A Great Awakening?

Where would Jesus drill?

Religious leaders who consider environmental protection a godly mission are making the Gulf of Mexico oil spill a rallying cry, hoping it inspires people of faith to support cleaner energy while changing their personal lives to consume less and contemplate more.

“This is one of those rare moments when you can really focus people’s attention on what’s happening to God’s creation,” says Walt Grazer, head of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment.

Activists in the movement often described as “green religion” or “eco-theology” are using blogs and news conferences to get the word out. Some are visiting the Gulf, inspecting oil-spattered wetlands and praying with idled fishermen and other victims.

And believers in the stricken coastal regions are looking at the consequences of the oil’s reach and asking what good can come out of it.

During worship services on a recent Sunday, pastor Eddie Painter of Barataria Baptist Church in the fishing village of Lafitte, La., told his congregation a silver lining in the tragedy might be renewed government commitment to restoring the region’s battered coastal marshlands.

“I actually didn’t think I would be as deeply affected as I was by seeing oil in the water, the birds with oil stains, the marsh grass that had turned a shiny brown,” says the Rev. Jim Ball of the Evangelical Environmental Network, who recently toured Barataria Bay.

Another delegation arrived earlier this week, including Jim Wallis of the progressive Christian group Sojourners and Rabbi David N. Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

Their appearance was coordinated with the Sierra Club, which has forged alliances with organized religion since former director Carl Pope acknowledged in 1997 that the environmental movement had erred by shunning such ties.

“The oil spill is ultimately a matter of values, which for many people are rooted in deeply held religious beliefs,” says Lindsey Moseley, the group’s Washington representative.

Organizations including the National Council of Churches and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have issued statements calling for soul-searching. Some are providing ecologically themed online resources – prayers, liturgy, scripture readings – for use in worship services.

“We have used God’s creation without regard for the impact our rapacity had on the other creatures with whom we share our earthly home,” reads a model prayer on the Council of Churches’ website.

The push for an ecological Great Awakening since the oil spill began in April has come from liberals as well as theologically conservative groups such as the Evangelical Environmental Network, which previously sponsored an ad campaign with the slogan “What Would Jesus Drive?” that called for more fuel-efficient vehicles.

In a resolution, the Southern Baptist Convention declared that humanity’s “God-given dominion over the creation is not unlimited, as though we were gods and not creatures” and called for “energy policies based on prudence, conservation, accountability and safety.”

“Caring for creation is an extension of loving your neighbor as yourself,” says Russell Moore, dean of Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Ky., who wrote the statement.

Disagreements persist, especially over public policies like climate-change legislation.

Painter, the Lafitte preacher, criticized the Obama administration’s fight for a moratorium on offshore drilling, saying it would worsen unemployment in the struggling community.

“I think we’re called to be good stewards of God’s creation,” says Painter, who’s also a part-time crab fisherman. “But I have no patience with people who are using the situation to push a political agenda.”

Some scholars say the response to the oil spill at least suggests an emerging agreement that environmental issues are fair game in houses of worship where they were long ignored.

“Very few of the world’s religions were making any statements about the environment 20 years ago, and now virtually all of them have,” says Mary Evelyn Tucker, a historian of religion and founder of Yale University’s Forum on Religion and Ecology. “The challenge is to put them into practice.”