Lutherans Join Environmental Justice Conference

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The church's place in the struggle for environmental justice in the United States was the topic of "Christ is in our Midst!" -- an ecumenical conference sponsored by the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. (NCC). About 30 members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) were among 300 people from 20 church bodies here May 13-16.
The conference included presentations on current environmental issues, theological and biblical reflections and worship from various traditions. It also included a tour of polluted areas in Chicago. The NCC's Eco-Justice Working Group sponsored the conference.
Dr. Job S. Ebenezer, ELCA director for environmental stewardship and hunger education, Chicago, serves as co-chair of the working group. He said a main focus of the conference was to do together what individual churches could not do on their own.
"We are able to bring together all kinds of ideas," said Ebenezer. "We are able to look at a diverse and rich theology of creation."
A conference including many churches is more affordable, Ebenezer said. "If one denomination wanted to do all these things, it would pay three of four times what we each paid."
"When you go out two by two it's nice to know there are 50 behind you," said Wendy Schlueter, a member of Revelation Lutheran Church, Detroit. "There's so much that can be done for the environment, especially in an urban setting."
Participants took bus tours of waste management facilities and toxic waste sites in the Chicago area. "We were able to listen to those who are struggling with environmental degradation," said Ebenezer, "and how the poor are targeted to live next to them. The dumps were put next to their homes, because it was thought there would not be any objection."
It's important to let the poor know the church stands with them, said Ebenezer. The church must raise objections, he said.
Lutherans at the conference met with Ebenezer to discuss how ELCA congregations can address environmental justice. The meetings provided opportunities for Lutherans with similar interests to meet and learn what other congregations are doing and what other talents are available in their denomination, he said.
Urban gardening, or community-supported agriculture, was one concept with which ELCA members identified, said Ebenezer. Another was Energy Star Congregations.
"We have a garden in the back of our church," said Loretta Curtis-Cook, Genesis Lutheran Church, Detroit. "We are gardening in pools and containers." She is a 4-H program associate for Michigan State University's Cooperative Extension Service.
"The city tore down several homes because they were dilapidated, so we are gardening on the lots," said Curtis-Cook.
After heavy storms destroyed trees in the area, "we planted 50 trees around the church and three adjoining streets," she said.
Energy Star Congregations is an NCC program supported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Ebenezer is the program's principal investigator. As a matter of Christian stewardship, congregations evaluate their energy use and make changes to reduce consumption.
Augustana Lutheran Church in Chicago is saving $1,200 a year after changing its electricity use in lighting around its church building. The ELCA's Metropolitan Chicago Synod established a revolving loan fund so other churches can do the same.
"If 2,000 congregations made similar renovations it would save $2.4 million that could be used for mission," said Ebenezer.
The Energy Star Congregations program is in its pilot stage, said Ebenezer. In one year he hopes 1,000 congregations of NCC member churches will conduct energy audits. He is also working with ELCA schools, agencies and institutions to reduce energy use by 25 percent.
ELCA participants heard reports on the Lutheran Earthkeeping Network of the Synods -- a loose network of the committees, task forces and working groups dealing with environmental concerns in the church's 65 synods. The network is featured on the Web of Creation (http://www.webofcreation.org/) supported by the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
Ebenezer led a workshop on the life of George Washington Carver (1864-1943) -- a Christian, African American scientist who cultivated methods of restoring soil fertility. Carver showed the poor of the southern United States how many innovative uses for the peanut could create a vigorous alternative to cotton crops.
As a young "untouchable" in India, Ebenezer read a simple book about Carver's work. That inspired him to earn a doctorate in engineering and use it to "help the person farthest down." He urged the participants to teach children, especially African American youth, about Carver through a simple book, "Fruits of Creation."
Ebenezer described four "simple technologies" that he developed and taught around the world. He has established urban gardens in plastic wading pools, old car tires and plastic sacks to support church hunger programs and food pantries. Common bicycles have been converted into alternatives to gas or electric engines and are still used as transportation. To build strong, low-cost housing, mud and grass augment bricks and concrete in building walls, using methods similar to those used while building the Great Wall of China. Three 55-gallon drums are used to farm trout in inner-city basements.
"This is not a hobby," Ebenezer said. "These tiny seeds grow into such things. How can anyone say there is no God?"
Christians talk about "living water" and use many images of water to describe the work of God in the world, Chris Walvoord, associate for environmental issues, Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs (LOGA), Washington, D.C., told a workshop on the Clean Air Act. "All life depends on water," he said.
Wetlands are an essential part of creation, said Walvoord. They clean the drinking water, help filter pollution out of the waterways, protect communities from floods, and sustain fish and wildlife, he said.
Walvoord said Congress is considering the Wetlands Mitigation Banking bill -- or the American Wetlands Restoration Act of 1999. He said the bill will let developers destroy a wetlands as long as they build a new wetlands somewhere else.
There is no way to test whether a wetlands can be effectively relocated, Walvoord said. "Maybe it's better for the wetlands to be where it is."
Walvoord led seminar participants in developing strategies to get congregations more involved in contacting their members of Congress on environmental issues.
"Churches are faith communities before they are communities of moral deliberation," said the Rev. Richard O. Blomker, Lake Edge Lutheran Church, Madison, Wis. Look at the environment as a faith issue, he said, before looking at the ethical issues involved.
"We have some real lifestyle issues. It's not just 'them,'" said Blomker.
The Rev. Barbara Rossing, assistant professor of New Testament, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, provided a "theological anchor" for the conference. Looking primarily at the Revelation to John, the last book of the Christian Bible, Rossing said the church's ecological vision praises God, and it is political and hopeful.
Revelation is a book of hymns, said Rossing. "The imagery of creation is very powerful in these hymns," she said. The hymns praise the creating power of God.
"The Bible is a hard-hitting critique of evil economic systems," said Rossing. John's revelation cried out against the ecological devastation as Rome conquered the world. "We have to be politically savvy" to name the injustices of our day, she said.
"If we are going to critique an unjust economic system, we have to offer an alternative," Rossing said. That alternative is described in the Bible as "the new Jerusalem" -- a bea