Personal responsibility, individual action and collective action were repeated messages from presenters at “For the Least of These, Our Brethren: Faith, Justice, and the Environment” at Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church, hosted by the Green Faith Alliance of Central Arkansas, May 2. Rev. Victor H. Nixon welcomed 118 clergy and lay people from Arkansas and Texas.
Dr. Courtney Hatch from Hendrix College opened the conference with an explanation of how temperature measurements over the past 1,000 years indicate that hot gases trapped in the earth’s atmosphere are causing overall global warming.
“It is like a car parked in the sun,” Hatch told the group of Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Episcopalians and representatives of other houses of worship and organizations. “The sun comes in the window panes of glass, but hot gases can’t go out the sealed windows. The inside becomes much hotter quickly.”
Hatch further explained that since the earth is 75% water, the planet has a high capacity to absorb large amounts of heat with little temperature changes overall. However, sea life suffers. Eventually melting ice, rising sea levels, stronger storms, longer droughts and higher heat waves affect all of life.
“There is no scientific doubt,” Hatch said. “The temperature is going up, and we are causing it. We CAN afford to do something about it, and we must. Acting boldly is a matter of faith and justice.”
Dr. J. Matthew Sleeth, author of “Serve God, Save the Planet” and executive director of Blessed Earth, flunked out of high school and swore off religion as a youth. He went to vocational school and became a carpenter. He later married a Jew, graduated from college, went to medical school, practiced surgery and became a member of the major faith in the United States – “getting ahead.”
His family lived on the coast of Maine. L.L. Bean shot photographs for its catalog in front of his picturesque home. Life was good, but it was about to change.
“The world is dying,” he answered when his wife asked him to define the world’s biggest problem, while on a beach vacation with their two children. “There are no chestnuts on Chestnut Lane, no elms on Elm Street, no caribou in Caribou, Maine, and no buffalo in Buffalo, New York. When I started in medicine, one in 19 women in America got breast cancer. Now it is one in seven.
“At the time, we lived in a solar house; we recycled. We did the carbon footprint thing to determine our impact on the planet. We were average… not good compared to the world, but OK compared to our neighbors.”
Sleeth read all the sacred texts of the world, looking for answers to complicated questions .
“We had a library in our house,” Sleeth continued, “but we didn’t have a Bible.”
He picked up a Bible planted at the hospital by the Gideons, and was “controlled” by the theology of Matthew 7:1 – Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.
After considering the 2 by 4 in his own eye compared to the speck in another’s, he and his family moved to a house the size of their former garage, started going to church, and were accused of practicing a “tree-hugger theology.”
“I started underlining everything in the Bible about creation – trees, limbs, leaves, bushes… everywhere these things come up, something important is happening. The first page of the Bible has a tree. The first Psalm includes a tree. The last picture presented in Revelation is a huge tree of life. Jesus died on a tree.
“Jesus preaches on field trips,” Sleeth continued. “Important lessons are learned from stories that occur in the great outdoors. But indoors is a mixed bag.
“My own church wouldn’t let me in the pulpit at first,” Sleeth said about the beginning of his preaching on the environment. “My first speaking engagement was at a gay and lesbian synagogue. My second was at a Unitarian Universalist church. But things are changing. Mainstream denominations and evangelicals are joining the movement.”
Sleeth said he is often accused of preaching to the choir, but the people in the pulpit need to do it. “They already have the robes, and they know the songs,” he said.
Rabbi Larry Troster, director of the Fellowship Program for Green Faith, reminded the group that religious voices are stronger when together.
“Our moral systems are inadequate to deal with the power we now have because of modern technology that has progressed since the beginning of the industrial revolution,” Troster said. “Scientists and environmentalists are good at predicting disasters, but not so good on hope. We need to lift our traditions and worldwide voices on healing and hope for the planet. We can drive this message in a way scientists and environmentalists have not done.
“All of life is in an ark,” Troster continued. “One animal cannot start drilling a hole. All are at stake. The sins of one affect all.”
Troster said we need to start asking ourselves questions about where everything comes from and where it goes. He tries to add one new lifestyle change every day that will affect climate change and the future of humanity. He said he realizes that he will not finish the work but that he has to participate in the work so that future generations will not perish on the wasteland of what was creation.
“This is not just about upper class white people who want to save polar bears. It is about saving people.”
The conference offered 14 breakout sessions and lunch from local farmers from the Argenta Market. Green Bibles were given to all presenters.
The day ended with a presentation by Bill Bradlee, a representative of Interfaith Power and Light. With chapters in many states, IPL works on two issues: 1) global warming; 2) energy.
“Our society is energy inefficient,” Bradlee said. “We can improve. It is a moral issue. It has to be me. I can’t expect the person next to me to do it.
“This is not about changing light bulbs. It is about changing people who will change light bulbs.”
Rabbi Eugene Levy from Little Rock closed the conference with a benediction.