Thursday 10/2/14

You may be pretty used to seeing the word “Ebola” in your history textbooks, but now you might be hearing about it on television and seeing it pop up in your newsfeed. That is because the first United States patient was diagnosed with Ebola on September 28. The news is frightening because it hits close to home. The news of Ebola in Africa has been in the periphery of the news for the last couple of weeks, but now we will be hearing about it much more.

The real tragedy here is that widespread Ebola epidemics are not just an inevitable part of human life. At least, they do not have to be. With proper medical knowledge and care, outbreaks can be contained. The trouble is that this, along with most other outbreaks, begins in places which do not have proper medical knowledge and care. Outbreaks often begin in countries without enough doctors and hospitals. They begin in countries that do not have the money to maintain sanitary living conditions. They begin in countries that we do not think about, or at times, care about. They begin in countries which are victims of Social Sin.

Social Sin is the overall sin of the society in which we live. It is not necessarily the result of any one individual’s sinful nature, but is a product of billions of peoples’ imperfections. For example, it is not necessarily sinful for people to keep the money they earn at their job for themselves. However, when enough people make that decision, then those who are unable to work, for whatever reason, go hungry. That hunger is a Social Sin. Africa is one of the richest continents in terms of resources, and one of the poorest in terms of quality of life. That disconnect is a result of Social Sin in our world economy.

Social Sin touches all of us, both spiritually and practically. On a spiritual level, as a member of society, we bear the burden of Social Sin. Even though we are not personally responsible, we participate in a system which marginalizes many. On a practical level, it is becoming all too easy to see the burden of Social Sin. If the African communities where this outbreak began had been medically equipped to deal with the sick, the disease likely would not have spread. It is evident in our own local communities, as well. When Social Sin brings poverty to a city, town, or neighborhood, crime goes up and the quality of life goes down, even for those who are not living in poverty themselves.

Clearly, Social Sin has dire consequences, but these consequences are not some sort of “punishment” from God. Rather, they are just the logical outcome of our action, the same way pain would be the consequence for punching a wall. In order to avoid the consequences of Social Sin, we need to be aware of the systems in our world and how to make them more just. For example, let’s look at the current Ebola outbreak. It began in West Africa back in March. Since that time, more than 3,300 Africans have died of the disease. Thousands of children have been orphaned and entire communities have been devastated. If first world countries had sent adequate aid when the outbreak first began, it could have been contained. The death toll would be lower, and Ebola would not be knocking on our door.

Of course, in order for this to have happened, we, as a citizenry, would need to have been adequately informed and concerned. We were not.

Google has a really cool feature called “Trend.” It allows you to track the interest in a certain topic by comparing the “search volume index” of a term over regions and times. In the United States, there was nearly no interest at all prior to March. In March, the interest bumped up slightly, but dropped back to pre-March levels by June. It spiked again in early August, hitting the highest level it has ever achieved, and then dropped off again just as quickly. Now it is on the rise again, and no one knows just how high interest will get in the next couple of days.



The chart is troubling because it reveals Social Sin at its worst. We were informed by news agencies that a terrible disease was taking hold in West Africa and we were apathetic. The news agencies responded to our apathy by covering the story less. We responded to the lack of news by assuming that the problem had cleared itself up. Now the story is back, and it is not going away.

My prayer is that we learn from this experience.