Spiritual Pollution: the Dilemma of Sociomoral Disgust and the Ethic of Love

Abstract

Within the Judeo-Christian tradition, holiness and purity traditions explicitly and extensively employ contamination metaphors to understand both sin and salvation. Thus, certain sins, or populations engaging in sins, can be experienced via disgust psychology. The use of contamination metaphors within Christianity is problematic in that disgust and love are, it is argued, opposed psychological processes. Thus, the deployment of contamination metaphors within Christianity may, unintentionally, undermine the Christian ethic of love. However, the New Testament offers illustrative episodes where contamination metaphors were suspended to allow love the victory over disgust psychology. In the end, religious communities are asked to monitor contamination metaphors so they may intentionally manage the social and ethical implications of erecting sociomoral boundaries.