like infections. And I think the algorithm got it right.
One must now admit that there is a booming cosmetic surgery industry in Nigeria as well. It used to be that when you heard of Brazilian butt lifts and cosmetic surgeries — people trying to make themselves look better through surgery, for the face or any part of the body — these were things we only read of, said to be popular among Hollywood stars. But now, from various news reports, we find that there are many, many people in Nigeria undergoing these procedures. One reason is that, in the past, it was a more specialised skill; only a few clinics in the world could perform these surgeries, so people had to travel out of Nigeria. People still travel — it depends on how much money you have to splash on that pursuit. It used to be that you had to travel to some exclusive clinics, particularly in California, and later there were cheaper options in Turkey and other countries. You will recall that we once had a First Lady in this country who — though it was never officially confirmed, and the report has never been debunked — is said to have died from complications of a cosmetic surgery procedure abroad. She was said to be preparing for her 60th birthday, wanting to look better, and decided to undergo cosmetic surgery; she developed complications afterwards and, unfortunately, died. Even then, it was regarded as something uncommon, the exclusive preserve of the high and mighty and the super-rich.
It appears now, with the opening of clinics like this in Lagos — and I suspect there will be some in Abuja and perhaps Port Harcourt [transcript “Paraguay” — almost certainly a Nigerian city; confirm] as well — that many more people are saying, “If it is accessible, and I can afford it, let me go ahead.” Which, before we go into the main issues, reminds us of a truth: when you find something going on in a part of the world that you have moral, spiritual or biblical objections to, and it is not going on in your own part of the world, oftentimes it is not because the people there are worse. It is simply that they have access and the others do not. We will know, when you also have access to a thing, whether you will truly object to it, morally or biblically speaking. This has been said to many Christians as well. Those who have never had access to something morally objectionable should indeed see it as wrong — but should be careful, because your own reaction will be tested by what you actually do when you eventually have access. So procedures that were regarded as the indulgent pastimes of the affluent in Europe and North America are now becoming the pastime of many people in Nigeria too. We do not yet know where the trajectory of the culture is going.
Now, I am not going to enter an extensive debate on the godliness or otherwise of cosmetic surgery, because such an argument would have to take cognisance of many nuances. It is a medical procedure, to the extent that it is conducted by doctors. Before these procedures were used merely for enhancing beauty and looks, they had always existed — especially to help accident victims, and people who had suffered some damage to their bodies or faces. Many have benefited from that and been thankful. If you have met motor accident victims, or those who suffered burns, who were helped to get some semblance of normality back to their bodies or faces through surgeries like this, you will be thankful indeed. But it appears that although these surgical procedures began and gained prominence by helping the physically challenged and accident victims, the doctors soon found that they could do much more.
One of the most popular persons globally to have undergone such look-altering surgery — and I am deliberately moving from “beauty-enhancing” to “look-altering,” because sometimes after the procedure you wonder whether the beauty has been enhanced at all — would be Michael Jackson. When we were all growing up, we were told he underwent cosmetic surgery to adjust his nose, and some say to change his complexion. There is debate about what actually caused that complexion change; I have not looked closely at the argument, though my daughter mentioned something about it recently. But it is on record that he underwent surgical procedures to adjust his nose and perhaps other parts of his body.
We need to reflect on what it means to call something “cosmetic,” because the meaning carries connotations for us as we think from a Christian perspective. As an adjective, cosmetic means something concerned with improving appearance rather than functionality — it is superficial; it does not go beyond that. You find that adjective used not only of the procedures we are discussing this morning, but of other things. If you were in a meeting discussing issues, and someone proposed a solution, somebody might say, “Oh, that’s just a cosmetic approach” — meaning it is superficial, it dresses things up, it does not go beyond the skin. And in the context of beauty procedures like this, we are indeed talking about things that do not go beyond the skin. It is just appearances — which, from a Christian perspective, should not matter beyond the minimal. Over and over in the Gospel, Jesus warned us about the dangers of being overly concerned with appearances. Not that you should not wash your hands — the Pharisees took exception to Jesus’ disciples not washing their hands in the stipulated manner, and Jesus said, in effect, “What is wrong with you? You are concerned with the ceremonial washing of the hands, but should you not wash your heart?” He gave that illustration of the tombs: “You take such pains to dress up the tombs of your fathers and ancestors, you change the tombstones from time to time — but do you know that inside these tombs are the decaying bones of the dead?” He was not saying do not wash your hands, nor do not make tombs presentable; He was saying that Christians ought to be more concerned with the weightier matters, to use His own expression, than with the merely superficial.
Indeed, I would say that if these look-altering procedures were pursued by people who had first taken care of their own hearts, of the things that really matter, the weightier matters — well, all well and good. Some could say, “Yes, I am pursuing this beauty-enhancing procedure because, first of all, I have taken care of the most important thing, my heart.” In that case I would have no real objection. Although it becomes a circular argument at the end of the day, because you find that the person who has truly taken care of his heart will, more often than not, not pursue these procedures at all — unless there were a real need.
But the main reason we are talking about this is not merely that a cosmetic surgery clinic launched in Lagos. It is that at this particular launch, on June 21, there was present a pastor who called the event “grounded in the Word of God.” That is exactly what many Christians are talking about on social media. In the video, the doctor and her clients give their testimonies. Several well-known celebrities are named _____.. One client describes the work like the story of a butterfly that has gone through the caterpillar phase and can now spread its beautiful wings; the doctor speaks of clients who have “regained their confidence,” who “transitioned from a sweet shape to a sweeter shape.” When asked how it felt, the doctor says, “We work with God. We can’t do anything without Him. We only make it better with His direction. The knowledge we have in plastic, cosmetic and aesthetic surgery is still from God, to make things better.” And a client adds that she trusted her life in the doctor’s hands because the doctor “is also very grounded in the Word of God,” saying she did not look different, just “better” and “more confident,” only six weeks on.
So there you have it — that blend of faith and cosmetic surgery that got many people talking. There are aspects of what she said that you cannot dispute: that her skills were, in the ultimate sense, given by God. If you believe you were created by God, you must also believe that whatever knowledge and ability you have come from Him. But it is another question entirely to what use you put those skills. And as I said, I am not sure you will find anywhere in the Bible an express statement that cosmetic surgeries are bad. Let us remind ourselves of the origin of these procedures — to help those involved in accidents or born with deformities. Now, to make it more commercially successful, those who specialise in the procedure market it as beauty-enhancing, and that is how it is now being sold.
Also present at that event was one of the popular pastors in Lagos. The video did not capture him saying anything, but he was there. And it is fascinating that even people pursuing these things find it important to bring God into the matter. When you are doing something purely commercial, merely advertising your services, and you find a need to bring God into it, it is often only because you suspect there is something not quite up-and-up about it, and you want to address that. If you were selling clothes, or advertising your bakery, or a general practitioner opening a new hospital and advertising, you would not feel compelled to say, “What we do is grounded in the Word of God.” Can we agree on that? There are certain enterprises and vocations that, no matter how Christian, how biblically faithful, how God-centred you are, you simply would not feel the need to defend by saying, “What we do is grounded in the Word of God.” Of course, at the launch of any enterprise, prayers will be said — for how can I do anything without praying? That is a different thing entirely from trying to market what I am about to sell by saying, “What we are launching today is grounded in the Word of God,” when you are talking about a purely commercial effort, not a ministry, not a church project.
At the end of the day, the clinic this doctor opened was opened for commercial purposes. She is there to commercialise her skills, to practise her vocation, to offer her skills to the public in exchange for monetary gain — and she is licensed to do that. There is nothing legally wrong in it; she is allowed by the law of the land to practise her skills and run that enterprise for profit. There is nothing wrong in that, in itself. But, I repeat, there are certain ventures where, once you feel compelled to offer a defence even before you are accused — to say, “Look, what we are doing is grounded in the Word of God” — it is, in my own opinion, some silent voice in your head telling you there is a grey area. And what you will see in this video is many ladies flaunting their backsides, because this clinic specialises in Brazilian butt lifts, comparing the before and the after, saying, “Look how beautiful my backside now looks.” We live in a society that has come to demonise people who do not have a particular look or shape. This is where those of us who try to think deeply, to think consequentially about things, must ask, before we embrace a certain kind of thinking: where will this lead? The moment we embrace the thought that there is a particular shape, a particular look, a particular physique that is the desired one for women — and for men too — then those who do not have that shape will begin to ask, “How can I get there?” And all sorts of suggestions will be made.
Some will try a bit of dieting, but because of their genes and other factors cannot achieve the result immediately. Some take to exercise, find it a hard road that takes months or years and real discipline, and there is a limit to what diet and exercise can achieve anyway. But something is now marketed as immediate: just come here, and over 24 or 48 hours you are transformed. And many, having seen the transformation, say, “I want to be like that.”
I have always said, first and foremost, that anybody who feels compelled to undergo a surgery like this is most likely a person who has become too enamoured with his or her body. I say that with caveats. There are people so obese as to be almost pathologically so, who genuinely need help — who undergo gastric bypass surgery because the fat has become life-threatening. Which takes me back to one of my earliest points: this is a procedure that started as a truly medical one, to help people with life-threatening conditions, accident victims, people with congenital deformities. It is now a skill marketed for cosmetic purposes — and that is what we are focusing on. So I do not want anybody to say, “Oh, Femi, but what about those?” We acknowledge them: people with life-threatening conditions, those born with deformities, those who have been in accidents — yes, as a medical intervention. We are talking about the marketing of these skills for purely cosmetic reasons.
I am not going to demonise those who market these things or run these clinics. The only problem I have is with the person who says, “The only problem I have in life is my body; I need to get it into this particular condition.” Many people will pay so much money. Nothing is said in the video about the fees, but I can assure you this is not a clinic charging peanuts. People are prepared to spend substantial sums to get their bodies transformed instantly — and not only to spend the money, but to accept the risk. If you have ever seen the terms and conditions for surgical procedures, even medical ones, you will find some startling clauses. When it is for medical reasons, nobody bothers to read them; you just sign, because your loved one is in distress, or you are. And I am very sure that the lawyers who work for these cosmetic clinics have, by now, developed even more far-reaching terms and conditions for patients to sign, given what has happened recently — people losing their lives, or suffering complications.
So anybody undergoing this elective, cosmetic procedure — it is not life-saving — must be told of the associated risks: the risk of infection, of something going wrong, of permanent deformity. I do not have the stories to hand, but there is a plethora of accounts of people who have suffered permanent deformities because something simply went wrong during a cosmetic procedure. And the other point is this: look at how enamoured people are with their looks, how important they consider them, that they would pay so much and assume such risk just to look better. There is nothing wrong in looking better. Health is important — checking whether you are bloated, eating less, exercising more, keeping fit. The Bible teaches that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and we should have stewardship of it. But there are things you will do that reveal what you are thinking, what is of utmost importance to you. If a person with n