c. 2005 Religion News Service
WASHINGTON _ A broad spectrum of people of faith are declaring green a religious color and the environment a sacred treasure that must be protected.
Calling global warming “one of the key religious issues of our day,” Episcopal Bishop John Chane of Washington joined Rabbi David Saperstein of the Washington-based Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism and Sayyid Syeed, secretary general of the Islamic Society of North America, in releasing a statement Wednesday (Feb. 16), the day the Kyoto Protocol took effect.
Praising the 128 signatory nations of the environmental treaty intended to reduce global warming, the leaders said the United States, which has not signed, should recognize that “true success cannot be measured by the size of one’s car but rather by the depth of one’s soul.”
Two other recent declarations also championed environmental protection _ one from grass-roots clergy and congregants and one from the New York-based Council of Churches.
Some 1,100 people from 45 states _ including Catholics, evangelical Christians, Jews and mainline Protestants _ have signed a statement in circulation since January, “God’s Mandate: Care for Creation.” They challenged U.S. policies on air pollution, energy sources, toxic waste cleanup and endangered species. “We are men and women from the pews and pulpits of mainstream America for whom environmental protection _ care for God’s creation _ is at the heart of our religious faith,” the statement says. Half of the signatories are clergy at the local and state level. Addressing the Bush administration and Congress, the statement asserts that voters in November’s elections did not give a mandate for diminished environmental safeguards. The statement cites a recent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life poll. It showed that while values issues like abortion and same-sex marriage divide religious voters, support for environmental protection unites believers across many traditions. The church can be a “prophetic voice” for environmental protection, said Leanne Jablonski, a nun in Dayton, Ohio, with the environmental ministry of the Ohio Council of Churches. She gathered 50 signatures for the petition. “There’s a network of us raising environmental awareness and the importance of engagement in the religious community on the environment as a moral issue,” said Jablonski, who holds a doctorate in climate science. Several national religious groups to which many of the God’s Mandate signatories belong _ including the National Council of Churches and the Interfaith Climate and Energy Campaign _ have said they will take action to change policies of the Bush administration. They said Bush’s Clear Skies initiative will weaken air pollution guidelines. Bill Holbrook, spokesman for the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality, said the Clear Skies initiative will reduce power plant emissions using a market-based approach. “Our approach balances environmental concerns with economic concerns,” Holbrook said. Also taking on environmental policy with a statement released Monday (Feb. 14), were 16 theologians and national religious leaders convened by the National Council of Churches _ including Bishop Thomas Hoyt Jr., president of the council, the Rev. John Chryssavgis, theologian in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, and Larry Rasmussen, professor emeritus of social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York. In “God’s Earth is Sacred: An Open Letter to Church and Society in the United States,” the theologians and leaders seek to combat what they call a “false gospel” permitting environmental destruction. Evangelical Christian and Jewish groups also are forming a “Noah Alliance” to share theological perspectives on biodiversity and to fight elimination of habitat protection under the Endangered Species Act. MO/RB END RNS
