For the most part, the church now accepts a role in saving
the integrity of the environment as well as saving humans.
Some still have qualms, seeing ecology as the first step on
the slippery slope toward worship of the creation instead of
the Creator, but many people now see environmental concerns
as an important expression of their faithùor at least part
of their civic Christian duty, along with obeying oneÆs
parents, telling the truth, and being kind to strangers.
As people look at the ever-increasing rates of consumption
and population growth and the dwindling open spaces around
them, there is growing recognition that we are linked,
uniquely and integrally, to God’s creation—not
simply masters over it.
The National Religious Partnership for the Environment has
been an important catalyst for this paradigm shift.
Responding to a 1990 call by scientists for the religious
community to get involved in environmentalism, the
partnership brought together the U.S. Catholic Conference,
the National Council of Churches of Christ, the Coalition on
the Environment and Jewish Life, and the Evangelical
Environmental Network. Since 1993, this broad-based
interfaith and interdenominational alliance has distributed
environmental education and action kits to nearly 100,000
congregations and has held leadership training for 2,000 key
clergy and lay people.
While member groups develop their own public policy
initiatives, the partnership has coordinated some joint
lobbying and advocacy actions, such as last year’s
campaign opposing revision of the Endangered Species Act. The
partnership sees its role as facilitating the religious voice
on the environment as it emerges "spontaneously,
independently, and diversely."
IN FEBRUARY THE National Religious Partnership launched a
three-year, $4 million campaign to make environmental
protection part of the churches’ response to the
bipartisan abandonment of the poor, welfare reform, and other
social justice issues. Citing the disproportionate rate of
pollution-related disease in low-income
neighborhoods—such as asthma, which is now the number
one reason urban children are admitted to hospitals—the
campaign is calling on the Clinton administration, Congress,
and environmental groups to prioritize the needs of the poor
in their programs to protect air, land, and water.
According to leaders of the Partnership, the siting of
toxic waste incinerators and dumps in low-income
African-American and Latino neighborhoods and the deaths of
more than 100,000 workers from exposure to hazardous
chemicals and poisons are among the signs that poor people
are the most vulnerable segment of our population to the
dangers created by environmental degradation.
"It’s hard enough to be poor in America, without
bearing disproportionate burdens of poison and
pollution," said Rev. James Parks Morton, the chair of
the Partnership. "The moral integrity of environmental
protection is at stake here."
Theologian and author Rosemary Radford Ruether said in a
recent sermon that the environmental movement needs to move
beyond conservation to prioritize issues of justice.
"The environmental movement needs to be about more than
saving seals and defending public parks from lumber
companies, although these are worthy causes. It needs to
speak of environmental racism and classism, about the
poisoning of the environments where poor black, Latino, and
indigenous people live in inner cities and rural areas."
Ruether continued, "An environmental movement that
does not make these connections across class and racial lines
is an escapism for hikers, and not a serious call for change
in the industrial system’s disregard of its ecological
base."
The emerging connection between the environmental and
justice movements could be the most important sign that the
church is getting serious about the well-being of
creation—including humans, animals, and the Earth.
Environmentalism is being integrated into the historic
prophetic mission of the church that has previously been seen
as applying only to the human community. Perhaps, as the
church moves into its third millennium, it is moving a little
closer to embracing Jesus’ commission to "Go into
all the world and preach the gospel to all creation"
(Mark 16:15).
Read other articles by:
Gallegos, Aaron McCarroll
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Read other articles by:
Gallegos, Aaron McCarroll
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