Rihanna and the Case for a New Religion

If God is a woman—and I’m increasingly prepared to argue this on both theological and empirical grounds—then her body looks exactly like Rihanna’s in these photos. That’s not a compliment in the ordinary sense. Compliments apply to things that merely exceed expectations. What’s happening in these promotional shots requires different language. Something closer to doctrine.

Forget every religion that got there before me. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Shinto—whatever those ancient frameworks were built to worship, it wasn’t this. None of them had the foresight to put Rihanna at the center of the iconography. Foundational oversight. I’m correcting it now: the Church of Rihanna, first and only sacrament being these photographs, morning devotions mandatory, late-night services available for the faithful. Carve it into marble. Cast it in gold. Attend.

In some future century, archaeologists will pull these images from the wreckage of our servers and understand something essential about what we were. They’ll see them and think: yes, these people weren’t entirely lost. They looked at the right thing. For a moment, something genuinely perfect existed in the world. And even after it passed, they kept looking back.