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July
2005
Young
Adult Ecumenical Forum, St. Louis, Mo.
The 2005 Young Adult Ecumenical Forum is a grassroots, collaborative
response to the lack of programming for young adults. We will create
space for dialogue rather than dogma, and, together, visualize the
role that justice-drive young adults can take within the church. The
event will be August 11-14 at Eden Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.
The application deadline has been extended to July 15! Assistance
may be available through the UCC. For information on how to apply
and other details, download
the PDF
September
24th, 2005 is National Public Lands Day - a celebration of the
600 million acres of public lands in America. From coast to coast,
volunteers will pitch in for a day of trail maintenance, improving
wildlife habitat, protecting cultural resources, and more. It's a
chance to witness the glory of God's lands and answer the call to
care for and restore creation while sharing in fellowship with your
congregation, study class, or youth group.
For more information, contact Christine Hoekenga at choekenga@ncccusa.org
or 202-544-2350 or visit the NCC
Lands Page
“The
Faithful Consumer” is a monthly column written by Sarah Streed,
Executive Director of the Wisconsin Interfaith Climate and Energy
Campaign. The column is for those who want to connect faith and the
environment, but in a real, practical way, not in an unworkable, idealistic
way.Read more . . .
Seeking
to widen coverage of intersections between faith and the sciences,
the Episcopal News Service has launched an online forum called "FEAST:
Faith, Environment, Action, Science, Technology." Underscoring
the importance of individual and corporate responsibility for preserving
the abundance of God's creation, the online forum will also echo the
familiar liturgical response: "Therefore, let us keep the FEAST."
The
Splendor of Creation: A Biblical Ecology (Pilgrim Press/May
2005) is the work of pioneering thinker Ellen Bernstein, founder of
Shomrei Adamah, the first Jewish environmental organization. Click
here
to find out more about this unique book that invites the reader to
take a fresh look at the Bible through the lens of ecology.
Eco-Justice
Working Group
Church
of the Brethren
Environmental
Justice Office of Presbyterian Church (USA)
Presbyterian
Washington Office
Episcopal
Ecological Network
Greek
Orthodox Church in America
Luthern
Earthkeeping Network of the Synods
Reformed
Church in America
United
Church of Christ
United
Methodist Board of Church and Society
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THE
FAITHFUL CONSUMER
…connecting faith and the environment
By Sarah
Streed
My middle son needs help with his reading. He's an A student in science
and a few other subjects, but his Language Arts grade always pulls
him down. So when I saw him reading a Rolling Stone magazine of his
older, guitarist brother, I offered to buy a subscription. This is
how I ended up reading "The End of Oil" by James Howard
Kunstler. The article is an excerpt taken from his book The Long Emergency.
Briefly, it explains that The Long Emergency is what we face now in
2005, the year of the global oil production peak. We are on the downward
side of the bell curve of oil supply-there is still oil, but it is
of inferior quality, harder to get and located in countries where
they hate us. The years of cheap oil are over.
"Most immediately we face the end of the cheap-fossil-fuel era.
It is no exaggeration to state that reliable supplies of cheap oil
and natural gas underlie everything we identify as the necessities
of modern life …"
The article was riveting, so I wrote to ask Kunstler if I could excerpt
part of his book in Ethical Energy, WICEC's
quarterly newsletter. He responded yes, and having seen the Wisconsin
address on my email, said that he was coming to speak at UW-Madison.
I then asked if I could interview him, a request that he granted.
This was how I ended up speaking personally to Mr. Kunstler and was
able to ask him some questions about his vision of the future. (For
the full interview, again, go to www.wicec.org .)
When I asked him what was the answer to the global energy predicament
we face, he talked about how we're going to have to downscale our
activities in America, living much more locally than we do now. For
example, the average food item travels 1,200 miles to get to our tables,
taking enormous amounts of cheap oil. The trucks that bring oranges
from Florida all winter and the planes that bring pineapples from
Hawaii demand a constant supply of cheap fuel.
Kunstler spoke of how living locally will change our relationships.
We will once again, like our great-grandparents, be living-and working--side
by side with neighbors, and these relationships will be much more
"complicated and meaningful" than they are now.
My curiosity was aroused by the end of the article in the Rolling
Stone that said: "The Long Emergency is going to be a tremendous
trauma for the human race. We will not believe that this is happening
to us, that 200 years of modernity can be brought to its knees by
a world-wide power shortage. The survivors will have to cultivate
a religion of hope-that is, a deep and comprehensive belief that humanity
is worth carrying on. …Years from now, when we hear singing at
all, we will hear ourselves, and we will sing with our whole hearts.
…"
I asked him if he thought of the "religion of hope" as a
spiritual thing.
He answered: "Yes. I think we live in a society that in some
ways is depraved at the most ordinary level. I think that some people
will find a pathway toward a different belief system …"
He spoke of people living and working intimately together and carving
out a new lifestyle based on things other than consumption and cheap
entertainment.
I think Kunstler's right. If you listen to the scientists, and read
behind the lines in our celebrity and trivia-driven media, you see
that our current level of consumption cannot continue. The host of
cheap plastic toys we throw at our kids, the exotic foods we eat as
daily fare, it all relies on enormous quantities of oil to either
make it or ship it.
The interesting thing was that I wasn't depressed or despairing after
reading Kunstler's work and listening to him talk. To the contrary,
I was exhilarated. I was trying to figure out why this should be so,
when it came to me: This is what faith is. Faith is facing the hard
and difficult times in life with hope rather than despair, courage
rather than discouragement.
I've always been uncomfortable with America's emphasis on buying things
as the path to happiness. (Not that I don't do my share of buying;
the Long Emergency will certainly change our family life.) But I see
Kunstler as a prophet, calling us to look ahead and strive for what
really matters. There is a future ahead for us. It will be different,
and it could include some tough things, but it will be good-I believe
that.
June's tip: Read The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler.
Sarah Streed
is the Executive Director of WICEC,
a group of people of all faiths working toward a just and sustainable
future. Go to www.wicec.org
or email sarahstreed@wicec.org.
All rights
reserved by Sarah Streed or WICEC.
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