with James Allison, originally published in the Presbyterian Outlook


To work for the transformation of societyThe two of us have spent the last two years (and longer) working in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on overtures about climate change, with proposed actions including both divestment from the fossil fuel industry and a variety of other efforts to change individual and institutional behaviors. abby mohaupt (she prefers not to have her name capitalized) is the moderator of Fossil Free PCUSA (a grassroots movement focused on adding divestment to the other things being done to respond to climate change). Jim Allison has been active in the group trying to define alternatives and additions to divestment. It is not unimportant that Jim is an economist and former employee of a fossil fuel company, and abby is a Presbyterian pastor and activist, as well as a Ph.D. student in religion and climate change. With those kinds of credentials, it is perhaps not surprising that we do not agree on the particular question of divestment.
However, we do agree on many other things, including the importance and urgency of the climate change issue and the importance of the church’s response. The church, in order to be faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ, must respond to social justice issues. It seems to us that there is not unanimity within PC(USA) on this point, a fact that has left past decisions by the last two General Assemblies focused on finding agreement among all concerned parties instead of committing to action. This lack of action on the part of General Assembly is a problem for both the PC(USA) and all creation.
We Presbyterians believe we are called to engage with others in an effort to align society more closely with God’s will. In the Book of Order, this view is reflected in the Great Ends of the Church – “the promotion of social righteousness” (F-1.0304) – and in the summary of the distinctively Reformed aspects of our confessions: “The recognition of the human tendency to idolatry and tyranny, which calls the people of God to work for the transformation of society by seeking justice and living in obedience to the Word of God” (F-2.05).
However, when we introduce proposals to address certain issues (through an overture to General Assembly, for example), a common reaction is the complaint that the church “should stay out of these political issues” or “should focus on missions.” It appears to us that this reaction stands well outside our Reformed tradition, which raises two questions: Why is this happening? What should we do about it? Our answers to these questions are necessarily speculative, but those answers are informed by our experience engaging with one of the social justice issues that triggers this response – the question of the denomination’s response to the issue of climate change.
Diagnosis: Why is this happening?We suggest two possibilities of why we are hearing such objections from Presbyterians. First, we have observed over the last decades that denominational boundaries have blurred and traditional doctrines have become less understood. While our Reformed tradition has long emphasized Scripture’s call to engage with social institutions, other Protestant traditions see the matter differently. To the extent that the people in our pews represent a mixture of traditions, we might expect to observe some “averaging down” on the commitment to engage social institutions. To this argument one might object that our presbyters – those who actually have voting rights in the councils that make decisions on these matters – are supposed to be trained in our tradition, and thus should have been immunized against this temptation to average down. We agree as a matter of theory, but observe that real life doesn’t necessarily follow that theory.
Second, and perhaps more important, the people who raise objections to the way we have engaged with social justice issues may be on to something. They have observed our behaviors when we have pursued these matters, and they don’t like what they see. In practice, when we strive to align as a denomination on steps to confront issues of social justice, we often start out with divergent views of what, if anything, ought to be done or said. Our tradition says that we should greet these divergent views with “mutual forbearance” (F-3.0105); in practice, our debates too often seem driven by scorched earth policies, and an outcome of separation seems preferred over forbearance. Perhaps the people who object just want the fighting to stop, and (who knows?) if we stop fighting with each other, perhaps we could actually make progress.
Living “mutual forbearance”In practice, we (the two authors) have encountered precisely this problem in our interactions with each other on the issue of climate change, and our experience may illustrate practices from our tradition that may tone down the fighting. Our disagreement is not so much on the issue itself (we actually are profoundly in agreement on both the substance and urgency of the issue of climate change) as on one of the proposed actions in response to it. One question that the PC(USA) must address (and that is before the General Assembly this summer as it was in both 2014 and 2016) is the issue of how the denomination should relate to fossil fuel companies. One alternative is to divest; a second alternative is to continue our practice of corporate engagement. These alternatives are mutually exclusive – you cannot synthesize a third alternative that addresses both sets of arguments; each proposed response carries significant emotional weight — people care deeply about these matters. And we two authors simply do not agree which is the more faithful response.
That disagreement could easily position us as bitter adversaries. Before that happened, however, we were given the opportunity to get to know each other a little bit. Getting to know each other, even just a little bit, changed the nature of our arguments. We still disagree, and we are each capable of (one might say enthusiastic about) a vigorous defense of our own position and rebuttal of opposing positions, but getting to know the other person makes it so much easier to focus on issues and facts rather than looking for ways to demonize the other. Getting to know each other has also give us the opportunity to understand the other’s position and to defend the right of the other to have that faithful response. Our tradition allows for, indeed encourages, vigorous debate, and it also emphasizes that spiritual discipline of “mutual forbearance.” The PC(USA) should create opportunities for people who disagree to come together for respectful discussion. In our case, abby and Jim were granted that opportunity by Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI), which created time during its meetings to hear from visitors who represented divergent views.
And so this is not an article on whether or not divestment is the right way to respond to climate change. Instead, this is an across-the-aisle argument that Presbyterians, as part of the Reformed tradition, are compelled to engage in issues of social justice. Climate change is one of the most pressing and all-encompassing social justice issues of our time — exacerbating poverty and racism, limiting access to natural resources such as water, creating refugees and increasing global conflict. Our Puerto Rican kin continue to languish without power after Hurricane Maria, and our indigenous kin in Alaska have watched their homes and ways of life be decimated by rising temperatures. Their stories are just two examples of how – simply put – climate change, caused by dependency on fossil fuels, adds to human suffering and creation groaning.
Responding to climate change as a churchAs a denomination, the PC(USA) officially believes in the reality of climate change — that is, our policies and statements reflect a confidence in the overwhelming majority of scientists who say that the climate is changing and that humans are responsible for that change. As a denomination, we support national staff who work directly on climate change and its effects (in the Presbyterian Hunger Program and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance). The Presbyterian Hunger Program and the former offices of Environmental Ministries put out resources on behavioral change (like “Walk lightly for Lent”) and liturgy and worship resources on caring for creation. Our denomination also has an “Earth Care Congregation” program with over 200 congregations loving creation and responding to environmental issues like climate change through stewardship of their buildings, worship of God alongside of creation and educational opportunities. The PC(USA) Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment (the standard for shareholder engagement for denominations) has long been concerned with how companies affect the environment. The Board of Pensions and the Presbyterian Foundation already offer investment options that do not include the fossil fuel industry, just as they have socially responsible investment screens for other industries and companies our denomination views as harmful. Past General Assemblies have passed overtures on carbon offsets, the Doctrine of Discovery and, since 1990 when the “Restoring creation: For ecology and justice” report was released, the PC(USA) has had clear denomination-wide theological statements on caring for creation. We already do so much as a denomination — and the reality and urgency of climate require that we do more. That is, the specter of climate change continues to grow worse and so we must add to our response.
Our theological tradition compels us to engage in responding to climate change. As we seek to respond to God’s biblical call for us to love creation and each other, there is an array of possible responses from which we must discern the most appropriate at a given time. As we communally discern the appropriate path, there will be strong and divergent opinions about what to do. Those opinions require difficult (but not impossible) conversations, ones we’re uniquely suited for as Presbyterians. We enter into the current debate about how we as Presbyterians shall continue to respond to climate change as an ongoing example of both difficulty and promise.
Discerning faithful responses The litany of overtures about climate change and care for creation coming to General Assembly covers a myriad of topics and actions. There are two overtures about divestment from fossil fuels, two overtures about alternatives/additions to divestment as action, and overtures on environmental justice and environmental racism and use of Styrofoam. How can we discern where the Spirit is calling?
How do we disagree as Presbyterians? At General Assembly, we gather as Presbyterians who vote not as delegates from particular presbyteries with pre-assigned votes, but as faithful people called by the Holy Spirit and commissioned by presbyteries to vote our conscience and the movement of the Spirit. Whenever we gather, we pray to hear and feel that movement of the Spirit. Our disagreements are opportunities to listen with humility to other opinions, to trust that the motives of our fellow Presbyterians are well-intentioned and to learn from each other. Our Reformed tradition does not require us to always agree (in fact our polity allows us to register our disagreement decently and with some semblance of order). Disagreements do not keep us from acting — in fact they open up a way for us to find common ground. Our own (that is, the authors’) disagreement (between doing everything but divestment and doing everything and divestment) is a microcosm of this opportunity. We disagree, but we believe in our common faithfulness and in our common call to respond.
Because indeed, how we discern and how we disagree must not be allowed to impede our response. Reformed tradition compels us to respond — how do we respond as Presbyterians? Calvin calls creation the theater of God’s work, rooting our work as the church in collaboration with creation. As Presbyterians we believe in our common fallen state — that is, none of us is sinless and each of us is complicit in climate change. God’s grace alone will save us, and we respond to that grace with hope and with repentance. Such repentance requires real action on our part; we cannot simply say that we will continue to study an issue that we know is negatively affecting our neighbors, ourselves and all creation. We must – as a response to God’s love and grace – act boldly in responding to climate change as a social justice issue.

with Aric Clark, originally published on Sojourners.

It’s time to dress for a funeral.

That’s what Joel told the priests and farmers of ancient Israel. They had turned to their prophets for a hopeful word about the future, and Joel replied, “Actually, it’s worse than you think.”

Those words are ours today as we look at the reality of global climate change. The years ahead of us will be the most challenging our species has ever faced. For many of the other species that share this planet with us — and for some of our own people — it will be too much to survive.

The loss of biodiversity will be staggering. In 2015, The Guardian reported that one-in-six species will go extinct by the end of the century if emissions continue at their current rate. Even now, the tiny nation of Kiribati is facing total flooding of its 33 islands because of ocean level rise, attributed to melting ice. The people living there, in the middle of the ocean, will have no fresh water to drink.

Dressing for a funeral doesn’t begin to prepare our hearts for this kind of devastation.

The period we are now entering is set to become the sixth great extinction in our planet’s history, even if we were totally unified and putting our best effort into this work. But the fact is we are not. Sec. of State Rex Tillerson’s appointment means that a former executive of the industry which has caused the climate crisis is now the top diplomat of the nation most critical to leading the world in climate justice. The fossil fuel industry — and Tillerson’s Exxon, specially — has understood the science behind climate change since the 1970s. Instead of being chastened by that knowledge, Exxon chose to wage misinformation campaigns to confuse the public. But the science of climate change is pretty simple — simple enough that Abby would quiz third graders about it when she taught environmental education on the Southside of Chicago. The effects of the broken carbon cycle are all around us right now, obvious to those with only an elementary school education.

And yes, it’s even worse than you think. Last year we permanently passed the 400 parts-per-million threshold for measuring carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. It’s an important number, because it points to one aspect of our climate reality: There is no going back. No one currently living will be around by the next time our atmosphere gets below that threshold again, even if we were to stop emitting carbon dioxide tomorrow.

We have already changed our planet, irrevocably. And we’ll face climate chaos on a variety of fronts, including warming temperatures.

In order to minimize damage we would have to close all of our coal mines and most of our oil and gas mines long before they are exhausted. In other words, we have to leave fossil fuels in the ground.

Contemplate what leaving fossil fuels in the ground means. Economically, it means that fossil fuel companies stand to lose trillions of dollars.

We have already changed our planet, irrevocably. It is not the first time an industry on the wrong side of an ethical struggle has faced this kind of loss. In April 2014, The Nation ran a story about the economics of slavery. As the Civil War was beginning, slave owners faced the loss of billions of dollars in assets (ahem, people).

Specifically,
Today, we rightly recoil at the thought of tabulating slaves as property. It was precisely this ontological question—property or persons?—that the war was fought over. But suspend that moral revulsion for a moment and look at the numbers: Just how much money were the South’s slaves worth then?

Anyone who knows our nation’s story knows that the system of slavery didn’t end without a bloody battle, and that even now the lingering effects of that system infects our society through rampant racism. Frederick Douglass wrote, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

The power of those trillions of dollars in resources is not something we should expect fossil fuel companies to willingly walk away from. Keeping that carbon in the ground is going to require an overwhelming demand.

While the devastating losses from climate change cannot be tabulated in dollars and cents, just as we cannot ever put a full cost on the devastation of generations of enslavement of human beings, looking at the economic costs of climate change will necessarily be part of making the demand to leave it in the ground. What price will we put on the variety of changes that will accompany effects of a global rise in temperature of just two degrees?

The fossil fuel industry will lose trillions of dollars in their investments. How do we put a price tag on people’s lives?

This is not just a funeral. It’s an epidemic.

We can’t afford to wait for fossil fuel companies to behave as though they’re accountable to this situation. It is our responsibility as consumers to use fewer fossil fuels and to pay carbon offsets. It also our moral and theological imperative to insist that the industry offer better ways to live.

The crisis is upon us. As John the Baptist said, “The axe is at the root of the tree.” We must act, and we must act quickly.

First, we must pray. We have to be ready to repent from our destructive relationship with creation.

Second, we must see our work for creation as intersectional work that does not leave behind the voices and experiences of people of color, indigenous persons, women, immigrants, people who are poor, and children. Systems of oppression like racism, sexism, classism, and xenophobia must be addressed in the fight for God’s good creation. In order to do that, we have to be ready to repent from our destructive relationships with each other.

Third, we must resist responding to climate change in capitalist ways alone. We cannot buy our way out of this crisis. Instead, we must be voices — perhaps in the wilderness — ready to cry out for new systems that challenge the old ways. In order to do that, we have to be ready to repent from our destructive relationship with God.

Finally, we must cease seeking and creating false comfort. Like Joel, and John the Baptist, we must be clear-eyed and unflinching in describing the real crisis our society is facing. But it’s time to rediscover the doom oracles of the prophets as the deeply hopeful messages they really are. To build the public desire necessary to overcome the entrenched power of industries with a vested interest in destroying our climate will require a courageous hope, a hope that can face a bleak future and choose resistance instead of retreat.
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May we create that hope soon.

with Aric Clark (originally published on Sojourners)

n the face of the loss and upheaval ahead of us due to climate change, it would be quite easy to give up, or not respond at all. If things are inevitably going to be bad, there’s not much we can do. And it is bad. The likelihood of record-high global temperatures and rapidly melting ice caps, steadily-increasing numbers of climate refugees, and less access to clean drinking water does, and should, frighten us.

If we manage to resist apathy, a potential response could be to turn to individual action. We might start recycling, bicycling, being vegan, or giving up plastic bags … all good actions for one person to take on to care for creation.

But that will not be enough.

The truth is, individual action is utterly inadequate for global change. Individual action is important for changing our own hearts and for getting our own lives aligned with our faith, but the devastation of our planet has been a systemic process over the course of generations. Undoing it, or even mitigating it, is going to require communal action.

As ministers, when we talk about climate change, we find it difficult to avoid talking in terms of salvation. So as Christians, it’s important for us to begin to understand our salvation from climate sin as a communal one.

You, as an individual, will not be saved from climate destruction. Nor will I. We will be saved together. Or else we — all of us — are doomed.

When we look at the biblical tradition of the prophets — at the stories of Sodom and Gomorrah, the flood, and especially the Exodus narrative — again and again, God’s judgment and God’s redemption are portrayed as being for whole communities, not individuals. Joel warned that the “day of the Lord,” which was coming as a locust swarm, was in response to the faithlessness of the entire people and would devastate all of Israel. The only adequate response was to summon the entire community, from the elders to the infants, and to collectively plead for mercy (Joel 2:1-17).

Salvation cannot remain an individualized spiritualized concept. When the psalmists called out for salvation, they meant salvation from present suffering and danger. When the crowd shouted “Hosanna” at Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem, they weren’t referring to the afterlife. When we talk about salvation in the context of our warming climate, we mean deliverance from the most destructive force our species has ever faced. When it comes to climate change, we have to think about community and salvation in a global sense. We must start to recognize that our communities are mutually dependent upon each other.

One parable which animates many Christians who work for social justice is the story of the Judgment of the Nations. In this parable, Jesus describes a king dividing the righteous from the unrighteous and the criteria which he uses is a famous and moving litany of concern for the vulnerable and oppressed, “I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothes to wear. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me.” (Matthew 25:35-36 CEB) Because the English language does not have a satisfactory second person plural pronoun, we miss that Jesus is not speaking to individuals here - He is speaking to whole groups of people when he says “you.” The question in this story is not whether you or I as individuals have been compassionate but whether we have collectively worked to build societies that feed the hungry, welcome strangers, and care for the sick.

Matthew 25 is clear that part of our job as Christians is to care specifically for people who are vulnerable. The people who are on the front lines of climate change are just that — vulnerable. They’re often communities that are deeply impoverished or are in developing nations that have been exploited by the global North and West through centuries of colonialism and its attendant ideology of white supremacy. Those of us who have benefited from this exploitation therefore bear an extra burden of responsibility to address the crisis which will, if left unchecked, eventually condemn us all. It should be clear by now that our survival hinges upon recognition of this mutual interdependence.

If individual action can't alter the momentum of global warming, movements may still do the trick. Movements are how people organize themselves to gain power — enough power, in this case, to perhaps overcome the financial might of the fossil fuel industry. Movements are what can put a price on carbon, force politicians to keep fossil fuel in the ground, demand subsidies so that solar panels go up on almost every roof, not just yours.Environmental advocate and author Bill McKibben reminds us that individual action will not change the course of the planet. He writes:

He’s not saying that it doesn’t matter if you drive a big car, eat meat, and waste electricity — those personal actions create an unsustainable lifestyle that ultimately affect policy and culture. What he is suggesting is changing individual lifestyles is not enough.

This is why we are marching on April 29 in the Chicago People’s Climate March. Our little voices on their own won’t make a difference. Combined, we can be heard. We will wear our clerical collars and join with people of faith from many different traditions to pray with our feet and call for communal action in response to climate change.

It will be rooted in a belief that we are failing at loving creation and the people in it. Our collars and our bodies will be symbols of our commitment to the global ecological community — a commitment rooted in a belief that God calls us to love creation and care for it. 

It will be rooted in a belief that God will judge the nations by how we feed the hungry, visit the lonely, care for the sick. Each of these vulnerable communities will be hit hardest with climate change.
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It will be rooted in a belief that no matter how many lightbulbs we change in our individual houses, or how many hamburgers we eliminate from our diet, or how few miles we drive, none of it will make an external difference unless we change the conditions and systems and laws that perpetuate climate change. In doing so, we begin to work in God’s grace, marching toward a new nation that will be saved by God and each other together.

originally published at http://justiceunbound.org/carousel/dont-let-the-stones-cry-out-in-your-place/
co-authored with Aric Clark.

There is no debate about climate change.

We’re not talking about the fact that the scientific consensus is overwhelming (though that’s true). We’re talking about the fact that climate change wasn’t the subject of a single question during the presidential debates. Our political discourse right now is deafeningly silent about the gravest danger facing our entire species.

This is a silence that must be broken. And if this election season has taught us anything about climate change, it’s that neither major presidential candidate sees it as a political priority. Which means it is up to the church to start making some noise.

Average atmospheric energy is increasing, dramatically. The words “existential threat” having been employed hyperbolically for so long now seem quaintly inadequate to describe the scale of the challenge climate change poses to the world. In just the last month, global air pollution passed the 400 parts per million (ppm) of emissions in the atmosphere, an irreversible benchmark of the catastrophe we’ve created for ourselves. We can now anticipate sea-rise and temperature increases that will change the state of our living and the lives of our future generations. No longer can we hope to pass legislation that will keep pollution at the 350ppm level, the level climate scientists believed was the limit of what could be reversed.

So we’ve played God and created a new Earth for ourselves – and not a better one like the Earth envisioned in the Biblical Prophets and the Book of Revelation. Furthermore, it is the most vulnerable people on the planet who will suffer first and worst. That makes this a specifically Christian challenge. As a church, we are called to love and serve the “least of these,” understanding that our own salvation is bound up with their deliverance from bondage. Christ, himself a refugee at birth, calls us to serve the poor and to ease their suffering. Out of this call to love each other and care for creation and the poor comes a mandate to respond politically as well as spiritually. As Reformed Christians we know that our faith and actions, including our votes,  should actively contribute to building the kindom of God on Earth.

If we are to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change, those of us committed to creation care will have a lot of work to do building a sense of urgency, whoever is elected in November. One would think the church would be well situated for this sort of consensus-building work. Churches are often intergenerational gathering places; communities where commitment to volunteerism and organizing toward the common good thrives. However, churches can also be places that are conflict averse, or places where analysis paralysis reigns. When that happens, the church falls as silent as our political leaders.

In order for the church to play the role it is called to play in the movement for climate justice, we who comprise the church will need to build up our tolerance for conflict and hone our sense of purpose. But even as we do build up that tolerance for the long haul, we can still find places of substantial agreement in the conversation about climate change. As Christians we believe in a common and a particular call to care for people who are vulnerable. So, let us begin there. In broad strokes, we suggest thinking about caring for creation in relationship with refugees, the poorest two-thirds of the world, and children as places where the church can and must raise its moral voice about climate change.

RefugeesWhile climate change has received almost no attention during this election cycle, refugees have been a continual subject of interest. The xenophobia which has driven the debate around refugees and immigration has obscured the fact that climate change is part of what starts these crises, as in Syria, for example. Starting in 2006, Syria suffered the worst drought it has experienced in 900 years. The drought drove people from the agricultural countryside into the city and increased tension. Climate scientists have argued that the drought was caused by permanent changes in precipitation patterns brought on by climate change.

But it is not just Syria. All of the refugee and migrant crises happening in the Middle East and Europe have been heavily impacted by conflicts over fossil fuels in the region. The same is true here in the Americas, where we recently faced the need to resettle the first American climate change refugees. At this very moment a dramatic standoff is occurring in North Dakota, where indigenous people are resisting the construction of a new pipeline which endangers the entire Missouri River watershed. As our demand for fossil fuels increases, so will the often-violent conflict over supplies and the number of people trying to escape that violence. As sea levels rise, coastlines will shrink. More and more refugees will need to seek out new homes because of political pressure caused by the deterioration of the environment.
Will the church in America be silent as the largest migrations in human history take place? We who have been commanded to welcome aliens, who indeed believe that the stranger and the Christ are one and the same, will we not make hospitality our hallmark?

The Poorest Two-Thirds of the WorldIn 2015, National Geographic wrote a piece on how climate change will affect the world’s poorest, particularly through increasing food prices as climate change makes it harder to grow food. We already know that people who are poor and people in developing countries will suffer the worst from climate change, even as they have contributed the least to rising carbon emissions. For example, Hurricane Matthew – which wasn’t necessarily intensified by climate change – still shows us the future of climate change’s impact. In Haiti, nearly 1000 people were killed, and those who survive now face the loss of crops and an outbreak of cholera. In Florida and other parts of the United States, about three dozen were killed. Any loss of life from a hurricane is devastating, but the stark contrast in these numbers shows the difference in resilience between a country without much infrastructure and a country with the economic and social capacity to survive.

Will the church in America be silent while the poor bear the brunt of the consequences for our over-consumption? How does this square with our biblical mandate to care for the poor? Will we not make economic justice the centerpiece of our public lives?

Children Finally, we both have children in our lives who we love very much. Aric has two children and Abby has three nephews, two nieces, and a godson. When we dream of a world for these little growing ones, we wonder how climate change will affect them. As the climate changes, how will that impact their ability to live safe, healthy, and abundant lives? What hopes will they be able to trust in? Who will make local, regional, and global policies which will take their futures into account? What is our responsibility as people of the United States and as Christians as we seek a world for them?
In September, China and the United States ratified the Paris Accords, landmark because these are the two largest carbon emitters. Their (our) commitment to work to keep the planet under a two-degree increase in temperature is imperative if we are to see meaningful and effective global response to climate change. But, as we approach the presidential election, we are faced with a choice between a candidate who will support climate action and a candidate who believes climate change is a hoax. It is necessary for us to speak up if we want a world that’s inhabitable by our descendants in one hundred years.

Will the church in America be silent while the hope of future generations is squandered? We who have been commanded not only to care for the little children, but to become like them, will we not prioritize their welfare over our comfort?

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The fact that climate change will disproportionately harm the vulnerable of this world – refugees, people who are poor, children, and others – places a strong obligation on the church to act courageously. However, as people of faith, it is important that we recognize the devastation of creation is a theological crisis as well. God has not only created this Earth and declared it good, God has also summoned us to love the Earth and to spend our lives in harmonious enjoyment of God’s good gifts. Our vocation to love creation is a full-self call: to love creation with our whole heart and soul and bodies, with our buying and moving and voting. When we fail to love the Earth as an end in itself, and instead treat our only home as a bottomless well of mineral wealth, we pollute God’s creative vision, reject God’s providential care, and imperil God’s forthcoming shalom.
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The Bible reminds us that if we do not do the work of the Gospel, even the rocks will cry out. In fact, the ecological crisis is so bad that the rocks do cry out – in earthquakes. The seas cry out in rising tides and melting icebergs. The air cries out in those 400ppm of carbon. All of creation’s cries and groans are the echoes of the cries of refugees, people who are poor, and the children of the planet. Our work in responding to these cries must be taken up in the church and in the world through prayer, organizing, protest, and in the voting booth.

The author would like to note that the opinions expressed here are the author’s alone.
When I came to General Assembly, I’d already spent three years of my life working on divestment from fossil fuels. Fossil Free PCUSA was born in 2013, and in the last year we’ve worked with Presbyterians around country to organize 31 presbyteries to concur with the overture On PC(USA) Fossil Fuel Divestment(9-01). Nine moderators of past General Assemblies have also signed a letter in support of divestment.
A couple of months ago at the NEXT Church Conference, I ran into my friend Rob Fohr, a staff member for Mission Responsibility Through Investments (MRTI), the committee that was tasked with responding to the 221st General Assembly overture on divestment. Rob and I talked about how we wanted to make the conversation about divestment from fossil fuels a faithful and civil conversation. So Rob introduced me to Mike Cole, from New Covenant Presbytery. New Covenant Presbytery had put together three overtures that offered alternatives to divestment.
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If we make money from fossil fuel companies, it doesn’t matter if we put that money back into local food or hybrid cars or recycled paper—it’s money that comes from companies that burn fossil fuels and wreak havoc on the planet.
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Abby Mohaupt and Mike Cole
Photo: The Presbyterian Outlook
Mike and Rob and I (and several others) talked and worked together to prepare for General Assembly. And since we’ve been here, together (with Kerri Allen), we presented to the Young Adult Advisory Delegates. Together we prepared to talk to the Theological School Advisory Delegates. And Mike and I bought donuts for the whole committee 9 when we met with several committee members to talk about the overtures we supported.
It continues to be a gift to know each of these people, and I’m honored to call them my friends.
Later in Committee 9, I spoke as an overture advocate for 9-01, on behalf of 31 Presbyteries with almost 400,000 members saying:
As a teaching elder, I often talk with Presbyterians about how the authors of Genesis put forth our original vocation as human beings—to love creation—and that that love for creation is a response to God’s love for us. In the New Testament, Jesus reminds us that the greatest commandment is about love: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your being, and all your strength.” (Matthew 22, Common English Bible)
We have to love God and creation with our whole selves.
Climate change means we must change how we treat creation, with all our hearts, all our being, all our strength…and for us in the United States, a great symbol of that is our wallets.
Where we put our money defines us and has great power. That power is why it matters what we buy at the supermarket (buying organic and local food creates greater demand for more organic and local food), why it matters what kinds of cars we buy (buying less gas for a hybrid vehicle creates less demand for fossil fuels), and why it matters what products we fill our lives with (even changing to recycled toilet paper changes demand for paper!) Where we put our money shows where our hearts are.
And so it matters where we put our investments—how we make money is a symbol for who we are as people who follow Jesus, people who are called to love with our whole selves. If we make money from fossil fuel companies, it doesn’t matter if we put that money back into local food or hybrid cars or recycled paper—it’s money that comes from companies that burn fossil fuels and wreak havoc on the planet.
But again, it’s more than just about money. Money is symbol of where our hearts are….for where our treasure is, so are our hearts.
After other overture advocates presented, the committee deliberated for many hours. They wrestled with how to respond to the overtures, particularly paying attention to how to care for people working in the fossil fuel industry as well as for people who are already directly affected by climate change.
In the end, the committee voted to approveOverture 9-01 without amendments (the vote was 31-25). They then removed any mention of divestment from 9-02, 9-03, 9-04, overtures that together with 9-01 create an incredible package of overtures that call us to do everything we can to care for creation. Finally, the committee recommended that 9-01 be a response to the report from MRTI (9-09).
The committee will report to plenary on Friday afternoon.
Since the committee met, there was been a minority report filed.
Additionally, two former moderators, Rick Ufford-Chase and Susan Andrews—who have in the past been divided on issues of divestment—penned a pastoral letter to the 222nd General Assembly, saying that they had heard the voices of concern for people. In addition, the letter says:
This overture came to our Assembly with support from thirty-one Presbyteries and represents a grass-roots movement of Presbyterians across the country who place this concern at the heart of their faith. We must not shrink from the call God has given us to care for creation. Our action to divest sends a strong message to these companies that we cannot and will not ignore this threat any longer.
And…
Even as we act to divest from companies dedicated to fossil fuel extraction, we can and we must stand in solidarity with those who will feel the greatest burden. That is what it means to be the church of Jesus Christ. If we divest without a commitment to support one another, our action will fall short of God’s deepest desire for God’s people. But if we seize this moment to live boldly and with love, our care for one another can strengthen the whole church even as our prophetic action can make a critical difference in the global effort to stop climate change.
Their letter reminds us that as we go into a plenary discussion about divestment from fossil fuels, we must care for creation—and each other—with our whole selves. God calls us to it.

Originally published at http://justiceunbound.org/carousel/divestment-loving-creation-and-each-other-with-our-whole-selves/

written with Colleen Earp

In the shadow of the Paris Accords, rising global temperatures, and changing climates, we are thankful for the many voices discussing climate change in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). We recognize that our denomination has suffered and survived turmoil in the wake of the last General Assembly, which made the prophetic decisions both to support marriage equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people and to divest from several companies causing harm to Palestinians. We know that this work of the church has led to division and heartache, and we grieve with our denomination over brothers and sisters lost and estranged. So now, even as we approach another potentially contentious and divisive decision – whether or not to categorically divest from fossil fuel companies – we celebrate that the collection of overtures and reports related to environmental issues and specifically fossil fuels agree on number of points: that climate change is urgent and real, and that we as a church must find appropriate ways to respond.
In his recent Unbound article “Divesting from the Sins of Our Past”, Ben Perry analyzed the overtures concerning fossil fuel divestment and some alternatives thereof coming to 222nd General Assembly. Perry discussed the reality of climate change and the need for a “prophetic breakthrough”, which he (and we!) believes the PC(USA) might be poised to offer. Comparing the language and rationale of the different overtures addressing climate change, Perry gives careful attention to the moral message we can send by not only divesting from fossil fuels, but also addressing our own behaviors, particularly our personal consumption of fossil fuels.

He rightly ends with the sentiment that this conversation needs to be centered not on an attitude of “Should we do something?” but rather “What is it that we should we do?” This is not an either/or conversation. We as Presbyterian Christians, as citizens of Earth, need to respond to climate change in as many ways as possible, as soon as possible. The situation is simply that urgent. It requires us to do everything possible as quickly as possible to respond.

We believe that divestment needs to be part of that broad array of actions because it aligns our investments with our values, our treasure with our heart, to paraphrase Jesus. While divestment is often labeled as hypocritical (how can we truly divest from fossil fuels if we still drive a car?), it is far from that. Divestment is not hypocritical when paired with other practical actions to reduce our carbon footprint and mitigate climate change, to the best of our abilities. It is a chance to add to our denomination’s long history of environmental justice, which includes education on environmental issues (the work of our brains), policies on carbon neutrality (the work of our policies), earth care congregations (the work of our hands), liturgy (the work of our souls), and shareholder advocacy (the work of our voices, and of our treasures). Together, we are able to love creation with our hearts, all our minds, and all our strength, just as we are called to love God (Mark 12:30). Divestment from fossil fuels is a critical opportunity to be bold about our morals as stewards of God’s creation.

Fossil fuel divestment is certainly not the sole solution to climate change, and on its own, it will not make fossil fuel companies stop their business model that relies on wrecking creation. Divesting from fossil fuels is not a statement against those who have worked in the oil, gas, and coal industries. Their contributions to progress and development are undeniable. Nor is it a moral reprimand against the people who have worked as laborers in the industry. However, we cannot ignore what we now know: that these energy sources have caused harm to land, water, air, and living things. Job availability in these sectors of the energy industry have been volatile for some time, in large part because of worldwide conflict and rapid changes in prices due to subsidies, inflation, or availability at different times. Fossil fuel divestment makes a statement that we are dissatisfied with our dependency on these industries, unhappy with industry leaders in their slow response to climate change, and wish to seek an alternative. Our divestment from fossil fuel companies allows us to put our money where our hearts are. It means we will not profit from the destruction of the planet and from our failure to love creation as we are called to, as the Presbyterian Church has affirmed again and again.

A brief aside about the science: we are well aware that the term climate change makes some people uneasy. However, even if we set aside the lingo, it is difficult to deny that weather patterns are different than they were not too long ago. Places that relied on consistent climate patterns of regular, seasonal rainfall, dry spells, or moderate temperatures are now experiencing extended drought (California, India), sudden floods (South Carolina, France, Malawi), and unseasonable spikes in temperature, both high and low (which Colleen personally noticed as she tried to plant her garden in Virginia, where a late frost and early heat wave came within the same stretch of weeks that saw one of the wettest springs on record there). Weather today is more severe and less consistent.

We mentioned above that we celebrate the points of agreement that the majority of Presbyterians have reached in in our conversation surrounding climate change and fossil fuels, particularly that human-caused climate change is real, that the situation is urgent, and that we are called to respond. Even for those who find themselves still debating the veracity or cause of climate change, the environmental damages caused by the fossil fuel industry are real and measurable. Excavation for pipelines and drilling equipment has eroded wetlands. Mining for coal has forever changed the shape of the mountains of Appalachia. Fracking has polluted groundwater sources and lead to unusual geologic activity. Leaks and spills are inevitable. Waste products have to go somewhere.

The situation is urgent, and we as a church need to do all we can to preach, teach, and practice good stewardship of God’s creation. The results of climate change promise to be devastating. Public health, economy and jobs, food sovereignty, global peace and security—these will only continue to deteriorate as natural disasters increase and we struggle for the flourishing of all life on this planet.
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As we look to General Assembly, we see with eyes of hope. Hope that our denomination will respond to climate change with the urgency needed. Hope that our denomination will repent of the damage we’ve done as individuals and as a community of faith in our reliance on fossil fuels. Hope that our denomination will do everything it can to stand in favor of caring for God’s creation—because it will take everything.

Originally published at http://justiceunbound.org/carousel/fossil-fuel-divestment-strengthening-our-response-to-an-urgent-crisis/