‘I love what you are fighting for,’ moderator
tells Presbyterians for Restoring Creation
Craig M. Kibler, The Layman Online , June 21, 2006
217th General Assembly
Birmingham, Ala. BIRMINGHAM — “I love what you are fighting for,” the moderator of the 217th General Assembly told more than 75 people Tuesday afternoon during the Presbyterians for Restoring Creation luncheon.
Presbyterians for Restoring Creation was founded in 1995 as a national, grassroots organization to support people of faith working toward “environmental wholeness with social justice.” The organization’s mission is to help the Presbyterian Church (USA) to fulfill its current environmental policies, create new policies and practices, and “to energize and educate church members about eco-justice, the well-being of all humankind on a thriving earth.”
Joan Gray, who was elected moderator Thursday night, told the audience that, “I’m on a learning curve as moderator, and I want to learn more about what you’re doing.”
“I live on the 16th floor of a condominium building in Atlanta,” she said. “When I wake up, I look out and can see the sun rise. Atlanta is in the middle of a giant forest, so we look out on the trees every day. We see the weather coming, from Alabama mainly, and that means so much to me. “There are precious spiritual gifts that come to us from God’s creation,” Gray said. “I want to learn more about what you’re doing to preserve that for me, that when I look out my window it retains its beauty and is not lost.
“I love what you are fighting for,” she said, “and I look forward to learning more about what you are doing.”
The next speaker was her predecessor, Rick Ufford-Chase, moderator of the 216th General Assembly. He began by reading Psalm 148 in its entirety (“Let them praise the name of the LORD, for he commanded and they were created.”) He then talked about how, shortly after he was elected moderator two years ago, “I received an invitation to your conference at Stony Point. It was the first thing I said ‘Yes’ to. Why? Because I believe that the issues you folks care about are, in fact, the pivotal fundamental issues, theological issues, that the church must grapple with if people around the world are going to have a future at all.”
“Eco-theology helped me to see a new way,” Ufford-Chase said. “It is a new orientation about how we are in relationship with all of God’s creation. We are partners in God’s creation. “All of us have been raised on a theology of domination,” he said. “We were brought up to believe not to care about creation, but to have dominion over all creation. You can see where domination has taken us. We remain convinced that a theology of domination over creation is what God has in store for us.”
Ufford-Chase then praised a book by the late Jim Corbett, founder of the Sanctuary Movement, who died in 1991. He said that Corbett “has written the most important book in 50 years. It’s called Sanctuary for All Life: The Cowbalah of Jim Corbett. Jim’s book is not an easy read, but it is the most important read for those of us invested in a theology of restoring creation.”
“Our task is not so much to set aside wild areas of nature to enjoy on vacation, but to find a way to become symbiotic with God’s creation, to build up who we are, to sustain us and build up all of God’s creation — even the rocks and the trees,” Ufford-Chase said. “I do believe, my friends, that that is exactly what we are called to do as people of faith,” he said.
“We are called to re-imagine who are in relationship with the rocks, the trees, the sun, the moon.” Ufford-Chase then described restoring creation projects in Madagascar and elsewhere in the world. He said that, “Eco-theology is an invitation to a partnership with friends around the world. Eco-theology is a place for engaging a new generation of leadership in our own church. If we truly want to reach the hearts and souls and minds of a new generation, this is the invitation to them.” He bemoaned the recent denominational budget cuts.
Ufford-Chase said, however, that it is “an invitation to a multiplication of loaves and fishes. There is a huge energy across the church, of living our faith in new ways. If we recognize the energy and the value of an organization like Presbyterians for Restoring Creation, there can be a clarion call to Presbyterians across the denomination. I guarantee we will see an exponential increase in an awareness of these issues, not a decrease.”
“Let us make eco-theology the central issue of our lives,” he said. “Some of you may have seen my open letter to Presbyterians for Restoring Creation. (In that March 23 letter, he urged the development of a “Presbyterian Creation Conservation Corps” for juniors and seniors in high school.) This would be a way of inculcating an entire new understanding of eco-theology to a new generation.”