A lot of people complain about how they are forced to compartmentalize their lives. That they cannot talk about faith with their environmental community or their environmental lifestyle with their religious community. This is very disconcerting. Why is it people feel that to be religious, you must fall into the stereotype of closed-minded, hard-hearted conservative? And why do environmentalists need to be dope-smoking, bleeding-heart heathens?
Isn't the overarching theme of many religions to be a steward of your God or Gods? Vishnu, Mulungu, God, Our Lady of Infinite Love, etc; whoever created Earth wants their people to love and care for their creations. This is not limited to land and earth. Creation extends out to animals, plants, and future generations as well. By drilling in otherwise untouched land, disposing of trash on the ground to be swept into water systems, and by driving 12 yards to get a closer parking spot, people are negatively affecting these creations and ultimately destroying Earth and creations that inhabit it. Shouldn't faith communities be fighting against this as well as environmentalists?
Religious and environmental communities need to reach out and join forces. We all should recognize that we have the same goal concerning our Earth. Instead, we have conceptions about one another as being old-fashioned right-winged nut jobs and radical tree-hugging communist hippies, respectively.
The good news is that some groups have seen the light (so to speak). There are, in fact, existing organizations that work to bridge the gap between these two communities. Check out some Christian environmental organizations at
http://www.earthministry.org/ and
http://www.eco-justice.org/.
A lot of people complain about how they are forced to compartmentalize their lives. That they cannot talk about faith with their environmental community or their environmental lifestyle with their religious community. This is very disconcerting. Why is it people feel that to be religious, you must fall into the stereotype of closed-minded, hard-hearted conservative? And why do environmentalists need to be dope-smoking, bleeding-heart heathens?
Isn't the overarching theme of many religions to be a steward of your God or Gods? Vishnu, Mulungu, God, Our Lady of Infinite Love, etc; whoever created Earth wants their people to love and care for their creations. This is not limited to land and earth. Creation extends out to animals, plants, and future generations as well. By drilling in otherwise untouched land, disposing of trash on the ground to be swept into water systems, and by driving 12 yards to get a closer parking spot, people are negatively affecting these creations and ultimately destroying Earth and creations that inhabit it. Shouldn't faith communities be fighting against this as well as environmentalists?
Religious and environmental communities need to reach out and join forces. We all should recognize that we have the same goal concerning our Earth. Instead, we have conceptions about one another as being old-fashioned right-winged nut jobs and radical tree-hugging communist hippies, respectively.
The good news is that some groups have seen the light (so to speak). There are, in fact, existing organizations that work to bridge the gap between these two communities. Check out some Christian environmental organizations at http://www.earthministry.org/ and http://www.eco-justice.org/.