{"id":15297,"date":"2017-05-01T17:20:42","date_gmt":"2017-05-02T00:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=15297"},"modified":"2017-05-01T17:20:42","modified_gmt":"2017-05-02T00:20:42","slug":"people-of-faith-care-for-our-common-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/people-of-faith-care-for-our-common-home\/","title":{"rendered":"People of Faith Care for Our Common Home!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By The Rev. Ron Hines<\/strong> | Photos by John Hill, Jesse N. Love,<\/strong> and Jenny Phillips<\/strong><\/p>\n

In their many Ways, people of faith across the planet care for our common earth home!\u00a0 That\u2019s the theme I\u2019ve been sharing with folks in classes at Wesley Homes, Seattle First, Puyallup First, and Yakima Wesley United Methodist Churches.<\/p>\n

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The March for Science brought many to the streets of Seattle and other cities across the nation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The April 22 March for Science<\/a><\/strong><\/span> and the participation of many faith communities in the April 29 People\u2019s Climate March<\/a><\/strong><\/span> converge on this prophetic message:\u00a0 Global climate change is real.\u00a0 Humans are causing it.\u00a0 It\u2019s bad.\u00a0 There is hope.\u00a0 We can sustain the Earth as God\u2019s gift of a Living Planet.<\/p>\n

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The Rev. Jenny Phillps participates in a climate march<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Just after last November\u2019s U.S. presidential election results were announced the Rev. Jenny Phillips addressed a news conference at Marrakesh, Morocco, the site of COP22<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, the UN Climate Change Conference to implement the Paris Agreement<\/a><\/strong><\/span> (already 137 of the 194 nations who signed the agreement have officially ratified it).\u00a0 She said: \u201cThe world can trust that the people of The United Methodist Church will offer ourselves as partners\u2026as faithful resisters to any effort to turn back the clock or to deny climate change.\u201d\u00a0 Here\u2019s the essence of her testimony:<\/p>\n

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  1. The climate crisis is real, a moral crisis that demands a moral response.\u00a0 \u201cOur church is in ministry with people on the frontlines of the climate crisis\u201d from small farming communities in Africa to the indigenous communities in the Philippines.<\/em><\/li>\n
  2. \u201cOur church\u2019s strong, clear voice will keep rising up alongside those communities,\u201d working for a \u201chealthy and hope-filled future\u2026rooted in our faith and nurtured by our relationships.\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n
  3. The global movement to take action \u201cis unstoppable.\u201d\u00a0 Built from the ground up, climate action is not dependent on any one country\u2019s leader or one election.\u00a0 \u201cOur churches are an integral part of the people\u2019s climate movement.\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \"\"
    The Rev. Jenny Phillips (middle) participates on a panel at COP22, the United Nations Climate Change Conference.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    The negative impact of global climate change is no respecter of religions.\u00a0 Rising tides impact Muslims in the Maldives island nation.\u00a0 Melting arctic ice impacts hunting habits of indigenous Inuit people in Canada.\u00a0 Desertification threatens much of Jewish Israel.\u00a0 Hindu farmers in India are committing suicide because of extreme drought.\u00a0 Beside our own Jenny Phillips on that panel at Marrakesh were other faith leaders:\u00a0 the Episcopal bishop of Los Angeles, a Muslim climate policy advocate from Texas, and a Jewish woman representing the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life.<\/p>\n

    We can learn from the wisdom of many Ways.\u00a0 People of many faith traditions bring resources to the climate crisis conversation, raising humanity\u2019s awareness of the moral response required to meet the challenges scientists are confirming.<\/p>\n

    Muslims reinforce Allah as creator of the careful balance (mizan) in the community (ummah) of all living creatures, and role of humans as stewards (khalifa).\u00a0 Jews stress the goodness of God\u2019s creation, but they also speak of the human role in \u201cmending\u201d (tikkun olam) a broken world.\u00a0 In one Jewish midrash on the creation, God informs Adam and Eve in the Garden, \u201cYou must tend it well, because there is no one to come after you.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Hindu affirmation of Brahman, the divine energy in all things, has led to court decisions recently in India in which rivers are recognized as having legal rights that must be defended!\u00a0 And Buddhist emphasis on Right Livelihood, and not desiring too many consumer goods, has appealed to many thoughtful Americans for decades.\u00a0 In Chinese cultures, Confucian emphasis on the continuity of generations leads not only to respect for our ancestors, but concern for generations to come.<\/p>\n

    You can learn more about these faith resources in the book published by Abingdon, “Green Faith<\/a><\/span><\/strong>,” by Fletcher Harper.\u00a0 You can also join classes on Care for the Earth at this summer\u2019s Mission u<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.\u00a0 Bring your faith to the table as we seek a Way to nurture life on our Earth Home.<\/p>\n

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    The Rev. Ronald L. Hines is a retired minister within the PNWUMC.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      By The Rev. Ron Hines | Photos by John Hill, Jesse N. Love, and Jenny Phillips In their many Ways, people of faith across the planet care for our common earth home!\u00a0 That\u2019s the theme I\u2019ve been sharing with folks in classes at Wesley Homes, Seattle First, Puyallup First, and Yakima Wesley United Methodist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":15298,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[111,15,6,321,394,168,113,479],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-channels","8":"category-justice","9":"category-conversation","10":"category-creation-care","11":"category-local-church-2","12":"category-missionaries","13":"category-opinioneditorial","14":"category-pnw-creation-care"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/INSIGHTS_RonHines_Cover.png?fit=741%2C486&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-3YJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15297"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15314,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15297\/revisions\/15314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}