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ELCA NEWS SERVICE

May 20, 1999

LUTHERANS JOIN ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE CONFERENCE
99-137-FI

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The church's place in the struggle for
environmental justice in the United States was the topic of "Christ is
in our Midst!" -- an ecumenical conference sponsored by the National
Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. (NCC).  About 30 members of
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) were among 300 people
from 20 church bodies here May 13-16.
     The conference included presentations on current environmental
issues, theological and biblical reflections and worship from various
traditions.  It also included a tour of polluted areas in Chicago.  The
NCC's Eco-Justice Working Group sponsored the conference.
     Dr. Job S. Ebenezer, ELCA director for environmental stewardship
and hunger education, Chicago, serves as co-chair of the working group.
He said a main focus of the conference was to do together what
individual churches could not do on their own.
     "We are able to bring together all kinds of ideas," said Ebenezer.
"We are able to look at a diverse and rich theology of creation."
     A conference including many churches is more affordable, Ebenezer
said.  "If one denomination wanted to do all these things, it would pay
three of four times what we each paid."
     "When you go out two by two it's nice to know there are 50 behind
you," said Wendy Schlueter, a member of Revelation Lutheran Church,
Detroit.  "There's so much that can be done for the environment,
especially in an urban setting."
     Participants took bus tours of waste management facilities and
toxic waste sites in the Chicago area.  "We were able to listen to those
who are struggling with environmental degradation," said Ebenezer, "and
how the poor are targeted to live next to them.  The dumps were put next
to their homes, because it was thought there would not be any
objection."
     It's important to let the poor know the church stands with them,
said Ebenezer.  The church must raise objections, he said.
     Lutherans at the conference met with Ebenezer to discuss how ELCA
congregations can address environmental justice.  The meetings provided
opportunities for Lutherans with similar interests to meet and learn
what other congregations are doing and what other talents are available
in their denomination, he said.
     Urban gardening, or community-supported agriculture, was one
concept with which ELCA members identified, said Ebenezer.  Another was
Energy Star Congregations.
     "We have a garden in the back of our church," said Loretta Curtis-Cook, 
Genesis Lutheran Church, Detroit.  "We are gardening in pools and containers."  
She is a 4-H program associate for Michigan State University's Cooperative 
Extension Service.
     "The city tore down several homes because they were dilapidated,
so we are gardening on the lots," said Curtis-Cook.
     After heavy storms destroyed trees in the area, "we planted 50
trees around the church and three adjoining streets," she said.
     Energy Star Congregations is an NCC program supported by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.  Ebenezer is the program's principal
investigator.  As a matter of Christian stewardship, congregations
evaluate their energy use and make changes to reduce consumption.
     Augustana Lutheran Church in Chicago is saving $1,200 a year after
changing its electricity use in lighting around its church building.
The ELCA's Metropolitan Chicago Synod established a revolving loan fund
so other churches can do the same.
     "If 2,000 congregations made similar renovations it would save
$2.4 million that could be used for mission," said Ebenezer.
     The Energy Star Congregations program is in its pilot stage, said
Ebenezer.  In one year he hopes 1,000 congregations of NCC member
churches will conduct energy audits.  He is also working with ELCA
schools, agencies and institutions to reduce energy use by 25 percent.
     ELCA participants heard reports on the Lutheran Earthkeeping
Network of the Synods -- a loose network of the committees, task forces
and working groups dealing with environmental concerns in the church's
65 synods.  The network is featured on the
Web of Creation (http://www.webofcreation.org/) supported by the
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
     Ebenezer led a workshop on the life of George Washington Carver
(1864-1943) -- a Christian, African American scientist who cultivated
methods of restoring soil fertility.  Carver showed the poor of the
southern United States how many innovative uses for the peanut could
create a vigorous alternative to cotton crops.
     As a young "untouchable" in India, Ebenezer read a simple book
about Carver's work.  That inspired him to earn a doctorate in
engineering and use it to "help the person farthest down."  He urged the
participants to teach children, especially African American youth, about
Carver through a simple book, "Fruits of Creation."
     Ebenezer described four "simple technologies" that he developed
and taught around the world.  He has established urban gardens in
plastic wading pools, old car tires and plastic sacks to support church
hunger programs and food pantries.  Common bicycles have been converted
into alternatives to gas or electric engines and are still used as
transportation.  To build strong, low-cost housing, mud and grass
augment bricks and concrete in building walls, using methods similar to
those used while building the Great Wall of China.  Three 55-gallon
drums are used to farm trout in inner-city basements.
     "This is not a hobby," Ebenezer said.  "These tiny seeds grow into
such things.  How can anyone say there is no God?"
     Christians talk about "living water" and use many images of water
to describe the work of God in the world, Chris Walvoord, associate for
environmental issues, Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs (LOGA),
Washington, D.C., told a workshop on the Clean Air Act.  "All life
depends on water," he said.
     Wetlands are an essential part of creation, said Walvoord.  They
clean the drinking water, help filter pollution out of the waterways,
protect communities from floods, and sustain fish and wildlife, he said.
     Walvoord said Congress is considering the Wetlands Mitigation
Banking bill -- or  the American Wetlands Restoration Act of 1999.  He
said the bill will let developers destroy a wetlands as long as they
build a new wetlands somewhere else.
     There is no way to test whether a wetlands can be effectively
relocated, Walvoord said.  "Maybe it's better for the wetlands to be
where it is."
     Walvoord led seminar participants in developing strategies to get
congregations more involved in contacting their members of Congress on
environmental issues.
     "Churches are faith communities before they are communities of
moral deliberation," said the Rev. Richard O. Blomker, Lake Edge
Lutheran Church, Madison, Wis.  Look at the environment as a faith
issue, he said, before looking at the ethical issues involved.
     "We have some real lifestyle issues.  It's not just 'them,'" said
Blomker.
     The Rev. Barbara Rossing, assistant professor of New Testament,
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, provided a "theological anchor"
for the conference.  Looking primarily at the Revelation to John, the
last book of the Christian Bible, Rossing said the church's ecological
vision praises God, and it is political and hopeful.
     Revelation is a book of hymns, said Rossing.  "The imagery of
creation is very powerful in these hymns," she said.  The hymns praise
the creating power of God.
     "The Bible is a hard-hitting critique of evil economic systems,"
said Rossing.  John's revelation cried out against the ecological
devastation as Rome conquered the world.  "We have to be politically
savvy" to name the injustices of our day, she said.
     "If we are going to critique an unjust economic system, we have to
offer an alternative," Rossing said.  That alternative is described in
the Bible as "the new Jerusalem" -- a beautiful urban world with a river
that "gives life to everything it touches," she said.
     The Rev. Vitor Westhelle, associate professor of systematic
theology, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, preached during the
conference's closing worship service.  "Sin contaminates souls and
rivers," he said, "poisoning the heart as much as the soil."
     "Now the problem is recognizing the dignity of creation, including
that of human beings," said Westhelle.  "Consider the homeless ... and
know that Christ is there."
     Conference participants represented 20 church bodies:  African
Methodist Episcopal Church, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church,
American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A., Antiochian Orthodox Christian
Diocese of North America, Armenian Apostolic Church, Christian Church
(Disciples), Christian Methodist Episcopal, Church of the Brethren,
ELCA, Episcopal Church, Friends, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and
South America, Mennonite Church, Orthodox Church in America,
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reformed Church in America, Reorganized
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Roman Catholic Church,
United Church of Canada, United Church of Christ and United Methodist
Church.
     The ELCA is one of 35 Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican member
churches of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
The NCC's members include 52 million Christians in the United States;
5.2 million are in the ELCA.

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