Pray for a clean environment
Everybody is doing it: Evangelicals, Episcopalians, Southern Baptists, Roman Catholics, Jews, Buddhists, and Muslims. Prayer in response to the oil spill has become a form of social action for creation. If you haven’t been invited to a prayer vigil in the last 100 days, maybe you haven’t checked your Facebook page or don’t believe in having believers as friends.
This national appeal to God may have seemed like a naive cry for help in an overwhelming situation. But the surge of prayer has now turned into a collective spiritual response to a national ecological crisis.
The hundreds of thousands of hands joined in prayer, literally from sea to shining sea, reflect a growing and united religious environmental movement. If people of faith and environmentalists can harness this momentum, at a time when every home in the country is witnessing the oil spill, its power could be transformative.
At my childhood home in Fairhope, Alabama, a family friend, Kelley Wolff Lyons, organized an interfaith candlelight vigil called Blessing of the Bay that drew 150 people at sunset to the shores of Mobile Bay. When I returned home on the 4th of July, I also prayed for this sacred space, where the boom lined the shoreline like yellow Legos in the water.
Religious groups such as the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Council of Churches and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops issued statements against the oil spill and called to protect God’s creation for future generations. Prayer in response to this disaster has united faith traditions that often seem more divided than united over toxic issues.
A study by the Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life showed a strong consensus among religions for environmental protection, in contrast to divisive issues such as abortion and gay marriage. This shared value provides powerful common ground for the 85% of the US population who identify with a religious affiliation.
After the Southern Baptist Convention, evangelical leader Russell D. Moore described the oil spill as a Roe v. Wade Moment, a time for evangelicals to recognize their responsibility as Christians to care for creation. After touring the Louisiana coast with Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders, the Rev. Sally Bingham called the spill “an insult to God and a sin against creation.” As first responders to the disaster, people of faith from diverse traditions are cleaning up the oil, providing financial assistance to families and praying.
For the last three months, I have repeated a prayer in response to the oil spill that is stuck to my refrigerator. I am now ready to fall to my knees with a new prayer of action, defense and reflection that could transform our relationship with the earth. This prayer for the future stems from my deep grievance at the violation of a place, the Alabama Gulf Coast, where I feel closest to God.
As an environmentalist, I pray that environmental organizations see faith communities as serious allies for action. Such alliances have formed in my current hometown, where Interfaith Power and Light of North Carolina has partnered with a green jobs training program, Asheville GO, to engage congregations in weatherizing 300 low-income homes. Across the country, people of faith go on carbon fasts during Lent and install solar panels in churches based on a moral imperative of justice and care for creation.
As a parent, I pray that this partnership will result in powerful lobbying for public policy that supports healthy communities for my children’s future. Such legislative success is evident in the work of the Land Ministry and the Environmental Priorities Coalition, a network of 25 environmental groups in Washington state that advocate for environmental legislation. As the only faith-based organization on the web, the Ministry of Earth provides advocacy training for people of faith to lobby for issues like clean water, green jobs, and renewable energy.
As a Christian I pray that reflection and prayer become strategies for a new environmental movement that inspires hope in the midst of uncertainty. Religious leaders like Martin Luther King used prayer to influence radical social change in our country. Prayer provides the space for discernment, so we remain silent long enough to open ourselves to the unlikely. We need that space to deal not only with the devastating impacts of the oil spill, but also with the long-term reality of climate change.
Theologian Karl Barth said that “putting hands together in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against disorder in the world.” The kingdom of heaven is now, it is not a cake in the sky, waiting for us at the gates of San Pedro. Now let’s pray.
This article first appeared as an op-ed in the Charlotte Observer on August 1. 5, 2010.