Every day I become more convinced that the pressing social justice issue of our times, the single most important problem that individuals and congregations and governments need to address, is our warming planet. And every day I’m more convinced that an essential (perhaps the essential) source of a solution rests in our faith—not necessarily the Christian faith, although that will do, but humanity’s faith in the sacred wholeness of creation.
Since my brand of faith is Christian, look with me through one Christian lens at one solution. Krista Tippett recently interviewed Nadia Bolz-Weber, the pastor at The Church of All Sinners and Saints, an emergent Lutheran congregation in Denver, Colorado. Bolz-Weber said, “I don’t think faith is given in sufficient quantity to individuals… I think it’s given in sufficient quantity to communities.” She gave a few examples: Some people think they can’t say the Apostles’ Creed because they don’t believe all that it says. “I’m like, oh, my God. Nobody believes every line of the Creed. But in a room of people…for each line of the Creed, somebody believes it. So we’re covered, right?” When praying for your enemies is impossible, which it often is, Bolz-Weber recommends asking someone else to pray for your enemies. We’ve individualized faith too much. Faith can (and should) be the work of community.
We’re facing an environmental disaster of inconceivable proportions. Not only do we need communal faith to sustain our hope; we need it to coordinate our various gifts and energies to become a force to stop and reverse climate change. In a secular, despairing world, congregations can say, “We know a source of healing and transformation!” And in an overly individualistic world, congregations can function as the Body of Christ, throwing over the 21st century version of temple money-lenders: our planet-killing habits and the systems that benefit from them. –Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew