A friend of mine recalls a dinner-table conversation one day when she was a schoolgirl. Her dad had come home unusually frustrated from his job as a city planner. "D#@*$% environmentalists!" he said over dinner. "Dad, I thought you were an environmentalist," she said. "Why are you so upset?"

"All day long," he answered, "environmentalists come to me with problems and complaints, and business people come to me with ideas and projects. Why can't the environmentalists be proactive and come to the table with some creative ideas to make things better, instead of just trying to get in the way of things they don't want to see happen?"

This city planner would be encouraged to read the Sierra Club's first-ever report on faith communities engaging with environmental activism: "Faith in Action: Communities of Faith Bring Hope for the Planet."

So would all of us who remember -- not that long ago -- when too many people of faith considered the environment a political concern rather than a spiritual and moral one. Back then, those of us for whom faith and environmental concern were as integral as faith and church-going felt pretty alone. But the tide is turning -- in no small part due to the efforts of Sierra Club activists such as author/project manager Lyndsay Moseley and her co-author, Anna Jane Joyner.

The Sierra Club, it turns out, isn't a bunch of secular leftist anti-God nature-worshippers, as some folks might have tried to paint them in the past. Nearly half of the club's 1.3 million members attend worship regularly, and Sierra Club leaders like Moseley and her boss, Melanie Griffin, are deeply committed to -- not to mention thoughtful and articulate about -- the intersection of faith and environmental activism. Americans in general, it turns out, are further along than many of us realized: 67 percent of all Americans, when asked why they care about the environment, explain that it is God's creation. Their love for God and their love for God's creation are inseparable -- naturally.

"Faith in Action" is a colorful, easy-to-read booklet and after a brief introduction, it is pure stories -- stories of Baptists and Catholics, Quakers and Congregationalists, synagogues and mosques, Vineyard churches and Buddhist communities, creatively expressing care for God's beautiful earth. They're launching projects as varied as their backgrounds -- fighting mountaintop removal, protecting watersheds, changing light bulbs, tithing C02, building energy-efficient buildings, promoting energy conservation, sponsoring local agriculture, sponsoring retreats and bike rides, and in scores of other ways building deep commitment to "keeping the faith by keeping the earth."

I got tears in my eyes as I read these stories of faith and care for God's beautiful earth. I imagine my friend's father would have felt pretty moved too: people of faith, committed to the environment, not just preaching or complaining, but putting faith into action in positive, proactive ways. If you want to inspire your congregation (or yourself), consider using this one-of-a-kind resource -- printed on mixed-source paper, of course! You can download a copy and get more information at www.sierraclub.org/partnerships/faith.

Nobody has said it much better than Sierra Club founder John Muir: "All the wild world is beautiful, and it matters but little where we go, to highlands or lowlands, woods or plains, on the sea or land ... or high in a balloon in the sky; through all the climates, hot or cold, storms and calms, everywhere and always we are in God's eternal beauty and love."

Brian McLaren is an author and speaker and serves as Sojourners' board chair. You can learn about his books, music, and other resources at brianmclaren.net.

As a convert to Orthodox Christianity, I have come to appreciate the strong connection in our tradition between spirituality and creation. Many of our great feasts, minor celebrations, and daily prayers involve joining prayer, blessing, and the material world. Unlike Western Christians who remember the three kings on Jan. 6, 13 days after Christmas we celebrate Theophany, the feast of the baptism of Christ in the Jordan. Part of this feast includes blessing water in our churches or processing to a nearby pond, sea, or ocean where a priest will toss a cross into the water, transforming the whole body into a holy water font. We annually commemorate our loved ones who have fallen asleep in the Lord by making and blessing koliva -- boiled wheat with fruit, sugar, and spices. The wheat recalls the words of Christ, that "unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain," while the cinnamon, clove, and pomegranate remind us of the sweetness of the resurrection to come. And each liturgical day begins in the evening with vespers and the chanting of Psalm 102, a hymn of the goodness of the natural world: "The trees of the Lord are full of sap, the cedars of Lebanon which he planted, where the birds make their nests ...."

Because of this intertwining of spirituality and sacred materialism, environmental awareness can be easily encouraged by our spiritual leaders. His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew I (whom The Guardian has named "The 'pope' of hope" and elsewhere has been called the "green patriarch") in particular has become a leader among clergy who are dedicated to rallying people of faith to care for the environment. He has organized environmentally responsible cruises for political leaders, journalists, and scientists on the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, and the Amazon river in an effort to use his ecclesial rank to change attitudes and policies related to the environment. The patriarch also gave new significance to Sept. 1, our church new year, by calling for prayer and supplication for the environment on this day.

In his book Encountering the Mystery, the patriarch writes, "In the Orthodox liturgical perspective, creation is received and conceived as a gift from God. The notion of creation-as-gift defines our Orthodox theological understanding of the environmental question in a concise and clear manner while at the same time determining the human response to that gift through the responsible and proper use of the created world. Each believer is called to celebrate life in a way that reflects the words of the Divine [Eucharistic] Liturgy: 'Thine own from Thine own we offer to Thee, on behalf of all and for all.'"

Abayea Pelt is the office manager and receptionist for Sojourners.

In January, I was nominated to be one of the Torchbearers for the Olympic Torch Relay when it came to San Francisco. The theme for the relay in San Francisco was sustainability and caring for our Mother Earth. Part of the nomination process included writing an essay about how I have been involved in caring for the environment and ways I had contributed to helping people. I wrote:

What sustains me on my personal journey for excellence is my faith that God has created all people and all of creation out of love. In this love I am called to respond by being the best person God has created me to be, using my gifts and talents to create a world that reflects love, peace and hope.

My personal journey includes that I am a Catholic Sister. I belong to the order of St. Francis of Penance and Christian Charity. My calling and experiences have compelled me to work for the communities I am part of, the country I live in, and the world, to promote each person being treated with respect and dignity.

As I carried the Olympic Torch, I also carried with me the many communities I work with, such as the Coalition Against Human Trafficking, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, Habitat for Humanity, and the international mission work I've done in Chiapas, Mexico, and Tanzania. People coming together can do so much to make our communities (and our world) places of compassion and justice.

Additionally, I try to live as "simply and as green" as possible, through recycling, not using bottled water, and using alternative methods of transportation. The Christian community of the Sisters of St. Francis to which I belong works to protect our environment through a variety of efforts: particularly in water conservation, the conservation of wildlife and the wetlands, as well as efforts to bring about peace in our world. I spoke about these themes whenever there were opportunities in the Olympic process.

Some of the torchbearers shared together that we were grateful for the protestors supporting the people of Tibet. One of the 80 torchbearers in San Francisco dropped out citing privacy concerns. But, as I told the San Francisco Chronicle, "I'm praying and hoping that we can respect one another and do it peacefully," and added that that protesters denouncing China's human rights record should realise that "there are torchbearers who have similar sentiments."

We thought the protestors who climbed the Golden Gate Bridge were quite clever and very brave! That act got a lot of attention and was visually amazing, and did not hurt anyone while at the same time it got the message around the world. We also felt the candlelight vigils were another peaceful way to send a message of peace and justice and dignity. However, some family and friends reported that there were a number of the protestors who were "looking for a war," and getting very angry at those who had a different view.

I am honored to have carried the Olympic Torch and found it a true gift as a Franciscan Sister to represent those who follow St. Francis - the one for whom the city of San Francisco was named. St. Francis was a man of peace, a person who respected all people, and who honored all creation. As a Franciscan Sister, I also strive to be a woman of peace, a person who respects others, and who honors all creation. This is what the Olympic Spirit is about: peace, respect, and honor.

Sr. Patricia Rayburn, OSF, lives in Redwood City, CA, and carried the Olympic torch for a block along the Marina in San Francisco looking toward the Golden Gate Bridge.

Recently, both President Bush and an oil company spokesperson, speaking to the rising gas prices, pushed for building more refineries and upping the production of oil here in the States. No mention of exorbitant oil company profits. No mention of our need to drastically reduce use of cars and gasoline, to change lifestyles. No mention of the working poor who are stuck without public transportation to jobs remote from their inner-city or inner-ring suburban homes.

Reducing dependence on the automobile will mean a lot more than raising fuel efficiency standards for cars and buying more efficient automobiles. It will need a change of lifestyle, removing frivolous car trips, using public transportation, and changing the priorities of government transportation funding. Only about 25% of the transportation dollars in most places now support public transportation, and it is hard to find public transportation to many jobs in the suburbs. The highway and automobile lobby have been effective on the national and state level. We've got to change that with loud and strong voices for public transportation.

One has to allow more time to get places using public transportation--perhaps a good thing to slow down our rushing lifestyles and get more exercise getting to and from. My elevated train route is a microcosm of society: suited suburban riders with neighborhood service workers, elderly and young, white and black, Hispanic and Asian. The trains are refreshing "bumping into" places where different people mix and find common ground in talking about the most recent delay, laughing at the antics of a child, and rolling our eyes at some loud cell phone talker.

Would that more sermons, writings, and our voices push elected officials for more and more available public transportation, for the sake of equity, for community, for our health. We would all be the better for it.

Environmental consciousness seems to be gaining momentum with increasing numbers of "eco-friendly" products out there from organic bath towels to hybrid cars. But are we really being more environmentally conscious when we buy these products? Are we actually thinking twice about the ecological consequences, or are we just switching from "brand x" to "brand organic"? A recent Washington Post article, Greed in the Name of Green, critiques the idea of the "new green consumer" and challenges the notion that we can buy our way into environmental sanctification.

Paul Hawken, a well known environmentalist and author, comments that we may actually have to alter lifestyles and perhaps buy less, rather than simply buying green. I appreciate Hawken's sentiment, as our culture is constantly shouting at us through advertisements in all sorts of mediums to buy more. Buy more to make yourself feel good. Buy more if you are feeling good. Buy more if you are unsure of how you are feeling but because it's cool and everyone is doing it. The same strategy is being used on the eco-friendly consumer.

True environmental consciousness will challenge the way we respond to our culture of consumerism and create changes in lifestyles. I do think that you can be an environmentally conscious consumer. However, this will most likely mean being less of a consumer to begin with, and when you do have to put on your consumer hat, be critical and read between the lines of "brand organic" (as well as everyone else's) advertisements.

Reduce, Reuse, then Recycle. And if you still need something new, do your research before you hit the stores and know what all those "green labels" are/are not actually telling you.

Kim Szeto is a former Sojourners intern now working for the Community Food Security Coalition.

As the nation's second largest denomination (after the Roman Catholic Church), Southern Baptists have been given much, so their potential to do good is considerable - as is the danger of missing opportunities to do good. Sadly, until now, constituents and leaders of the 16-million-member Convention have tended to lag behind other large Christian communities when it comes to addressing the issue of environmental stewardship in general and climate change in particular. But that may be changing.

In 2007, the Convention took the positive step of passing a statement affirming the need for Baptists to care for creation, but a new group of Southern Baptists - including many notable Baptist leaders - have said the statement was too timid: it could be interpreted by "the world," they said, as "uncaring, reckless and ill-informed." Through the new declaration, "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change," these leaders are calling Baptists to keep moving forward in care and healing for God's precious planet. Jonathan Merritt, a young leader who helped inspire the new declaration, expressed his motivation in language that resonates deeply with Southern Baptists: to trash this beautiful planet - which is God's handiwork and declares God's glory - is like tearing out pages from the Bible.

True, many SBC notables have not yet signed the new statement. But current Convention president Frank Page did, along with 43 other exemplary SBC leaders including Ed Stetzer, Larissa Arnault, David Clark, Timothy George, John Hammett, Darrin Patrick, Jonathan Merritt, and two previous Convention presidents, Jack Graham and James Merritt. Their website (www.baptistcreationcare.org) has room for additional signatories, so we may see the center of gravity shift further toward environmental responsibility in the coming days and weeks.

This step is important for a number of reasons. First, and most obviously, when a group as large and influential as the SBC accepts increasing moral responsibility for better care of the planet, the birds of the air and flowers of the field will benefit, as will all our children and grandchildren. Not only that, but by taking more seriously what I call the prosperity crisis (that our kind of prosperity is unsustainable in relation to the planet, thus reducing the prosperity of future generations), the SBC helps shift the larger evangelical community toward greater environmental responsibility. This shift has been gaining momentum in recent years in large part due to the good work of Jim Ball and the Evangelical Environmental Network (LINK).

Building on this momentum, evangelical Christians, with obvious influence in the Republican party and growing participation in the Democratic party, can increasingly join other Christian communities in being strong advocates for better environmental policy in the U.S. at large, whoever is our next president and whichever party controls the next Congress. By further shifting public opinion in the nation that consumes disproportionate amounts of resources and produces disproportionate amounts of greenhouse gases, members of the SBC can play a greater role in helping our nation move from being a global laggard to a global leader in this important moment of danger and opportunity.

I frequently hear from young Southern Baptists who express deep frustration with the ethos and image projected by some of their leaders in recent years: they want their denomination to rise above the old polarities of left and right, choosing transcendent Biblical values over ideological and partisan alignments. The current and future signatories of this statement will give young Southern Baptists something to be proud of - and that's no small thing.

Brian McLaren (brianmclaren.net) is board chair for Sojourners. He writes and speaks about the intersection of faith and global crises.

At last week's New Baptist Unity Conference in Atlanta, an estimated 20,000 Baptists spanning the moderate to progressive spectrum gathered for three days of worship, fellowship, and training. Even though Southern Baptists were conspicuously missing, the conference united members of denominations from the American Baptist Convention, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, National Baptist Convention USA, and the Progressive National Baptist Convention, among others, to collectively represent over 17 million U.S. Christians.

As the core convener and patron of the event, the longstanding Baptist Bible study leader and former President Jimmy Carter opened the conference with a challenge that strikes at the heart of division within the Baptist and Christian church at large. Carter named the wedge issues that have fragmented the church - from the ordination of women to homosexuality, abortion, capital punishment, etc. - and then asked the participants whether a shared belief in the saving grace of God through Jesus Christ and a commitment to spreading the gospel was more important than all these divisions combined. Carter compared these divisions to the ones that Paul addressed in his letters to the early church in Corinth. According to Carter, "these animosities have become a cancer that is metastasizing in the body of Christ."

The conference provided ample testimony to the ways in which Baptists are uniting across theology, ideology, geography, and race. It placed a particular emphasis on the themes of diversity, good news to the poor, and welcoming the stranger. Speakers included Rev.Tony Campolo, Marian Wright Edelman, Dr. William Shaw, Senator Charles Grassley, and Bill Clinton. While many in the media and conservative circles cynically accused the conference as an attempt to baptize the Democratic Party, the event upheld a staunch commitment to nonpartisanship and offered a prophetic challenge to both Democrats and Republicans. As an associate minister at a church that's a member of both the American Baptist Church and the Progressive National Baptist Convention, I straddle the historic black and predominantly white Baptist worlds. It was significant that this gathering took place in the seat of the South and demonstrated a genuine commitment to uniting across the racial divide. An entire worship service focused on the theme of welcoming the stranger and dealt head-on with the polemical issue of immigration - emphasizing the need for a biblically-based response characterized by compassion, mercy, and justice.

Historically, Baptists have been reluctant to engage in politics, due in part to an abiding belief in the separation between church and state. It was a Baptist minister that played an instrumental role in convincing the founding fathers that this separation represented the best way to protect religion from the interference of the state and the best way to safeguard the state from the interference of religion. Throughout the plenary sessions and workshops, I sensed a growing recognition that this separation should not lead to a fast from politics. Baptists' voices are expressing a growing desire to address the great moral issues of our time, including poverty, climate change, religious freedom, and HIV/AIDS. While real disagreements still exist, particularly around the differences between charity and justice or systemic change and personal transformation, momentum is growing favoring deeper and broader political engagement. Perhaps one of the greatest and most hopeful signs of this nascent tidal wave was on display at a luncheon featuring former Vice President Al Gore. In contrast to the Southern Baptists, who spurned Gore's advocacy to open eyes around the intensifying crisis of global warming, thousands of conference participants gave a rousing standing ovation to his now famous hour-long Power Point presentation, as Baptist leaders listened to ways in which we have shown contempt for God's creation.

The conference recognized the difficulties that lie ahead in sustaining this movement. Organizers seem committed to avoiding the creation of a new organization or reinventing the wheel. I have been struck by the degree to which Baptist denominations lack a substantial staff presence in Washington, D.C., working to influence public policy and advocate around Baptist concerns. While most mainline churches have full-time policy staff and Washington-based offices, Baptists are often under-represented. This is not to equate a presence in Washington with policy change, yet a more mobilized constituency of 17 million Baptists would have a profound degree of influence. One concrete outcome of this New Covenant Baptist movement would be to combine efforts and resources across these Baptist denominations to establish a joint advocacy presence to better represent the voices of progressive and moderate Baptists across the country. A Baptist constituency united around shared biblical values and a focused agenda on common ground issues like ending poverty would represent good news for the church and our nation.

Adam Taylor is director of campaigns and organizing for Sojourners.

The Archbishop of Canterbury posted his New Year's message on YouTube - inviting everyone making a resolution in 2008 to keep asking, "What world do we want to pass on to the next generation?" Filmed between a recycling center and the Canterbury Cathedral, Archbishop Rowan Williams said:

In a society where we think of so many things as disposable, where we expect to be constantly discarding last year's gadget and replacing it with this year's model - do we end up tempted to think of people and relationships as disposable? ... If we live in a context where we construct everything from computers to buildings to relationships on the assumption that they'll need to be replaced before long, what have we lost? ... God is involved in building to last … God doesn't give up on the material of human lives ... and God asks us to approach one another and our physical world with the same commitment ... God doesn't do 'waste' ... .

Rose Marie Berger is an associate editor for Sojourners.

The watered-down energy bill passed by the Senate on Thursday raised fuel-economy standards by 40 percent—not a bad thing. Congress also boosted the production of biofuels to 36 billion gallons per year by 2022—and 21 billion must come from something other than corn-based ethanol, which is good since it takes more fossil fuel to make corn ethanol than corn ethanol saves. According to a study by Cornell University, "Ethanol production using corn grain required 29 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced." Sadly, Congress also gutted the portion of the bill that would have required utility companies to provide at least 15 percent renewable power and the part about increasing taxes on Big Oil.

For more on the inside story on biofuels, read Elizabeth Palmberg's "Do the Math: Don't buy the corporate agrofuel greenwash" (Sojourners, January 2008).

Rose Marie Berger is an associate editor for Sojourners.

"We have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly", said Al Gore in is Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. He called on the U.S. and China, the worst polluters, to stop blaming others and take action "or stand accountable before history for their failure to act." God calls us to care for creation and the generations to come; we, too, will stand judged if we do not rouse from our doze and not only call for action on the national scene, but set an example with our own actions.

I was recently in Germany at a gathering of Catholics and Protestants discussing what kind of Europe they wanted, especially around the issues of peace, environment, and human suffering. I was heartened by the signs of making a difference of the long time efforts at the issues of peace and environment. One of the outcomes of the meeting was to call on the Church to set an example of care for the environment in every new building project they do, making sure they were energy efficient, used solar or thermal technology, etc. I hope we challenge the Church here in the U.S. to set an example, not only in new construction efforts, but in retrofitting our buildings, in encouraging parishioners to walk more, (drive less), to re-use, etc.

Bethel New Life, a faith-based community development corporation on Chicago's west side, built a "smart, green building" at a major transit stop in the community, cutting energy usage in half with a green roof, solar panels, super insulation, etc. Bethel recently received the GOLD LEED rating for environmental excellence, a first in a low-income community. The building, connected to the transit platform, houses a day care center, employment services, a community-focused bank, and community owned businesses - a coffee shop and sandwich shop, among others. This development had been a long and tortuous effort - in assembling the funds, acquiring building permits, and finding contractors who could do things differently. It is a great example of intentional development that creates multiplying impact on community and environment.

Mary Nelson is president emeritus of Bethel New Life, a faith-based community development corporation on the west side of Chicago. She is also a board member of Sojourners.

The new 2007-2008 UN Human Development report is focused on "Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world." According to news stories, the report clearly links overcoming climate change with global poverty:

"The poorest countries and most vulnerable citizens will suffer the earliest and most damaging setbacks, even though they have contributed least to the problem," the report says.
…

As the world's richest countries bear the greatest responsibility, the UN Development Programme called on them to bear the largest burden in cutting emissions and in providing financial aid to the poor.

And, as is true with so many of the big issues facing us,

"The world lacks neither the financial resources nor the technological capabilities to act," the UN report said. "What is missing is a sense of urgency, human solidarity, and collective interest."

At its board meeting last month, the National Association of Evangelicals formally named Leith Anderson as its president. Anderson is senior pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and has been serving as interim president of the NAE for the past year.

I've had the opportunity to spend some time with Leith Anderson. I believe he is the kind of leader most needed these days, both for the NAE and for the wider evangelical community. He has both the heart of a pastor and the passion of a prophet, and he finds ways to be true to his convictions and be committed to bridge-building.

In a recent interview with Christianity Today, Anderson spoke of the NAE and public policy,

There is no shortage of evangelicals that have passion about every topic in contemporary life. The challenge here is not to find people who are interested. There are plenty of people who are interested. It's, How do we unite evangelicals in understanding what the issues are and having a moral perspective in how we approach them?

And, in developing that moral perspective, he noted

We have a document that is called "For the Health of the Nation." They are seven priorities that the NAE organizes around in terms of being a public voice.

[The document] relates to religious freedom, sanctity of human life, human rights, and creation care. It was first issued in 2003 and then reaffirmed by the NAE in March of this year. What we're doing is organizing many of the activities of the Washington office and the association around each one. These are big topics like justice and compassion for the poor and the vulnerable.

On immigration reform, one of the most controversial issues in America today, Anderson said,

I'm hoping that in the future we are also going to be able to engage more on the issue of immigration in America. It's a pressing issue that the country needs to unite around. We need to have a biblical voice. We need to recognize this is a high concern for the Hispanic community, which has a large numbers of evangelicals within it. Hispanic churches are the fastest growing in the nation and immigration is a top priority. Up to this point, NAE has not made any formal statements on it. I just anticipate this will be a growing priority and concern which fits under the topic of justice.

I congratulate Leigh Anderson on his new position, and look forward to working with him.

I have had some respectful debate with Chuck Colson in the past, but I can't help but applaud - with a standing ovation, actually - his recent statement about the environment. True, his statement could be cynically judged as an attempt to help certain evangelicals save face - in particular, evangelicals who have been anti-environment on the basis of not believing the growing scientific data about global warming - too often supported by truly sketchy biblical proof texting. But in the interest of saving the planet, and saving millions of lives in it, I'm all for anyone saving face who needs to do so. We are, after all, in a faith that is all about saving love.

Colson says:

But for Christians, the question of global warming should not stop us from identifying a critical worldview issue here—one on which every Christian can, or should, agree: and that's the importance of good stewardship toward the rest of creation. There are things we can do now to be good stewards that do not require us to get all of the answers that are going to come on global warming.

Later, he asks:

Can you think of one instance where Scripture praises excessive consumption or waste?

And concludes:

I can't ... Working with institutions to reduce their energy usage ... is good stewardship. And it does not depend on what the scientists eventually can prove about global warming. It is all laid out for us already in the scriptures.

Chuck is spot on. The truth is, large sectors of our religion have become "worldly" in a subtle but powerful way: we have been guilty of an unholy but socially acceptable syncretism between our faith and consumerism. One can't help but applaud Colson's desire to address this compromise.

In my recent book, Everything Must Change, I describe our consumerist system as "insane and suicidal," tempting us to:

act as though the resources we consume are infinite and the wastes we produce are invisible. Just as our bodies consume food and produce excrement, in this economy we consume trees and produce smoke, consume clean air and produce smog. ...

Socially ... we consume time and produce fatigue; consume art and talent and produce entertainment and amusement; consume work and leisure and produce paychecks and heart attacks. And ultimately we consume communities and produce extended families; consume extended families and produce nuclear families; consume nuclear families and produce individuals; consume individuals and produce consumers; and finally, consume consumers themselves and produce disembodied fragments called 'wants' and 'needs' and 'markets' and segments' and 'anxieties' and 'drives' that the economy consumes and excretes and reconsumes in a kind of cannibalistic ferment or rot.

A social system thus based on consumption and excretion, I conclude, can aptly be described as an "excrement factory." One can only thank God that Colson is adding his voice and influence to a call for a better way of living - a life of careful stewardship rather than careless consumption and excretion. May we, as Colson says, "stop arguing long enough to start being good stewards today." Amen, Chuck Colson!

Brian McLaren (brianmclaren.net) is board chair of Sojourners, and author of Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope.

Last week, the Nobel committee announced its annual Peace Prize, awarding it jointly to Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It is a significant recognition for Gore, who has been transformed from a presidential candidate who lost (even though he won) into an environmental evangelist who has changed public opinion on the threat of global warming. His response to the award was that he will use it to continue his work to increase awareness of "a true planetary emergency" and press the world's nations to combat its threats. "The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity," Gore told the press.

Gore spent years slogging through presentations to small audiences with a slide show. Now the slide show has become an Academy Award-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, and its author has won a Nobel Prize. His deep and passionate commitment led to his persistence, and that persistence is beginning to show results.

The issue of climate change was there all along, but it took the research of an international committee of scientists and an evangelist who publicized their research to make a difference. Critics say Gore is alarmist, but that's always the role of an evangelist. There is doom to come if you don't change your ways. But redemption is always possible with conversion leading to a change of mind and heart – that leads to a change in direction and life choices. Many of our most effective social change movements have been spurred by spiritual transformation.

There is more and more evidence that the warnings are not exaggerated. The polar ice caps are melting at a shocking rate. In September, the Guardian reported that in one week an area nearly twice the size of the UK had melted in the Arctic. In fact, I recently heard that over the past year, an area as large as the U.S. east of the Mississippi melted. It is indeed a crisis of biblical proportions.

I congratulate Al Gore for the Nobel Peace Prize. He deserves our gratitude and thanks. But more importantly, we need to respond to his altar call and change our lifestyles before it is too late and the doom is upon us.

Last week, I wrote about U.N. Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon's speech to a dinner hosted by the National Association of Evangelicals and the Micah Challenge. While the main part of his speech was on the challenge of meeting the Millennium Development Goals, he closed by linking that to "another moral imperative" – acting to stop global warming.

On this Blog Action Day for the environment, the words of the Secretary General are worth emphasizing. He noted that

Climate change affects us all, but it does not affect us all equally. Those who are least able to cope are being hardest hit. Those who have done the least to cause the problem bear the gravest consequences.

He cited the dependence of "hundreds of millions of people in Asia and the Americas on mountain snow and glaciers for their water," and the catastrophic threat as the ice and snow melt. Growing droughts in Africa due to climate change threaten the lives of those dependent on subsistence agriculture for survival. Then came his call:

We have an ethical obligation to right this injustice. We have a duty to protect the most vulnerable. Without a strong global effort against global warming, we will fail in achieving the Millennium Development Goals and the implicit human right to economic justice and development.

Without a strong global effort against global warming, humankind could even be wiped out, along with other species. Our earth is God's creation. We are its custodians. We can no longer look the other way.

The good news is that people and institutions of faith all over the world agree. This gives me great hope.

There is now a strong consensus among scientists and the religious community, including evangelical leaders, that while the hour is late, we still have a chance to make a difference. If we are to honor the biblical commandment to be good custodians of God's creation, we have no choice.

Perhaps I am dumb, but I had never connected flicking a switch to turn on the lights with increased asthma in children, higher levels of mercury in the Chesapeake Bay (and the need to stay away from eating too much fish), mountain top removal in West Virginia, and global warming. Over the past few weeks I have been working on a book project and had to look more closely at our use of energy as it relates to global warming. I never knew that the primary consumer of energy in the U.S., and the largest producer of greenhouse gases, is the electricity generation sector (39 percent of both). These amounts are then allocated to other economic sectors based on retail sales. I should not have been surprised to discover that we use more electricity in our homes than in any other area, including industry. Taking a step further, I found that 57 percent of the fuel my energy provider uses is coal - the most polluting of the types of fuel available in terms of greenhouse gas emissions - not only affecting global warming, but contributing to ground level ozone (air pollution). These plants also emit small particulate matter which can get into lungs, causing increased asthma and other lung disorders.

I'm not sure where my company's coal comes from, but whether is from West Virginia, Pennsylvania, or some other location, my use of electricity, as well as that of my friends and my church, are what drives the energy company to utilize this coal to produce the energy we demand. I grieve for the loss of mountain tops that change the appearance of the area where my mother was born; for the fact that some of the local people there no longer have clear drinking water because of the run off caused by coal extraction processes, that wildlife no longer has a home. I am sad that the fish in the Bay are sickening, that the climate is changing, that we have bad air days because of ozone, and that asthma rates are growing. I wonder why this area has such a high cancer rate. All these things seem out of my control. They are happening around me, generated by forces I cannot see or relate to. But then I turn on the television, the dishwasher, the air conditioner. I am part of the picture. What I do does affect how the mountains look in West Virginia. It may be a small part, but there is a definite connection.

Part of the solution is cleaning up power plant emissions; part may be in finding new fuels. But the part that I have the most control over, and responsibility for, is my own use of energy. Some suggest changing light bulbs, others using more energy efficient appliances, letting the sun and wind dry clothes outside, turning off computers and other equipment that have standby modes, and using electricity to keep tiny bulbs burning. It is, in fact, very empowering to understand that by a flick of a switch I can make a statement about how I care for the mountains of West Virginia. It may not be much of one, not sufficient for the need, but at least it is immediate and accessible to me, my friends, and everyone else as well.

Ginny Vroblesky is the former national coordinator of A Rocha USA.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, each of us needs about 2.5 acres of arable land to be sustained with needed food. Then we need to add another two acres or so - enough land to sustain the plants and animals that keep our ecosystem balanced and fertile. So, each of the 6.7 billion human beings requires, at minimum, 4.45 acres of fertile land.

But the math stopped working in the latter part of the previous century. The fact is, we're using about 5.44 acres per person on average, which exceeds the carrying capacity of our planet. And these numbers are skewed by our disproportionate ecological footprint as Americans - we require over 23 acres per person to sustain us at the standard of living to which we have become accustomed.

Perhaps we can be forgiven for developing this unsustainable lifestyle because we didn't know what we were doing. But now, as the information becomes available - and increasingly incontrovertible - we have a new responsbility and opportunity. And here is my firm belief: whatever the pleasures that come from living an unsustainable, and therefore unwise, life, the pleasures of living a wise and sustainable life will be far greater.

I was speaking on these topics recently, and a woman told me she wrote a note to her husband during my talk, saying something like, "You got me up at 7 a.m. to hear some guy make me feel guilty for being a successful American? Thanks a lot!" But she told me later, with some emotion, that by the end of the talk, she felt God had spoken to her. "The Holy Spirit washed over me," she said. She was genuinely excited about the chance to learn to live better, and to seek a higher kind of success than we have achieved so far - a wise success, a good success, a sustainable success.

This is true in my own life. When I was researching my most recent book, I kept adding some small choices to my life to adjust my lifestyle to what I was learning. For example, we set a moratorium on incandescent bulbs in our house. Whenever one blows, we're replacing it with a compact flourescent, and it feels fantastic to do so. I took about an hour and built a composting bin in my back yard, and it's really enjoyable to add biodegradable kitchen scraps to it each day. These are small things, but I think if you try them, you'll agree: this isn't drudgery and painful sacrifice.

As the psalmist said, "You show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore." I think it was Jane Goodall who said something like this: "You thought the age of reason was good? Wait until you see the age of love!" And I would add, "You thought the age of consumption and waste was good? Wait until you experience the joy of the age of sustainability and wise use!"

In Deuteronomy 15, God promised the people that if they lived according to the Lord's ways, there would be enough for everyone and "there will be no one in need among you." This is the dream: that we learn to live "in the ways of the Lord" so that there is enough for everyone and the planet is well-cared for, flourishing and green, full of birdsongs, and teeming with life, to the glory of God.

Brian McLaren's new book is called Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope.

Bill McKibben wrote the first book for a general audience about global warming, The End of Nature, way back in 1989. His new book is Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future .

In an encouraging shift away from the status quo, many Christian groups are taking a more focused look at stewarding God's creation. A few notable references to biblical environmentalism have been popping up in the news lately. On the recently aired CNN series "God's Warriors," Richard Cizik explains "creation care," a conservative evangelical approach to being a greener church. Two weeks ago, the pope took to a stage in Italy in green vestments to declare Sept. 2, "Save Creation Day," and beseech Roman Catholics to make "courageous decisions" to spare the earth from destructive and irresponsible development trends.

Theologically, the Torah provides plenty of fuel to go green. In fact, humanity is bound to the earth in ways that we may never fully appreciate.

• Genesis 2:7 tells us that God formed us from the very earth we inhabit (man = earth + breath).
• The Hebrew word "adam" (Strongs # 121 and # 122) is the root of the word for earth; Adamah (# 127), tying the reddish hue of dust to the color of blood.
• Through the sabbatical system (Shemitta in the Jewish tradition), both man and creation are entitled rest at a six to one ratio (Leviticus 25).

We can also learn from the Hebrew Bible rich applications of social uplift through proper stewardship of the earth in the form of the Jewish tradition of Peah. In Leviticus (19:9-10, and 23:22) the Israelites were told to leave the edges of all their fields and the fallen fruits "for the poor and the stranger (JPS)." Additionally, the socially engaging agri-practice of the Ma'aser Ani (the 'poor tithe' in the Jewish tradition) was a tenth of a landowner's crop set aside for the less fortunate during the third and sixth years of the seven-year sabbatical cycle.

The increasing trend of environmental awareness in the Christian faith is both hopeful and historically rooted. Wendell Berry, a modern prophet who speaks boldly of our responsibilities to the Creator's handiwork, recognizes that creation includes both the world around us and the people who live upon it. He writes, "Creation is not in any sense independent from the Creator, the result of a primal act long over and done with, but is the continuous, constant participation of all creatures in the being of God (Christianity and the Survival of Creation, 1992)." As the central achievement of God's design, we have both the honor and responsibility to protect the rest of creation, and to return to a green orthodoxy.

Logan Laituri is a six-year Army veteran with combatant service in Iraq during OIF II and experience with Christian peacemaker teams in Israel and the West Bank. He is an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and currently resides in Camden, New Jersey, in an intentional Christian community called Camden House, where he continues to seek ways to wage peace wherever he goes. He blogs at courageouscoward.blogspot.com.

Like Joel Hunter, I was skeptical of the meeting on the "Green Gospels." “Oh, no. Another group that believes all you have to do is convince Christians that the Bible says to care for creation, and they will do it.” I guess, after working in this field for the past decade, I was wary.

But the meeting was fascinating. Martin Palmer had convened a similar event earlier this year in the U.K. He invited atheists, non-believers, and others not familiar with the Bible. Apparently they were eager to explore what the gospels might reveal about our relationship with the natural world. It took them only 10 minutes to become immersed in the gospel of Mark, sifting out what it might have meant for Jesus to ride on an unbroken colt. It took us all morning to begin. Perhaps it is because we who are so steeped in the Bible, who have explored it for years, need more than inspiration. We need examples, to see that other people have put their beliefs into practice. One of the goals of the Green Gospels is to draw together these types of stories, both from 2000 years of Christian history, and modern efforts. It was amazing to seriously consider what the story of Jesus and the colt or Jesus and the fig tree say about Him, His relationship to the natural world, and how it affects us.

Martin Palmer surprised me with a comment that the U.K had experienced three environmental collapses within historical times. I usually think of these as future events we need to avoid. One collapse coincided with a huge volcanic eruption, blocking sunlight for several years. This was about the time the builders of Stonehenge stopped their work. The third event was the fall of the Roman Empire. The Benedictine Order of monks was active at this time. Benedict taught that a monk’s life had three priorities: prayer, study, and work. They were to go into the most wasted places and rebuild the ecology. They changed a devastated Europe by planting trees, digging new steams and lakes, restoring forests, composting and reviving the vitality of the soil. I looked around the table and there were modern Benedictines. Not monks, but people who were putting their beliefs into practice. Bring on the green gospels. We need these stories. We need to steep ourselves in scripture until it flows out into deeds.

Ginny Vroblesky is the former national coordinator of A Rocha USA.

Highly suspicious. That’s what I was.

I was invited to a meeting whose participants were considering proposing something along the line of “Green Gospels.” After all, I am an evangelical, and being involved in anything that has to do with treating the scriptures with a particular perspective carries with it the danger of perverting the original intent.

Pleasantly surprised. That’s what I was when I attended the meeting with Christians of impeccable spiritual and intellectual character. Under the able leadership – and delightful English wit and accent – of Martin Palmer (secretary general – that title always sounds like an oxymoron to me – of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation), the panel outlined the task. We were to provide a commentary that would feature the centuries-old writings of Christian teachers, leaders, and poets as they thought through the relationship of God and creation. We also could uncover the context within which Jesus taught and the gospel writers wrote.

The emphasis on environmental appreciation is a recent one, you say? Au contraire! We who care about learning what scriptures have to do with nature are part of a long line of theological and intellectual contemplatives.

Just last week someone stopped me in church and said, “Pastor, our small group wanted to do a study on what the Bible says about protecting the environment. But I looked under my topical index and could only find one passage!” Ah, there’s the rub. There is so much historic context (much of it Jewish writings) that underlie the scriptures we have that most of us are unaware of how often the created world is referenced in the Bible.

And the problem is not just a denotative, analytic ignorance. It is a lack of passionate engagement. The gospels are not just concerned with creation as a background fact; creation is a source of inspiration. Therefore, who better to add to the commentaries than poets and mystics rather than just technical biblical scholars?

So we will see this project through. Maybe Christians won't be the only ones inspired by learning more about the scriptures we have. Maybe those more interested in reading about the environment will be inspired to know its Creator.

Rev. Joel C. Hunter is the senior pastor of Northland church in Longwood, Florida. The "Green Gospels" gathering was hosted by Conservation International.

(Click here to read the first part of this series.)

In my search for an ethically made bra, I came face to face with the two distinct worlds of justice issues. There are those who are passionate about caring for the environment and then there are those who seek justice for people, and it appeared that ne’er the twain shall meet. I found the sites where collective groups of women in Africa made clothing for fair wages, but used cloth made with environmentally unfriendly practices. Or I found clay-dyed organic cotton bras, but had no clue to how they were made. After e-mailing the company, I might hear back that they care about their employees (whatever that means), but there was no concrete certification that fair practices are used.

Granted, there were a small handful of companies that carried lines of trendy organic fair trade t-shirts designed for the emo crowd. They’re cool, but I needed a bra. Eventually I found a site in the U.K. that carries organic, ethically hand-stitched lingerie. But I needed everyday wear, not five-minutes-in-the-bedroom wear. And I wasn’t willing to pay their $100 price tag either. I knew this endeavor would require more funds than the typical sale bin at the mall, but I had my limits. There has to be a balance between saving a buck at the expense of a worker in a third world nation and throwing one’s money away on luxury items. (And no, I don’t see being an ethical consumer a luxury, just part of living out that whole loving one’s neighbor thing.)

Then finally, after a couple of weeks of fruitless searching, I stumbled across Rawganique.com. It's a business based out of an off-the-grid island in Canada where they grow their own organic food (eaten vegan and raw), power their computers with solar and wind energy, and promote their products as “a quiet, old-fashioned retreat from the hecticness and rampant chemicalization that are characteristic of the modern, conventional world.” It looked promising. As I researched further, I discovered that their clothing met all of my criteria—they care about the environment and people. And they sell bras (which are actually cheaper than those I typically buy at the mall—ethical and affordable!). Mission accomplished: I found my justice bra.

But why, I have to ask, did I have to dig up some hippie commune sort of place in order to find this? It’s great that they are doing this, but with all the attention justice issues are getting these days, one would hope that ethical shopping would have become a bit more mainstream. What’s the deal? Is it just easy to talk about this stuff and never actually live it out? What will it actually take for us to change the injustices in our economic system and shop for a better world? That’s what I want to know.

And in case you were wondering, I really like my new bra.

Julie Clawson is a church planting pastor in the Chicago area and the coordinator of the Emerging Women blog.

(Click here to read the first part of this series.)

I realized the other day that I needed a new bra. Usually I would hop in the car, drive to the nearest Victoria’s Secret, and buy some mass-produced, synthetic hot pink thing that claimed to make me sexy. Easy enough. But I just couldn’t do it this time. My conscience wouldn’t let me.

Over the last few years, my knowledge of justice issues has grown. I can no longer ignore the realities of sweatshops, child labor, toxic pesticides and dyes, and unjust trade laws. Sure, it’s easy to walk into the mall and buy whatever is on sale. It’s easy to not care about where my clothes came from, who made them and under what conditions, and what their long-term effects will be. I buy things without asking those questions all the time—like I’m sure the ad execs want me to. Of course, I’ll buy the fair trade coffee or the organic produce when it’s readily available, but, when it comes to just about everything else, I still know how to mindlessly consume with the best of them.

But not this time. I decided to see if I could find a new bra that was ethically made—just to see if I could do it and to force myself to actually put my money where my mouth is. So as my friends rolled their eyes and offered sarcastic “good lucks,” I began my search for the justice bra. But first I set my criteria.

The bra had to be made from an organically grown material. No synthetics made from petroleum, no pesticides that harm the environment and the farmers, and no unsustainable practices. Since hemp growth is restricted, bamboo isn’t usually sustainably grown (and who would ever want a wool bra?), organic cotton seemed to be my best option. Cotton is the most pesticide-dependent crop in the world, accounting for 25 percent of total pesticide use. Since we don’t eat cotton, the amount and types of chemicals dumped on cotton crops aren’t as restricted as for other crops. These chemicals are taking their toll on the environment as well as on human health. The EPA considers seven of the top 15 pesticides used on cotton as "likely" or "known" human carcinogens. Every t-shirt made of conventional cotton requires a quarter pound of harmful chemicals. I can’t knowingly support that. So to be ethical, it had to be grown using ecologically friendly practices.

It also couldn’t have toxic dyes in the fabric—dyes that hurt the environment and are potential carcinogens. I didn’t want fish to die or metals and chlorines to seep into my skin just so I could have hot pink. Numerous chemicals are used to dye most fabrics and these chemicals generally do not break down in wastewater treatment plants. And often to get the dyes to set heavy metals are used in the process. All of this is in the clothes we wear. It hurts the environment and it’s unhealthy. So standard number two was that the bra had to be free of harmful dyes.

Finally, the bra had to be fairly made. From the farmers who grew the fibers, to the weavers who spun the fabric, to the tailors who assembled it, each person (adults, not children) along the way had to have been paid a living wage (usually much more than minimum wage), not been coerced to work, and treated humanely. I’ve read the reports of the growing numbers of Indian cotton growers who are committing suicide because under "free trade" agreements they can’t earn enough to survive by growing cotton. They deserve to be fairly compensated for their labor, not cheated because the hypothetical potential of cotton flooding the markets drove down prices. I also didn’t want to support a company that holds women (or children) as virtual slaves in a sweatshop (where often the women also have to perform other “services” for their male employers in order to keep their jobs). Nor did I want to support a company that pays their workers a wage that isn’t sufficient to live on just so the company could make a bigger profit. Whoever made my bra needs to be able to make a living doing so. And not a degrading, oppressive living either, but one that treats them as a real person.

Not too much to ask, just an ethically made bra. I could find that somewhere, right?

Julie Clawson is a church planting pastor in the Chicago area and the coordinator of the Emerging Women blog.

(Check back soon for part two of Julie's search for an ethical bra.)

While the rest of the world buried its collective nose in Harry Potter last weekend, I spent my time reading early Christianity. It proved a tough call: The fate of Hogwarts or the Roman Empire? I chose Constantine over Voldemort.

I am not a total geek, but I am writing a new book on church history for progressives. One problem of classical liberalism was its rejection of tradition and the inability to ground its vision in Christian history. The past was seen as imperfect, full of injustice and mistakes, and incomplete understandings of nature, humanity, and God. Thus, liberal Christians embraced the future as the major arena of God’s activity—tending to privilege what is new over what was old.

The past? What does that have to do with pressing issues today?

Well, take the allegations against Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick for animal abuse and dog fighting, for instance.

One of the texts I re-read this week was On the Soul and the Resurrection (c. 380 C.E.) by Gregory of Nyssa, a theologian in the Eastern Christian tradition. The manuscript takes the form of a dialogue between Gregory and his sister, Macrina. In it, she instructs her brother on the nature of creation. Macrina argues that human beings and “irrational animals” share common gifts from God, the ability to perceive and passions. What separates human animals from “irrational” ones is the capacity of free will, part of human ability to discern and choose. Thus, humans are given the responsibility to care for animals, as irrational animals are subject to human free will.

Gregory, quoting his sister, goes on to say: “For when reason does not control the impulse which naturally lies in them, the fierce animals are destroyed by anger because they fight among themselves.” Likewise, human beings who fail to discern and act upon what is good will be consumed by irrational sin. Gregory directly links human treatment and care for animals to acts of human violence, and implicitly develops a Christian theology of creation care.

The dialogue between Gregory and Macrina is one of the gossamer threads in Christian tradition. Unlike Soul, much of Christian theology emphasized distinctions between humans and animals, rather than stitching connections between aspects of creation (indeed, Macrina even develops a connection between humanity and plant life). Dividing creation into superior and inferior ranks served as an excuse for rampant injustice on the part of Christians toward the rest of creation—and, sadly enough, toward other human beings (for example, women denied the priesthood or race-based slavery). What if instead of organizing humans and animals into hierarchical ranks, Christians had theologically developed the commonality of creation so tantalizingly suggested in the fourth century?

In her recent book, The Frontiers of Justice, philosopher Martha Nussbaum points out that Jews and Christians practice ethics of compassion for animals, but that these ethics are incomplete—that “cruel and oppressive treatment of animals raises issues of justice.” Nussbaum insists, “not only that it is wrong of us to treat them that way, but also that they have a right, a moral entitlement, not to be treated in that way. It is unfair to them.” (Emphasis hers.)

The Michael Vick allegations revolt good people, those who believe it is wrong for a person to treat animals viciously. If proved true, Vick failed to meet even the basic Christian requirement to employ reason and free will to care for his dogs. But this case pushes further: What of the animals? What are the fundamental rights of the dogs to happiness and life? How can those rights be guaranteed and protected? (Interestingly enough, India’s highest court recommended a course for the construction of animal rights in 2000.) And how do religious people generate a vision for animal justice from their theological traditions?

Some Christians may think that we have fallen so short on practices of human justice that to consider justice for animals is beyond our capabilities. But Nussbaum insists that “truly global justice” requires constructing a decent life for “other sentient beings with whose lives our own are inextricably and complexly intertwined.”

Of course, that is pretty much what Macrina pointed out to her brother, Gregory of Nyssa, in 380. Maybe the doing of justice just requires going back and paying attention to gossamer threads.

Diana Butler Bass (www.dianabutlerbass.com) holds a Ph.D. in church history from Duke University and is the author of the award-winning Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith (Harper, 2006).

A friend recently brought to my attention the July 8, 2007, column by Rod Dreher in the Dallas Morning News. Dreher, famous as a "Crunchy Con"—a conservative who cares deeply about the environment—provides another excellent example of the important shift taking place on the fault line that for too long has polarized and paralyzed "left" and "right." His title, "Evils of Capitalism," and the subhead, "Big business can be as dangerous a threat as big government," tell you that he defies old binary categories.

The greatest challenge facing American conservatives today, he says, is not liberalism but capitalism, which he says, "in its current form, undermines not only the virtues necessary to the kind of society conservatives claim to want, but ultimately risks subverting itself."

He acknowledges capitalism's strengths, but laments that today's capitalism "is defined not by a producer mentality but by a consumer ethos," evidenced by the fact that personal savings—undercut by credit card debt—have slipped into the negative zone for the first time since 1933.

He calls the mentality promoted by consumerism "childishness," quoting Benjamin Barber's recent release, Consumed. When big business promotes consumerism by inhibiting adult judgment and self-discipline, Dreher says, it works against the very family values conservatives cherish, making them "prisoners of their own cravings."

"Childishness" sounds like the mentality that has been reinforced by our political and corporate titans. On one hand, we hear warnings that inspire fear, and then on the other, we hear a lot of "Trust me and don't ask questions." These titans profit if the rest of us act like children, trusting and submitting without thinking and making mature decisions with foresight, self-discipline, and concern for the common good.

Rod Dreher is so right. Consumerism, whether in government or business, sucks.

Read the full entry »

If a glacier falls into the ocean, and no one is there to record it, did it really happen? Perhaps anticipating the question, artist Katie Paterson has created an art installation in which the sounds of Iceland glaciers are recorded through a real-time feed from her cell phone. Audiences that see her cell number displayed at an art gallery in London can call the number and listen, live, to the sounds of large pieces of ice groaning, cracking, and breathing their last.

As global warming changes the landscape and seascape of our planet in a way that feels as permanent as it does ominous, people are already finding ways to remember the natural world as it once existed, or at least bear witness as it changes. In Greenland, glaciers are melting fast, too, reports The Washington Post. One woman marvels at the fact that global warming seems to have left a permanent mark on the island. "Already we are starting our sentences by saying, 'In the days when it was cold … We're starting to talk about it like it was history, and it's only been about five years."

Human civilization has always found ways to remember what is important to its essence. The Inuits of Greenland use good old-fashioned oral history, and a British art student uses a cell phone. But are these acts of remembrance thinly veiled resignations—signs that we're giving up hope for the planet? Or, on the other hand, can they help to inspire us? In the Hebrew scriptures, the God of ancient Israel repeatedly called the nation to remember their roots, often as a way of waking them up. Maybe the fact that our ice caps are becoming history should serve as a wake-up call for us.

Jesse Holcomb, a former Sojourners intern, performs content analysis at the Project for Excellence in Journalism and is a graduate student at George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs.

David Gushee thinks he understands why some conservative evangelicals have opposed "creation care" (i.e., taking care of the environment). He writes:

... it seems to me that those who resist creation care sometimes are motivated by a misreading of scripture. I have been in conversations where people suggest that stewardship primarily means mastery of earth to use it as we please or need; or that human beings do not have the power to do real harm to creation; or that God has promised ever since Noah never to allow humans to do serious harm to creation; or that the earth will be destroyed by fire anyway, and soon, so what we do now to the earth isn’t really all that significant.

He goes on to name three other factors that have led to this conservative opposition to protecting our earth: a "profound mishandling of science," an "inordinate loyalty to laissez-faire capitalism," and an "inordinate loyalty to political leaders."

He concludes:

I believe that all of these ideas are erroneous, and that we need to keep working deeply on the theology of creation care to move beyond them.

Gushee is convinced that if the great body of evangelical Christians get behind creation care, "our nation's culture and politics will change rapidly," which he thinks "will be one of the best contributions we will ever make to this country and to the world."

Jim Rice is editor of Sojourners magazine.

I have always felt a bit disconnected from Hurricane Katrina - I was on vacation a half a world away when the storm devastated the Gulf Coast. Cut off from television and the internet, I was not saturated with the images of people on roofs, empty buses parked in rows, flooded and flattened buildings, and mile after mile of debris. I missed those initial days of around-the-clock coverage, and I did not share in what I assume was the national incredulity at the fact that these images beamed into American homes were taken on our own soil, not some third world backwater. Where I was, I only managed to glean some patchy reports that left me with similar bewilderment – something about New Orleans underwater and the Superdome destroyed. I returned home to a nation in shock, like walking into a theater during the closing credits after that fatal twist at the end no one was expecting.

Traveling to the Gulf Coast for a visit to New Orleans and a week of rebuilding work in Mississippi last week changed all of that for me. Like Thomas touching Christ’s hands and side, I joined thousands of volunteers before me in seeing for myself. I saw the empty lots where houses, churches, and businesses once stood. I heard people’s stories of survival during the storm, and I stood alongside them for this one moment in time as they continue to rebuild their homes and their lives.

There are some successes in this whole tale, and we need those silver linings amidst such devastation and despair. Thousands of people and millions of dollars have made their way to the area from the private and nonprofit sectors, and each week those people and dollars bring small but perceptible changes. Our group sanded, spackled, painted and floored, leaving three houses a bit closer to completion than when we arrived. And encouragingly, the mission that hosted us is booked with volunteers until the end of 2008. Indeed, the faith and charitable communities have responded.

But being there, it is clear that this is a marathon, not a sprint. Estimates are that rebuilding will take another 5-10 years. Despite that forecast, some groups and denominations are beginning to pull out as we pass the year and a half mark, and both public and private money for some services is drying up. For example, funding is ending for some mental health support services, so local radio ads encouraged people – soon to be left without professional support – to make use of these services while they can. Some of the free meal programs – for both residents and volunteers – are scaling back. And even though some FEMA trailers are just arriving, local advocates must continually fight for extensions to keep them so that the many whose homes are not yet ready have roofs over their heads in the interim. This is not to mention the fierce local battles occurring over issues like affordable housing policy, development practices, and insurance and government reparations (or the lack thereof).

When we debriefed our trip on the last night, our host organization urged us to come back and continue to tell the story of the Gulf Coast. Just as God calls His people to be a people of remembrance, we must not let our nation or our churches forget that there are those on our own shore – fellow Americans – who need their walls rebuilt, and that it is the work of years, not months. The breach is not yet repaired.

Bob Francis is the Policy and Organizing Assistant for Sojourners/Call to Renewal. He traveled to Biloxi, Mississippi, in support of the United Church of Christ's Back Bay Mission with five fellow staff members in partnership with a work team from Pilgrim UCC of Wheaton, Maryland.

+ See multimedia from Sojourners/Call to Renewal's first Gulf Coast work project in July 2006

I took my day off yesterday and completed an annual pilgrimage of mine, a pilgrimage that began when I was a boy. I used to walk hand-in-hand with my dad to a pond near our home in upstate New York, and my dad would scoop out a mass of frog eggs with a big plastic bucket. Surrounded by the trills and calls of spring peepers, American toads, gray tree frogs, and leopard frogs, we'd bring home our prize and put in a goldfish bowl. In the coming weeks, we'd watch the eggs develop, hatch into tadpoles, and eventually, nourished by vegetable scraps and algae, they would metamorphose into little "froglets" and we'd let them go at the pond. I imagine that's where my love for God's creation began - and in large measure, my love for the God of creation, too.

So today I went down to a wetland in southern Maryland - one I've been visiting annually for about 20 years. I donned my hip waders and plunged into the jubilant outburst of spring. There weren't any frog eggs yet - we're about two or three warm days too early still. But there were a few spotted salamanders depositing their egg masses, and there was a veritable riot of toads trilling in the warmer shallows. As I watched the males ballooning out their chins and the females swimming between potential mates, I wondered if my grandchildren and their grandchildren will still be able to enjoy what, for me, are some of God's coolest works of art. Amphibians are considered, after all, to be indicator species: when the environment is under stress, it's often the amphibians that are the first to perish.

When a group of conservative religious leaders recently tried to stop the National Association of Evangelicals from addressing global warming in a serious and public way, they showed not only their lack of understanding of environmental science, but also of evangelicals. The tide has turned among many evangelicals, or perhaps we should say spring has come. Groups like A Rocha, Floresta, EEN, and Restoring Eden are mobilizing evangelicals to care for creation as never before, inspired by leaders like Cal DeWitt, Melanie Griffin of the Sierra Club, Matthew Sleeth, and many others. They know what the Dobson group doesn't seem to know: Carelessness toward the environment represents an old kind of colonial, Industrial-age Christianity that is being left behind by younger evangelicals who are morphing into something new.

When I came home from my day in the wetland, I had an e-mail waiting that included a link to Restoring Eden's response to the conservative religious leaders' recent letter. Led by Peter Illyn, Restoring Eden is voicing a set of values that is attracting more and more people. A chorus of environmentally-committed voices is growing louder and louder among evangelicals every day - and among people of all faiths around the world. There's no time to waste.

As the old hymn says, "This is our Father's world." Thank God for people who are speaking up on its behalf. Be sure to read the Restoring Eden statement.


Brian McLaren (brianmclaren.net) is an author, speaker, Red Letter Christian, and serves as board chair for Sojourners/Call to Renewal. His most recent book, The Secret Message of Jesus, just came out in paperback. Word is out that the book is ideal for study groups.

First of all, kudos to those who took the high road this week when commenting on our global warming posts. While there are still occasional exceptions, most of you displayed graciousness and civility, even in disagreement. And if I am not mistaken, I even glimpsed some mild apologies for misunderstandings and mischaracterizations. Maybe we really are learning from one another after all! And I wasn’t the only one to notice:

The best compliment may have come from TTT:

I am not a Christian and some of my beliefs are at odds with what I expect most of the evangelicals in this thread believe. However, I am very happy to see the open and straightforward way in which this issue is being discussed here, and how so far this thread has been almost totally free from projecting evil or dishonest motives onto others--which is typically where Internet discussions go downhill. You have handled it much better than most secular boards I have visited.

In the end, it is refreshing to see that most (if not all) seem to readily concede that the environment IS a matter of concern for Christians, regardless of political leanings. Hopefully this will counter Dobson’s concern that Cizik is not representative of evangelicals in his attention to the environment. Don wrote:

I would argue that caring for creation is part of defending human dignity, care for the poor, and other similar actions. Environmental degradation destroys human dignity and harms the poor more than it does the wealthy.

Your comments also reveal that even if people agree on the diagnosis, there will still be vast differences in how to address the problem. Whether the issue is poverty or the environment, well-meaning Christians differ on solutions. As Elmo concisely states:

Note that there is no one, conservative or otherwise, on this comment page saying we have no responsibility to the environment, the poor, or the oppressed. We all know that we do. We just have different ideas about how to go about it.

(For those interested in the role of government, be sure to check out articles on that topic in the April issue of Sojourners magazine.)

But we mustn’t lose focus on what prompted this week-long debate, namely the letter from Dobson and company criticizing Rich Cizik for his leadership on “creation care.” I think the motivations behind this letter are dubious at best and still require investigation. It is one thing to call for an open debate or discussion on an issue of concern, but it is quite another to call an environmental champion like Cizik “divisive and dangerous” and essentially demand he change or be fired. What is Dobson not telling us? Maybe he fears that his own accusations are true and that he no longer speaks as for all evangelicals as he once did. Christy proposes an appealing alternative to the wording of Dobson’s letter:

I would consider it refreshing and a step toward opening up some of the deep seated fundamentalist narrowmindedness [sic] if Dobson and Falwell and others like them could even bring themselves to say something like: While it is not part of the agenda of Focus on the Family or Liberty University to support issues concerning the environment, we recognize that God has called us to do his work by giving each of us a unique set of gifts and interests. If God has laid a heavy burden on the hearts of our Christian brothers and sisters at the NAE to speak out on the issue of the environment, then we support them with our prayers in that calling.

Bob Francis is the Policy and Organizing Assistant for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.

I am sitting in a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and I just read Jim Wallis' recent post about global warming, responding to the recent letter written by several leaders of the Religious Right. The version of Christianity represented in that Bauer/Dobson/et al. letter indeed seems far away and rather odd in relation to the conference I was part of today, an energetic and diverse group of vibrant, (mostly) young Malaysian and Singaporean Christians - evangelicals, pentecostals, mainline Protestants, and Roman Catholics. Their passion for the environment was palpable, and deeply rooted in their Christian commitment.

My experience here in Asia matches what I've heard around the world over the last year, in 21 countries in all. Again and again, chagrined Christians ask me, "Is it true that some Christians in the U.S. still oppose taking care of creation? Is it true some of them still deny the threat of human-induced climate change? Is it true there's a pro-Hummer, pro-SUV mentality among American Christians?" I try to explain that some very famous and powerful people feel this way, but that many of us ignore them and pursue our passion to positively call people to care for God's beautiful world in every way we can. Then I often tell them of the courageous and important work of Christian leaders like Richard Cizik, Cal DeWitt, Matthew Sleeth, Peter Illyn, Melanie Griffin, Lyndsay Moseley, and many others ... and organizations like A Rocha, Florista, and Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN). My friends around the world are always encouraged to hear this, because it brings them no little embarrassment when their brothers and sisters in the U.S. declare, as they did in this letter, that there are only two or three moral issues Christians (or evangelicals, anyway) are allowed to speak out on, global climate change NOT being one of them.

But looking on the positive side, the Bauer/Dobson/et al. letter will single out one courageous leader who deserves our support; their villainizing of Rich Cizik marks him as a hero to more and more of us.

Another positive note in their letter: they asked an open-ended question! "We ask, how is population control going to be achieved if not by promoting abortion, the distribution of condoms to the young, and, even by infanticide in China and elsewhere?"

Sadly, the question had a nasty snap on Richard Cizik tacked on, and sadly, the question reflects a rather limited imagination, implying that nothing good can be done about the hopeless threat of overpopulation. But fortunately, their unanswered question can draw attention to some very good answers, including 1) improving education and employment opportunities for poor women, 2) improving health care for poor children, 3) helping poor families earn a livable wage so they can provide for their own retirement expenses, and so on. (My upcoming book might help them understand the relation between these interventions and the slowing of population growth.) Someone should send the writers of the letter a copy of the Micah Challenge Document, and they could learn a lot about what's being done on this issue, along with others - all of which, to many of us, are truly moral issues.

There's more to celebrate in the letter. They make a startling admission: "It does appear that the earth is warming." This is a major leap ahead from where many of these folks have been in the past, so I think we should applaud their progress. They have let the nose of the camel of inconvenient truth into their very small tent, and we know where that will lead: an opening of the tent party.

Unfortunately, they preface the admission with a questionable assumption: "The existence of global warming and its implications for mankind is a subject of heated controversy throughout the world." (The "heated controversy" pun was quite cool, I thought.) My sense in my travels is that the existence of global warming is no longer a subject of heated (or cooled) controversy around the world at all, but only among certain religious and semi-religious radio preachers, along with some fundraisers and lobbyists in the U.S. Everywhere else people are debating what to do about global warming, not whether it is or isn't a problem.

Another positive sign: Bauer/Dobson/et al. are becoming aware of diversity in the evangelical world when they say, "We acknowledge that within the NAE's membership of thirty million, there are many opinions and perspectives about the warming of the earth. We are not suggesting that our beliefs about it necessarily reflect the majority of our fellow evangelicals." This is a powerful realization, a relatively new one, I think, for which they should be rewarded with loud "amens."

When they "oppose the efforts of Mr. Cizik and others to speak in a way that is divisive and dangerous," they seem to express a desire to speak less divisively themselves and maybe even to consider the dangerous unintended consequences of some of their own actions and statements. Again, these are significant and positive moves if they are taken seriously.

Perkins, Bauer, Dobson, et al. are also setting an example of dialogue among evangelical institutions. Perhaps their example will inspire other organizations to write similar letters to one another. Communication can be a good thing.

So, although I thought their letter represented in many ways the perfectly wrong way to respond to Rich Cizik's courageous leadership, there are some positive features of the letter that help one indulge the desire to make sweet lemonade from lemons. You may find some more if you give it the careful read it deserves.


Brian McLaren (brianmclaren.net) is an author, speaker, Red Letter Christian, and serves as board chair for Sojourners/Call to Renewal. His most recent book is The Secret Message of Jesus, and his next book, Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope, will be released later this year.