Episcopalians Plan Ecology Campaign

In a sign of growing environmental activism by religious bodies, the six-county Los Angeles Episcopal Diocese on Saturday launched a yearlong program calling upon its 147 parishes and 85,000 members to take unprecedented steps to safeguard the natural world.

The plan, approved on a voice vote at the diocese’s annual convention, calls for study and actions, ranging from making church buildings more energy efficient to overcoming “self-centered greed” and leading simpler lives that will put less strain on the earth’s resources.

The vote was believed to make the Los Angeles diocese the first Episcopal diocese in the country to embark on so sweeping a program of environmental study and action.

The action reflects growing recognition among people from many religious traditions of mounting environmental problems. Growing numbers of scientists have warned of adverse consequences from climate change, ozone depletion, plant and animal species extinction and air and water pollution.

National umbrella groups, among them the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, the Evangelical Environmental Network and the Committee on Jewish Life and the Environment have been active in coaxing local congregations to become involved in environmental issues, not out of political motives but as a religious response to caring for God’s creation.

“The divine spirit is sacramentally present in creation, which is therefore to be treated with reverence, respect and gratitude,” the resolution said.

Nonetheless, church leaders admit that in many cases religious institutions have bought into the predominate consumer culture for too long.

The Rt. Rev. Frederick H. Borsch, Los Angeles Episcopal bishop, did not minimize the difficulties in rallying people to environmental causes, even in the name of God. “This is the kind of theme that is very easy for us all to give lip service to,” Borsch said at a panel discussion.

“We know there are forces in our world--and even forces within us--that do turn us into goats rather than being able to be true environmentalists,” Borsch said. “Expecting human beings to be environmentalists is like expecting goats to be gardeners.”

Action, he said, will require nothing less than a conversion experience. “What we truly need if we are going to be repairers of the world and be responsible . . . is a new view of ourselves. Truly, we need a conversion. A little adjustment is not what is called for.”

Spiritual renewal as a path to environmental renewal was a theme underscored Saturday by the Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold III, presiding bishop and primate of the national church.

“We are called to an asceticism of simplicity,” said Griswold. “Where do we contribute to the wounding of the world? Where do we contribute to the repair of the world?” Griswold added that it is incumbent upon Christians to inform themselves of the problems in the world, including its environmental crisis.

The resolution approved Saturday calls for a year of study leading up to adoption of specific actions outlined in the resolution.

Among other points, the resolution urges individuals and parishes to recycle, to lead simpler lives and to eat foods that put less strain on the Earth’s resources. It also urges the purchase of products made of renewable and recyclable materials whenever possible.

At its heart, delegates were told, the environmental crisis is a crisis of the spirit, one that requires what Borsch called gifts of the spirit--patience, self-control and generosity.

Saturday’s vote came just days after violent demonstrations disrupted a meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle. There, activists from labor unions, environmental groups and religious communities, not involved in the violence, charged that world trade policies are costing Americans their jobs and degrading the environment. Echoing that concern, the Los Angeles diocese resolution commits the church to a “just and fair trading system both for people and the environment.”

“Unbridled capitalism, selfishness and greed cannot continue to be allowed to pollute, exploit and destroy what remains of the earth’s indigenous habitats,” the resolution suggests. “The future of human beings and all life on Earth hangs in balance as a consequence of the present unjust economic structures, the injustice existing between the rich and the poor, the continuing exploitation of the natural environment and the threat of nuclear self-destruction.”

One delegate, however, questioned the resolution’s criticism of capitalism. “I don’t know about the people in this room, but how do you equate capitalism with selfishness and greed?” asked Ron Morris, a parishioner at All Saints Episcopal Church in Riverside. “Who here does not have some interest in a capitalist enterprise?”