Essay – Faith https://thirdact.org/faith Tue, 29 Apr 2025 12:00:23 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.1 https://thirdact.org/faith/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/cropped-wg-thumb-faith-32x32.jpg Essay – Faith https://thirdact.org/faith 32 32 May Day! https://thirdact.org/faith/2025/04/28/may-day/ Mon, 28 Apr 2025 21:27:09 +0000 https://thirdact.org/faith/?p=729
Image: Photo by Nataliya Melnychuk on Unsplash

By Jane Ellen Nickell, TAF Membership Chair

MAY DAY IS NOT WIDELY CELEBRATED IN THE U.S., but its various meanings speak to this moment in time. Originally a Pagan agricultural celebration marking the beginning of summer, May 1 was also designated as International Workers’ Day in the late nineteenth century.

Pagan rituals are rooted in nature. In fact, the word “pagan” comes from the Latin paganus, meaning “rustic” or “country dweller.” Christian conversion and persecution drove Paganism deeply underground, but it has emerged in the last few decades in new and creative forms, especially among people seeking a spiritual practice that resonates with the natural world.

May Day was observed by Celts and other ancient Pagans as part of the Wheel of the Year, which includes the solstices, equinoxes, and the cross-quarter days, which are the points midway between. Marking the midpoint between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, May Day is called Beltane by Celts and Walpurgis Night in Germanic regions. Celebrations include “bringing in the May” by gathering wildflowers and spring greenery and dancing around bonfires or a Maypole.

Today these customs are celebrated in Europe more than in the U.S., where we’ve shed many aspects of agricultural life. The Old Farmer’s Almanac reports that some farmers still adhere to May Day as the time to move bees and to plant turnips and cucumbers, but for most of us the day has little significance.

Many colleges celebrated May Day into the 1950s, including West Virginia Wesleyan College, where my mother reigned as May Queen in 1951, despite having a case of the three-day measles! Many years later she enjoyed another May Day custom, when a fellow teacher showed up at her door every year with a May basket. Traditionally, people would gather flowers, candy, and other goodies to fill a May basket, then leave it on the doorknob of a friend.

IN MANY COUNTRIES, INTERNATIONAL WORKERS’ DAY IS ALSO CELEBRATED ON MAY 1 or the first Monday in May, but it has no relation to May Day festivals. In the early days of the labor movement, workers around the world demonstrated for eight-hour workdays, labor unions, and safe working conditions. The movement chose May 1 as the day to celebrate workers to commemorate the anniversary of the Haymarket affair in 1886 in Chicago, where several people died after police sought to disperse workers striking for eight-hour workdays. Because of its close association with socialism, the May Workers’ Day is observed more in Communist countries, whereas the U.S. and Canada observe Labor Day in September.

Dating to the early days of air travel in the 1920s, the distress call “Mayday” has yet another origin story. Charged with finding a word that could convey an emergency situation, Frederick Stanley Mockford, officer-in-charge of radio at Croydon Airport, England, thought of the French phrase “M’aidez”—“Help me”—which sounds like “Mayday” in English. After testing it during cross-Channel flights between England and France, the International Radiotelegraph Convention of Washington, D.C. adopted the voice call “Mayday” in 1927 as the radiotelephone distress call, in addition to SOS.

THE THREE MEANINGS WE ASSIGN TO MAY DAY ARE UNRELATED, but all seem relevant to this current moment. We are distressed by news about the latest government action to defund important government offices or organizations that do not conform to the Trump agenda. Genuine fear for our country, the global order, and the planet we all call home makes us want to cry “Mayday! Mayday!”

The Trump administration disregards nature’s inherent worth and sees it only as a resource for increasing human wealth. As promised, the president pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement on his first day in office, followed quickly by declaring a “national energy emergency” to justify accelerating gas and oil expansion and overturning Biden policies supporting renewable energy.

More recently the administration has sought to revoke Inflation Reduction Act funding for green energy and increase coal production. They have redefined the Endangered Species Act to allow development and drilling in sensitive habitats, and slashed funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the most reliable source for climate data for monitoring by states and other entities.

We are on the precipice of irrevocable climate disaster, and the policies of this administration are only making things worse. Our cries of “Mayday! Mayday!” may fall on deaf ears in the halls of government, but in towns and cities across the country, people are turning out by the millions to protest and commit to action at the grassroots level.

Third Act and other organizations are promoting renewable energy as the cleanest, most affordable energy sources available. The recent Earth Day celebration, with the theme “Our Power, Our Planet,” called for the world to triple renewable energy by 2030. Designed as an Earth Day counterpart near the autumnal equinox, Sun Day (September 20-21) will be an all-out effort to promote solar energy.

ON THIS MAY DAY, THE CONNECTION TO NATURE IS CLEAR. As did their ancient ancestors, modern Pagans know that celebrating natural cycles and seasons helps us identify more closely with the natural world and appreciate its many life-sustaining gifts. As far back as John Muir, who started the Sierra Club, environmental action is often motivated by love of nature. With that in mind, you might celebrate May Day by sharing a gift of flowers with someone, adding some native plants to your own yard or garden, or just spending some time outdoors.

International Workers’ Day is also relevant, because front-line workers are the most impacted by climate change and many recent federal policies. Many working-class people have felt left behind by cultural elites that don’t speak for them and economic structures that put basics like home ownership out of reach. They supported Donald Trump because he gave voice to their concerns, but the policies of his government are hurting many of the very people who elected him.

Safety and environmental regulations are deemed burdensome to business, but deregulation puts workers at risk, including many migrant workers who may also fear deportation. Government workers are losing jobs for no clear reason, and a proposed overhaul of the Civil Service would strip 50,000 federal employees of job security.

As part of ongoing demonstrations against the current administration, a May Day “Day of Action” is planned this year, with events across the country designed to defend working families. Perhaps you are taking part in one yourself. To read more about it, visit the May Day 2025 website.

On this May Day, you may feel tempted to throw up your hands and cry “Mayday! Mayday!,” but we hope you will celebrate the other meanings of the day by taking action to defend the natural world or vulnerable workers who are most at risk.

About Jane Ellen Nickell

Rev. Dr. Jane Ellen Nickell lives in Meadville, Pennsylvania, where she retired after serving as Chaplain at Allegheny College for 16 years. In that role she worked with students of all faiths, or of none, and taught Religious Studies, including a course on Religion and Ecology. She is the author of We Shall Not Be Moved: Methodists Debate Race, Gender, and Homosexuality. In retirement she serves as part-time Minister of Care and Outreach at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Meadville and blogs at A Nickell for Your Thoughts.

 

]]> Congregational Guidance for a Time Without Precedent https://thirdact.org/faith/2025/01/19/congregational-guidance-for-a-time-without-precedent/ Sun, 19 Jan 2025 21:31:52 +0000 https://thirdact.org/faith/?p=647 View of people sitting in a congregation.
Image courtesy of Flickr.

by Jim Antal, TAF Coordinating Committee Member

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.           – Joshua 1:9

For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.          – Esther 4:14 

 

PERHAPS YOU AND I HAVE BEEN CALLED for just such a time as this—called as humble yet bold emissaries of God’s truth at a time when history itself is swinging on a hinge. Perhaps you and I and the congregations of which we may be a part have been given everything we need to engage the hydra-headed polycrisis as we recognize the interplay between (at least) the climate crisis; the abandonment of truth, science, and history in favor of alternative facts and conspiracy theories; the ascendency of white Christian nationalism; and the rise of authoritarian plutocratic leadership.1 

These crises are not accidental. They are driven by values. 

As people of faith, we too are driven by values. While we gather in congregations to worship, we also gather in congregations to strengthen our values and rededicate our lives to witnessing to our values. 

The recent election has triggered both fear and grief in many of us as we watch the powerful, plutocratic purveyors of the polycrisis assume positions of political leadership. But if we have been called to just such a time as this, we would do well to embrace both fear and grief as unexpected and perhaps unfamiliar allies. We can welcome as our guides Gen Y climate activists like Greta Thunberg, who reminds us that once we start to act, hope is everywhere. Preachers can draw upon sources like Brian McLaren’s Life After Doom and Britt Wray’s Generation Dread to fashion sermons that offer wisdom and guidance.

Let us not forget the poet’s reminder: “In a dark time, the eye begins to see.”

Sixty-two years ago, that courageous champion of justice and harbinger of hope Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us of “the fierce urgency of NOW.”  Whether under Eisenhower, Kennedy, or Johnson, King was clear that America needed “a revolution in moral values.”  In keeping with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who railed against those who would “abort their conscience,” and following King, who “refused to segregate his conscience,” now is the time for people of faith to amplify the call of conscience as never before.

AS WE SEEK TO BE ATTENTIVE TO GOD’S CALL in a time such as this, we must provide one another with the selfless courage and abundant joy that is ours when we join with others to safeguard God’s creation, the least of these among us, and democracy itself. Rarely can this work be done by people acting on their own. As both Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe remind us: we need to stop acting as individuals.

That leads to the role—the vocation—of the congregation in a time such as this.

Yes, the role—the vocation—of the congregation, if it seeks to be faithful, must be responsive to major changes in its neighborhood, its country, and in the world. While worship attendance in America has dropped precipitously over the past few decades,2 it remains the case that about 24% of Americans attend worship at least once a week. That’s an enormous number. It took only 10% of Americans showing up in the various actions and teach-ins of the first Earth Day in 1970 to prompt Congress to create the Environmental Protection Agency and pass the Clean Air Act; and two years later, pass the Clean Water Act; and a year after that, pass the Endangered Species Act.  

So, on any given weekend, 24% of Americans can be found in worship, seated alongside neighbors with whom they sing from the same hymnal and listen to the same sermons. 

IMAGINE IF ONLY HALF OF THOSE CONGREGATIONS were to hear regularly from their pulpit—in prayers and in sermons—how the climate crisis threatens everything they care about—everything they love—along with an invitation to gather after worship to join with others to take action in response to just one of the ways the climate crisis is impacting their particular neighborhood. 

Imagine if only half of those congregations added to their worship service a monthly opportunity for a member of the congregation to offer a brief testimony in which they shared how they or their family recently took action to address the climate crisis, and why they were motivated to do so out of love. 3

Imagine if only half of those congregations convened an adult education forum in which they learned that for many of them, their most significant contribution to the climate crisis is their choice of where they do their banking, and where their congregation does its banking, and how they could choose more climate friendly alternatives. 4

Imagine if only half of those congregations were to discard their vague understanding of hope as optimism and replace it with an embrace of hope that takes the form of courage; hope that is grounded in truth; hope that comes to life through collective action; hope that emerges when we resist injustice; hope that propels us to confront the powers and principalities; hope that allows us to give ourselves to a future of a just, livable world at peace.

Imagine if only half of those congregations, recognizing God’s call to people of faith to safeguard creation, the least of these among us and democracy itself, set aside “business as usual” and began to contact the White House and their members of Congress—as well as their state and local political representatives and leaders—to advocate for policies and bills that are consistent with God’s call to restore creation and uphold the Golden Rule.

Imagine if only half of those congregations—in their prayers and in their sermons—paid as much attention to collective salvation as they do to personal salvation. Imagine if those congregations were to align themselves with the prophets and seek to reinvent the social order, beginning with their town and community. Imagine if those congregations and their leaders met this moment by supporting, reinforcing and, when necessary, challenging their local and regional leaders to make their communities more resilient (Tikkun Olam), beginning with addressing the various injustices visited upon people of color, indigenous communities, and poor white communities.

AS MANY HAVE RECOGNIZED AND HISTORY CONFIRMS, religion is the most powerful force on earth. David Brooks suggests that for people of faith, religion is the “means” by which many people make awe and wonder part of our lives. 

I would add that religion can be the means by which we rightly recognize God’s role as creator and humanity’s role as responsible stewards; that religion can be the means by which we recognize our interdependence with all of creation, and that religion can be the means by which our conscience incorporates justice, truth, hospitality, and integrity into our lives and our life together. 

It is long past time that people of faith accept God’s call to stop humanity from running Genesis in reverse. Let us welcome this Kairos moment as an opportunity for congregations to embrace a new vocation. 

God’s call to protect creation is at the core of our vocation as people of faith. As countries throughout the world anxiously await headlines that detail how the Trump administration plans to roll out its demolition of environmental protection, let congregations throughout the United States receive God’s call to protect creation as they joyfully engage new liturgical practices and courageously undertake community acts of witness that are truth telling, justice seeking, and creation restoring.

FOOTNOTES:

  1. Tim Snyder’s little book On Tyranny provides a helpful guide for clergy and congregations to navigate these
    crises. ↩
  2. PRRI ↩
  3. Katharine Hayhoe: Dickinson College Rose-Walters Prize Winner, Wednesday, December 4, 2024 ↩
  4. The 60 largest private banks globally have provided $6.9 trillion in financing for fossil fuels since the Paris
    Accord was signed in 2016, according to the latest fossil fuel finance report from Banking on Climate Chaos. To identify preferred alternatives, check out Bank Green and Bank for Good. ↩

 

About Jim Antal

Rev. Dr. Jim Antal serves as Special Advisor on Climate Justice to the General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ. Antal’s 2023 book, Climate Church, Climate World (Revised and Updated), is being read by hundreds of churches. From 2006-2018, Antal led the 350 UCC churches in Massachusetts as their Conference Minister and President. He has preached on climate change since 1988 in over 400 settings and has engaged in non-violent civil disobedience on numerous occasions.

]]> Learning to Live in Darkness https://thirdact.org/faith/2024/12/18/learning-to-live-in-darkness/ Wed, 18 Dec 2024 11:00:59 +0000 https://thirdact.org/faith/?p=602
Image by Hox Vaimmbru, via Wikimedia Commons.

AS WE ENTER THE DARK DAYS OF WINTER, many of us feel like we are living through a dark time as well. But as Kamala Harris said in her concession speech, “Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.” Our General Meeting on December 17 featured contemplative readings and music, along with periods of silence, to help us welcome the blessings of darkness. You can view a recording of the service on our YouTube Channel.

With the longest night of the year right around the corner, the gathering welcomed the darkness. Just as surely as our bodies need the night’s rest, the Earth needs this dormant period of winter. In the months when our part of the Earth is tipped away from the Sun, seeds lie beneath the ground, awaiting the warmth of spring. Trees stand bare, flowers die away, and grasses stop growing. In the midst of this drab season, evergreens remind us that this time is not about death, but is simply a different phase of life, as the Earth cycles round to a season when nature will again flourish with new life.

These winter days invite us to embrace the darkness and to balance our activism with rest and quiet reflection. In our winter celebrations, we engage the wisdom of ancestors through stories of how they survived difficulty. Through rituals of light, we look for signs of hope that, like the evergreens, promise a resurgence of life to come.

THE GATHERING OPENED WITH  Morten Lauridsen’s beautiful song, “Sure on this Shining Night,” after which TAF co-facilitator Betsy Bennett greeted participants and welcomed the evening, using the traditional Jewish prayer Ma’ariv Aravim, “the God who brings on evening.”

The songs “Dark of Winter” and “O Beautiful Darkness” were paired with A Winter Prayer, by Joyce Rupp, to help us recognize that along with nature, “we are … terminal buds waiting in repose, to be energized in our vigilant dormancy.” May Sarton’s poem “The Invocation to Kali” reminded us that destruction and creation, death and birth all occur in darkness. The contemplative service closed with Irish priest and poet John O’Donahue’s blessing “For Light.”

Breakout groups considered questions about both darkness and light:

  • Question #1: What causes you fear or stress in this dark time? How can you use the darkness to prepare for what comes next?
  • Question #2: Where do you find light? How could you share light with others?

Following breakout groups, participants shared their appreciation of darkness and of silence as places of rest. Others noted the importance of working with others, and that they find light in community and in being outdoors, echoing Kamala Harris’s observation that the deep darkness makes the stars appear even more brilliant. Some named books that help them through difficulties, some of which are on our Reading List for Difficult Times. One person described their conversation as a group hug, despite it being mediated by technology over great distances.

The evening closed with Jan Richardson’s poem “Where the Light Begins” and a musical setting of the poem by Susan LaBarr, as we concluded our time of conversation, while continuing to move towards healing for ourselves and our broken world.

View the recorded service on our YouTube Channel. 

For more reflections on darkness and light, see the recent “Going Deep” essay by TAF co-facilitator Betsy Bennett, and a reflection by TAF member Jane Ellen Nickell in our News & Views newsletter in December 2022. 

]]> Disorientation, Winter Lights, and Truth https://thirdact.org/faith/2024/12/04/disorientation-winter-lights-and-truth/ Wed, 04 Dec 2024 15:03:16 +0000 https://thirdact.org/faith/?p=612 photo of night sky with Big Dipper stars.
The Big Dipper. SOURCE: Wikimedia Commons.

by Betsy Bennett

MANY YEARS AGO WHEN WE HAD YOUNG READERS in our household, one of the HarperCollins “I Can Read” books called The Drinking Gourd was part of our family book collection. The story of two families — a white Quaker family and a Black family that had been enslaved and was trying to get to Canada — introduced children to the history of the Underground Railroad. The title of the book referred, of course, to the Big Dipper, which points the way to the North Star that could orient people and help them find their way to the northern states and Canada. In a perilous situation, the stars pointed the way, as they can whenever people cross unfamiliar terrain or sail on open water.

In the days after the November 5 election, I became viscerally aware of the perilous situation we are in as a nation. With many of the guardrails and guideposts of our system seeming suddenly to be gone, I felt disoriented.

My disorientation brought to mind an image from Psalm 107 of “wandering in a trackless waste.” In the Psalm, God makes princes who have oppressed people “wander in trackless wastes”. Right now in the U. S., though, it feels like the oppressive princes are just fine. It’s the rest of us who wander in the trackless waste of our political and societal landscape.

When so many of the incoming administrations’s proposed policies and appointments call for our attention, where do we focus?

What terrifies me most is the expected reversal of our gains in mitigating climate change. Looking at what’s already happening to the Earth’s climate — and what probably lies ahead — brings on true existential anguish and profound grief. Humankind will live — or not — for generations with the overheated, unstable climate the American people chose by electing a climate-change-denying President.

But climate change isn’t the only issue. Whole groups of people now fear for their immediate security and survival: undocumented immigrants — and documented ones who can easily get caught up in large-scale deportations; people in the the LGBTQ+ community; women and girls; disabled people; people with a variety of ethnic, racial, and religious identities; journalists; writers and artists; and all those condemned as “less than” by those coming into power.

So where do we direct our attention? When everything looks uncertain, what do we try to stabilize first? When the landscape and terrain are unfamiliar, what is left to guide us?

The stars shining in the December night skies remind us to look for guiding stars in the deep darkness. Truth is our guiding star.

When we can’t immediately see the truth, this can sound too abstract; using truth as a guide may not sound very helpful. But if we are intentional about seeking the truth and holding onto it by spending some time in contemplation once we glimpse it, it becomes clear enough to serve us well.

“Believe in truth” is one of the lessons from the twentieth century that can help us resist authoritarianism, writes Timothy Snyder in his book On Tyranny. Following the work of Victor Klemperer, Snyder says truth can die through propaganda and repetition of lies. Part of our practice of seeking the truth and witnessing to it is being aware of these methods of obscuring the truth, and being vigilant in the way we hear what is being said and in what we ourselves say.

ELECTION DAY CAME JUST AFTER THE HALFWAY POINT between the Autumnal Equinox and the Winter Solstice. Ancient Celts observed this halfway point as Samhain. Many branches of Christianity celebrate it as All Saints Day. Most of us know this point — where we turn from the lightest part of the Northern Hemisphere’s year to the darkest part — as Halloween.

As we Third Actors entered the ever darkening weeks between November 1 and the Winter Solstice, it felt as if we were also entering a dark period of our history — one whose duration and depth of darkness we could not yet know.

For people of many faiths, the days of the year with the least daylight are made rich with meaning through celebrations that come around the time of the Winter Solstice. Along with our sacred stories, we have candles, lights, gift-giving, and special meals and social gatherings to help us to live meaningfully and even joyfully in the dark chilly days of December. Our celebrations and religious practices don’t make the hours of darkness any shorter, but they can make it easier to bear these colder days when the sunlight is low and short in duration.

One of the Scripture readings for Christians during Christmastide is John 1:1-18, known as the Prologue to John. It speaks not of the infant Jesus but of Christ as the primordial Word through which all things came into being. “What has come into being in him was life,” writes John, “and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” It is, of course, the very nature of light to overcome darkness, as darkness is simply the absence of light.

As we go toward the Winter Solstice, some of us are grieving, some of us are anxious, some of us are stunned, and some of us are angry and ready to get to work.

WHEN OUR THIRD ACT FAITH COORDINATING COMMITTEE MET on November 6, the consensus was that we needed some time to grieve and get a better sense of what the next administration is planning before we decide on our focus for the future. We need to see what Third Act Central is prioritizing so we can discern how people of faith might best be able to support that work. Our work in the coming months, whatever that looks like, will reflect not only these realities, but also the synthesis of what individual members of Third Act Faith see as our own call at this time.

Whatever the work of Third Act Faith in the years ahead looks like, our light in the darkness will be truth — the light common to all the world’s great faiths. Just as the darkness cannot overcome light, the lies about people and science and basic facts cannot overcome the truth.

I’M FEELING A CALL TO BE SOME SORT OF WITNESS TO THE TRUTH in speaking and writing, in praying and preaching. To that end, I’m intentionally bringing the reality of the climate crisis to mind each day. Choosing to ignore the reality and let extreme global warming happen doesn’t seem like a faithful option. Others who feel called to engage in traditional political action and protest will be bringing the light of truth into the darkness through public actions. Those who quietly give money to organizations and candidates whose purpose is to protect the lives of other people and of other species will be putting their money on the light of truth being more powerful than the darkness of lies. No matter what form our work takes, discerning what is true — and consciously keeping the truth before us — must be at the core of all we do. It will both orient us and strengthen us.

At our age, we elders have wisdom resulting from lots of experience in distinguishing truth from lies and nonsense. For many of us, retirement has freed us to speak and act more openly. And we are way past the stage of needing to impress others or trying to fit in! Members of Third Act Faith also have a foundation of religious teachings and spiritual practices of which seeking and speaking truth are an integral part.

Despite our initial disorientation, we are perhaps more ready for the work ahead on behalf of our democracy and our climate than ever before. When we feel lost in the darkness of threats and lies and abuses of power, we have the light of truth to guide us — and the company of others who also bear the light of truth — to help us see clearly and support one another as we find our way.

About Betsy Bennett

The Rev. Betsy Bennett is one of the co-facilitators of Third Act Faith. Retired from serving as Archdeacon of the Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska and teaching philosophy at Hastings College, Betsy teaches courses in creation care and diaconal ministry at The Bishop Kemper School for Ministry. She enjoys traveling with her spouse, visiting their children and grandchildren, watching birds, and writing at Connected Passages on Substack.

]]> Hope Going Forward https://thirdact.org/faith/2024/11/07/hope-going-forward/ Thu, 07 Nov 2024 09:29:35 +0000 https://thirdact.org/faith/?p=590 Going Deep this month is a collaborative effort by members of the Coordinating Committee, emerging from a conversation about what we could say in an essay scheduled to go out two days after the election, knowing that we would remain a deeply divided country, regardless of the outcome.

The weeks and months leading to this election have been anxious, to say the least, and Donald Trump’s re-election increases that anxiety for a large portion of the voters, especially those of us who care about the climate crisis and the rapidly closing window in which we can avert catastrophe.

As we consider the role of faith in this challenging moment, we should remind ourselves that faith communities can still be people of hope, no matter the election results. Even in an election such as this, hope should not be lost, even if opportunity is. But we may have to dig deep to find it.

It helps to distinguish between optimism and hope. Optimism is the expectation that such goodness is right around the corner. Hope contains a determined conviction that the world can be better, good, and just, and that we can be better, good, and just, even if it’s not right around the corner.

Or, as Vaclav Havel writes:

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

This is not to say that a prevailing November vote for bigotry and selfishness will someday prove good or is somehow God’s will in the moment. What always makes sense though, is persistent love and the fight for justice. Determined hope does not rely on how things turn out but rather upon what is right. This means we don’t do what we do only in the expectation that it will work. We do it because it is right. Doing right always makes sense, not just in a practical, human management sense, but because doing right and practicing love make sense all the time and everywhere.

This has always been the wisdom of religious traditions with long experience. The Psalms are masterful in joining lament with hope:

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God. (Psalm 42:11)

Buddhist Joanna Macy writes in her book, Active Hope:

Active Hope is about becoming active participants in bringing about what we hope for. Active Hope is a practice. Like tai chi or gardening, it is something we do, rather than have.

Wisdom, wit, and courage always matter in the moment, whether big or small. We humans, wrapped in ignorance as we often are, cannot really grasp the import of our actions in the moments we take them. We can’t tell if a moment will actually become big or small. Thus, love, as that in which we place our hope, always makes sense no matter the moment. To act in love is to act with hope.

So how does this apply to this critical moment of opportunity and political crisis? How then should we hope?  Even if our optimism gets crushed in the moment, our hope need not be. Various moments, fleeting as they are, do not determine what makes sense in life. Our faith does. Even if this election ushers in a dark and violent season, our hope can remain fundamentally unchanged. We can still get up and do what we have always done – that which is loving, wise, savvy, and just. In the moment, no matter the moment. We can practice Active Hope.

Should we seek to capitalize on moments of opportunity and turning points of change? Yes, that too is what hope does. And how do we do that? For concrete examples of active hope, we need look no further than our guest speakers at TAF General Meetings over the past year.

When we spoke with Katharine Hayhoe in November 2023, she spoke directly to the importance of hopeful action when we become discouraged, saying, “Anxiety, grief, despair are natural, rational emotions, but the question is, what do we do with that? Do we use those to fuel our determination to fight for a better future out of love, and to bring other people to that fight with us?…I’m convinced that together we can do it, but we can’t do it if we stay stuck in paralyzing anxiety.”

Instead, she said, we should engage in the ​​positive feedback cycle of action and hope: action breeds hope, hope breeds action. She also reminded us that we don’t need hope when things are going great, but that hope comes out of suffering, and the worse things get, the more we need it. Hope, she said, “recognizes that we’re in a bad place, and…that there is a better future possible. What hope does is connect where we are to that better future, and it shows us what we can do to move along that path.”

Speaking directly to concerns about the presidential election, she reminded us that 99.9% of elected officials in this country serve at the local, county, and state level, not the federal. Many of those officials control energy decisions, and so working with such officials, particularly those we may even know personally, is hopeful action. It is hopeful action to move toward climate solutions from the ground up, wisely keeping in mind what Hayhoe said, that the federal level may be the last to change.

In addressing our polarization, the religious leaders who led a preaching workshop in August 2024 suggested that congregations are among the few places where people gather around common beliefs, although they might hold different political views. If appropriate, your congregation could provide space for conversations that can help us move forward together, while providing guidance and parameters that guarantee safety for anyone who chooses to take part. Speaking at our September 2024 meeting, George Lakey said we cannot learn to handle conflict by avoiding it.

Each of us must respond to this moment as we are led, recognizing that we are in different places, spiritually, emotionally, and geographically. Third Act and Third Act Faith remain committed to fighting for climate and democracy, even in the face of obstacles emerging from this election. Because that is what hope does. As George Lakey put it, “We’re in it together, and we can do together what we cannot do alone.”

]]> Voting: A Sacred Right, A Holy Obligation https://thirdact.org/faith/2024/10/02/voting-a-sacred-right-a-holy-obligation/ Wed, 02 Oct 2024 18:54:00 +0000 https://thirdact.org/faith/?p=564 Group of people with signs outside Supreme Court building
Voting Rights Rally at US Supreme Court, 2018. Image source: Wikimedia Commons.

By Jessica McArdle, TAF Coordinating Committee Member

“How will we be as a society…as a human family amid so many crises?  The process by which we answer that question is called politics because it involves the ‘polis’- the people, the community.  It is a process that requires an honest and authentic wrestling with who we understand as people of God living in a broken, complicated world that we share and the other-than-human inhabitants of this earth.   “…Imagine if we saw what Moses saw, the burning bush, where the voice of God could help us think through all the political issues of our day.”
   – Rev. Dr. Leah Schade, Preaching in the Purple Zone: Ministry in the Red-Blue Divide

YEARS AGO, IF YOU HAD TOLD ME THAT THE BIBLE is not just obliquely political but overtly so, I would have dismissed such a comment as sacrilege. How could the Bible, the divinely inspired Word of God, be consigned to something as denigrating as politics, which can be messy, misused, and misguided? How could one even suggest that there is anything remotely political in the Bible, or religion itself, for that matter?

That is, until I came across this quote from early twentieth-century writer and theologian Karl Barth: “We must hold the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other.” The activist within Barth was clear that faith is more than a private affair. Faith at its best lives in community, however messy, misused, and misguided that community can sometimes be.

This brings us to this largely misunderstood word: politics. The Rev. Dr. Leah Schade,  who teaches at Lexington Theological Seminary in Kentucky, advises using alternatives, given how loaded the word “politics” is.  So we might ask, “how are we to live in community, given that we are charged to love our neighbors as ourselves?”

It shouldn’t surprise us that the most consequential verse in the Bible isn’t John 3:16, which primarily focuses on personal salvation, but rather the one echoed across religious traditions: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” It is love of neighbor that brings faith to the public square. It is in love of neighbor that religion moves from mere personal piety to social and ecological justice. And it is love of neighbor that, while costly, becomes a source of grace and hope for those unjustly denied God’s providence and mercy. While Jesus condensed the entire breadth of the Law handed down to Moses by joining love of God with love of neighbor, the second part of this commandment expands and makes the implications of faith genuine. This commandment carries the full scope of God’s radical and wholly inclusive love, which holds profound political implications.

Dr. Obery M. Hendricks, Jr., a lifelong social activist and one of the foremost commentators on the intersection of religion and political economy in America, says, “We’re not talking about partisan politics. Politics is about distribution, the distribution of wealth and the necessity of health and well-being, a politics that ushers in structural change.” Returning to Leah Schade’s question, it asks, “[As those charged to love our neighbors as ourselves], how are we to live in community?”

Politics ushers in structural change, so voting is a civic responsibility, sacred right, and holy obligation. Those who claim to be committed to the salvation of a person’s soul but enact unjust laws that obstruct citizens from exercising their civic responsibility and sacred right are not only condescending but contemptible. To speak of being a “person of faith” but engage in such malfeasance is the worst kind of lie.

Voting is a three-fold calling. It’s spoken of as a constitutional right, but conferring the right to vote on all citizens of these United States came – and comes still – at a terrible price.  The voices of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Thomas Garrett join with the likes of John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Fannie Lou Hamer, and seminarian Jonathan Daniels, who even now attest to the struggle for full participation in civic life, and the necessity to have every citizen’s voice heard, and every vote count.

To vote is also a sacred right. In a TAF essay, Rev. Dr. Jim Antal, advisor on climate justice to the UCC’s general minister and president, writes, “Voting is about what matters and who counts.” It is groundbreaking and astonishingly inclusive, an intrinsic affirmation of human dignity and agency.  Quoting Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock, “Democracy is a political enactment of a spiritual idea…: [t]he sacred worth of all human beings, the notion that we have within us, a spark of the divine, to participate in shaping our destiny.”

To vote is also a holy obligation. As citizens and “sparks of the divine,” we have a holy imperative to commit ourselves to this task. To say, “Oh, I don’t have the time to vote,” “my vote doesn’t matter” or “I can’t vote because I don’t know enough about the candidate(s)” is not only a rebuke of those who struggled or lost their lives so you would have this right, it is to defy the holiest of commandments, which is to love one’s neighbor as one’s self. “What you want for your neighbor is what you would want for yourself,” says Dr. Hendricks, “the same freedom from poverty. The same freedom from injustice.  Yet loving your neighbor in this manner is a commandment that far too many [people who profess to be Christians] ignore.”

I CONSIDER THIS WHEN REFLECTION ON Rabbi Stephanie Kolin’s observation that “The voting booth is particularly holy ground.”  This is an astonishing pronouncement, considering the voting booth may appear to be the farthest removed from anything remotely holy. Voting booths are found in places not at all related to religion: school auditoriums or gymnasiums, civic centers, libraries and city halls. Yet the voting booth is ground zero when making consequential choices.  It is the hallmark of a democracy.

Kolin says the voting booth is holy ground because, on Election Day, ordinary people can pull the levers and speak truth to power. Unyielding behemoths, be they fossil fuel giants, chemical companies, Big Pharma or politicians – who don’t give a damn about the havoc their actions and policies are wrecking upon current and future generations – have to answer to school teachers, custodians, the unemployed and retirees trying to live off Social Security checks. They have to respond to the Black family whose apartment abuts a chemical plant and the diabetic who can’t afford the insulin he needs to survive. They have to answer to the homeless veteran who can’t afford to have a roof over her head and the Hispanic mother of a seven-year-old in the inner city who has acute asthma due to poor air quality.

What makes voting a civic responsibility, a sacred right, and a holy obligation is what the writer and theologian Walter Wink wrote of when laying the groundwork for practical non-violence: voting involves neither passivity nor resorting to violence. It echoes the teaching and activism of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi, who sought the means for transforming relationships through the peaceful transfer of power. Yet, in particular, it affirms what long-time activist and elder George Lakey wrote of in his book How We Win: A Guide to Non-Violent Direct Action:

We are not dealing with a fad or temporary trend…For decades after World War II, white male inequality in the United States was relatively low, and governance was largely bi-partisan in spirit. Our politics began to polarize at the same time as income inequality began to grow…[As studies show]. For example, the number and wealth of billionaires surged in 2017, and it’s not just a United States problem…Their combined wealth totals over three times the United Kingdom’s gross domestic product. The Children’s Defense Fund estimates that three million children in America live in families and survive on less than two dollars per day per person. The federal tax bill passed in January 2018 (under the Trump administration) increases inequality, adding more fuel to the fire.

As the November election approaches, one of the two people campaigning for the 2024 presidency, poses the greatest threat our nation has ever faced. When Republican Liz Cheney, who was Vice-Chair of the House Select Committee for the January 6 attack on the US capital, was asked about the fitness of the candidates running for this office, she replied, “There is only one stable adult in this race.” Coupled with critical races for the Senate and the House, our nation’s stakes couldn’t be higher.

Imagine if, in the swirl of our nation’s and world’s polarization and fragmentation, we perceived what Moses saw: a blazing bush that was not consumed. When Moses witnessed this, he turned aside to see why the bush was not burned up. And it was then that the Divine intervened, informing Moses that he was standing on holy ground. The time had come to pull the levers and speak truth to power.

The time has come for us as well. Vote as if your life depended on it. For indeed it does.

About Jessica McArdle

An ordained minister with the United Church of Christ, Rev. Dr. Jessica McArdle, has served on the Southern New England UCC’s Environmental Ministries Team for several years. Earlier this year, Jessica turned her attention to helping churches and other coalitions get out the vote for the critical 2024 election. She is active with Third Act Faith and the Environmental Voter’s Project. She posts at thespiritualactivist.blog.

]]> How Six Faith Groups Are Responding to the Climate Emergency https://thirdact.org/faith/2024/09/03/how-six-faith-groups-are-responding/ Tue, 03 Sep 2024 22:14:24 +0000 https://thirdact.org/faith/?p=548
Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, founder and CEO of Dayenu, a Jewish call to climate action, and Rev. Mira Sawlani-Joyner, Minister of Justice, Advocacy & Change at Riverside Church, lead an interfaith protest at Citibank headquarters in New York City on August 26. The protest, in which more than a dozen people were arrested, was part of the ‘Summer of Heat’ campaign demanding that Citi stop funding new fossil fuel projects. Photo by Lawrence MacDonald.

By Lawrence MacDonald, TA Virginia Co-facilitator and TA Faith member

In my previous article I described how faith-based climate advocacy can be a path to power. In this article, I offer a guide to the responses of six U.S. religious groups. Both articles draw on “What’s Faith Got to Do With It?,” a chapter in my book Am I Too Old to Save the Planet? A Boomer’s Guide to Climate Action. Each of the following groups has one or more networks that offer training, resources, and encouragement for faith-based advocacy within their tradition.

Catholics

Laudato si’ (“Praise Be to You”), Pope Francis’s second encyclical, is arguably the most important statement on climate change issued by a major religious leader. Widely discussed when it was released in 2015, it continues to inspire Catholic climate action today.

Unlike most encyclicals, Laudato si’ found an audience well beyond the Catholic Church. “On a sprawling, multicultural, fractious planet, no person can be heard by everyone. But Pope Francis comes closer than anyone else,” wrote Bill McKibben, who identifies as a Protestant.

For Dan Misleh, founder of the Catholic Climate Covenant, a lay-led organization that helps U.S. Catholics respond to the Church’s call to care for creation and care for the poor, Laudato si’ was a dream come true. “I used to literally dream that a pope would write an encyclical on the environment,” Misleh told me.

Boomers who have ties to the Catholic Church have a critical role in helping the church up its game on climate, said Misleh. “Boomers have gone through their careers, they have wisdom, money, and a certain level of clout within their Catholic community,” he said. In every parish, “they are the age group that is most active in the Church.”

Evangelicals

Evangelicals who understand that humanity faces a planetary emergency are uniquely positioned to discuss it with friends, family, and fellow church members who are unsure about the science, or may even think that climate change is a hoax.

Sound like a tall order? Katharine Hayhoe, an evangelical Christian and a climate scientist, has won a national following by explaining how. Author of Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, a national best-seller, Hayhoe sees no contradiction between her evangelical Christian faith and her commitment to climate science.

“There is one thing all of us can do that we are not doing: talk about it,” Hayhoe says. She believes that nearly everybody has the values needed to care about climate. “We just need to connect the dots between the values they already have.”

And there’s a network for that. Founded in 1993, the Evangelical Environmental Network (ENN) works to “inspire, equip, educate, and mobilize evangelical Christians to love God and others by rediscovering and reclaiming the Biblical mandate to care for creation and working toward a stable climate and a healthy, pollution-free world.”

Mainline Protestants

Once dominant in U.S. culture, the Mainline Protestants lost power and influence during the second half of the twentieth century. By 2020, only about 16% of Americans belonged to these historic denominations, which include Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and others.

Historian David Hollinger calls these groups “Ecumenical Protestants” because of their “willingness to cooperate in ecclesiastical, civic, and global affairs” with Christian and non-Christian groups. These groups coordinate their climate advocacy work through the National Council of Churches’ Creation Justice Ministries, which has expanded beyond predominantly white churches to embrace historically Black denominations.

Lay Third Actors whose faith roots lie in these historic protestant denominations can seek out local congregations engaged in faith-based climate advocacy or search online for calls to climate action by leaders and members of their denomination.

Black Churches

For more than 300 years, Black churches in America have provided a haven for people forced to struggle daily against systemic racism. Besides being places of worship, Black churches have served as places of solidarity and civic activity, playing a key role in the Civil Rights movement.

Today the term “Black church” is usually understood to encompass seven Black Protestant denominations including the National Baptist Convention, the National Baptist Convention of America, the Progressive National Convention, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Taken together, African American denominations account for about 7% of Americans who identify with a faith group.

People of color, especially African Americans, are exposed to industrial pollution from fossil fuels more than others and are more likely to suffer from cancer, lung and heart diseases, and premature death as a result. Black churches have long struggled to overcome these injustices.

In recent years, the climate movement has belatedly taken note, occasionally providing funding and other support to Black-led organizations fighting for environmental justice.

Green the Church is in the forefront of efforts to link the Black Church and the environmental and sustainability movement. Founded in 2010 by Rev. Ambrose Carroll Sr., a pastor in Oakland, California, Green the Church aims to expand the role of Black churches as “centers for environmental and economic resilience.”

Muslims

Unlike other U.S. religious groups, most U.S. Muslim adults (58%) are immigrants. Muslims in America tend to be younger than other U.S. religious groups, with a median age of 33, compared to 47 for other faiths. Boomers account for just 15% of American Muslims, about half the percentage for other religious groups. Muslim advocacy for climate action reflects these unusual demographics: a mostly young population that shares the concerns of other American youth about climate change.

The highest-level call for Muslim climate action is the 2015 Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change, which asserts that humans are God’s khalifah or “stewards” on Earth and must care for God’s creation. The declaration informs the environmental advocacy of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), whose “Green Initiative” works to raise awareness about the “catastrophic effects of climate change,” reduce waste, and promote the use of solar energy.

Green Muslims, a volunteer-driven non-profit in the suburbs of Washington, DC, engages locally and works to connect Muslims across the country to nature and to environmental activism. The group hosts educational and outdoor events and serves as a bridge between the Muslim community and local climate action organizations. Founder and executive director Sevim Kalyoncu is eager to welcome older Muslims to their group.

Jews

For most of its history, the U.S. Jewish environmental movement focused on outdoor education, nature-based spirituality, and localized greening—reducing a community’s environmental footprint. While these remain important, today there is a growing recognition that responding to the climate emergency requires more pointed advocacy.

Jewish climate advocacy gained fresh momentum in 2020 with the launch of Dayenu. “Dayenu is focused on mobilizing the Jewish community around levers of change,” founder Rabbi Jennie Rosenn explains. “It’s not just about putting solar panels on your roof but advocating for policies that ensure that the whole community can rapidly transition to clean energy and that those hardest hit and most marginalized benefit.”

Large Jewish organizations are moving in a similar direction. An April 2024 Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) resolution called on Reform Jewish organizations to exclude fossil fuel investments from their financial holdings. Adamah, the country’s largest Jewish environmental organization, has launched a Jewish Climate Leadership Coalition of more than 300 organizations committed to climate action.

Other Jewish organizations that support grassroots policy advocacy include the Jewish Earth Alliance, which organizes congregations to engage with Congress through action alerts and lobby days; and the Jewish Climate Action Network, active in New York City, Massachusetts, and the Washington DC metro area.

Interfaith Action

For Third Actors engaged in faith-based climate advocacy, organizing and participating in interfaith actions can be a great way to leverage your knowledge and networks. You needn’t be an ordained religious leader or hold an official position to do this.

In the summer of 2021, I traveled to northern Minnesota to participate in an interfaith delegation supporting Native Americans and others opposing the Line 3 pipeline. The morning of the march, members of half-a-dozen faiths shared prayers and explained why their faith led them to oppose Line 3 and other fossil fuel infrastructure. Only a few spoke in an official capacity; most were simply active members of their faith.

During the march, we carried signs identifying our various faith communities. Press reports noted the participation of religious groups, making clear the broad-based nature of the opposition to the project.

Fletcher Harper, an Episcopal priest and the executive director of GreenFaith, which helped to organize the Line 3 interfaith delegation, believes that boomers are key to tipping the balance towards ambitious action.

“The boomer generation cut its teeth at a transformative time in American history in the ’60s and ’70s,” he told me. Boomers and other experienced Americans are either already retired or far enough along in our working lives that we can afford to take some chances, he said. “We need that kind of unfiltered energy. We need people who have been around the block.”

About Lawrence MacDonald

Lawrence MacDonald is a co-facilitator of the Third Act Virginia Working Group and helps to lead the Dayenu Circle at Temple Rodef Shalom, Virginia’s largest Jewish congregation. He stepped down from his job as vice president of communications at the World Resources Institute to write Am I Too Old to Save the Planet? A Boomer’s Guide to Climate Action, and works full-time as a volunteer climate activist. Watch for Part 2 of this article this fall.

]]> A Life of Faith-Based Activism https://thirdact.org/faith/2024/08/04/a-life-of-faith-based-activism/ Sun, 04 Aug 2024 12:56:57 +0000 https://thirdact.org/faith/?p=512 Climate activists pictured with bus
Ruah Swennerfelt’s first climate march with Bill McKibben and others in Vermont.

By Ruah Swennerfelt, TAF Coordinating Committee member

For activists like those of us immersed in the work of Third Act, it’s easy to forget that many people who live in the US would prefer to go on with their daily lives, not thinking about the dangers of climate change and the fragility of our democracy. They’re afraid to go down that rabbit hole of alarm and potential despair, once they stare at the problems, eyes wide open.

At a recent discussion during a Third Act Faith Coordinating Committee meeting, we were examining this dilemma which, we believe, sometimes keeps people away from our monthly Third Act Faith general meetings that feature inspirational speakers and conversations about these issues with other people of faith. We were exploring how clergy and lay members of faith communities can balance the raw truth with threads of hope that can bind us together and empower us to act on behalf of all that lives.

If these truths and hopes are not heard from the pulpits (or, as in my faith tradition, from vocal ministry in Quaker Meetings) or discussed and shared regularly among congregants, how will we succeed in halting, or at least slowing down the threats to nature or our democracy?

I am a “convinced” Quaker, meaning I embraced this faith as an adult, having not been born a Quaker. I was “convinced” by the traditional Testimonies of Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Sustainability, which has now been added. These have guided my life, my choices, and my actions since 1975. And in 1991 when I read in a Quaker Earthcare Witness pamphlet that “there will be no peace without a planet,” it brought together my reverence for the natural world with my understanding of what it means to be a Quaker.

After the 2016 election I woke up each morning and jumped on my computer to learn what alarming things were happening in the halls of DC, until I realized how unhealthy that had become for my soul. I changed that habit to beginning my day with inspirational readings, or reading and learning about the natural world (which was also inspirational). After my morning cup of tea and the readings and reflections, I felt more grounded to absorb what was happening and to find ways to constructively act for change.

Buddhist author and teacher Joanna Macy has for years suggested that despair can lead us to empowerment and to activism. Jesus instructed us to be wise as serpents, gentle as doves. That wisdom comes from seeking truth about what challenges lie ahead of us, and the gentleness comes from acting with love. Let our actions be motivated by our hearts, our faith, and our belief that all of life is kin and deserves our protection.

In the 1980s I was involved in protesting our government’s violent involvement in Central American countries, particularly El Salvador. I participated in a sit-in at Vermont Senator Robert Stafford’s office, asking for a public hearing to help him understand how his votes were destroying people’s lives. Forty-four of us were arrested, but a jury found us innocent, understanding our use of the “necessity defense,” which allows one to break a lesser law to prevent a greater harm.

Shortly after that I co-founded Chrysalis, a small faith-based activist group. We focused on the GE plant in Burlington, Vermont, where gatling guns were manufactured. These guns fired 10,000 rounds per minute and were being used in El Salvador, destroying homes and cornfields, and causing much suffering. We were arrested a number of times during our 10-year campaign, sometimes resulting in jail time. Being a faith-based activist helped me sweep away the despair I felt for the suffering people and gave me hope that I could make a difference, however small.

We met the GE employees with love, and they grew to appreciate our presence. Some met with us to find ways to seek other employment. This was during a time when many people were boycotting GE, with its “We bring good things to life” slogan, because of the company’s involvement in weapons of war. GE eventually sold off that part of their business and went back to focusing on appliances. Can we take credit? Does it matter? If we follow our leadings, we are not focused on success but on spiritual fulfillment.

To continue to avoid despair, I have remained an activist and have several circles of community that help me stay grounded. They include my Quaker Meeting, where I serve on the Earthcare Committee; Sustainable Charlotte Vermont, a Transition Initiative; Vermont Interfaith Power and Light; Quaker Earthcare Witness; my neighbors who gather each Sunday evening for food and fun; and, since last year, the Third Act Faith Coordinating Committee. All these circles feel like loving arms surrounding me and keeping me grounded and committed to protecting our beautiful blue planet and all that lives on it, human and non-human.

I am most comfortable when my actions come from deep within, where I feel connected with all living things. And I was attracted to the Transition Movement, started in England in 1985, because of their emphasis on inner transition—not a religious belief but one that connects heart and soul in each initiative. The Transition Movement is described as “a movement of communities coming together to reimagine and rebuild our world.” Its focus is on climate change and resource depletion, but it’s involved in a wide range of social and economic issues. Our local initiative, Sustainable Charlotte Vermont, hosts repair cafés, builds affordable window inserts to help people keep warm and use less fuel, collects electronics annually (keeping dangerous items from the landfill), hosts educational events, and more. It is joyful, exciting, and fulfilling. We begin our meetings with a potluck, holding hands before the meal, and checking in with each other.

People at tables repairing household items.
Members of Sustainable Charlotte Vermont at one of their repair cafés.

Living not far from Bill McKibben in Vermont, my husband and I were involved in the creation of 350.org. We participated in the first climate march in 2006, starting in Lincoln and walking for 5 days to Burlington. We got to know Bill then, and have appreciated all that he has to offer to the planet. So, when he started Third Act, I signed up to receive the newsletters. But my heart leapt when I learned that there was a Faith Working Group, and I signed up for those newsletters as well. Then last year, when a request went out for help with an online religious service, I volunteered and was soon asked to join the Coordinating Committee. This has been a perfect match: joining in interfaith work and meeting wonderful, committed, and brilliant people. As I reflect on the arc of my faith journey as an activist, this feels like coming home in the third act of my life.

I am delighted that another friend and fellow activist, George Lakey, will be the guest at TAF’s September 24th General Meeting. George has been an inspiration to me for many years. His many years as a social activist—from the civil rights movement through to his founding of the Earth Quaker Action Team—gave life to the phrase “walk your talk.” He takes risks, speaks and acts with love, and has the most engaging laugh I’ve ever heard. After some years of casually knowing one another through Quaker events, we developed a deep friendship which fills me with gratitude. I’ve read all his books, hosted him in our home, and promoted him to speak at various functions. George’s latest book is a memoir entitled Dancing with History, and soon I’ll be thrilled to view a documentary about his life.

I hope you will join me in September to meet George and join other Third Act Faith events in the future—to be inspired and find hope through faith-based activism.

About Ruah Swennerfelt

Ruah Swennerfelt is a mother, grandmother, and great grandmother as well as a wife and land nurturer. She serves as clerk of the New England Yearly Meeting (Quakers) Earthcare Ministry Committee and on the Middlebury Friends Meeting’s Earthcare Committee. She was general secretary of Quaker Earthcare Witness for 17 years before retiring. Ruah is the author of the book Rising to the Challenge: The Transition Movement and People of Faith. She is active in the Transition Movement, serving on the board of Sustainable Charlotte Vermont. She and her husband, Louis Cox, homestead the land where they live, cognizant that it is the unceded land of the Abenaki.

 

 

]]> Faith-Based Climate Advocacy as a Path to Power https://thirdact.org/faith/2024/07/02/faith-based-climate-advocacy-as-a-path-to-power/ Tue, 02 Jul 2024 21:34:23 +0000 https://thirdact.org/faith/?p=458 Protesters by lake with signs
A June 2021 interfaith protest near an expansion of Line 3 in northern Minnesota, which has spilled millions of gallons of tar sands oil, including the worst inland oil spill in U.S. history. Photo courtesy of GreenFaith.

By Lawrence MacDonald, TA Virginia Co-facilitator and TA Faith member

The Third Act Faith website eloquently describes why people of faith are often inspired to work for climate justice and democracy: “Rooted in the ethics of justice, compassion, and the sacredness of the world around us our religious beliefs motivate us to take action to preserve a liveable planet and a free and fair democracy.”

In my book, Am I Too Old to Save the Planet? A Boomer’s Guide to Climate Action, I explore the value of faith-based advocacy as a tool for achieving the rapid, systemic change humanity needs to avert a climate catastrophe.

In the chapter “What’s Faith Got to Do With It?,” I note that all religious traditions require that we protect the planet and care for the poor. Top faith leaders are urging action. Faith-based advocacy can be a source of power: when religious groups demand action, politicians listen. This is especially the case when people from differing faith backgrounds join together.

I illustrate this with a brief story: a priest, a rabbi and an imam walk into a bar. Bartender says: “What is this, a joke?” Seriously, as old jokes like this suggest, when leaders from different faiths act together, people pay attention. If a priest, a rabbi, and an imam, or other representatives of multiple faiths, walk into a Congressional office to talk about climate change, or jointly sign a resolution, or march together in a climate protest, political leaders and others pay attention.

Why? Because, unlike nearly everybody else trying to shape public policy, faith-based groups, including interfaith groups, are understood to be acting out of moral conviction grounded in religious teaching. As a Congressional staffer once told a friend of mine leading a faith-based climate lobbying effort on Capitol Hill: “People of faith come in through a different door.”

Unleashing the power of faith-based advocacy

Third Actors can unleash the power of faith-based advocacy in two ways, as I explain in my book. The first is outward-facing: we can show up as people of faith. By utilizing sacred texts, songs, and prayers drawn from our traditions and by displaying religious symbols and wearing religious garb when appropriate, we make it clear that people of faith care deeply about the climate emergency.

The second is inward-facing: we can encourage the faith communities we participate in–and our local religious leaders–to become much more active in the fight for a livable climate.

Many congregations focus on reducing the environmental footprint through things like recycling and rooftop solar. While these “greening” activities are not a bad place to start, too often congregations stop there, failing to mobilize their members to join together to demand rapid systemic change.

This failure creates opportunities for older people like us who care passionately about climate change, a group I call “climate boomers.” We elders are often the majority of active participants in religious organizations, providing the bulk of the financial support. Clergy and other local religious leaders pick their priorities based on the guidance they receive from senior leadership and the expressed needs of their members or followers. Many are already deeply concerned about climate change and are waiting to be nudged to do more.

If you belong to a faith community, you can be the nudge. Call a meeting to find others in the congregation who share your concern. Form a group that can ask your clergy and lay leaders to go beyond “greening” initiatives and join in faith-based advocacy for a livable planet.

Learning from Indigenous teachings

Indigenous people have been prominent in the fight to protect the Earth, often invoking their sacred teachings. In the United States, Indigenous women elders have led efforts to block fossil fuel pipelines such as Keystone XL, Dakota Access Pipeline, Line 3, and others. Their work has helped to inspire, educate, and mobilize thousands of Native and non-Native people.

Native American religious beliefs differ widely, and European settlers and the U.S. government banned and violently suppressed Indigenous religious practices for centuries. Nevertheless, core concepts have persisted and some have made their way into the majority culture. One is the belief that the entire universe is alive and therefore sacred. Another, based on an ancient Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) philosophy, requires humans to consider the impact of our decisions on people seven generations into the future.

In fighting for their lands and sovereignty, Indigenous peoples are fighting to save the planet. Although they comprise less than 5 percent of the world population, Indigenous peoples protect 80 percent of the Earth’s biodiversity in the forests, deserts, grasslands, and marine environments in which they have lived for centuries.

One well-known Indigenous elder is Winona LaDuke, a rural development economist, environmentalist, writer, and activist who has authored and co-authored more than a dozen books. An Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi Band Anishinaabeg, she is the co-executive director of Honor the Earth, which she founded in 1993 to increase awareness and raise money for Native-led environmental groups.

I heard her speak at the interfaith camp of the Treaty People’s Gathering in northern Minnesota in June 2021. It was an alarmingly hot day. We sat beneath pines beside a lake on rough-hewn benches in a campfire-style circle. A middle boomer with a commanding, charismatic presence, LaDuke held our group of about 100 mostly non-Native climate activists spellbound.

In one of her earliest books, Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming (2005), LaDuke writes that because religious freedom is a fundamental part of the U.S. Bill of Rights, one would think that religious freedom for Native people is protected. “That is so, as long as your religious practice does not involve access to a sacred site coveted by others,” she explains. The book recounts scores of instances where Native people’s rights to sacred lands have been blocked or otherwise violated.

She ends with a plea for action: “The fossil fuel century has been incredibly destructive to the ecological structures—the air, earth, water, and plant and animal life—that keep planet Earth habitable for humans,” she wrote. “Whether human populations will continue to flourish 100 years from now will depend on the choices we make today.” Fifteen years after that book was published, her plea is truer—and more urgent—than ever.

The outsize influence of Quakers

Another group that has been influential in the climate movement beyond what their numbers would suggest is the Quakers, formally known as the Religious Society of Friends, who have been early movers in the fossil fuel divestiture movement.

The Friends Committee on National Legislation, a non-partisan Quaker group that lobbies Congress, has actively supported the Civil Rights Movement and Native American rights, and opposed nuclear weapons and the Vietnam War. Today the group also lobbies for climate action. The Quakers’ outsized influence is a valuable reminder of the potential power of bringing faith into the struggle for climate justice.

You can hear about Quaker activism at Third Act Faith’s September 24 General Meeting, when our speaker will be George Lakey, a longtime activist for peace and justice, and co-founder of Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT).

Faith-based climate action builds community

Faith-based action offers other benefits besides a path to power. As we shift into retirement, many of us lose ties with our workplaces and former colleagues. We find ourselves searching for community. For some of us this can mean reconnecting with the religious teachings, rituals, and communities of our childhoods. For others it may entail a spiritual search that leads to a new community and set of traditions.

Elders who relocate during retirement often find that joining a church, mosque, synagogue, or other religious organization provides ready entry to a welcoming community. Choosing a community that is already working for climate justice can align your values with your spiritual or religious practice or quest.

As an elder, you can tap into this force whether you are already an active participant in a religious community, only loosely affiliated with a faith-based tradition, or perhaps just beginning a Third Act spiritual quest.

Third Act Faith, the only faith-based climate and democracy advocacy network focused specifically on experienced Americans, is uniquely positioned to bring together the power of faith voices and the power of elders. For example, members of the working group bring faith voices to Third Act campaigns. They can also help to advance Third Act campaigns–such as the push to divest from fossil fuels–within their local faith community.

Not currently connected to a local community? Joelle Novey, director of the DC, Maryland, and Northern Virginia hub of Interfaith Power and Light, suggests two paths. First, “seek out a local group that meets regularly and will call you to action.” Second, “seek out the language and theology that is authentic to your faith tradition and use that to ask your faith leaders to do more.”

If you do this, you will have plenty of company. A 2021 Climate Change in the American Mind survey found that most religious voters favored legislation to eliminate fossil fuel emissions by 2050, often by overwhelming majorities. This included 88 percent of Black Protestants, 76 percent of non-Christian religious groups, 61 percent of white Catholics, 53 percent of white ecumenical Protestants, and 50 percent of white evangelical Protestants.

In a follow-up article for Third Act Faith, I will offer an overview of how six U.S. faith groups are responding to the climate emergency: Catholics, Evangelicals, Ecumenical Protestants, Black Churches, Muslims, and Jews. I end that article with a discussion of the interfaith climate movement of which Third Act Faith is an increasingly important part.

 

About Lawrence MacDonald

Lawrence MacDonald is a co-facilitator of the Third Act Virginia Working Group and helps to lead the Dayenu Circle at Temple Rodef Shalom, Virginia’s largest Jewish congregation. He stepped down from his job as vice president of communications at the World Resources Institute to write Am I Too Old to Save the Planet? A Boomer’s Guide to Climate Action, and works full-time as a volunteer climate activist. Watch for part 2 of this article later this fall.

 

 

]]> Finding Balance https://thirdact.org/faith/2024/05/09/finding-balance/ Thu, 09 May 2024 08:18:18 +0000 https://thirdact.org/faith/?p=358 Going Deep essay for May, Jane Ellen explains how “achieving balance also impacts our spiritual lives.” CLICK TO READ ESSAY. ]]>
A person standing on rocks in a yoga pose, facing a lake
Image Source: pixabay.com

By Jane Ellen Nickell, TAF Communications and Membership Chair

LIKE MANY OLDER ADULTS, I have balance problems that have led to several recent falls. Because of  an inner ear issue, I struggle to find the equilibrium that allows others to stand serenely in one-legged yoga poses like the tree. My legs and ankles tremble, and even a few moments of steadiness can be swept away by a sudden wave of tipsiness.

Balance is an important virtue in other areas of our lives. People talk about a good work-life balance, and I looked forward to retirement, when I wouldn’t be juggling the demands of a full-time job. But as many of you have no doubt found, I am at least as busy as I was during my working life. With a full schedule of volunteer activities and part-time work, I still seek to balance work and rest.

ACHIEVING BALANCE ALSO IMPACTS OUR SPIRITUAL LIVES. We find our souls troubled by a world full of violence, climate disasters, economic inequality, and authoritarian rule. Keeping ourselves spiritually well requires us to practice balance as a spiritual discipline.

We generally think of religion as requiring us to be all in, and not something to be done in a balanced or measured way. But religious extremists who become cult-like illustrate how easily religion can become a force for bad instead of good. When yoked to politics, extremism threatens democracy as well as religious communities.

Far right regimes around the world are imposing nationalist agendas. Extremists on the left are likewise opposed to centrist policies or candidates, leading to a government that is so polarized it is largely ineffective. The U.S. Congress has become a winner-take-all exercise in which the party in power rams through as much legislation as possible before they lose control and the other side takes over and does the same. Few are willing to seek middle ground on which to govern, and many centrists have left or been voted out of office.

We live in a world that is out of balance. Climate change has thrown the natural order of earth systems out of whack. Species are going extinct at an alarming rate. Economic inequality continues to increase, as an ever smaller number of people holds an ever greater percentage of wealth.

The Israeli attack on Gaza is so troubling because it is so out of proportion. Few people would condone Hamas’s attack on Israel, but the death toll is now 30 Palestinians to every one Israeli killed in that attack, with many more in Gaza suffering starvation, disease, and the terror of more strikes. Israel has a “right to defend itself,” but that bar has long since been passed, and ongoing action is way out of balance.

In the midst of such extremes, finding balance is a challenge.

TO IMPROVE MY PHYSICAL BALANCE, physical therapy is training me to ground my energy, keeping my feet and ankles as steady as possible, and to strengthen my core muscles. Those tactics can be applied to other areas of life as well. We can find balance, if we remain connected to the things that ground us and focus on our core beliefs and commitments.

As tempting as it is to block out the news altogether, we can follow it enough to be informed, but not so much that we become paralyzed by despair. We can balance mainstream media, which understandably covers the worst news, by looking for good news, through such sources as YES! Magazine and grassroots groups whose work cultivates hope.

We can attend to our own spirits, recognizing that for most of us, both the highest highs and the lowest lows are temporary. Various religious traditions counsel awareness that the human condition is impermanent, advising us in both good times and bad to remember that “this too shall pass.”

As stressful as many of us find this particular moment in time, taking a long view reveals that much of the world enjoys a better standard of living than at any time in history. The cost of renewable energy has dropped dramatically, so that wind and solar are now cheaper than fossil fuels. After struggling for decades, my own denomination, the United Methodist Church, recently dropped all language condemning LGBTQ persons and limiting their full involvement in the church. Such achievements support the idea of a long moral arc that inclines toward justice.1

BEING IN THIRD ACT HELPS ME STAY BALANCED. We are part of the forces working for justice, joining other elders to right some of the imbalances in this world before passing it on to future generations. This work is as important as any job for which I received a paycheck, helping me prioritize the myriad options retirement offers. I find purpose and meaning in being part of a group that has made noticeable change in its short lifetime.

Working with the Third Act Faith working group contributes to my spiritual balance. We are a group of lay persons and religious professionals from diverse traditions who find sacredness in our common work. We find spiritual ways to support Third Act campaigns, such as our current focus on the sacred right to vote that encourages religious communities to become more active in elections.

Addressing challenges to climate and democracy can produce stress and anxiety, so TAF is now giving all Third Actors opportunities to lament, heal, and find spiritual grounding. In conjunction with Third Act’s Hope & Joy gatherings, TAF offers online contemplative practices (Watch this web page for upcoming events.).  We create opportunities and resources for blessing other actions, like our Service of Solidarity before the 3.21.23 Day of Action.

Our world feels imbalanced because of strong forces pulling us backward toward a more familiar past and forward toward a more inclusive and just future. But history teaches us that the world has felt topsy-turvy at many other points, and that things eventually even out. While some of us may not live to see that happen, working through Third Act allows us to help move the world toward a better future. Doing this work can cultivate balance in our own lives by providing hope and purpose in these challenging days.

About Jane Ellen Nickell

An ordained United Methodist minister, Jane Ellen Nickell lives in Meadville, Pennsylvania, where she retired after serving as Chaplain at Allegheny College for 16 years. In that role she worked with students of all faiths, or of none, and taught Religious Studies, including a course on Religion and Ecology. She is a former Co-Facilitator of Third Act Faith, a member of the Coordinating Committee, and serves as Communications Chair and Membership Chair. This essay is adapted from a post on her blog, A Nickell for Your Thoughts.  

1

Most famously utterly by Martin Luther King Jr., this idea originated with Theodore Parker, a Unitarian minister and abolitionist.

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