contamination

Liuan Huska 6-29-2022
Illustration of hands holding a nuclear radiation symbol as they would a paten

Illustration by Matt Chase

WE OFTEN UTTER the phrase “Christ bore our sins” in a metaphysical sense, assuming sins occupy a place in our hearts, consciences, or spirits. Jesus died, we think, because of our spiritual transgressions. But I’m starting to see that sin isn’t just spiritual (as if anything could be just spiritual in our very physical world). Sin is also environmental. It impacts our air, water, and soil. It alters our ecosystems.

Sin might be defined as stepping out of right relationship with Creator and the rest of creation. The standard American lifestyle, which would require five Earths to sustain if everyone lived this way, puts the U.S. in a state of dire transgression. Pursuing a bloated illusion of progress, so many businesspeople, decision-makers, and culture-shapers have ignored the cost.

The wages of sin is death, says the apostle Paul (Romans 6:23). Today we are witnessing mass extinctions of species, destruction of homes and habitats by climate chaos, and premature deaths in communities closest to pollution sources. I live in one of these communities, though I didn’t know it when we moved here. My town is home to four Superfund sites, legacy pollution from a gaslight mantle factory that later produced thorium for the country’s atomic bombs in World War II. Though the sites have been remediated, residual contamination will pervade the land for millennia to come. Researching this history, I notice who moved away—white folks with resources—and who stayed—brown and white working-class folks who had no choice. Who would choose contamination?

Jim Wallis 3-17-2011

Once again, we are seeing human and environmental tragedy. In Japan, a natural disaster has destroyed all human attempts for control.

Debra Dean Murphy 3-16-2011
As Americans were complaining about all the snow this winter, arguing about the http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/147615-senate-republicans-i..." ta
Jim Wallis 6-03-2010
I am watching unbelievable pictures tonight of endless swaths of brown oil mixed with the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico, of dying wetlands and marshes, of miles of contaminated coastlines, of d
LaVonne Neff 5-07-2010

"On average," writes Jonathan Safran Foer, "Americans eat the equivalent of 21,000 animals in a lifetime." Alas, most of these animals came from factory farms, n

Elizabeth Palmberg 7-07-2009

Charlotte Keys, of Jesus People Against Pollution in Columbia, Mississippi, who was http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0903&arti..." href="https://sojo.net/%3Ca%20href%3D"http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0903&article=a-toxic-">http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0903&arti...