Posted on 04/22/2008 4:06:21 PM PDT by NewHampshireDuo
Each Sunday, worshippers file into the York-Ogunquit United Methodist Church beneath a cross and, since February, a symbol of another sort.
The church's roof is now partly covered by an array of solar panels that make electricity to run the lights and heat inside the sanctuary.
It's perhaps the most visible evidence yet of a growing environmental ethic spreading through Maine's religious communities.
"Certainly we want to lower our power bill," said William Wieting, chairman of church's board of trustees. "But the enthusiasm didn't derive from the monetary value to the church as much as it was the right thing to do."
Earth Day was born exactly 38 years ago on college campuses, and many universities are still leading the environmental movement.
But today, churches also are helping drive a new green ethic, both by example and by doctrine.
"In every denomination, there's new interest," said Anne "Andy" Burt, environmental justice coordinator for the Maine Council of Churches. "In a number of places, it certainly has been integrated into their worship."
The movement includes the more liberal churches and synagogues to the more conservative, Burt said.
And the responses range from serving organic coffee and local foods after worship to holding special eco-themed services, especially around Earth Day.
Pope Benedict XVI, for example, has urged the world's Roman Catholics to be better stewards of the earth and to call for action to slow global climate change. In March, a senior Vatican official declared harming the environment a modern sin, just like stealing or coveting another man's wife.
Maine's Roman Catholic Bishop Richard Malone presided over a special Green Mass last August. And this spring, the Portland diocese lobbied Maine lawmakers in favor of a bill to regulate toxic chemicals in consumer products.
The movement in Maine has grown in the past few years, but dates back at least to the creation in 2000 of Maine Interfaith Power and Light. The organization links churches with renewable energy suppliers and now works with more than 70 faith communities to promote awareness about global warming as an urgent moral issue.
The Allen Avenue Unitarian Universalist Church in Portland is one of those communities, and was one of the first churches in the United States to be recognized as a Green Sanctuary.
It uses clean power through Interfaith Power and Light, serves coffee in ceramic cups instead of paper ones, and provides loans to members for energy efficiency improvements in their homes, among other things.
The church's latest initiative is a ride-sharing program intended to reduce the global warming pollution generated every Sunday when people drive in from communities around southern Maine.
"Our connection to the earth is a part of our spiritual life," said the Rev. Myke Johnson, its pastor. "It's a real common denominator. Everybody, in some way, feels that connection."
Caring for God's creation and rejecting the materialism that can create environmental problems in some ways seem a natural role for religious communities. But it's not always an easy sell.
Episcopal Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, for example, delivered a green Easter message in March.
"We are beginning to be aware of the ways in which our lack of concern for the rest of creation results in death and destruction for our neighbors," she wrote.
The sermon was strongly criticized by more traditional members of the church, including the editor of The Anglican Digest, for distracting from the spiritual meaning of Easter.
That criticism was more an outgrowth of other divisions in the church that have made Schori a lightning rod for criticism, according to the Rev. Michael Ambler, rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Bath. Caring for the earth is anything but a controversial topic at that church, he said.
"What I never hear is anybody saying, 'Why is the church talking about this? That's not what the church is for,' " Ambler said. "I think people really see this as a central purpose of the church."
Grace Episcopal Church has been purchasing clean energy for years, among other things. Last Sunday, it hosted a potluck dinner with dishes made using locally grown and produced foods.
"It's been dawning on people that we don't have to have food flown in from the other side of the planet," Ambler said.
The dinner also raised money for a community effort to reduce global warming pollution in Bath.
"I think what's happening in churches is that church people are looking at the same thing everybody else is looking at, but they see a sacred angle in it," he said. "It's something that God created and called good, that we have a holy obligation to maintain and that we have the power to destroy."
At the York-Ogunquit United Methodist Church, the new solar panels are generating about 70 percent of the church's electricity. The system cost nearly $60,000 and will take 14 or 15 years to pay off, Wieting said.
But it already has generated a lot of interest in saving energy and protecting the environment, both within the church and the homes of members, he said.
Members see the rooftop array as a symbol of their church addressing its ethical and social responsibility. And so do outsiders, apparently.
"People have come to the church to see it," Wieting said. "A few of them have stayed and come back on Sunday for services."
Solar panels/lower electric bills = GOOD
Glowbull Warming Hoax = Bad
Buying Locally Grown food is EXCELLENT! It gets bruised during shipment, plus it has to be picked too early. We bought locally grown strawberries in Temecula California last year and they were WONDERFUL DELICIOUS PERFECT! We always try to get Calif. grown over Mexican Grown. TASTES SO MUCH BETTER! Mexican grown strawberries taste AWFUL.
I am much greener at the house than most of the libs I know. And I still fault Barry Goldwater for being a bleeding heart liberal. ;)
/johnny/
That can be overcome with the right amount of citrus and sugar, but as a culinary professional and an amateur gardener, you are right about the pick times being too early.
And the stories that I heard from my cooks south of the border lead me to soak any uncooked veg in a weak bleach-water solution.
Really, really. Err... stuff splashes when the trots arise.
/johnny
That's where liberal and mainline evangelical churches part company.
We should be good stewards of the earth, but not arrogant enough to think we have the power to destroy it!
Morons!
Nothing magic about buying locally grown. Been doing it since I was a kid and it had nothing to do with being “green.” Just made sense and it tastes better.
I guarantee you that the degree to which churches embrace the greenie line is also the degree to which they’ve become theologically liberal.
I was saying to someone that my grandparents were very eco friendly. They lived in a small town. They drove less than 6000 miles with one car (they mostly walked). They had a huge garden. They rarely bought meat because they also owned land with deer on it. After my grandpa was too old to hunt, my cousins would give them some of the meat from deer they shot on the land.
They weren’t worried about global warming, but they didn’t waste anything and were good stewards of the land.
I always ask the question of people who advocate solar panels and never get a good answer. How much energy did it take to produce those panels vs. how much energy will they produce in the life of the panel? I also would like to know how long it takes to re-coup the investment in energy savings?
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