Protecting Earth as part of faith

Naperville's St. Thomas the Apostle Church didn't have its usual Lenten mission this year.

Instead, the church is focusing this month on an EcoMission: "Growing Our Souls and Saving Our Planet." It will encourage members of the congregation to emphasize finding God's presence in nature and caring for it.

It's the kind of thinking that's becoming more common as religious denominations of all types focus on protecting the environment.

In Arlington Heights, for example, Our Saviour's Lutheran Church's float will bring up the rear of this year's July 4 parade and be loaded with bins to recycle items picked up along the route.

When the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston moved into a new synagogue in February, it was hailed as what could be the "greenest" synagogue in America.

It was built, in part, with recycled materials and includes a white roof to reflect the heat, tinted windows and more.

Rabbi Brant Rosen, who heads the congregation, says the environmental emphasis is a paradigm shift in thinking for many congregations.

"Historically, the environment has not been on the radar screen in congregational religious life," Rosen said. "Ironically, almost every religious tradition has something to say about conserving resources."

Faith In Place, a Chicago-based interfaith group that helps religious congregations promote clean energy and environmental concerns, has seen rapid growth in interest since its founding in 1999.

Initially, some congregations had to be convinced that caring for the environment was a faith issue. Now more than 600 congregations are in Faith In Place's database. They include Baha'I, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Unitarian and Zoroasterian congregations, as well as some of the more conservative Christian churches that once would have been reluctant to associate with an interfaith group, said the Rev. Claire Butterfield, executive director.

"Now they call us; we don't call them," she said. "(They say,) 'We know caring for the environment is a religious issue. What do we do?' "

Getting started

A starting point for many congregations is simply changing incandescent light bulbs with energy-saving fluorescent ones, Butterfield said. But other congregations, such as the Reconstructionists, are ready to take on bigger projects.

Support for such projects must be built into a congregation's teaching and worship services, Butterfield said.

"The whole congregation needs a commitment toward the least environmental destructive option," she said. "It's a big issue. It will not be solved simply. It will not be with just small changes of behavior, but big changes of heart."

Rosen said he shares those sentiments. More remains to be done, he said, even after his congregation built a $10 million synagogue expected to receive the platinum designation, the highest available from the U.S. Green Building Council.

People must be educated to use the building's energy-efficient features, he said. His board also is discussing issues such as how members travel to worship and the use of cleaning solvents and disposable flatware.

"A building is a finite project," he said. "Living there has no end. When you live in a building, you have to learn to live green."

Faith in action

The Reconstructionists aren't the only congregation grappling with how to put concern for the environment into action.

When the Vatican this spring updated its list of seven deadly sins to include eco-abuse and obscene consumerism, it was in line with previous teachings from Rome and from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Maribeth Meaux, a member of Joliet Diocese's Committee on the Environment.

The diocese encourages parishes to do energy audits and wants to raise awareness of issues such as global climate change, but it's not in a position to mandate action, she said.

"It's not a new issue, but it's getting new publicity," Meaux said.

Some parishes are more active than others. St. Thomas the Apostle in Naperville has a Care for God's Creation ministry that meets monthly and has set a goal to reduce its energy consumption by 10 percent over three years.

"The awareness certainly has begun to sink in," said Shari Rosales, director of adult faith formation.

St. Margaret Mary, another Naperville parish, has tried to reduce its waste and recycle within the church, and has held educational programs on the environment.

Parishioners are more open to treating environmental concerns as faith issues than they were five or six years ago, said Tom Cordaro, justice and outreach minister. But he says the congregation has a long way to go.

"We've got a lot of good intentions but not much in concrete action," he said.

Our Saviour's Lutheran Church in Arlington Heights formed a Green Team after two members of the Social Ministry Committee attended an environmental workshop a few years ago and came back inspired, said Jim Valentine, congregational operations officer.

The church has changed its light fixtures with the help of a loan from the synodical office, invited other churches to a showing of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," placed recycling bins throughout the building, incorporated environmental projects in its Sunday school and confirmation classes, and celebrated Earth Day.

Two years ago, Our Saviour's Lutheran started picking up garbage and recyclables at the July 4 parade and the crowd quickly caught on, Valentine said. Next year, it plans to team up with other churches to ask the city to include them in its recycling contract when it's renewed.

Church members also receive environmental suggestions in the monthly parish newsletter.

"It is the issue I think for the next millennium," Valentine said. "Our consumer society has got to change if we're going to survive."

Outreach projects

Many churches also see caring for the environment as a social justice issue. The Unitarian Universalist Association offers a Green Sanctuary designation to congregations that meet requirements that include outreach projects.

One church pushed for funding for an Alaskan village forced to move because of rising sea levels caused by the erosion of the permafrost. Another congregation took on the issues caused by a plant that polluted, said Katherine Jesch, of the Green Sanctuary program.

"I think this program has the potential to transform congregations and the way we see ourselves in the world," she said. "It's part of living a moral life."

Of the 1,050 Unitarian Universalist congregations in the U.S., more than 60 have been become accredited Green Sanctuary congregations and 85 are candidates, Jesch said.

One congregation awaiting accreditation is the DuPage Unitarian Universalist Church near Naperville. Both individual members and the congregation as a whole have pledged to take specific actions to carry out a more sustainable lifestyle.

The congregation also is raising funds to break ground next year on a building addition that will meet LEED standards, said the Rev. Emmy Lou Belcher, the church's pastor.

Walls and windows will be designed to let in light but reduce the sun's heat, and grass will be planted on reflective shingles on the roof.

Although Unitarians hold to no creed, Belcher said environmental concerns are in keeping with the principles they share.

"All of life is an interdependent web of existence and we're part of that," she said.

Creation economies

For some Christian churches, living a theology of creation has taken more convoluted turns.

Fred Van Dyke, director of the environmental studies program at Wheaton College, said that while the early church talked about the redemption of creation, that teaching was largely lost.

The biblical portrayal of man as sovereign over creation often was construed to emphasize man's rule over nature rather than his responsibility to care for it, he said.

During the industrial revolution, some thinkers also espoused technological and economic progress as a way to regain man's sovereignty, Van Dyke said.

Among evangelicals, concern for the environment was revived in the late 1960s and early 1970s, partly thanks to the writings of Lynn White Jr., who pointed to Judeo-Christian traditions as the historical roots of the environmental crisis, Van Dyke said.

Concern for the environment began to be taught in Christian colleges and faith-based environmental organizations were formed. Some churches also began to put more focus on ecological concerns.

"Part of it is it's a very important contemporary problem," Van Dyke said.

Not all evangelicals have climbed on the environmental bandwagon. Some theologies still emphasize the future destruction of the world rather than caring for creation, but their influence is waning, Van Dyke said.

"The care of creation is a small part of a larger umbrella ministry of reconciliation," he said.

Many Christians seem to welcome the emphasis on environment. When prominent Southern Baptist leaders signed a declaration this spring calling for people to care for creation and to be prudent regarding human responsibility for global climate change, the number of signatories quickly climbed from 46 to more than 200 and continues to grow, said Jonathan Merritt, a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., who organized the effort.

The reaction has been mostly positive, he said.

"Southern Baptists have for so long wanted a strong voice on this and they're glad somebody is speaking out," he said.

The move toward greener buildings is being supported by the architectural community, as well as by a growing number of faith communities, said David Ogoli, associate professor of architecture at Judson University in Elgin.

The evangelical school's new Harm A. Weber Academic Center, which opened last year, is expected to receive at least a gold LEED designation, the second highest from the U.S. Green Building Council.

The $25 million center cost about 10 percent more, but is designed to be 47 percent more energy-efficient. Features include more use of natural daylight and ventilation, photovoltaic panels to generate electricity and heavy use of insulation and concrete to help regulate temperature.

Ogoli said the university expects to recoup its higher construction costs within six years.

"Energy is a very important factor," he said. "Buildings in the U.S. (residential and commercial buildings, but not industrial processes) consume 39 percent of the energy. Energy is a driving force in the whole movement."

So, it turns out, caring for the environment can make good cents -- as well as good sense -- and increasingly is being viewed as a way to put stewardship of creation into action.

"It's the Christian thing to do," Ogoli said, "to be responsible for the resources God has given us."