Going green for God?

Amber Waldref remembers an essay she wrote in the eighth grade about caring for the earth because it is God’s creation. Given the Spokane City Councilwoman’s upbringing (her Roman Catholic parents put a strong emphasis on conservation, frugality and faith), her essay topic comes as no surprise. Little did she know “going green for God” would become a hot trend two decades later. “That’s just how I was raised,” Waldref says. “It was easy to conserve because we didn’t have money. We grew a lot of our own food. … We made our own bread. We composted. When I look back, my parents were doing a lot of things that were green and have become cool in the last 10 years.” As she puts it, “Christians have a duty to protect nature,” and a growing number of people agree. Faith-based organizations that work to connect environmental stewardship with religion, such as Restoring Eden (www.restoringeden.org) and The National Religious Partnership for the Environment (www.nrpe.org), are evidence of a rise in interest. They report on grassroots efforts being spearheaded by places of worship around the U.S., including a Jewish synagogue in New York that fought for a pesticide registry to lower the rate of breast cancer and a Methodist church in California that worked to prevent the dumping of radioactive waste at a Native American burial ground. Restoring Eden, based in La Center, Wash., is driven by Proverbs 31:8, to “speak out for those that cannot speak for themselves.” In this case, the voiceless are wild habitats, native species and indigenous culture. The Green faith trend bucks a stereotype that all Christians are Republicans and Republicans don’t care about the earth. Anyone who’s considered the planet — whether Republican, Democrat or other, atheist, agnostic or a person of faith—will tell you the issue is more complicated than hard-and-fast labels. The Rev. Craig Goodwin, pastor of Millwood Community Presbyterian Church and author of the Year of Plenty blog (which can be found on DowntoEarthNW.com,) didn’t link Christianity to living green as a child or young adult. “It wasn’t until the last five to seven years that I started seeing these things to be part of living out my faith in God,” Goodwin says. His family of four never lived extravagantly, but they were typical suburban dwellers with grass in the yard, and went grocery shopping without giving much thought to where their food originated. That drastically changed in 2008, when the Goodwins embarked on a year of eating locally, buying secondhand and making what they needed from scratch. “We realized how disconnected we were from the food we were eating,” Goodwin says. He recalls the first time he and his wife picked up a free-range chicken from Rocky Ridge Ranch, in Reardan. “We thawed it out, put it on the counter and looked at each other,” Goodwin says. “Neither of us had cut up a whole chicken before.” Their yearlong experiment “got us on a journey of learning more,” he says. “We learned from farmers about how chickens are caged and treated on industrial farms. How cruel that can be and unhealthy.” Now, the Goodwins keep chickens in their backyard and they enjoy watching the animals scratch in the dirt and sun themselves in the afternoon—in other words, living as God intended. “Chickens aren’t people, but they were created by God,” he says. “It’s not like we walk by them and see sacred chickens. ‘O, the mighty chickens!’ But something as simple as the chicken we eat can be part of living out our faith in Jesus.” Goodwin looks to Colossians 1 in the Bible for guidance. “Paul says, ‘all things are created in Christ, and in Christ all things hold together, and in Christ, all things are redeemed,’” he says. “It’s not just a spiritual journey we’re on, but really it’s God redeeming all things.” Goodwin also looks for connections between the spiritual and material worlds. “When it comes to issues of faith, we tend to think in spiritual terms that are disconnected from the practical terms of the way we live,” he says. And while some people skip church on Sunday in favor of getting a dose of holiness by taking a hike or floating down a river, Goodwin says we don’t have to make that choice. “We’re invited into both of those (worlds),” he says. “It can be wonderfully worshipful to hike in the mountains and rejoice in the beauty of creation. But it’s also wonderful to worship in the sanctuary.” Goodwin doesn’t talk politics much at Millwood Presbyterian. He once held a class called “If Jesus were here today, would he be an environmentalist?” and braced himself for a heated debate. “Would he be concerned about global warming? Would he compost his kitchen scraps?” Goodwin asked attendees. “I thought I was being provocative, but universally everyone said, ‘Well, of course he would.’” Goodwin says he doesn’t discuss environmentalism on the pulpit, either. He’s not trying to push a particular agenda, and he laughs at the idea that the greening of churches is some sort of strategy to increase attendance. “It’s a personal journey of faith,” Goodwin says. “Early in our year (of living locally), we said we didn’t want to give anyone the impression they should live like we were living. We’re in it to save ourselves, not anyone else. I preach enough on Sunday mornings.” To Waldref, the city councilwoman, the connection between religion and environmental stewardship is a natural one. “People of faith are so caring for our earth,” she says. “This is a group of people that should be at the table advocating for a responsibility to care for creation, like mainstream environmentalists.” Waldref is involved in the Faith and Environment Network (www.faithandenvironmentnetwork.org), which connects religious groups with resources, educates and advocates for sustainability. “We try to get churches to start up environmental groups,” she says. “We try to get churches talking to each other. How are you recycling? How are you decreasing your water use?” She also participates in a Caring for Creation committee at Spokane’s St. Aloysius Catholic Church, where she is a parishioner. The group raises awareness about environmental issues through simple tasks like replacing Styrofoam cups with reusable ones during coffee hour or hosting movie nights that feature documentaries like “King Corn.” Waldref, who holds a master’s degree in environment and community from Antioch University in Seattle, said one reason some churches aren’t promoting environmental stewardship is because, among Christians, “there are two understandings of how we should interact with the earth, and those understandings are opposed.” One biblical interpretation is that humans are in charge and have the right to use the earth as they see fit, she says. “A lot of the Christian world has done things to interfere with the earth and exploit natural resources,” Waldref says. When talking about Christians’ responsibility to care for the earth, “you can use words like union or connection instead of words that are more dominating. That’s what has caused us trouble, seeing ourselves as dominant.” Waldref says Idaho’s Silver Valley and the sediment left over from mining waste is a way to see how destructive humans can be when they see themselves in a dominant role over nature rather than a collaborative one. “Hasn’t our need to have everything we want when we want it played a part in that?” she asks. People’s “need” to have everything is of great interest to Spokane resident Rick Hosmer. On the surface, one might assume Hosmer is a typical environmentalist. He lives in a straw-bale house. He kayaks, backpacks and mountain climbs. He searches classified ads for weeks before buying new, mass-produced products off the shelves. He collects animal skulls from his property and displays them in his home, in awe of how the bones fit together. But Hosmer, who attends Life Center Foursquare Church, doesn’t call himself an environmentalist and doesn’t necessarily see the demise of the planet—if that’s the earth’s fate—as a bad thing. “It’s not our job to fix the earth or our responsibility,” he says. “It was made the way it was supposed to be: for us.” That doesn’t mean humans should do whatever they want, Hosmer says. Unlike birds and trees and rocks, people have a spirit and a mind that enable us to think beyond our own needs and look longer term, he says. The Old Testament says that human beings are programmed to see evidence of the Creator when they look at nature, Hosmer says. “The trees, the stars, how our seasons work—they all shout out to the existence of God,” he says. “I’ll go around with a magnifying glass in my pocket, and if I find a bug, I’ll look at it up close. … The way a fern leaf unfurls as it grows—it’s amazing.” To Hosmer, the patterns and similarities in nature point to a common or intellectual creator. “I’m into science, but I can’t buy (the idea that) an asteroid crashed into earth,” he says. “That’s way more of a stretch in faith to me than an intelligent God created this.” Hosmer compares our existence here to driving in a car, where somebody tells you to head south. You don’t know where you’ll end up exactly, but you have plenty of gas to get there and you’re going in the right direction. “Now all this time goes by, and the car’s not looking so good,” Hosmer says. “The fuel tank is getting close to E. The tires are bald. The temperature light is turning on.” One could say, this looks bad, he says. Or one could have faith that the person (or God) who put us behind the wheel gave us enough fuel to get to the final destination. “I feel like we’ve got a quarter-tank left, but I’m not fearful about it because I know that my job is just to get down the road the best I can in the car I have, which is my world,” Hosmer says. “Don’t abuse it, but don’t worry about it.” He adds, “We’re supposed to run out of gas. If God made the planet with all we need on it, then he knows how much is in the tank.” So why spend extra money to build an energy-efficient straw-bale house and extra time waiting for what you need to appear in a thrift shop instead of driving to Wal-Mart to buy it right away? “I’m not (living that way) because I’m afraid of some disaster in the future,” Hosmer says. “I’m just living that way because I think it’s a better way for me to personally live.” In the 1990s, Hosmer visited Guatemala a half a dozen times as a missionary. He says his shoes cost more than most of the people there earned in a year, yet they were happy. Since then, many of the Guatemalans he worked with have gained access to TV, “and now they want and they want. Five years ago, they didn’t know those things existed, but now they want them,” Hosmer says. He recalls hearing about a factory being built in a developing country. Even though the locals there lived in poverty, the company couldn’t convince them to apply for jobs because the people were happy with what little they had. Concerned about the money they’d wasted building the factory, the company distributed Sears catalogs to the locals, exposing them to products they’d never seen before—which could be theirs if they earned more money. Soon enough, the factory was abuzz with workers. The factory story couldn’t be verified, but to Hosmer it’s a scenario that illustrates his point. “It’s stuff like that when I look up and say, ‘Come quick. I like this earth, but I could be done,’” he says. “‘If you’re done, God, it’s OK. Don’t wait on me.’”