Getting real about ecology
Political Pulpit
Object:
The lessons for the spring are rich in socio-political opportunities for preaching. As usual, you can find occasions for preaching on poverty and hunger (the first lesson for March 3 [Isaiah 55:1-9] and the gospel for March 21 [John 12:1-8]). Several texts proclaiming liberation from slavery offer great opportunities to preach on race (the first lessons for March 14 [Joshua 5:9-12] and May 16 [Acts 16:16-34]). There are opportunities to speak on women's equality and God's female Presence (the first lessons for April 25 [Acts 9:36-43] and May 30 [Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31]). Some Sundays afford you with a chance to address God's will for the unity of all people (the second lessons for April 18 [Revelation 5:11-14], April 25 [Revelation 7:9-17], and May 9 [Revelation 21:10, 22--22:5] as well as the gospels for May 16 [John 17:20-26] and May 30 [John 16:12-15]) and to stand up to the authorities when they block the will of God (first lesson for April 11 [Acts 9:36-43]).
We encourage you to explore all these possibilities, but our job is to find a common theme. What brings many of these themes together? The title tells you -- a theme so appropriate for the spring, but one that is largely getting overlooked with all the anxieties about the recession, healthcare, and war. In December, a United Nations meeting on climate change held in Copenhagen forged an international agreement of nations pledging to reduce carbon emissions, but without any teeth. As a result it will not get us out of the wilderness and may well be old news by the time you read this. But that is one of the things The Political Pulpit is for -- prophetically to address and call the flock's attention to issues that the world is forgetting. When we get practical about our ecological sensitivities, all of the preceding themes can also be addressed.
We (America and the church) have not been very practical about ecology lately.
Thanks to Al Gore, to some extent Barack Obama, and like-minded politicos, not to mention the millennium generation who has largely been converted to "green" causes, the ecological crisis had not been completely forgotten in the midst of more sensational and pocketbook agendas. The public rhetoric has of late largely been about big-picture generalities.
The war over global warming proceeds. Though you should endorse its reality if you want to be politically correct, a recent Pew Poll indicates that only 57% of the American public thinks there is solid evidence for the theory of global warming caused by our ecological insensitivity, down nearly 20% in the last three years. Besides, the media and proponents of this gloom scenario do not always advise us that the earth has experienced several periods of global warming, coming out of periodic Ice Ages in the last several million years. Higher carbon dioxide levels were involved in each warming period. I do not want to take sides on this debate at this point, to minimize our ecological wantonness. But can we reasonably expect to straighten out this debate in the pulpit?
There is some hopeful news. The US is pledging to cut carbon emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, and China began acting on this by setting limits of carbon pollution for factories and automobiles. Meanwhile, our president reminds us that ecological sensitivity will help the economy, by creating "green jobs." True enough, his support of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included more than $80 billion in clean energy investments, including $600 million in green job training and many building projects erecting more ecologically sensitive buildings. Except for our entrepreneurs in the congregation, this is data that will not be of pressing interest to our worshipers. What then can we say of ecology in our present context? From the pulpit, our ministry is to frame these issues in light of the Christian doctrine of creation and to get the word out about some issues that the public and its media overlook.
What do we need to be communicating about ecology that the public is not hearing? These overlooked issues are potentially non-partisan problems around which coalitions in our nation might be built. They can't help but matter for Christians and other people of good will. What follows is a short list that is worthy of your parishioners' attention.
First, it is time Americans stop congratulating themselves on their ecological sensitivity, stop demonizing developing nations as the new culprits. In fact, China is way ahead of us on these issues. It is investing ten times as much on clean power as the US is. It is on track to developing 150,000 jobs through deployment of wind power by 2020, nearly five times the American total. Chinese cars are one third more fuel efficient than US cars. America is not a very good global neighbor. Under lax regulation Americans have churned out more than 370 million units of electronic junk (keyboards, monitors, cell phones, and the like). And as much as 80% of American e-waste is exported, especially to impoverished nations. Get that? We all knew about the industrial pollution of our cars, trash, and factories, but computer material? And we are dumping it elsewhere! This is clearly not a practice that honors the biblical witness to human unity in the biblical texts noted above. If we are going to mandate reduction in carbon emissions as Obama has pledged, Americans will need to be ready to pay for it, either with higher prices on carbon-burning fuels or with higher taxes to discourage the use of carbon. The Sundays that are assigned are good times for this ecological message. If we all proclaimed that word, maybe we could help create an awareness among Americans that some financial sacrifices will be occasioned for the sake of our environment. Maybe we could also help form coalitions to bring some pressure on the Environmental Protection Agency and US Customs to enforce standards. And then our unity might serve the well-being of everyone on the globe. The Lenten season is a great time for us to proclaim and confess our American sin.
Other pollutants needing attention: As we preach lessening our dependence on oil, many advocate nuclear power, but what of nuclear waste and what it can do to our environment? We already have 60,000 metric tons of the stuff we need to store and keep out of the environment for the next tens of thousands of years and still don't have a solution regarding where to put it. Let's pressure those opting for nuclear power to find a solution before we make more.
Let us also not forget that burned coal (especially when used to coal-fired power plants to meet our energy needs) produces ash. Many have heard of the dangers of coal ash storage spills in Tennessee, creating poisonous sludge that buried a town and contaminated rivers and streams. Only recently has it become known that there are 154 other storage sites, 44 of them hazardous, and most of those are located in or near impoverished communities.
Get this word out to your parishioners. When? Not just on the Sundays when the Word witnesses to human unity. Especially consider again the second lesson for April
18 (Revelation 5:11-14) when the text refers to all creatures (all living things praising God). That is what creation is intended by God to do -- the ultimate ecological vision that we regularly pollute. Creation does not sing, as we continue our selfish, polluting ways and let Congress tie the hands of Environmental Protection Agency in response to big-money utility company contributions to their re-elections. We have a lot better chance to gain a unified following if we highlight these issues than preaching on the more ideological, disputed questions of global warming and green jobs. Get real: Our political proclamation is likely to make more of an impact if we attend to these more practical concerns.
My reference to the storage of coal ash near impoverished communities brings us to the issue of environmental racism. The texts noted above in the first paragraph pertaining to racism also provide excellent opportunities for you and me to call parishioners' attention to the fact people of color make up the majority of those living in neighborhoods located within 1.8 miles of the nation's hazardous waste facilities.
An Associated Press study in 2005 found that African Americans are 79% more likely to live in such neighborhoods than whites are. Hispanics are also more likely to live in such neighborhoods than whites. The latest study by University of Colorado Professor Liam Downey has revealed that this ecological inequality is not necessarily a function of economic inequality, a finding that is even more insidious (see www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070709133240). Let us keep in mind that some of the pollution in predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods is a function of factors not usually on our radar screens -- that we build our superhighways and refineries near or through such neighborhoods. Call it zoning, not just the doing of business, that causes such pollution. Can we help mount interest groups to stop that from happening in each of our regions next time, at least sensitize our congregations to these problems? It would be a way of making the ecological concern real. Instead of just preaching values, urging that our congregants become "greener" (and we have a lot to do on that score as the American public polls are lower on the importance of ecology that the citizens of Western European nations as well as their counterparts in China an India), we can only get practical about ecology by pressuring government to do the right thing.
When can we preach these messages? Note again this column's first paragraph and the references to texts pertaining to slavery and poverty. The texts on the unity God wants are also timely for this message. But let's not forget that Easter and the Easter
Season also invite a consideration of the ecological theme. For it is a message of the goodness of the physical creation that God cares so much for the things of the physical world that he has worked his Easter miracle through it (earthly bodies) and vowed to give eternal life to the physical. Easter certainly does belong in the spring. Keep these themes in mind when you preach on April 4 and the next five Sundays. When you make ecology practical and real, you can have a lot to say about it in the pulpit in the upcoming months.
Mark Ellingsen is a professor on the faculty of the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta and the author of hundreds of articles and fourteen books, most recently "Sin Bravely: A Joyful Alternative to a Purpose-Driven Life" (Continuum).
We encourage you to explore all these possibilities, but our job is to find a common theme. What brings many of these themes together? The title tells you -- a theme so appropriate for the spring, but one that is largely getting overlooked with all the anxieties about the recession, healthcare, and war. In December, a United Nations meeting on climate change held in Copenhagen forged an international agreement of nations pledging to reduce carbon emissions, but without any teeth. As a result it will not get us out of the wilderness and may well be old news by the time you read this. But that is one of the things The Political Pulpit is for -- prophetically to address and call the flock's attention to issues that the world is forgetting. When we get practical about our ecological sensitivities, all of the preceding themes can also be addressed.
We (America and the church) have not been very practical about ecology lately.
Thanks to Al Gore, to some extent Barack Obama, and like-minded politicos, not to mention the millennium generation who has largely been converted to "green" causes, the ecological crisis had not been completely forgotten in the midst of more sensational and pocketbook agendas. The public rhetoric has of late largely been about big-picture generalities.
The war over global warming proceeds. Though you should endorse its reality if you want to be politically correct, a recent Pew Poll indicates that only 57% of the American public thinks there is solid evidence for the theory of global warming caused by our ecological insensitivity, down nearly 20% in the last three years. Besides, the media and proponents of this gloom scenario do not always advise us that the earth has experienced several periods of global warming, coming out of periodic Ice Ages in the last several million years. Higher carbon dioxide levels were involved in each warming period. I do not want to take sides on this debate at this point, to minimize our ecological wantonness. But can we reasonably expect to straighten out this debate in the pulpit?
There is some hopeful news. The US is pledging to cut carbon emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, and China began acting on this by setting limits of carbon pollution for factories and automobiles. Meanwhile, our president reminds us that ecological sensitivity will help the economy, by creating "green jobs." True enough, his support of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included more than $80 billion in clean energy investments, including $600 million in green job training and many building projects erecting more ecologically sensitive buildings. Except for our entrepreneurs in the congregation, this is data that will not be of pressing interest to our worshipers. What then can we say of ecology in our present context? From the pulpit, our ministry is to frame these issues in light of the Christian doctrine of creation and to get the word out about some issues that the public and its media overlook.
What do we need to be communicating about ecology that the public is not hearing? These overlooked issues are potentially non-partisan problems around which coalitions in our nation might be built. They can't help but matter for Christians and other people of good will. What follows is a short list that is worthy of your parishioners' attention.
First, it is time Americans stop congratulating themselves on their ecological sensitivity, stop demonizing developing nations as the new culprits. In fact, China is way ahead of us on these issues. It is investing ten times as much on clean power as the US is. It is on track to developing 150,000 jobs through deployment of wind power by 2020, nearly five times the American total. Chinese cars are one third more fuel efficient than US cars. America is not a very good global neighbor. Under lax regulation Americans have churned out more than 370 million units of electronic junk (keyboards, monitors, cell phones, and the like). And as much as 80% of American e-waste is exported, especially to impoverished nations. Get that? We all knew about the industrial pollution of our cars, trash, and factories, but computer material? And we are dumping it elsewhere! This is clearly not a practice that honors the biblical witness to human unity in the biblical texts noted above. If we are going to mandate reduction in carbon emissions as Obama has pledged, Americans will need to be ready to pay for it, either with higher prices on carbon-burning fuels or with higher taxes to discourage the use of carbon. The Sundays that are assigned are good times for this ecological message. If we all proclaimed that word, maybe we could help create an awareness among Americans that some financial sacrifices will be occasioned for the sake of our environment. Maybe we could also help form coalitions to bring some pressure on the Environmental Protection Agency and US Customs to enforce standards. And then our unity might serve the well-being of everyone on the globe. The Lenten season is a great time for us to proclaim and confess our American sin.
Other pollutants needing attention: As we preach lessening our dependence on oil, many advocate nuclear power, but what of nuclear waste and what it can do to our environment? We already have 60,000 metric tons of the stuff we need to store and keep out of the environment for the next tens of thousands of years and still don't have a solution regarding where to put it. Let's pressure those opting for nuclear power to find a solution before we make more.
Let us also not forget that burned coal (especially when used to coal-fired power plants to meet our energy needs) produces ash. Many have heard of the dangers of coal ash storage spills in Tennessee, creating poisonous sludge that buried a town and contaminated rivers and streams. Only recently has it become known that there are 154 other storage sites, 44 of them hazardous, and most of those are located in or near impoverished communities.
Get this word out to your parishioners. When? Not just on the Sundays when the Word witnesses to human unity. Especially consider again the second lesson for April
18 (Revelation 5:11-14) when the text refers to all creatures (all living things praising God). That is what creation is intended by God to do -- the ultimate ecological vision that we regularly pollute. Creation does not sing, as we continue our selfish, polluting ways and let Congress tie the hands of Environmental Protection Agency in response to big-money utility company contributions to their re-elections. We have a lot better chance to gain a unified following if we highlight these issues than preaching on the more ideological, disputed questions of global warming and green jobs. Get real: Our political proclamation is likely to make more of an impact if we attend to these more practical concerns.
My reference to the storage of coal ash near impoverished communities brings us to the issue of environmental racism. The texts noted above in the first paragraph pertaining to racism also provide excellent opportunities for you and me to call parishioners' attention to the fact people of color make up the majority of those living in neighborhoods located within 1.8 miles of the nation's hazardous waste facilities.
An Associated Press study in 2005 found that African Americans are 79% more likely to live in such neighborhoods than whites are. Hispanics are also more likely to live in such neighborhoods than whites. The latest study by University of Colorado Professor Liam Downey has revealed that this ecological inequality is not necessarily a function of economic inequality, a finding that is even more insidious (see www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070709133240). Let us keep in mind that some of the pollution in predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods is a function of factors not usually on our radar screens -- that we build our superhighways and refineries near or through such neighborhoods. Call it zoning, not just the doing of business, that causes such pollution. Can we help mount interest groups to stop that from happening in each of our regions next time, at least sensitize our congregations to these problems? It would be a way of making the ecological concern real. Instead of just preaching values, urging that our congregants become "greener" (and we have a lot to do on that score as the American public polls are lower on the importance of ecology that the citizens of Western European nations as well as their counterparts in China an India), we can only get practical about ecology by pressuring government to do the right thing.
When can we preach these messages? Note again this column's first paragraph and the references to texts pertaining to slavery and poverty. The texts on the unity God wants are also timely for this message. But let's not forget that Easter and the Easter
Season also invite a consideration of the ecological theme. For it is a message of the goodness of the physical creation that God cares so much for the things of the physical world that he has worked his Easter miracle through it (earthly bodies) and vowed to give eternal life to the physical. Easter certainly does belong in the spring. Keep these themes in mind when you preach on April 4 and the next five Sundays. When you make ecology practical and real, you can have a lot to say about it in the pulpit in the upcoming months.
Mark Ellingsen is a professor on the faculty of the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta and the author of hundreds of articles and fourteen books, most recently "Sin Bravely: A Joyful Alternative to a Purpose-Driven Life" (Continuum).
