Green Options » faith

Searching for the Coolest Congregation

Chad Crawford — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:39:48 +0000

Representing 5,000 congregations, Interfaith Power & Light is challenging faith communities to get serious about climate change. The organization recently launched a carbon footprint calculator designed specifically for congregations.

In order to encourage faith communities to lower their footprints, $5000 will go to the group with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per person. Another $5000 will go to the congregation that has shrunk its carbon footprint the most (as a percentage) after one year. To be eligible, participating groups have until December 31, 2008 to measure their footprints.

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Faith and the Environment: Christian Orthodox Leaders Urge Environmental Protection

Amiel Blajchman — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:27:33 +0000

On Friday October 10, His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I (Greek Orthodox Patriarch) addressed a Synaxis of the heads of the various orthodox churches in Istanbul Turkey.

Part of his address focused on urging orthodox churches to focus on efforts to promote inter-religious dialogue, as well as to protect the environment.

Patriarchs and other senior clergymen from Albania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Greece, Egypt, Israel, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Syria and Turkey were in attendance.

The statement read in part:

…the modern world is unfortunately plagued by a crisis that cannot be reduced to inter-personal relations but extends to the relationship between humanity and the natural environment…

Therefore, it is abundantly clear that the Church cannot remain idle before the crisis that affects humanity in relation to the natural environment. It is our obligation to assume every possible initiative… so that our own flock may become aware of the demand for respect toward creation by avoiding any abuse or irrational use of natural resources…

This call to arms by the leaders of the world’s second largest Christian denomination will hopefully have significant impacts on the treatment of environmental issues within Christian Orthodox faith communities.

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Eco-Churches Take Action Across the U.S.

Shirley Siluk Gregory — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:03:37 +0000

They might not garner as many headlines as big-name corporations when they go green, but many churches across the U.S. are tackling environmental challenges as a way to honor God’s creation.

Among those leading the way are groups like the National Council of Churches of Christ (NCC), whose Eco-Justice Working Group includes participants of every denomination from African Methodist Episcopal to Greek Orthodox and Mennonite. The NCC’s Washington, D.C.-based Eco-Justice Program also provides a wealth of resources to help churches and church-goers take environmental action.

Many of those actions are highlighted in the Eco-Justice Program’s guide to “Bottom Line Ministries that Matter: Congregational Stewardship with Energy Efficiency and Clean Energy Technologies.” Among the success stories held up as examples in the report:

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Jesus Unplugged: Religious Groups Participate in Earth Hour 2008

Chad Crawford — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:38:36 +0000

Candlelit services are nothing new for religious organizations. So when businesses, governments, and individuals turn off their lights Saturday at 8 p.m. local time, churches, synagogues, and mosques will be holding special gatherings. This global event is the second annual Earth Hour, the creation of the World Wildlife Fund to inspire people to take action on climate change.

In Toronto, The Church of the Holy Trinity in conjunction with KAIROS Ecumenical Justice Initiatives will be hosting an event called Songs, Stories, and Ritual for the Healing of the Earth with singing, poetry, and drumming.

In Atlanta, Georgia Interfaith Power and Light is persuading its 120 Christian, Jewish and Buddhist congregations to power down on March 29. The group is part of a national campaign led by Rev. Sally Bingham, that assists congregations in going green by doing free energy audits and offering teaching resources on the environment as a faith issue.

In Sydney, St. Mark’s Anglican Church has been transitioning into an “eco-church” since Earth Hour 2007.

Photo credit: Flickr

No Easter Faith Without Environmentalism

Chad Crawford — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:33:59 +0000

A handful of major religious institutions have made environmental statements recently. The Vatican added pollution to the list of the new seven deadly sins. Southern Baptists compare destroying the planet to tearing pages out of the Bible. Mormons are reminding followers that their original founders were early environmentalists.

In light of these statements, Easter celebrators might want to reflect on how the story of Easter relates to the environment.

Theologian Herman-Emiel Mertens writes,

“Those who do not understand the link between the Easter message and ecological problems, do not understand anything of either. Environmentalism in itself is of course no utterance of Easter faith. Many non-Christians are concerned about this. That is only right and proper. A monopolizing of these earthly cares by Christians is out of the question. There is environmentalism without Easter faith, but no Easter faith without environmentalism.” (Not the Cross, but the Crucified, 207)
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Eco-Palm Sunday: A Green Lent Update

Chad Crawford — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 03:35:32 +0000

Some churches will be a little more green this Sunday, and not just because it falls on the eve of St. Patty’s Day.

Thanks to Dean A. Current, who has spent years developing methods for sustainable palm harvesting, churches now have a green option for buying palms.

Current is a research associate for University of Minnesota’s Department of Forest Resources. He has worked with Rainforest Alliance to prevent over-harvesting palms each year, make sure less palms are wasted, and give harvesters in Guatemala a fair wage for their efforts. Twenty-five percent of the program’s revenue goes right back into the communities where the palms are harvested.

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Spanish Literature and Religious Environmentalism: A Green Lent Update

Chad Crawford — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 05:45:35 +0000

A barefoot woman learns the language of the local indigenous tribe, and cultivates her own spirituality based on their deep spiritual connection to the Earth. This woman was a highly educated Mexican nun and playwright who lived during the 17th century.

The Boston Globe published an article today about Nina M. Scott, a retired University of Massachusetts Amherst professor of Spanish Literature. Instead of chocolate, Scott has chosen to give up carbon this Lent. She is doing a few extra things to reduce her carbon footprint, such as hanging her clothes up instead of using a drier and carpooling to use less fuel.

“For me it’s that connection between protecting nature and faith,” she says. She and a dozen of her friends at Grace Episcopal Church in Amherst first got the idea when they heard about two Church of England bishops who encouraged parishioners to go on a low carbon diet for Lent. (Check out my article, “What Does Lent Have to Do With Sharpening Green Habits?”)

The Globe article also mentioned this past weekend’s Yale Divinity School’s conference “Renewing Hope: Pathways to Religious Environmentalism.” This is the conference that screened the film Renewal, which I wrote about last week. The Globe pointed out the conference to illustrate the movement that is taking place, that religions are becoming enlightened to their environmental responsibilities.

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“Green Patriarch” Celebrates Leap Year Birthday

Chad Crawford — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:41:05 +0000

Known as the “Green Patriarch,” Bartholomew I, the leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians, celebrates his 17th birthday this Leap Day. At age 68, his health has been slowly declining for decades. This has led supporters of his environmental achievements to begin speculating about whether his successor will continue his green legacy.

Bartholomew first earned his reputation with the statement, “Crime against the natural world is a sin.” His grandest endeavor was inviting 200 scientists, journalists, and political leaders to hang out with him on a cruise ship. They traveled around the Adriatic Sea to observe the ecological degradation taking place. During the symposium, he persuaded Pope John Paul II to adopt his agenda.

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Welcome to the Table: The Green Evangelical Movement

Chad Crawford — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 03:53:05 +0000

More and more people each day are joining the sustainable table. I am not referring to the wonderful website about healthy and ethical food choices, but heck it’s worth a mention anyway. By “the sustainable table,” I mean the conversation about how to bring the vision of a greener world into reality. So when I read “Evangelical leaders host ‘creation care’ summit in Orlando-area church” in the Orlando Sentinel, I got this funny picture in my head of church folk sitting down for brunch with a bunch of barefoot tree-huggers.

“‘We are the ones who are late to the table,’ [Rev. Joel] Hunter said. An emerging national evangelical leader on environmental issues, Hunter said the goal of the conference was to ‘get mutually stirred up’ and to ‘assume stewardship’ of this issue.”

Evangelical leaders gathered at Northland, a Church Distributed to hammer out “creation care.” If these green evangelicals are beginning to embrace terms like “sustainable,” “green,” and even “carbon neutral,” but still shudder at the sound of “environmentalism,” are we really all sitting at the same table? Or are we sitting at completely different tables, looking at the same evidence, but pretending to ignore each other’s solutions?

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Saving More Than Souls: Religious Groups Seek “Renewal” for the Environment

Chad Crawford — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:51:21 +0000

Buddhist monks are ordaining trees. Future Jewish leaders are learning about sustainable living. Evangelical Christians are fighting mountain top removal. Muslims are giving away organic meat to the poor during Ramadan.

These are just a handful of the stories told by veteran filmmakers Terry Kay Rockefeller and Marty Ostrow in their upcoming documentary, Renewal.

RENEWAL is the first feature-length documentary to capture the breadth and vitality of America’s religious-environmental movement. In rural communities, suburbs and cities, people of faith are rolling up their sleeves in practical and far-reaching ways. Offering a profound message of hope, RENEWAL shows individuals and communities driven by the deepest source of inspiration - their spiritual and religious convictions - being called to re-examine what it means to be human and how we live on this planet .
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What Does Lent Have to Do with Sharpening Green Habits?

Chad Crawford — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:08:30 +0000

Fish burgers are back on the restaurant menus. It must be Lent again.

Marking the beginning of the Easter season, worshipers go to church on Ash Wednesday (often still recovering from Fat Tuesday) and get ash spread on their foreheads. The ash is a symbol of contrition and repentance. Then everyone is expected to give up meat and beer and act gloomy for the next 6 weeks. Sound like fun? No wonder Mardi Gras is so popular!

But when you think about it, a collective confession can be incredibly meaningful in light of our complicity in greenhouse gas emissions. The tradition of Lent has potential for inspiring action. In addition to repentance, the ritual of smearing carbon on faces can visually represent the carbon we are contributing in our daily lives. The following are some reformulations of the elements of Lent with a green focus. (These principles are intended to be helpful to people of any faith background or none at all.)

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“…If you have faith as small as a mustard seed”

Max Lindberg — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 10:31:59 +0000

You may recognize that quote from the bible as Jesus tells those of little faith they can “Say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there and it will move.’ ”

It’s kind of ironic that officials in California are placing their faith in mustard seed as a home-grown feedstock for biodiesel fuel, to move their busses from “here to there.”

Monterey-Salinas Transit has proposed producing its own sustainable biodiesel fuel for its fleet operations, planting the seed as a cover crop during the Salinas Valley agriculture industry’s off-season. The beauty, they say, is that the it will not replace food crops normally grown in the area.

Once the seeds are harvested, they’ll be pressed into raw oil, which will then be refined into biofuel. The transit company says it will use the industry standard of 80 percent fossil fuel and 20 percent biodiesel to power its busses.

Testing will begin next week with the planting of two varieties of mustard seed on 30 acres of land owned by San Bernabe Vineyards in South Monterey County. After harvesting, scientists will determine which variety will be the best for biofuel production.

Watsonville-based Energy Alternative Solutions, Inc. has partnered with the transit company to convert the crop into fuel, keeping the entire process in the local area.

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Faith Leaders Call for Action on Global Warming

Maria Surma Manka — Mon, 28 May 2007 12:16:09 +0000

Last week, leaders of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish faiths formed a pact to fight global warming. They delivered a letter to the White House and Congress announcing their alliance and calling on lawmakers to create limits on carbon global warming pollution.

Citing the Koran, the Hebrew Bible, and the teachings of Jesus Christ, the interfaith body declared global warming “a moral issue” in An Interfaith Declaration on the Moral Responsibility of the U.S. Government to Address Global Warming:

“All of our traditions call us to serve and protect the poor and vulnerable. And it is the world’s poor, who contribute the least to this problem, who will suffer the most from global warming.”

The group asks fellow people of faith to see beyond their differences and make the protection of life on earth a priority. But besides working on global warming soluations, faith communities must prepare to care for those who will be displaces and impoverished by its effects.

Advertisements, meetings with elected officials, and campaigns in individual congregations are planned for the near future.

Christian Post Reporter
Episcopal Life Online
An Interfaith Declaration on the Moral Responsibility of the U.S. Government to Address Global Warming