Plastic Jesus

 

by Eric Diekhans

When I was a child in the 1960s, Coca-Cola and milk came in glass bottles, eggs came in paper cartons, and vegetables were sold loose in grocery store bins. But times were changing quickly, and by the time I was a teenager in the 1970s, plastic had mostly taken over the United States.

 

Plastic was an easy, logical choice. It was lighter, cheaper, and easier to mold into countless shapes than glass. It was stronger than paper. Plastic was a miracle of science. Few people imagined that today, over 460 million tons of plastic would be produced each year and the impact all that plastic on our environment would be enormous.

 

As Earth Day approaches, Creation Justice Ministries has produced a resource called Plastic Jesus: Real Faith in a Synthetic World to help Christians consider the cost of plastic and our responsibility as stewards of God’s creation to change our plastic addiction.

 

This free download provides a theological framework for talking with Christians about plastic, sermon starters, Sunday school resources, actions individuals and congregations can take, and inspirational stories to help you jumpstart an environmental ministry.

 

The inspirational stories in the booklet include Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT), which has been in a grant partnership with the Presbyterian Church (USA) since 2018. ACAT works with indigenous communities implementing effective strategies to limit their exposure to toxic substances and to protect and restore the ecosystems that sustain them and their way of life. One of the most important pieces of ACAT’s work is making connections between health issues among Indigenous people on Sivuqaq (the traditional name for St. Lawrence Island) and the fossil-fuel-driven production of plastics in the region.

 

According to “Plastic Jesus,” “The people of Sivuqaq rely on a traditional diet of greens, berries, fish, reindeer, and marine mammals for their physical, cultural and spiritual sustenance. Sadly, the study of these foods shows how contaminants from plastic production carried to the far north by atmospheric and ocean currents persist for years and sometimes decades, burdening the region’s Indigenous people.”

 

The resource offers actions that we can take individually and as a community to stem the scourge of plastic. We can focus on an extended season where we try to live plastic-free, cutting as many single-use plastics from our lives as possible. We can reduce our consumption of shellfish, which ingest microplastics that then end up in our bodies and can cause health problems. We can educate ourselves about our personal plastic use, keeping track of how much plastic we use, what happens to the plastic that we throw away, and how much plastic our community recycles.

 

In our churches, we can use paper or bamboo plates instead of plastic or plastic foam, and silverware rather than plastic utensils. We can use glass communion cups instead of plastic. We can advocate for divestment from fossil fuel companies, and we can look at our own investment portfolios to see if we support the plastics industry.

 

One of the most important things we can do is advocate at the local, state, and national levels to pass laws that reduce our reliance on single-use plastic, such as banning plastic bags and funding recycling programs.

 

Eric Diekhans is an author, Executive Director of the Greater Chicago Broadcast Ministries, and a member of Lake View Presbyterian Church in Chicago.