Choosing Hope: Divestment from Fossil Fuels

But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?” And he said to them, “How many loaves have you? Go and see.” When they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled. (Mark 6:37-42)

Two weeks after the close of the 78th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the Sunday lectionary has us pondering Mark’s version of the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. This story of Jesus taking what we can give and turning it into all that we need speaks to our situation today with regards to climate change. [See previous posts Loaves and Fishes and Environmental Impact Statements and New Questions for a New Time based on other John and Matthew's versions of the story.] 

All of us working to mitigate climate change and its effects know that what we can offer is not by itself enough to stop the catastrophe that seems to be slowly unfolding before us. Yet we offer what we can because our faith tells us that Jesus can use our efforts in ways that we cannot imagine; we offer what we can because hope is a Christian virtue. 

The vote for Resolution C045
in the House of Deputies

Two weeks after the close of General Convention, several of us who advocated for the Episcopal Church to divest from fossil fuels are still processing the success of Resolution C045 that calls on major funds of the Episcopal Church to divest from the fossil fuel industry and reinvest in clean energy. Part of my own processing is realizing the success of our efforts against the discouraging background of the daily onslaught of news stories about climate change and its effects. Since General Convention ended, the rather discouraging State of the Climate 2014 report has been published, fires continue to burn in western Canada and California, homes and lives have been lost in floods in Kentucky and southern Ohio, and a new study says that we are already in the "worst case scenario" for sea level rise. What does our action mean when compared to the enormity of the situation?

In the greater scheme of things, the amount of money to be divested and reinvested is not great. And the moral reach of the Episcopal Church in 2015 is not as great as it was a few decades ago; the pronouncements of the Episcopal Church do not carry the weight among leaders of government and industry that they once did. None of this, though, makes the passage of Resolution C045 insignificant. In the midst of our General Convention, we managed to have a conversation of sorts about climate change. We acknowledged the big hot elephant in the room and talked, first in the Environmental Stewardship and Care of Creation committee hearings and then, briefly but clearly, in both Houses of General Convention about what is happening and how the church might respond. When presented with a proposal to change our investment policy to reflect the realities of today’s world and our concern for people now and in the future who are negatively affected by climate change, we voted in favor of divestment.

Along with divestment/reinvestment, another successful resolution that came out of the Environmental Stewardship committee was Resolution A030 that creates an Advisory Council on the Stewardship of Creation with work at the provincial level to develop theological resources and networks for practical application to help us respond to climate change. 

We offered what we could at General Convention, knowing that even when the challenge seems beyond our ability, Jesus can take what we freely give and use it to provide just what we need even when we can’t imagine what that provision might look like. Choosing to divest from fossil fuels was both a sign of our hope and a catalyst for future hope.

Given the challenges before us, we could easily have been cynical rather than hopeful. We could have ignored climate change completely. Opponents of divestment offered arguments that we should keep our “place at the table” in the fossil fuel industry even though the nature of the industry is the extraction and processing of the fossil fuels that are killing us. Following that advice, we could have clung to our current investment policy while telling ourselves that it was for the sake of advocating for something — for the fossil fuel industry to do something other than what it does? —and not because of our own fears. We could have looked at the enormity of the challenge of climate change and decided it was beyond our abilities to do anything at all, choosing to put our energies into the church’s internal concerns rather than into serving the world in Christ’s name. But we chose hope and we chose faith in Jesus. 

Hope during these challenging times looks like General Convention. In all sorts of areas, we chose to follow the Gospel as best we know how; we chose to give Jesus what we have in faithful expectation, in hope, that Jesus, working through us and through what we offer, “can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine” (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 102). 

Part of the joy of participating in General Convention this year was the lack of cynicism and the spirit of hope grounded in faith in Jesus. I’m still processing all that we did in Salt Lake City, but I know that my hope for the church and for the world was shored up mightily by what we did there.

Abandoning Business as Usual?

A resolution calling on the Investment Committee of the Executive Council, the Episcopal Church Pension Fund, the Episcopal Church Endowment Fund, and the Episcopal Church Foundation to divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in clean renewable energy is on today’s priority calendar in the House of Deputies at the Episcopal Church’s General Convention. The House of Bishops has already passed Resolution C045.

This has been an amazing General Convention so far, with signs of a sea change in the Episcopal Church. Many people have a deep desire to be the church in the world rather than simply hoping that the world might stop by some Sunday morning and see how pretty our buildings are. Getting serious about our response to climate change is a big piece of being the church in today’s world.

Yesterday I came across a post written two years ago, Discipleship and Abandoning Business as Usual. While the Sunday lectionary is not this year’s, and the specific examples of current effects of climate change and the political conversation are different, I’m sharing it because it still speaks to what we are about today at General Convention.

Please pray for the members of the House of Deputies as we continue our work on all sorts of resolutions, and especially pray for us to find the wisdom, courage, and love to end the practice of profiting from the destruction of life on this planet.

Discipleship and Abandoning Business as Usual

Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9: 61-62)

As we prepare for our Sunday Gospel reading of Luke 9:51-62, we are hearing about record high temperatures and dangerous heat in the southwestern United States, the most recent widely publicized effect of global warming in the news in our part of the world. In India this week, there were mass cremations of hundreds of people who were killed in floods and landslides two weeks ago. Officials there predict that the final death toll will be more than 1000 people. In Canada, the city of Calgary is beginning what promises to be a long clean-up from flooding. According to this report from the CBC, “the province faces a potentially decade-long cleanup effort that could cost $5 billion by BMO Nesbitt Burns estimates.” President Obama gave a long-awaited major speech about climate change this week.

The reality of climate change is becoming clearer as both the increase in extreme weather events and the necessity of preparing for and mitigating its effects become more visible. “Business as usual” is not a realistic option any more.

Continue reading…

Fossil Fuel Divestment: God or Wealth?

Jesus talks about the uses and misuses of money throughout the Gospel. In the Gospel passage for today’s Daily Office (Luke 16:10-17), Jesus points out that a slave can’t serve two masters and then says, “You cannot serve God and wealth.”

When I read that passage this morning, I immediately thought of the post Divest from fossil fuels: An appeal to the Episcopal Church that The Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas posted on her Reviving Creation blog this week. This post displays and refutes the common arguments against the Episcopal Church divesting from the fossil fuel industry, and then sets out some the reasons why it is especially right for followers of Jesus to now let go of our investments in an industry whose very purpose is now understood to be at odds with the flourishing of life on our planet.

If you are an Episcopalian, I urge you to read this post to the end:

Divest from fossil fuels: An appeal to the Episcopal ChurchMay 25, 2015
Next month, leaders in the Episcopal Church will gather in Salt Lake City for our triennial General Convention.   Among the significant decisions that will be made is a decision about whether to divest from fossil fuels – that is, whether to sell off holdings of stocks and bonds from the world’s leading 200 fossil fuel companies as identified by the Carbon Underground and to re-invest in the clean energy sector. (Continue reading…)

If you aren't Episcopalian, it also is very worthwhile as food for reflection on the broader issues underlying fossil fuel divestment for various institutions.

While other important issues in the Episcopal Church will most probably get more attention before General Convention and will be considered the “big questions” for Deputies and Bishops to consider this year, climate change is the issue that will matter the most to us by the middle of this century and beyond. It is important for Deputies, Bishops, and all of us to understand what is involved in either acting or failing to act, and to understand why divestment from fossil fuels is morally and spiritually important to the Episcopal Church. 

The meditation on today’s Gospel passage in Forward Day by Day asks “What would America look like if we took Jesus seriously when he tells us that we can’t serve God and wealth?” As we prepare for General Convention, we might reflect on what the Episcopal Church would look like — and what we would be doing now — if we took Jesus seriously when he tells us we can’t serve God and wealth. And when he teaches us to hear the cries of our brothers and sisters who are hungry, thirsty, or otherwise in danger because we are failing to act meaningfully on climate change. Or when he simply tells us to love our neighbors, giving the Samaritan — the person from outside our immediate circle — as an example of our neighbor.

Extra Bits: Creation Care at General Convention

"Ubuntu in Action: Creation Care" was the General Convention theme yesterday (July 15). Episcopal News Service has an excellent report at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_112609_ENG_HTM.htm

Besides talking about environmental resolutions, the steps taken to offset the carbon footprint of General Convention, and a summary of what the Church has been doing to address climate change and pollution, the report highlights the sermon given by Bishop Steven Charleston, in which he says, "I am here to tell you that unless we recognize that there is a higher, deeper calling that lies behind all of these needs...none of our hopes and dreams, whether they come from conservative hearts or liberal minds, will sustain the day on anything we have been discussing, for all will be for naught...lest we wake up and pay attention to the underwriting great issue of our day."

May we have ears to hear and find the will, wisdom, and courage to reset our priorities and care for God's Creation, the Earth that sustains us, feeds us, and delights us so that we can carry out all the other work and worship to which God calls us!

GC Resolutions and Garden Varieties

The Episcopal Church’s 76th General Convention is beginning this week. The Convention will address several important topics, including the environment. Resolutions concerning the environment are listed and summarized on the Episcopal Ecological Network (EpEN). These resolutions range from calls for better environmental stewardship to the development of a liturgical Pentecost Season Creation Cycle to establishment of an Environmental Commission.

Apart from a growing awareness among Americans in general of the practical necessity of taking better care of our environment, there are reasons for Christians in particular to pay more attention to the care of creation. Some of these reasons have to do with the way environmental issues fit into our traditions of being intentional about stewardship of God’s gifts to us and of advocating for policies that help people living in poverty, who are the people most affected by pollution and climate change; other reasons have to do with the way being in touch with the natural world helps to ground and enrich us spiritually. The variety of environmental resolutions for General Convention reflect this range of reasons for us to be more aware of our relationship with the environment. Uniting them all is this: our understanding of God is Incarnational; there is no great divide between body and spirit.

However, we do tend to create dichotomies when we use various categories to try to understand something complex. In this case, we might group the resolutions about environmental stewardship and justice under the category of compassionate action, and group the ones about spirituality under the category of contemplation. Many religious thinkers have explored the supposed dichotomy between action and contemplation; the Letter of James explores a similar dichotomy between works and faith.

This dichotomy came to mind this week as my travels took me to two very different garden projects in two parishes in very different settings. The first was the new flower garden at St. Mary’s in Bassett. I was in Bassett last Monday evening for their Celebration of New Ministry, and stayed overnight at the hotel across the street from the church. Early Tuesday morning, I spent some time sitting on a bench looking at the garden. It was a lovely place to sit, meditate, and feed my spirit at the beginning of the day: a contemplative garden.

The second parish garden I saw was this Sunday at St. Paul’s in Akron, Ohio, where I was confirmed and where my mother is still a parishioner. While St. Paul’s has some beautiful flower gardens, there was a new garden that surprised and delighted me -- a very well-tended vegetable garden. The purpose of this garden is to produce fresh vegetables to share with people who need food for their bodies: an action garden.

While the flowers at St. Mary’s and the vegetables at St. Paul’s seem like two entirely different projects, they have a lot in common. Both give the people who tend them an opportunity to be outdoors and get grounded in the truest sense of the word, by working with the ground. Both suggest good alternatives to grassy areas that need to be mowed and are often maintained with lots of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. Both remind us that something important in the life of a parish can occur on the outer side of the church walls, that our lives as Christians aren’t contained within the indoor worship space. Both give people walking by a reminder of God’s gifts to us, and especially of the gift of new growth and fruition.


In my own garden at home in Nebraska, I tend to mix vegetables and flowers, partly because of lack of space, partly because of my personal taste in landscape aesthetics, but also because I have learned that planting flowers among vegetables – companion planting -- can help keep the vegetable plants freer of pests. Companion planting might be a good metaphor for good Christian discipleship, combining spiritual groundedness with compassionate action.

As I understand the General Convention theme of Ubuntu, it involves the idea of the interconnectedness among all of humankind and all of Creation. Sometimes things that seem very different are really interconnected or even intertwined. James says that faith without works is dead, yet we also know that works or action are more fruitful and lasting when they are grounded in a solid spiritual foundation. In the end, they are not really different things, but just two sides of faithful Christian discipleship.