Geoffrey W. Sutton PhD, Psychology and Culture

A muddy day LOVING the UNHOLY, UNCLEAN, and DISGUSTING Like most children, I loved to visit zoos. One day my dad took me to the Philadelphia zoo. It was a lot of fun until dad had a disgusting experience. A massive tiger faced us. Then, with front paws raised, it soaked dad in urine. At church, a group of us are looking at Richard Beck’s book titled, Unclean . Philosopher, Doug Olena introduced the topic in the last two weeks. Our impulse is to avoid the unclean and expel that which is disgusting. But Christians are called to serve people that society considers unclean. Beck draws heavily on disgust psychology. In psychology, “Dr. Disgust” is Paul Rozin of the University of Pennsylvania. Rozin has studied disgust for decades. It’s fascinating for many reasons. Disgust is of course an emotional response with a recognizable facial expression. Though the classic disgust face can be seen in babies rejecting anything distasteful, infants soon learn more about that which is di...