New York Interfaith Power & Light

by Patricia K. Townsend

Patricia K. Townsend is a board member of the New York State affiliate of Interfaith Power and Light, a religious response to global warming. Dr. Townsend is an environmental and medical anthropologist residing in Amherst NY.

As Pope Francis prepared to issue his encyclical Laudato Sii on June 18, some politicians called into question the appropriateness of his addressing climate change as a moral issue. On the contrary, I believe that it is the responsibility and practice of religious leaders of all faiths to speak up prophetically when they identify a problem that affects the common good.

Nearly 20 years ago a Presbyterian pastor invited me to lead a discussion of climate change for an adult study group in her Town of Tonawanda congregation.  National and regional bodies of the Presbyterian denomination, like many other faith groups, had already taken a position on climate change, even though the scientific evidence was not yet as powerful as it is now. In order to make the issue more personal, I decided to ask the class to role play some of the victims of global climate change who had already been identified at that time. The ones that stick in my memory were elderly residents of a Chicago apartment building who died because they were too poor to afford the electricity to run their air conditioning during a heat wave, Bangladeshi farmers whose near-sea-level fields were flooded, and Ethiopian and Somali children starving during a drought.

We then acknowledged that those who were suffering most from new climate extremes were the poor and marginalized. They were not the same people whose carbon pollution was responsible for the human-caused portion of global warming.  This profound injustice is one that all religions can acknowledge.

Locally the faith community has taken action to combat global warming. Several Catholic schools and many church buildings, including First Presbyterian in Youngstown, Amherst Presbyterian, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Amherst, and North Presbyterian in Williamsville have covered their roofs with solar panels that produce much of the electricity that they use and reduced their energy costs. Other congregations have made efforts to retrofit their worship spaces to be as energy-efficient as they can. Others have helped needy people improve home insulation, reducing their contribution to climate disruption.

The message of the papal encyclical resonates beyond the Catholic Church with people of other faiths. Pope Francis speaks as well to those of little faith who nonetheless have an ethic of care for the earth and all its creatures in this and future generations.

At the end of March, the Annual Assembly of the Metropolitan New York Synod, one of the most populous geographical divisions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), resolved to divest from fossil fuels within five years. The Synod Assembly also voted to ask the national body of the church to do the same at the Church-wide Assembly in 2016. We are grateful to leaders from NYIPL who participated in this very significant step forward!

The divestment resolutions were the culmination of work that began shortly after the People’s Climate March in New York City last September that elevated the climate crisis as a moral issue.  Gerard A. Falco, Chair of New York Interfaith Power & Light and Chair of the Synod’s Environmental Stewardship Committee explained, “Lutherans from our Synod and across the country were deeply involved in organizing the People’s Climate March and making it the success it was. The march galvanized public opinion, and our committee decided to build on that momentum to get these divestment resolutions passed.”

The Metro New York Synod now joins the New England and Oregon Synods, as well as many other congregations and religious bodies in the US and abroad, in divesting from coal, oil, and natural gas companies because of their damaging effects on the climate. This religious divestment movement parallels the strong student-led campaign to divest colleges and universities, and the growing campaign to divest state and municipal pension funds.

Robert Rimbo, Bishop of the Metro NY Synod, said “With this action, our Synod joins the chorus of those who acknowledge that ‘if it’s wrong to wreck the climate, it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage.’ This is a fiscally responsible step, but it’s also the right thing to do. As Christians, we are called to care for all Creation. As Luther himself wrote, ‘God is essentially present in all places, even the tiniest tree leaf,’ so ‘to do harm to Creation is also to assault God. And when humans assault God, there is only one outcome, and it is not a good one for humans.’ With these resolutions, we’ve taken a further step in living out our Lutheran vocation.”

The Metropolitan NY Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church covers the five boroughs of New York City and Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster, and Westchester counties. The Synod has approximately 64,000 baptized members in 190 congregations served by about 300 pastors and 100 lay leaders. For more information, visit http://www.mnys.org/. For the texts of the resolutions, go to http://tinyurl.com/MNYS-ELCA-resolutions.

Yesterday we celebrated a new reason to hope! Pope Francis released “Laudato Si (Be Praised): On the Care of Our Common Home,” an encyclical on stewardship of the environment and human ecology. The Pope’s pastoral letter, the boldest environmental signal to date from the Roman Catholic Church, calls on all people of conscience to take up climate change as a moral imperative.

This is a tremendous moment for those of us who recognize that global warming is the moral issue of our time.  Reverend Sally Bingham, President and founder of Interfaith Power and Light, spoke about the encyclical and what it means for the climate movement on the Diane Rehm show on NPR. Listen here.

Learn more about the encyclical, and on Interfaith Power & Light’s response.

4/23 and 4/30, 8 p.m. – 9 p.m. ET

In the world, there 950 million Hindus and 350 million Buddhists.
Greenfaith is offering two great webinars on their environmental teachings.

Register for the webinars today.

On Thursday, April 23rd from 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET, Dr. Pankaj Jain will speak about Hindu teachings on the environment. Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of North Texas, Pankaj is the author of award-winning “Dharma and Ecology of Hindu Communities” and contributes to the Huffington Post, Washington Post’s forum On Faith, Patheos.com, and Times of India’s Speaking Tree.

On Thursday, April 30th from 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET, Dr. David Loy will speak about Buddhist teachings related to the environment. David is a professor, writer, and Zen teacher in the Sanbo Kyodan tradition of Japanese Zen Buddhism. His articles appear regularly in the pages of major journals such as Tikkun and Buddhist magazines including Tricycle, Turning Wheel, Shambhala Sun and Buddhadharma.

Register for the webinars today. Register even if you can’t make it live, and they’ll send you the recordings.

These webinars are part of their series on eco-teachings from the world’s great religions. Stay tuned for news on upcoming webinars on Muslim eco-teachings.

Looking for a great film for Earth Day? Take a look at this list recommended by the Interfaith Power & Light national office.