Phoebe Chatfield, The Episcopal Church’s program associate for creation care and justice, spoke at a March 7 webinar, “Plastic Jesus in the Pews: Preparing for Earth Day Sunday,” hosted by Creation Justice Ministries, an ecumenical nonprofit devoted to protecting Earth and advocating for racial, economic and environmental justice. The webinar was used to introduce a new resource, called “Plastic Jesus: Real Faith in a Synthetic World,” to help congregations think critically about plastic’s impact on Earth and how to practically address it. Photo: Screenshot

[Episcopal News Service] Humans’ exponential increase in plastic production and use over more than a half century has contributed to a worldwide pollution crisis, killing millions of animals every year and emitting greenhouse gasses that raise the global temperature above safe and livable levels for Earth’s climate system.

To address this issue, with Earth Day around the corner on April 22, Creation Justice Ministries — an ecumenical nonprofit devoted to protecting Earth and advocating for racial, economic and environmental justice — created a free online resource called “Plastic Jesus: Real Faith in a Synthetic World.” The resource helps congregations think critically about plastic’s impact on Earth and how to practically address it. It includes sermon starters to inspire discussions in churches, and stories of individuals and communities making positive environmental impacts, as well as ideas on how congregations can theologically approach the plastic crisis. “Plastic Jesus: Real Faith in a Synthetic World” also includes ways in which individuals and congregations can advocate for plastic reduction in their communities.

Creation Justice Ministries introduced the new resource in a March 7 webinar, “Plastic Jesus in the Pews: Preparing for Earth Day Sunday.” Avery Davis Lamb, Creation Justice Ministries’ co-executive director, hosted the webinar.

“Our hope for this resource is it will inspire work throughout the year, not just on Earth Day,” Lamb said. “It’s a resource that’s designed to be used for any season.”

Phoebe Chatfield, The Episcopal Church’s program associate for creation care and justice, was one of several guest speakers.

“We know that the plastic that we’ve produced and the pollution that we’ve produced in one place, doesn’t stay within the human man-made borders, but actually travels around the world,” Chatfield said during the webinar. “If you’re in a congregation that celebrated Earth Day every year, it’s an opportunity to do something different and maybe have this focus on plastic pollution if that isn’t something you’ve emphasized before.”

Chatfield and the Rev. Melanie Mullen, The Episcopal Church’s director of reconciliation, justice and creation care, both serve on Creation Justice Ministries’ board of directors.

Since the 1950s, more than nine billion metric tons of plastic has been produced worldwide, and only 9% of it gets recycled. By 2019, annual plastic production rose to 460 million tons. Between 2019 and 2021, single-use plastic production rose globally by six million tons annually despite tougher worldwide regulations. Plastic waste is ubiquitous around the globe, much so that it’s now been found in human breastmilk and arteries, and near the peak of Mount Everest.

During the webinar, Liz DeMattia, a research scientist at the Duke University Marine Lab, discussed how much plastic production and plastic pollution, also known as marine debris, have grown since plastic was invented in 1907 as a shellac substitute.

“People think, ‘Oh, recycling.’ That’s the magic word you can never get because of the way that plastic is made. When you recycle and you add heat, you not only give off toxic fumes, but it will never be as strong a product in the secondary market as it was when it was first made,” DeMattia said. “What we throw away does not always stay in a landfill. It ends up in our rivers and our streams and in our oceans; the oceans end up becoming the landfill of plastics.”

Plastic damages bodies of water because it’s not biodegradable. Instead, sunlight breaks plastic up into smaller pieces, commonly known as microplastics, which get ingested by aquatic animals and plants. Studies have shown that microplastics decrease their feeding behavior and fertility because they offer no nutritional value.

The Zoom webinar’s participants were able to ask DeMattia written questions. Derrick Weston, Creation Justice Ministries’ theological education and training coordinator, facilitated the discussion. One person inquired about recycling’s efficacy. 

“Instead of just reduce, reuse and recycle, we add the fourth R, which is refuse, so start refusing single-use plastics,” DeMattia said. “The more we refuse single-use plastics, the less there’s a market for them.”

The Rev. Betty Holley is a senior presiding elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church who also serves as vice president of Creation Justice Ministries’ board of directors. She’s also an environmental ethics professor, academic dean and director of the Master of Divinity program at Payne Theological Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio. During the webinar, Holley explained what ministries in the AME Church do to address the topic of plastic production and pollution. Even so, “we don’t talk about it enough,” she said.

The Plastic Jesus resource “will help us to look at the science of it. … We have a lot of eat, greet and eat situations, so this will help us to bring that paper plate or that paper straw,” Holley said. “With this resource, we now have something tangible in our hands that we can share with congregations to get the conversation started.”

Weston said Christians can look to Scripture when addressing the plastic crisis, even though plastic didn’t exist during biblical times. He referred to Philippians 4:13, John 10, Psalm 23 and others. He also suggested looking at the intentional use of plastic as an act of sin.

“When we allow the convenience of our plastic items and our plastic gadgets to get in the way of actually being in communion with other people, that is an idol for us that has become a thing in the place of God,” Weston said. “And the pretty obvious [sin] is greed. … The fossil fuel industry is really driving the production of plastics in this country, and we have to recognize that that’s about greed.”

“Plastic Jesus: Real Faith in a Synthetic World” is available on Creation Justice Ministries’ website.

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service based in northern Indiana. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.