wfn.org | NCCCUSA Environmental Justice Conference

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Contact: Wendy McDowell, NCC News, 212-870-2227
Email: news@ncccusa.org  Web:  www.ncccusa.org

74NCC6/23/99

ECUMENICAL ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE CONFERENCE "RECYCLES SOULS"

 The smell of garbage mingled with the scent of incense during 
an ancient Armenian Orthodox blessing service - held at a Southside 
Chicago landfill.  The ceremony was part of an ecumenical 
environmental justice conference sponsored by the National Council 
of Churches.

On many levels, the juxtaposition of the two smells 
illustrated the May 13-16 conference theme, "Christ Is In Our Midst: 
Environmental Ministries in the Church in the 21st Century."  More 
than 270 church leaders and laypeople from throughout the country 
attended.  Most of them carry responsibility for environmental 
justice ministries in their churches and communions.

The garbage and incense revealed the intentionality of holding 
the conference in an urban area, where people in poor neighborhoods 
are impacted by contamination.  It also illustrated the growing 
awareness in the church about environmental issues.  Finally, it 
exemplified the tone of the conference, which emphasized worship and 
appreciation of God's creation while simultaneously criticizing 
practices that harm creation.

 "Holding the `Blessing of the Fields' service on a landfill 
culminated three days spent in worship, workshops, presentations and 
tours of local contamination sites, all of which showed that caring 
for creation is a religious issue," said the Rev. Richard Killmer, 
Environmental Justice Director for the National Council of Churches 
(NCC).  "It also signified our religious solidarity with people all 
over the world who have to live near toxic sites."  The NCC's Eco-
Justice Working Group sponsored the conference.

 "To hear the gospel read and then for us to touch our crosses 
to the ground out there at the landfill was inspiring," said Father 
Haroutiun Dagley of Grayslake, Ill., one of the Armenian Orthodox 
priests who led the service.  "In conjunction with the theme of the 
conference, which is about paying attention to creation, it seemed 
to make sense to do this service which asks for divine favor and 
healing on the four corners of the world.  So we were asking for 
blessing and also doing our part by attending the conference.  The 
blessing and the conference seem to me to represent fulfillment of 
the first and second commandments (to love God and neighbor)."

The blessing service was held at the Land and Lakes Landfill on the 
Southeast Side of Chicago.  Earlier, conference participants toured 
several sites in the city, including the "toxic donut" - an area of 
landfills, toxic chemical factories, steel mills and sewage 
treatment plants that surround a public housing project called 
Altgeld Gardens.

 "The tour was both disturbing and promising," said the Rev. 
Andrew Whitted, an African Methodist Episcopal Zion pastor from 
Salisbury, N.C. and a member of the NCC's Eco-Justice Working Group.  
"On the one hand, we saw the many different kinds of contamination 
and the people who live next to it.  But we also saw people in the 
area who are definitely in the know and have the tenacity to see the 
struggle through."

 This sense of hope and struggle among discouraging 
circumstances infused the event.  Presenters told stories of 
neighborhoods throughout the world where the health of people and 
wildlife is being threatened while the preachers at the conference 
brought participants to their feet with prophetic sermons.

For example, on the Friday of the conference, Robert Knox, 
Director of Environmental Justice for the Environmental Protection 
Agency, told a chilling story of a neighborhood in Los Angeles where 
a disproportionately high number of children had become sick with 
cancer, many dying from their disease.  When he visited, he found 
that the school the children attended was next to a chemical 
facility.  There were people cleaning up outside the plant covered 
by full body suits.  Meanwhile, there was only a chain-linked fence 
separating the plant from the school, and the children were playing 
outside completely exposed.

Conferees on Friday also heard Father John Chryssavgis of 
Brookline, Mass., draw on theology from his Greek Orthodox tradition 
to show how "the world is like our body" and "the cosmic tree is 
also the tree of the cross."  And that evening, the Rt. Rev. Steven 
Charleston empowered and roused attendees by telling them they have 
been consecrated by God to do environmental justice work.

People who have been engaged in environmental justice work in 
the church for years expressed excitement that finally, momentum 
seems to be building.  "I've been doing this ministry in various 
forms for over 10 years, but I am seeing a real progression now, 
with many new people getting involved and a theological maturity," 
said Jennifer Holmes, a Restoring Creation Enabler for the 
Presbytery of the Cascades in Oregon.

"With each successive gathering, there are more creative ideas 
and increased grassroots networking," said Jim Schwab, a layperson 
with Augustana Lutheran Church in Chicago who has been actively 
involved in the Lutheran Earthkeeping Network of the Synods (LENS).  
LENS was initiated at the first NCC Eco-Justice Working Group 
summit, held in Estes Park, Colo., two years ago.  "Before, it 
seemed to be people working in isolated pockets, but increasingly 
the work is more coordinated, for instance in the global warming 
campaigns being formed regionally," said the Rev. Sharon Delgado, 
Pastor of First United Methodist Church in Santa Cruz, Calif.

Participants also commented on the greater denominational and racial 
diversity in this conference, due especially to greater 
participation of Orthodox and historic Black church representatives.  
"The denominational diversity in leadership and worship was 
striking," Ms. Holmes  said.  "This conference made it so much more 
clear just how faith-based this work is, but also revealed there are 
as many takes on what environmental justice means as there are 
people here," said Susan Youmans, an Episcopal lay environmental 
justice leader from Winchester, Mass.

 Father Dagley and Rev. Whitted commented that the theological 
and biblical reflections were extremely helpful and will help deepen 
the commitment of people from their denominations for environmental 
justice work.  "Dr. Barbara Rossing's work on the book of 
Revelation, talking about the trees of Lebanon crying out themselves 
for justice, was helpful," said Rev. Whitted.  "In my tradition, you 
need to offer something related to the Bible."  Rev. Whitted said he 
talked to Father Chris Bender, a Greek Orthodox priest from 
Morgantown, W.Va., and they realized their denominations are in a 
similar place in relation to this issue.  "It's new for us and new 
for them," Rev. Whitted said.

 Presenters and attendees alike also stressed that bridges need 
to continue being built between environmentalists and activists in 
poor neighborhoods, or as Paz Artaza-Regan, a United Methodist from 
Washington, D.C., characterized the groups "in the environmental 
hierarchy: stargazers, tree huggers and bird kissers, fishers and 
hunters, and rats and roaches."  She commented that the religious 
community needs to work hard so that "human justice and 
environmental sustainability are not pitted against one another."

 The conference itself mitigated against any kind of divisive 
approach to environmental issues.  As Rev. Delgado commented, "I was 
struck in the tour by how both the poor and wildlife have been edged 
into the area covered with landfills and other toxic sites.  This 
reveals so clearly how the same systemic problems that create the 
destruction of land and wildlife also create oppression and 
injustice.  This conference helps each of us to make the connections 
between trees and environmental racism, to see that there is more 
going on than our own particular passion."

 Presenters said perhaps the most important function of the 
conference is to recharge them and to make them feel less alone as 
they struggle locally on a wide range of issues from environmental 
health to deforestation.  "I appreciated Rev. Charleston's use of 
the story about how the disciples were sent out two by two, the 
reason being that they needed somebody for support," said Mr. 
Schwab.  "Many churches are stuck in mental perceptual ruts around 
these issues, but this conference gives many of us a rare chance to 
network and to get creative about finding new ways to get the 
message out."

 The purpose and accomplishment of the conference was perhaps 
best summed up by Marion Burns, a longtime activist in Chicago who, 
along with Hazel Johnson, is responsible for organizing local 
neighborhoods around the major environmental issues in the area.  
"In order to be an environmentalist, you must recycle your soul," 
she told the group.  Participants concurred that gathering to 
worship, share ideas and resources and hear new perspectives, 
recycles their souls.

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