Preaching Earthly Concerns

In a sign of growing environmental activism by religious bodies, more than 20 Orange County Episcopal parishes joined with scores from throughout Southern California to launch a yearlong program of unprecedented steps to safeguard the natural world.

The plan, approved on a voice vote at the six-county Los Angeles Episcopal Diocese’s annual convention, calls for both 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 strength of the resolution is it evolved from people in the churches, lay and clergy. It is our recognition that everything we have is holy, and is created to be treated with respect,” said Mileva Saulo, member of St. Andrews Church in Irvine.

“For too long we have taken that which may seem commonplace, such as air and water, for granted, and this resolution says, ‘Stop! Pay attention,’ ” added Saulo, who is one of 85,000 members in 147 Episcopal parishes throughout the Southland.

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 proposal had been in the planning stages for six months.

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.

“Part of our spirituality with God is how we live our whole life, so I think [this] really hit home with people,” said the Rev. Brad Karelius of the Episcopal Church of the Messiah in Santa Ana. “The environment and creation are God’s gift, and so part of spirituality is being conscience of how you live your life.”

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.

Convention participants noted that some actions, such as recycling, are already commonplace in parishioners’ homes.

The Rev. Emily S. Bell, interim pastor St. Clement’s By-the-Sea Church in San Clemente, said, “This initiative comes from what we [as individuals] have been trying to practice for decades.”

However, she said, “when it gets to parishes, somehow we got dumb about it. It was like a new idea to recycle in parishes.”

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. It also calls for choosing electrical energy produced from renewable resources, planting trees and working for a sustainable society in a sustainable world.

“We need to think about things we buy and eat and consume. Do we need everything that we buy?” asked Saulo, the Irvine parishioner.

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?”

Others remained unconvinced that much would happen next year when a vote on specific actions is scheduled. “This is a very good beginning. But the practical reality of living with an environmental consciousness is a matter of daily work, not theory,” said Jonathan Davis, a member of the diocese’s Standing Committee.

Karelius, the Santa Ana reverend, said that other pressing issues, such as poverty, deserve the intense focus that the environment received at Saturday’s convention.

“I work in Santa Ana in the poorest neighborhoods in Orange County. On the hierarchy of needs, our struggle for enough food for children and medical care for children and families and work and adult education,” is paramount, he said. “We’re talking about daily life survival issues.”

“In a lot of ways, this whole environmental discussion is very esoteric,” he added. “Justice and quality of life issues for the poor, especially children and women in single-parent families. . . . For me those are greater issues.”