The Spirituality of Plastic
In 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, St. Paul tells us that love is the greatest gift of all, an abiding gift. But what is love? Love is a recognition of the intrinsic dignity and value of another, a desire to sacrifice oneself for the wellbeing of another, a subordination of one’s own self-interest to the interest of others. Moreover, love is not abstract, but practical: Love finds expression in our actions in the world. As our Lord Jesus tells us, we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, our soul, and our mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39).
As we’ve noted in Plastic and the Environment, globally, 40% of the plastic produced annually is single-use plastic; another estimate places the proportion at about half. Single-use plastics are ideal for our capitalist economy, since they offer both complete and repeated penetration of existing markets (the same consumers must buy the same products over and over) and the development of new markets. For consumers, they offer enormous convenience: once something is used, it can be thrown away.
As we’ve noted in previous posts, plastics pose a threat both to the environment and to human health. But you may wonder what single-use plastics have to do with love or with spirituality. Plastics, and particularly single-use plastics, and love are antithetical and antagonistic. And a particular kind of spirituality is closely associated with plastics themselves, along with the culture in which single-use plastics are a centerpiece. That culture emphasizes convenience and disposability – once something is of no value to an individual, once it has served its purpose, it is to be discarded. And the spirituality that accompanies that culture of disposability is one that is profoundly individualistic, profoundly transactional, and profoundly self-interested.
The spirituality of plastic, then, encourages us to view the objects around us in terms of their convenience to us. When something is of no value to us, it can be discarded. When something has served its purpose, it can be discarded. When something becomes more trouble than it’s worth, it can be discarded. Unfortunately, this calculation of self-interest applies not only to things, but to all living beings, including human life itself. If it is not convenient for us, it is of no value. If has become inconvenient or ceased to be of value to us, it can be discarded.
The penetration of the spirituality of plastic into Christianity is particularly catastrophic. When our view of the objects and living beings around us is self-centered and transactional, when we assess everything around us in terms of its value to us, we lose our connection with God by forgetting that God is ultimately the creator of all things. We also lose our connection with our neighbors, and particularly with those whose labor has produced the things we discard and whose health has often been severely impacted as a result, as an article by Sasha Atkins, Plastic and the State of Our Souls, argues.
The result of this culture of disposability and the spirituality of plastic is a betrayal of Christianity. Instead of loving neighbor, we love ourselves. Instead of serving God, we think that the responsibility of God is to pour out material blessings on us. As Christians, we are all called to imitate Christ in the world – not to be served, but to serve (Matthew 20:28), as our Lord reminds us. Instead, the spirituality of plastic leads us to view God’s creation as something that has been placed before us for our sole convenience, as a set of objects to use and discard at our convenience. We see this in the Prosperity Gospel, which focuses on God’s supply of material abundance to first world peoples. We also see, as we argued in The Science of Science Denial, it in some Christians’ rejection of science, which has become particularly problematic during this time of worldwide pandemic.
As followers of Christ, it is our responsibility that we recognize the ways in which we’ve bought into the spirituality of plastic – in which we’ve made ourselves the center of our universe, in which we view everything around us in terms of its convenience to us rather than as having intrinsic value, in which we’ve transformed God from our master to our servant. It is also our responsibility to reject the spirituality of plastic and instead turn toward the one true God in a spirit of humility, repentance, and self-sacrifice. When we do this, we can begin to fulfill our mission of imitating Christ in the world.