Lewis on theology of food and labor in the face of climate change
Agricultural workers harvest strawberries in Nipomo California. Photo: Tim Mossholder / Unsplash
“I grew up in a Christian tradition that regularly talked about extreme heat, but it was always about hell. You didn’t want to go to hell, because hell was hot,” Michelle Lewis wrote in her piece for U.S. Catholic Magazine.
“Now, when I think about extreme heat, I think about the people whose bodies are already paying the price. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States, contributing to more than 14,000 deaths since 1979. As temperatures rise, heat-related illnesses and deaths are increasing. The World Health Organization reports that between 2000 and 2019, 489,000 heat-related deaths occurred each year worldwide. Working in extreme heat is its own type of hell, one that can kill you.”
In the article, Michelle describes the injustice in our current food labor system, tells her own story about how growing food helped her personal liberation, and proposes a liberatory theology of food that would help everyone gain access to grow their own food in safety.
“A liberative theology of food means that we won’t sleep until everyone eats. It means we won’t stop working for the transformation the system needs. Everyone has the right to a living wage. No one toils in the heat without access to cooling and water. A liberative theology of food recognizes extreme heat as a crisis impacting all of us and names the divinity of those marginalized people living on the fringes of our society who are doing the work that enables all of us to live our healthiest lives—if we can afford to do so.”
