Environmental Ecumenism: Grassroots ‘Green’ Campaign

A diverse coalition of religious groups is hoping to create a theological greenhouse effect in a mobilization effort to place environmental issues near the heart of religious life.

Religious leaders—representing evangelical, mainline Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish congregations—met with Vice President Al Gore on October 4 to announce a three-year, $4.5 million project to educate and activate the religious community toward environmental protection. Two years in the making, the National Religious Partnership for the Environment aims to prod congregations to integrate social justice and environmental concerns.

“I believe the mainstream American evangelical community is now ready to proclaim and act upon a biblically based imperative to care for God’s creation,” Robert Seiple, president of World Vision USA, said at the White House meeting.

Many churches already have undertaken recycling, conservation, and clean-up efforts, as well as serving as educational outlets for environmental issues. The new initiative, however, hopes to go much further.

“The challenge before the religious community in America is to make every congregation … truly ‘green’—a center of environmental study and action,” said James Parks Morton, dean of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. “This is their religious duty.”

Ron Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action, said the project offers evangelicals a “historic opportunity” for demonstrating how a biblical worldview speaks to ecological problems. “If we fail to do that,” Sider said, “we will have only ourselves to blame if people turn to other religious ideas to nurture their concern for the environment.”

The meeting was not without its tense moments, however. James Malone, former chairman of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, questioned how the Catholic church would reconcile its pro-life position with the population control efforts, including support for abortion rights, of many prominent names in the environmental movement. Malone said, “The society that makes special provision for the endangered species should make special provision for the unborn child.”

Partnership plans

The Partnership—composed of the Evangelical Environmental Network, the U.S. Catholic Conference, the National Council of Churches, and the Consultation on the Environment and Jewish Life—seeks to change attitudes and behavior toward Earth’s resources through programs such as:

• Distribution of education anti action kits to 53,000 congregations (including every Catholic parish in the United States) for three successive years;

• Clergy and lay leadership training programs;

• Creation of a “1–800 Green Congregation Hotline” documenting grassroots religious environmental activities.

The effort also will include joint educational initiatives with Nobel laureate scientists and national scientific associations. Members of the Partnership have been consulting with the Union of Concerned Scientists, and had Cornell University astronomer Carl Sagan on hand at the White House ceremony.

The smooth cooperation between the religious and scientific communities has proven to be “an extraordinary departure,” Sagan said. “It’s clear that sciences alone cannot by any means provide the moral impetus that religion can.”

Gore praised the Partnership initiative as a “landmark achievement” that “will trigger the beginning of grassroots activity in tens of thousands of religious congregations across the country.”

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the White House meeting was the agreed-upon prominence that environmental concerns were to occupy in church life. “How people of faith engage the environmental crisis will have much to do with the future well-being of the planet,” said Paul Gorman, executive director of the Partnership, “and in all likelihood with the future of religious life as well.”

By Joe Loconte in Washington, D.C.

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