4/16 CCC: Evangelicals pro-life and pro-safe energy; college student activism, God in our World; Green Christians

                                         Creation Corner Column, April 2016

Evangelicals: Pro-Life and Pro-Safe Energy; College Student Activism; God in our World; Green Christians.

Evangelicals: The commitment of pro-life evangelicals to clean energy is witnessed by members within the Lausanne Movement’s Cape Town Commitment (Billy Graham and John Stott founders), and can be also seen as shared by eco-Catholics.

The Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) proposes that being pro-life includes the biblical mandate to the care of all of life.  Pollution impacts the purity of life God intends for His creation.  Creation care is foundational to the EEN quest to defend children’s health; women's rights; overcome poverty, human trafficking, and racism;  and Jesus' call for abundant life. 

Being pro-life is not just about a political issue; it's a world view, a life-view.

EEN urges us as we follow a risen Lord, to let go of an "outdated dependence on fossil fuels and seek new opportunities...clean energy that empowers sustainable economic progress."

Posts at EEN's web site www.creationcare.org include subjects of the Papal Environmental Encyclical "Laudato Si", the EPA climate change regulations, natural gas and methane reduction standards, etc.

The evangelical pro-life support of environmental causes helps broaden the common ground shared by others in the ecumenical, inter-faith and secular communities.  Another example of such support is that of

Eco-Catholics: For the blog of eco-Catholics at the National Catholic Reporter on-line, see the editorial "Climate Change is Church's No. 1 Pro-life issue" at  http://ncronline.org/blogs/eco-catholic/editorial-climate-change-churchs-no-1-pro-life-issue .

College Student Activism: Among college students, days of environmental activism occur.  One woman student at Liberty University said she wanted to "raise awareness for the fact that God's creation is everywhere, and it's our job as Christians to take care of it...It's more our job than anyone else's to take care of creation.  I feel that's been taken out of the Christian circle and become a political issue."  "(If) you're focusing on God you're focusing on people and the environment."  (for complete article see www.christiancollegeguide.net/article/New-Student-Activists, by Alicia Cohn, reprinted in the 3/16 issue of Christianity Today).

God in our World: As Norman Wirzba says in his book From Nature to Creation: A Christian Vision for Understanding and Loving Our World, "Creation is not a vast lump of valueless matter.  It is God's love made visible, fragrant, tactile, audible, and delectable."  Our world is "a place so cherished that God enters into covenant relationship with it (Gen. 9:8-17), so beautiful that God promises to renew it (Isa. 65:17-25), and so valuable that God takes up residence within it (John 1:14, and Rev. 21:1-4).

Green Christians: The aggregator of this column, upon attending a Green Party conference in London in 1988 as part of his International Studies graduate program, stayed with a Christian Green Party member.  See the Green Christian Magazine ( www.greenchristian.org.uk ) and (http://www.christian-ecology.org.uk/whatcel.htm ).

3/16 Creation Corner: Earth Day 2016 Sunday and beyond

 Earth Day Sunday 2016, Soil and Water Stewardship Week and Arbor Day.

 

1.  Earth Day is Friday April 22 this year.  Observed as "Care for God's Creatures Day" by the good people at Creation Justice (Justice for God's Planet and God's People) the following Sunday (April 24),  Earth Day Sunday churches are urged to raise up concern for the furry, feathered, finned, four-legged, and winged, the diversity of God’s creatures that inspires wonder and awe. From the Garden of Eden, to Noah’s Ark, to barn animals surrounding baby Jesus, to the vision of the lion dwelling with the lamb in Revelation, God’s creatures play an important role in the Bible and our Christian faith tradition. By their very being, all creatures give praise to God. Knowing and loving God’s creatures helps us better know our Creator. Earth Day Sunday 2016 will include liturgical resources, Bible study material, and invitations to take action by creating habitats and getting loud on social media for animals.

Materials will be ready in Word Doc format; click on http://www.creationjustice.org/creatures and follow link or enter the link in the search bar.

2.  For the annual Earth and Water Stewardship Week of April 24-May 1, the theme of "We All Need Trees" is raised up the National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD), and for the first time all the materials for religious (and secular) leaders are in electronic format and are free of charge.  These include activity sheets and placemats, posters, bookmarks, student booklets for different  K-12 levels,, church leader's guide, litany and program inserts.

Emphasis is on the value of trees for our air, water, shelter, food, clothing, and our "souls".  "A Forest's Job is Never Done", says the NACD motto, as they are working 24/7.

3.  The Arbor Day Foundation annually promotes Arbor Day the last Friday in April, and the nationwide Tree City USA program effort to have municipalities promote their urban tree canopy.

4.  A recent ad from the Nature Conservancy notes that nature cleans our air, and that trees absorb 1/5 of carbon emissions.  See nature.org.

5.  In Pennsylvania a public/private partnership is making an effort to help restore tree cover, especially in metropolitan areas, due to an alarming trend of tree loss there.  See treevitalize.net.

 

Note:  This blog has been issued for the past five years by LutheransRestoringCreation (http://www.LutheransRestoringCreationblog.blogspot.com) and originates as the "Creation Corner Column" in the newsletter from the sixty-year old ecumenical body of the United Churches of Lycoming County in Williamsport, PA (http://www.uclc.org) .

The preparer, Michael Ochs, is a 1965 graduate of Gettysburg College, and earned a Master of Liberal Arts in International Studies degree from Lock Haven University  (PA) in 1989.

He is a member of the environmentalist Green Party of Pennsylvania and attends St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Williamsport, PA.

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2/16 Creation Cor.: Global and Local summits for the environment

From Global Summit to Local Summit: Efforts to Improve the Environment

     “Think Globally, Act Locally” is a slogan appropriate to our time, and can be illustrated by two recent efforts, one from international faith communities at the recent Conference of Parties 21 United Nations Climate Summit, and the other from bioregional watershed groups at the annual Watershed Summit sponsored by the Susquehanna Chapter Trout Unlimited in Lycoming County, PA.

     In Paris in late 2015, four faith-based networks presented signatures from 1.8 million persons on behalf of the effort toward climate justice at the international summit to stabilize the climate from further global warming.  These faith-based climate campaigners had on-site representatives, holding “Faith in Climate Justice” signs, present their petitions to principals of the summit.

     The four networks were

1.     The Global Catholic Climate Movement, representing thousands responsive to the 2015 papal environmental encyclical on “Our Common Home”;

2.     Religions for Peace, established in 1970;

3.     Our Voices, composed of the UK Conservation Foundation and the U.S. Green Faith; and

4.     ACT Alliance (Act Now for Climate Justice campaign).

 

     The ACT Alliance consists of 140 global churches and faith-based organizations, including Bread for the World, Baptist World Aid (USA), Christian World Service, Lutheran World Federation, the ELCA, and the World Council of Churches, among others.

     Among the comments posted:  “We need to have citizens engage and mobilize to protect the world’s common heritage, the planet”; “Defend Life!”; “This is a responsibility we cannot walk away from”; “Here is a deep urgency”; “We must have solidarity as one human family”; “This is a spiritual and moral issue”.

     Locally, and exemplifying efforts across the United States in other locales, a Watershed Summit hosted by the Susquehanna Trout Unlimited (TU) chapter recently provided examples of on-going efforts and accomplishments to help preserve, protect and enhance our area streams and watersheds.  Thus, in north-central PA, and especially Lycoming County, testimony was given from the local TU group, that has as its mission the preservation and restoration of cold water fisheries.

     It partners with, and heard from at the summit, the Susquehanna River Greenway Partnership, the  watershed creek groups (Pine, Muncy, Loyalsock, Lycoming, Larry’s, Black Hole), the Lycoming College Clean Water Institute (CWI), the USDA county Conservation Districts, the county Planning Dep’t., the Northcentral PA Conservancy (NPC), the Waterdale Environmental Education Center, the Endless Mountains Resource Conservation and Development Council (EMRCD), Loyalsock State Forest bog research, and the state DEP Growing Greener Program.

     Local readers are encouraged to support one or more of these regional efforts.  Readers beyond this region are encouraged to support those watershed groups in their areas that also have conservation/preservation/restoration efforts.

     To read more of the local effort, see below, and scroll down to the Watershed Summit summary:

 

 https://susquehannatu.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/2016-02-susquehanna-ripples

1/16 Creation Corner Col.: Moving the Needle on Environmental Matters

                           MOVING THE NEEDLE ON ENVIRONMENTAL MATTERS

 If you could move the needle on one environmental issue, what would it be?  Consider the following short list of study guides and books, most written from a religious perspective for a reader of faith.  Among them you may find some to inspire you.

                                                 STUDY GUIDES

The Papal Encyclical Letter from Pope Francis, Laudato Si', On Care for Our Common Home, includes a study guide in the published paperback version from The Word Among Us Press (wau.org), that is not provided anywhere else.  "Addressed not only to Catholics but to 'every person living on this planet,' Pope Francis' second encyclical is a challenging call for a 'bold cultural revolution' in how we think about technological progress and economic growth.  The degradation of our environment, he says, is a symptom of deeper problems: rapid change, unsustainable overconsumption, indifference to the poor, and the decay of social values.  He offers a variety of solutions, including a change in lifestyles away from 'extreme consumerism' and toward a greater sense of social responsibility.  For Christians, an 'ecological spirituality'--- one that is grounded in the convictions of our faith--- is not 'an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience.'

A second study guide, for Creation-Crisis Preaching: Ecology, Theology and the Pulpit, by Leah Schade, a Lutheran pastor in northcentral PA, is free and available from the web site of Chalice Press.com, where a discounted version of the book is available in such digital formats as EPUB and EPDF.

 

                              A SAMPLE LIST OF BOOKS FOR THE READER

75 Masterpieces Every Christian Should Know: The Fascinating Stories Behind Great Works of Art, Literature, Music and Film.  Terry Glaspey.

About Earth's Child: An Ecological Listening to the Gospel of Luke.  Michael Trainor.

Backpacking With the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice.  Belden C. Lane.

Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi.  Richard Rohr.

The Ecological Thought.  Timothy Morton.

Ecology Without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics.  Timothy Morton.

For the Love of All Creatures: The Story of Grace in Genesis.  William Greenway.

From Nature to Creation: A Christian Vision for Understanding and Loving Our World.  Norman Wirzba.

Gardening Eden: How Creation Care Will Change Your Faith, Your Life, and Our World.  Michael Abbate. (includes 15 pages of resources)

Grounded: Finding God in the World/A Spiritual Revolution.  Diana Butler Bass.

Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety.  Richard Rohr.

Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalism.  Mark Stoll.

Islam Statement on the Environment: see IslamicClimateDeclaration.org

Methodism in the American Forest.  Russell E. Richey.

A New Climate for Theology: God, The World, and Global Warming.  Sallie McFague.

Our Only World: Ten Essays, by Wendell Berry.

Sallie McFague: Collected Readings.  Sallie McFague and David B Lott, editors.

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12/15 Creation Corner: Support Env. Groups and New Year's Resolutions

Supporting Environmental Groups and New Year’s Resolutions

From the hymn "Come, Lord and Tarry Not" is this verse:  Come and make all things new, Come, save this longing earth; Transform all creatures in your love, Creation’s second birth.)

You consider yourself a responsible steward of the environment.  In your household you have installed CFLs or LEDs, insulated, reduced your car trips, etc.  Your church has done an energy efficiency audit and implemented clean energy technologies as part of its “bottom line ministry.”

The investments you have made are reducing your energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.  Your consciousness and concern for climate stabilization has increased, and you appreciate the Pope’s environmental encyclical and the U.S. Clean Power Plan proposals.

As the U.N. Conference of the Parties 21 (COP21) climate change talks take place near Paris, you are asking yourself :  “What else might I do?”  You realize that to change everything, it takes everyone.

Consider supporting the following groups and their endeavors, perhaps as part of your end-of-the-year charitable giving, or as New Year resolutions for 2016.

Audubon Society seeks to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth’s biological diversity.

Defenders of Wildlife protects imperiled species from extinction, such as sage grouse, bison, wolves, desert  bighorns, polar bears, sea turtles, Florida panthers, manatees, shorebirds, sea otters, etc.  It also protects wildlife refuges and defends wild plants in their native communities.

Environmental Defense Fund encourages legal strategies for less fertilizer pollution, higher standards in chemical safety laws, a reduction in fugitive methane emissions, stricter regulations of CO2 emissions in the aviation industry, and more ways for wild milkweed to be protected.

Food and Water Watch raises concerns for water and other dangers due to fracking, seeks legislation to ban fracking on public land, strives to ensure that food is rigorously tested to keep contaminants off our tables, and seeks to ban the misuse of antibiotics in livestock.

Friends of the Earth acts to have integrity in our food system by saving crucial pollinators  (bees and butterflies), calls for curtailing bee-toxic, neonicotinoid pesticides (neonics), promotes awareness of genetic engineering (GMOs), has published a Cruise Ship Report Card rating cruise lines on their environmental practices, and examines the corporate polluters’ money trail in government.

Natural Resources Defense Council helped raise questions about the “tar sands invasion” (pipeline menace, explosive risk, dangerous cargo, mountains of waste), and helps protect monarch butterflies and bees, wolves, grizzlies, marine animals, and helps to ban the import and sale of ivory in the U.S.

Ocean Conservancy wants to save habitat (sea ice) for polar bears, arctic seals, bowhead whales, walruses; searches for measures to protect sea turtles, dolphins,  and the ocean health by reducing carbon emissions and acidification; promotes sustainable fishing policies and practices.  It urges its members to adhere to 15 ways of living responsibly in considering the land-sea connection, remembering that everything flows downstream, and by not recklessly engaging in shoreline recreation.

Union of Concerned Scientists has a current project to urge the reduction of heavy-duty truck global warming emissions by 40% by 2025.  Currently tractor trailers go only about six miles on a gallon of diesel.

The Wilderness Society mission is to ensure that future generations will enjoy the clean air and water, wildlife, beauty and opportunities for recreation and renewal provided by pristine forest, rivers, deserts and mountains.

Other efforts:

350.org, ASPCA, American Farmland Trust, American Rivers, Center for Biological Diversity, Earth Island Institute, Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, Energy Justice Network, Greenpeace, Humane Society, League of Conservation Voters, National Wildlife Federation, Nature Conservancy, PETA,  Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club, Student Conservation Association, Waterkeeper Alliance, World Wildlife Fund, Xerces Society, and your local bioregional watershed groups.

Educate yourself, do your research. Be wary of the so-called "Big Green" groups about whom many questions have been raised. Do any groups receive government, corporate, or private philanthropy money?  How are they rated by non-profit charity scorecards on how their money is spent?   Of the foundations supporting an environmental group, have their fortunes been derived from stock investments with fossil fuel companies?  Does any group invest its endowment money with fossil fuel companies?  Might the financial ties of funders to environmental groups have any unwise influence on the group's mission, for example, in the questions asked, the kind of research done, the policies and solutions proposed, etc.? Does their work include practical technology and science-based solutions?  Be wary of efforts to suppress or distort science for political purposes.  Be an advocate and inform, inspire and empower others to speak and act for the earth.

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11/15 Creation Corner: Inspiring Quotations for Environmental Stewardship

11-15 Creation Corner Column: Inspiring Quotations for Environmental Stewardship

If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.     St. Francis of Assisi

Each religion has given to us a definite acknowledgement of God as creator.  Each religion also discusses divine qualities that mankind can utilize to be co-creators with God.  When individual souls use God’s energy in a positive way to create good, we are part of God in action.  God is then working through us.   G. David Lundberg

                                                                              

 If a chimney is full of smoke, how can the light be seen?  If the mind is full of dirt, how can the soul shine?                        Yogaswami

The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all, our most pleasing responsibility.  To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal, is our only legitimate hope.            Wendell Berry

Now in the people that were meant to be green there is no more life of any kind.  There is only shriveled barrenness.  The winds are burdened by the utterly awful stink of evil, selfish goings-on.  Thunderstorms menace.  The air belches out the filthy uncleanliness of the peoples.  The earth should not be injured!  The earth must not be destroyed!!                    Hildegard von Bingen

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant.  We have created a world that honors the servant, but has forgotten the gift.    Albert Einstein
                                                                                                    

We are talking only to ourselves.  We are not talking to the rivers, we are not listening to the wind and the stars.  We have broken the great conversation.  By breaking that conversation we have shattered the universe.  All the disasters that are happening now are a consequence of that spiritual ‘autism.’  Thomas Berry

The Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh was once asked what we need to do to save our world.  ‘What we most need to do,’ he replied, ‘is to hear within us the sounds of the Earth dying.’       Quoted by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee 

God’s first intention for heaven and earth was that they be one.  The polluting corruption of evil has caused them to flee one another, but this division will not last.  God’s original intention has now become God’s mission… (a) journey toward restoration.               G. Robert Paauw

Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.     Jacques Cousteau

There’s no polite way of saying this: your body is a landfill, a dumping ground for a mind-boggling array of toxic chemicals.  So is mine.  So is your child’s.

                                                                                Sloan Barnett

You will find something far greater in the woods than you will find in books.  Stone and trees will teach you that which you will never learn from masters.

                                                       St. Bernard of Clairvaux, French Cistercian monk

The Old Lakota was wise.  He knew that man’s heart away from nature becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too.     Chief Luther Standing Bear

Biblical orthodoxy without compassion is surely the ugliest thing in the world.

                                                                                        Francis Schaeffer

We are looking forward to a new heaven and new earth, the home of righteousness.            2 Peter 3:13

Note:  The web site of the home church for the columnist is www.stmarkswilliamsport.org .

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