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disconnected faith?

disconnected faith?

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Cool Congregations logoIn a couple of weeks, our congregation will be hosting a “Cool Congregations” workshop, intended to promote an informed and committed response by people of faith to the serious environmental threat posed by global warming. We sent out a mailing describing the event to churches of every denomination in the metropolitan area and to all the UCC churches in northeast Iowa.

This week I have been making follow-up calls to a selected list of churches that had received the mailing — I had the A’s and B’s and C’s!

I have been surprised — and disheartened — by the palpable disconnect between many of these faith communities and any sense of responsibility for the health of the planet. Maybe it’s because the issue of global warming has become so politicized, though it is most difficult for me to see how this is in any way a partisan issue. Or maybe it’s because churches believe that even talking about global warming means being co-opted by some broader “liberal” agenda.

That is what I find disheartening, and disturbing. Who better should care about this earth than those who believe God made it? Who better should be eager to do all we can to keep it beautiful and pristine and life-sustaining than those who believe God made it good and left us in charge of keeping it good? What is the value of a faith that serves only to prepare us for “another life” and largely neglects this one? Where is the integrity in a faith waits longingly for a “new world” while letting this one “go to hell?”

Life is God’s gift to us, a most precious gift indeed. And we honor God best by taking good care of that gift … in its entirety! Not just taking care of souls, but bodies too! Not just honoring the Word, but the Word made flesh! Not just valuing the Spirit, but all that the Spirit brings to life, all that the Spirit brought to life when it moved over the waters at the dawn of creation!

putting the wolf in danger

putting the wolf in danger

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Gray wolfThe gray wolf has just been de-listed from the Endangered Species list in three states: Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. All three states are already making plans to authorize wolf kills.

It’s a bad idea, turning back the clock on the successful recovery of wolf populations and the restoration of better-balanced ecosystems. Wolves are, at worst, a minor nuisance, destroying a few livestock each year. They are, at best, a critical contributor to the health and diversity of the ecosystems of which they are a part, and, for us, a reminder of a wild and free — and even dangerous — world that is not completely under our thumb.

And that is a good thing! We need to remember that we share this earth with other living things, that we serve God well by serving all creation well, not by tampering with it and taming it and culling it for our own convenience! The wolf is a beautiful and valuable part of God’s creation and deserves better treatment from us.

What follows is an excerpt of a NRDC (National Resources Defense Council) discussion of the de-listing of the gray wolf. You can read the whole report here.

The Bush Administration’s proposal gives the states a free pass to kill hundreds of gray wolves, just when wolves are making good progress toward recovery. And another loophole would make it possible for states to kill wolves even while they are on the endangered species list: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has also proposed to revise section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act, known as the “killing rule,” which would allow the states to eliminate wolves if they are “a major cause” of numerical or distributional changes in elk herds. The fact that drought, shrinking habitat, other predators, and human hunting have been found to be the primary causes of elk herd changes becomes irrelevant under this new rule. In effect, wolves can be exterminated for doing what they are supposed to do—maintain a healthy ecosystem by preying on elk.

The federal government has failed to apply sound science to protect wolf populations. For the past five years, the federal government has been aggressively killing wolves, without solving the underlying conflicts with livestock that are prompting the slaughter of numerous wolf packs. After delisting, even more wolves will be killed. Although independent biologists agree that 2,000 to 3,000 wolves are needed in the Northern Rockies for a healthy, viable wolf population, the Bush Administration’s plan could reduce the number of wolves to as low as just 100 in each state.

For another take on the political motivation for the de-listing “as the settling of an old score,” see Jim Doherty’s article in the Washington Post, Wolves Are Back. Humans Are Howling. in the Washington Post.