wfn.org | NCCCUSA ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE CONSULTATION

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org]

Contact: Carol J. Fouke, NCC News, 212-870-2252

NCC5/21/97  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

By Dieter Hessel*

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE MEETING THEME: "GOD'S EARTH, 
OUR HOME"

 ESTES PARK, Colo., May 18 ---- In the crisp, 
clear air blowing down the valley from glistening 
snow-capped peaks that surround the YMCA of the 
Rockies, 250 pastors, members, and denominational 
staff gathered to strengthen environmental justice 
ministry.  

 The meeting, sponsored by the National Council 
of Churches Eco-Justice Working Group, had as its 
purpose to inspire and equip volunteer enablers of 
church-based efforts to protect and heal God's 
creation. Participants offered suggestions about 
ways to focus on environmental integrity together 
with social justice through worship, education, 
lifestyle change and public policy advocacy in local 
congregations and regional judicatories. 

 They came together from 44 states and from 15 
NCC-member communions** for a weekend of 
inspirational and informative leadership 
development. 

 They engaged together in worship, plenary 
presentations, issue and skill workshops, small 
ecumenical discussion groups, and planning within 
denominational networks. And they considered their 
role as "Environmental Justice Coordinators" in 
church and community life, while clarifying specific 
next steps they would each take in this role.

 On Friday, May 16, the Rev. Richard Killmer, 
NCC Environmental Justice Program Director, 
introduced participants to a draft Covenant 
Congregation Program of Environmental Justice, that 
begins to "map" a strategy for holistic ministry to 
which congregations can make a public commitment. 

 He emphasized the need to work integrally 
rather than peripherally on local and global 
environmental concerns, to get help from persons 
with expertise in the church and the community, and 
to broaden the base by encouraging people at 
different places in the environmental justice 
journey to take next steps. 

 Other members of the NCC Eco-Justice Working 
Group also spoke to this subject. And the group 
heard several grass roots stories of how 
environmental justice ministry is being done in 
congregations and communities.

 Carol S. Robb, Professor of Social Ethics at 
San Francisco Theological Seminary, introduced the 
group to sociologically informed interpretation of 
Scripture. She juxtaposed the threat of toxic 
bioaccumulation from pesticides with the promise of 
restoration for communities that are faithful to the 
covenant social vision of the Bible.  

Robb, a United Methodist theologian, noted that 
in a world of despoilation and exploitation, there 
is good news. The reign of God announced by Jesus 
values all of creation, including the wild, and 
seeks the well-being of both land and people. "We 
can experience grace as a multi-stranded braid in 
acting for justice, peace and integrity of 
creation."

 Saturday morning, May 17, the conference met 
with Timothy Wirth, the U.S. Under Secretary of 
State for Global Affairs.

 He focused on policies and practices to reduce 
population-consumption growth, and steps to 
stabilize the atmosphere so as to avoid disastrous 
climate change. In his overview of the first topic, 
he commended the NCC and World Council of Churches 
for helping to achieve the Platform of Action at the 
1994 UN conference on Population and Development. 

That, and the 1995 Beijing Conference, have 
given strong impetus to international and domestic 
programs of justice for women that are designed to 
provide a full range of health services including 
family planning, to foster equal education of girls, 
and to counteract violence against women.

 Regarding climate change negotiations to 
implement the treaty adopted at the 1992 Earth 
Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Secretary Wirth 
proposed that "the world's most important and 
interesting environmental question is how to deal 
with climate change -- how to help people understand 
that extensive use of carbon-based fuels is changing 
the nature of earth's atmosphere, and is projected 
to warm average global temperature 4-1/2 to 6 
degrees by 2100."

 The result will be more violent storms and 
concentrated precipitation, heated oceans, massive 
coastal flooding, disappearance of many forests, and 
disrupted agriculture...With India and China 
planning to build a thousand 500 megawatt fossil 
fuel power plants, and the United States continuing 
to lead the world in CO2 emissions, we must have 
alternative ways of fueling the economy, powering 
transportation, heating/cooling. "What are we going 
to do to set an example in technology and 
lifestyle?" he asked.

 Right after Wirth's address, in the most 
dramatic moment of the conference, William 
Somplatsky-Jarman, Environmental Justice staff of 
the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), presented the 
Under Secretary with the special gift of a huge pile 
of Climate Change Petitions signed over the last 
year by church people throughout the United States 
"calling on our government to live up to commitments 
it made at the Rio Earth Summit to reduce CO2 
emissions to 1990 levels, and to establish binding 
targets. Petition signers committed to change their 
own lifestyle. "You can count on us to do our part 
and we hope you will do yours," he told Wirth.

 Wirth replied that he would convey this message 
to the Clinton Administration's Climate Change 
Management Team, which Wirth chairs in its first 
meeting, Monday, May 19. The timing couldn't have 
been better, conference participants noted.

 A closing sermon on "Redeeming Bodies in a 
Polluted World" was preached by Osage Indian and 
Lutheran theologian George Tinker, Prof. of Cross-
Cultural Ministries at Iliff School of Theology, 
Denver. Tinker emphasized that life in the spirit 
challenges modern life in the "flesh," which 
commodifies bodies, land, air, and water.  He lifted 
up the "vision of balance and harmony that is 
respectful of each other and all our kin."

On this note the conferees returned, energized, 
to their home communities and churches with 
enlightened minds and warmed hearts -- symbolized 
liturgically by seeing and feeling the heat of 
candle flames and then touching the forehead, eyes 
and heart.  

-end-

*Dieter Hessel is Co-Director of the organization 
"Theological Education Meeting the Ecological 
Crisis," Princeton, N.J.

**NCC member communions represented included the 
African Methodist Episcopal Church, African 
Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, American Baptist 
Churches in the U.S.A., Antiochian Orthodox Church, 
Armenian Orthodox Church, Christian Church 
(Disciples of Christ), Christian Methodist Episcopal 
Church, Church of the Brethren, Evangelical Lutheran 
Church in America, The Episcopal Church, Greek 
Orthodox Archdiocese of America, National Baptist 
Convention U.S.A., Inc., Orthodox Church in America, 
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Quaker, Reformed 
Church in America, United Church of Christ, and 
United Methodist Church, along with several Roman 
Catholic, Jewish and Unitarian participants.
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