Jesus Would Approve This Message

I am thrilled to see a growing movement in the Christian community focused on destructive environmental policies coupled with a belief that it is the duty of Christians to protect the earth and the environment. It is the duty of everyone, but it's very nice to see some Christians directing their attention to real-world values rather than the politically-inspired causes which fall into the "family values" category.


photo: Michael Temchine for The New York Times

The old rounded peaks of the mountains encircled the ridge, dense with trees smudged red and gold. But in the middle of the peaks, several stood stripped bare and chopped up, a result of an increasingly common and controversial coal mining practice called mountaintop removal.

“Doesn’t it say in Scripture, ‘Who can weigh a mountain, measure a basket of earth?’ ” Ms. Chapman-Crane said, recalling descriptions of God’s omnipotence in Isaiah 40:12. “Well, only God can. But now, the coal companies seem to be able to do it, too.”

Ms. Chapman-Crane, her colleagues at the Mennonite Central Committee Appalachia and other Appalachian Christians are trying to halt mountaintop removal, and at the heart of their work, they say, is their faith.

[...]

“People of faith are thinking afresh about human place and purpose in the greater web of life,” Mr. Gorman said. “They are asking, What does it mean to be present in a crisis of God’s creation made by God’s children?”

They are part of an awakening among religious people to environmental issues, said Paul Gorman, executive director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, an interreligious alliance. Increasingly, religious people across denominations are organizing around local issues, like preventing a landfill, preserving wetlands and changing mining.

Keep up the good work. Check out the link to the NRPE. This is so refreshing to see.

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Crossposted at Big Brass Blog.