ELCA and Environment

The 1993 ELCA Social Statement on the Environment carries the optimistic title, “Caring for Creation:  Vision, Hope, and Justice” [http://www.elca.org/~Media/Files/What We Believe/Social-Issues/environment/Environment.pdf].  I can’t argue with optimism on environmental matters because, let’s face it, at this point hope is pretty much all we’ve got. 

The statement begins by asserting that care for the earth is a profoundly spiritual matter.  While I buy that, I’m compelled to say that, these days, care for the earth also is a profoundly practical matter—one of life and death.  When I was introduced to the environmental movement back in the late 1960s, I came to understand that the situation already was dire.  The observance of the first Earth Day was only a culmination of several decades of rising awareness, punctuated by certain books and experts whose voices rose above the din—most notably, Rachel Carson. 

Given all of this, a review of the 1993 ELCA statement in 2010 leads me naturally to ask, “How far have we come?”  My own congregation has just joined the “Congregations Caring for Creation” network, and is struggling to catch the attention of congregants even on such simple matters as recycling and energy conservation.  Looking around me, I see little progress on moving away from fossil fuels, agricultural chemicals, industrial waste, and household pollution of myriad kinds.  Although being “green” has moved from the fringe to the mainstream, it remains something of a fad, popular among households who have the education, the awareness,  and the means to live more “green.”  So, in a way, issues of environmental racism, classicism, and justice have a new dimension – who can participate in a healthier, more earth-friendly life?

Back to ELCA, 1993:  I give credit to my churchwide body for calling out our abuse of the earth as sin—that is, as part of “humanity’s separation from God and from the rest of creation.”  The statement is meant as a call to action, both for the sake of getting back in line with God’s purposes and for the sake of justice.  God called God’s creation “good”; we sin when we despoil God’s creation.  We are called to care for it as God does, to serve and keep it as God’s garden.  The call is urgent, and recognizes both how much nature has been disrupted by our action and inaction, and how unevenly distributed are the consequences of that disruption.  Thus, the call for justice—to act interdependently and in solidarity with creation. 

The framing of the statement makes me wonder about the possibilities of achieving its goals.  We are called to stand in solidarity with creation, while we cannot even stand in solidarity with our human kin.  So I wonder.  This statement seems very much bounded by the culture of our church—understandably—but that boundedness means that it calls us only to that which we will be comfortable achieving within our existing church culture.  We are to tithe environmentally.  Doable.  We are to emphasize creation throughout the church year.  Ok.  We are to educate and communicate, have programs, clean up our own individual practices, and advocate with the government.  No problem.

And then there’s clause D, under “Commitments of Our Church,” what we will do “As a community of moral deliberation.”  “Model the principles of participation, bringing together parties in conflict...”.   What evidence can we point to that our church has developed this capacity?  Even our church’s internal “parties in conflict” do not come together.  Are we equipped to engage the “other” in the environmental struggle—those who are positioned within forces of postcolonialism, globalization, racism, sexism, and all of the other dynamics that support and promote the destruction of the planet? 

The statement ends well, by addressing my underlying pessimism.  “The prospect of doing too little too late leads many people to despair. But as people of faith, captives of hope, and vehicles of God's promise, we face the crisis….We claim the promise of "a new heaven and a new earth" (Rev 21:1).  Indeed, we trust in God and in God’s promise, and that God is present and active in creation, so that we are merely helpers, instruments of God’s work.  But we have been given free will, and the capacity to be destructive in creation, as we have amply demonstrated throughout human history. 

So, what is it that should give us hope in this age of looming environmental darkness?  On that question, the statement delivers in a timeless way.  Whatever potential humans have for destroying creation, God’s potential for constantly renewing it is greater.  Whatever indifference or exploitative impulses humans have, God’s purposes are greater.  We have the clear and incontrovertible Word of God in the Bible, that the Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, and that God will not abandon what God has created.  So hang onto hope, good people, and on that hope, act.