New Message From the Pulpit: Ecology Must Be Joined With Theology

“The Lord God took and placed the human in the garden of Eden, to serve it and protect it.”

-- Genesis 2:15

*

When they’re not saving souls, more of the religious faithful are trying to save the environment by lobbying for the Endangered Species Act, conducting energy audits and educating others about global climate change.

Priests, pastors and rabbis are mixing theology and ecology, urging their congregations into earthly stewardship with passages straight from the Bible.

Their message: From the Columbia River to the California redwoods and the hills of West Virginia, this planet is the handiwork of God, and God wants us to take care of it.

“Our goal is to bring the mission of care for God’s creation more fully to the heart of religious life,” said Paul Gorman, director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, a network of environmentally aware Roman Catholic, Jewish, evangelical Christian and mainline Protestant organizations.

In the Northwest, seven Catholic bishops and one bishop from southeastern British Columbia will issue a pastoral letter early next year on the Columbia River.

“There are so many issues surrounding the river and its watershed. From the standpoint of the bishops, this was an opportunity to reflect on, from a spiritual standpoint, not only its beauty, but the way it brings people together,” said Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane.

“It’s a wonderfully diverse region in the sense that it comprises ‘deserty’ areas, high mountains, gorges, a lot of irrigated lands. It’s used in many different ways--for electricity, irrigation, recreation, transportation.

“Over and above, it’s a river that is very much involved in the cycle of salmon that is coming and going.”

There is much symbolism in water for many different faithful, from purification to destruction. Indians of the Northwest have long incorporated the river into their religious beliefs.

Tsagiglalal, the “She Who Watches” ancient petroglyph carved into stone over the Columbia River Gorge, is said to be such a sacred site that some believers are unwilling to look upon it.

Just upriver at the river’s Stonehenge Memorial, Druids gathered in June at the summer solstice to welcome the new season.

The Seattle-based Washington Assn. of Churches, which has 1,600 congregations and parishes as members, has an environmental justice program that has met for “days of moral deliberation” on the Columbia River, said director John Boonstra.

Wheat farmers, barge owners, fishermen, hydropower interests and others have examined not only the politics, economics and science of river management but also its spiritual value.

“Is there consensus? No. Should there be common ground? Yes,” Boonstra said.

For many of America’s religious, keeping the faith in the literal wilderness is relatively new.

The Rev. Chris Bender shares the word with the 35 families at his Assumption Greek Orthodox Church in Morgantown, W.Va. He got involved three years ago in the National Council of Churches’ eco-justice working group.

“Once I got involved, I began to realize the nature and degree of the crisis facing us in the environment, and it became a very big part of my ministry,” he said.

This fall, an interfaith educational campaign is underway in 16 states, including Washington, to educate people about global climate change.

In Northern California, the so-called Redwood Rabbis battled to save old-growth trees from logging in the Headwaters Forest. Last year, Pacific Lumber, owned by Maxxam Corp., agreed to sell two stands of redwoods to the U.S. and state governments to create a 7,470-acre reserve.

Pacific Lumber also agreed to cutting restrictions and land-management requirements for much of its other redwood inventory.

The rabbis had appealed to Maxxam owner Charles Hurwitz “on the basis of his faith,” but it was unclear whether that was the deciding factor, said Mark X. Jacobs, director of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life in New York City.

The coalition has focused on forest preservation and issues of global climate change, matters that have a very high level of interest among younger Jews, he said.

“This is a new area in Jewish life where younger people have an opportunity to exercise leadership,” he said.

For Ronald J. Sider, a theology and culture professor at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, activism has been a key part of the involvement of evangelical Christians in the environment.

In 1995 he led the Evangelicals for Social Action to Washington, D.C., to advocate for the Endangered Species Act.

“It was particularly astonishing because we came as evangelical Christians when politically most everybody thought all evangelicals were part of the Christian Coalition and in the back pocket of the Republicans in Congress,” Sider recalls.

He got Congress’ attention with a speech to the National Press Club, telling the audience: “We want a strong Endangered Species Act, and we don’t want to gut it.”

The mandate comes straight from Scripture, he said.

“We think that means we do not carelessly wipe out forever that which the Creator has gently and lovingly shaped,” Sider said.