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.

Spring holidays offer possibilities for bringing earth care together with religious observance. Here are some resources to help you consider sustainability as you prepare for Passover or Easter, or to celebrate Earth Day in your faith community.

Passover (April 12-20)

As Jews observe Passover, there are many resources to connect to the earth and practice sustainability. Former TAF member, the late Rabbi Ellen Bernstein, wrote a haggadah entitled The Promise of the Land that centers the Passover story in the natural world. Focusing on the very soil out of which Judaism grew, this haggadah explores the Seder’s earthly grounding and ecological meaning.

The Jewish environmental group Adamah provides online resources for considering sustainability throughout the eight days of Passover. You will find activities, rituals, recipes, and tips, including several haggadah supplements.

With Dayenu, Adamah also created a Climate Action Shabbat Guide to help families and congregations take meaningful climate action and align Shabbat practices with sustainability and Jewish values throughout the year.

Easter (April 20)

Christians can also keep earth care and sustainability in mind as they celebrate Easter. Derrick Weston reflects on the implications of Jesus’ death and resurrection for all creation in this blog post, and the National Catholic Reporter offers tips for celebrating a creation-conscious Easter. The Creation Justice Ministries website has a hub of resources, where you can search by theme or liturgical season and find sermon ideas, scripture reflections, songs, and prayers.

To continue your sustainable focus through the year, Creation Justice Ministries offers 52 Ways to Care for Creation 2025, with actions for every week of the year, including Holy Week, Easter, and Earth Day. Their 2025 resource, The Power of God: From Extractive Theology to Transformative Faith, can help your congregation think about God’s power and how we interact in the world. Download it for free from their website.

Earth Day (April 22)

The theme for this year’s Earth Day celebration is “Our Power, Our Planet.” As Third Act is doing with its plans for Sun Day (September 20-21), Earth Day is focusing on the need to transition to renewable sources of energy, which have become the most cost-effective sources of power. The transition will create jobs, eliminate the need to import fossil fuels, and avoid the health hazards and greenhouse gas emissions that come from burning fossil fuels.

The Earth Day website provides toolkits, fact sheets, sample petitions and press releases, and guidelines with samples prayers and sermons for faith communities. A map of Earth Day events around the world can be filtered by “faith,” so you can locate an action near you or post one that you are organizing. For Earth Day events sponsored by other Third Act Working Groups, visit thirdact.org/working-groups/events.

Also focusing on renewable energy, Creation Justice Ministries will host an Earth Day prayer service based on their 2025 resource, The Power of God: From Extractive Theology to Transformative Faith. Held online on April 22 at 10:00 AM PT / 1:00 PM ET, the service will lead participants into a time of prayer and reflection, centered around seven original pieces of music produced for the resource. Register here.

Sustainable Woodstock is hosting an Earth Day conversation with advocate and activist Rev. Mariama White-Hammond on Wednesday, April 23 at 3:00 PM PT / 6:00 PM ET on Zoom. Pastor and Founder of the New Roots AME Church in Dorchester, MA, Rev. White-Hammond is former Chief of Energy, Environment and Open Space for the City of Boston. Read more about her and register for this virtual presentation with Q&A online.

In addition the United Church of Christ will hold its Annual UCC Earth Day Summit  on Saturday, April 26, on Zoom, from 11:00-2:00 PM PT / 2:00-5:00 PM ET. The Jim Antal Keynote Lecture (named for TAF member Rev. Dr. Jim Antal)  will be delivered by Katharine Hayhoe, one of the world’s leading climate scientists and an evangelical Christian. Dr. Hayhoe will be joined by a panel of frontline grassroots leaders. Learn more and register here.

Faith communities can also search these websites, which include Earth Day resources, including those from past years:

• Creation Justice Ministries offers resources to help Christian congregations observe Earth Day in worship and through the life of your church.
• United Methodist Creation Justice Tips for April include ways to show love of God by loving earth, and can be shared in church newsletters, bulletins, or social media and in your personal communications.
• Interfaith Power & Light has a map for climate action events through the month of April, and resources from previous years.
• For additional religious events, visit One Earth Sangha or the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology.

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. 

Learning to Walk in the Dark: Because Sometimes God Shows up at Night
By Barbara Brown Taylor
Drawing on her own experience, Barbara Brown Taylor describes how we learn to fear the dark and encourages us to explore the gifts of darkness, where we may have some of our most profound spiritual experiences. Her insights can guide us through these challenging times, where we may find unexpected blessings and deepen our encounters with God, each other, and ourselves.
—Jane Ellen Nickell

Refugia Faith: Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth
By Debra Rienstra
Learn how communities of faith – particularly smaller ones – can name and embrace their gifts in ways that strengthen their resilience and help them engage in meaningful ministry amidst cultural and planetary upheaval.
—Jim Antal

Life after Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart
By Brian McLaren
Brian McLaren shows us how to face the worst outcomes of climate catastrophe and emerge fiercely defiant, brave and kind. A must read for anyone seeking to live faithfully.
—Jim Antal

Night Magic
By Leigh Ann Henion
In order to “know the night with greater intimacy,” nature writer Leigh Ann Henion takes us on hikes through mountain, woods and ponds, to see salamanders crossing rural roads to return to mating streams, glowworms under leaf mold, and moths disoriented by artificial light. Her book is a wake-up call to push back against the ever-increasing light pollution that endangers their lives.
— Mary Johnson

Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us into the Sacred
By Victoria Loorz
Finding solace in nature is an antidote for our difficult times. With an eco-spiritual lens on biblical narratives and a fresh look at a community larger than our own species, Victoria Loorz uncovers the wild roots of faith and helps us deepen our commitment to a suffering earth by falling in love with it—and calling it church.
— Ruah Swennerfelt

Sacred Earth Sacred Soul: Celtic Wisdom for Reawakening to What Our Souls Know and Healing the World
By John Philip Newell
In these difficult times and as we enter the darkness of the winter solstice, we are helped by John Phillip Newell as he explores  how Celtic spirituality—listening to the sacred around us and inside of us—can help us heal the earth, overcome our conflicts, and reconnect with ourselves.
— Ruah Swennerfelt

Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures
By Katherine Rundell
This is the perfect book to read in the aftermath of a planet-threatening election. In times like these, terror and rage will carry us only so far. We will also need unstinting, unceasing love. For the hard work that lies ahead, Ms. Rundell writes, “Our competent and furious love will have to be what fuels us.” This is a book to help you fall in love.
—Margaret Renkl, The New York Times, 11/18/24

How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days
By Kari Leibowitz
If you long for the same kind of happiness a snowy day gave you as a kid, “How to Winter” will help you recapture that feeling. If you need a cold weather mood-booster, that’s here, too.
— Terri Schlichenmeyer, “The Bookworm”

AT OUR SEPTEMBER GENERAL MEETING, QUAKER ACTIVIST and author George Lakey brought a lighthearted tone and infectious laugh to a serious topic: his 60-year fight for peace and justice spanning the Civil Rights movement, anti-war efforts during the 1960s, and more recent campaigns with Earth Quaker Action Team. George shared insights gleaned from this work, his Quaker faith, and his training as a sociologist – among them the importance of having a vision of the transformation you seek, and the need for being patient with the often slow pace of social change.

George learned the value of community early, he told us, when he and fellow peace activists felt called to sail a boat into South Vietnam with medical supplies for hospitals treating civilian victims of the Vietnam War. George consulted his Quaker community about the wisdom of putting his own life in danger this way when he had three young children depending on him. But his community affirmed that God was calling him to go, and they committed to care for his family if anything happened to him.

He described being beaten up multiple times and being confronted at knifepoint after “street speaking” against the war, using the incidents to show us the importance of teamwork, and explained how they reinforced his commitment to remain nonviolent. “Each time that I remember to remain nonviolent when I’m threatened, it strengthens me, it gives me power, and it builds in my own subconscious a kind of track record of memory and belief in myself, such that I can take on the next thing,” he told us.

He talked about the polarization our country is experiencing, and encouraged listeners to not fear conflict. “We never learn to do conflict well by avoiding it,” he pointed out, adding that this was a lesson he learned from his piano teacher, who said, “You’ll never learn to play the piano well by avoiding practice.” In addressing conflict, it is not necessary to engage with those who are most opposed to you, he explained, telling us to instead approach people in the middle – those who are “undecided, or are timid and cowed by the situation…and try to win them over to support you.”

THE BIGGEST PROFESSIONAL MISTAKE HE MADE as a sociologist, he went on, was thinking of polarization as a negative social factor that would inhibit progress. That idea was challenged when he studied the social progress achieved in Scandinavian countries, and learned that the advances had emerged a century ago when Nazis were marching in the streets and Scandinavian countries were in turmoil. Our own country made similar progress in the 1930s and 1960s, he reminded us – also times of social unrest.

George said he found the key to this apparent contradiction when visiting a Quaker sculptor in England. The artist showed him the forge where he heats the metal to the point that he can transform it into whatever shape he wants, and that was George’s “aha moment.”

“Man, you saved my brain,” he told the sculptor. “That’s the metaphor I’ve needed! Polarization is a blacksmith forge, heating a society and making it possible for people to make major advances that they in other periods of time cannot make. Whoa!”

George documents that revelation in his book Viking Economics and warns that polarization in our country may increase in coming years. Yet he is hopeful that such conflict will ultimately lead to progress, as it did in Scandinavia. Still he cautions that successful social movements need a vision of the society they want to see, and cannot just complain about what they don’t like.

DURING THE Q&A PERIOD FOLLOWING THE TALK, a participant asked George about the difficulty of changing large capitalist institutions such as the banks that Third Act targeted on 3.21.23 and Summer of Heat. In his response, George stressed the importance of choosing a target that is winnable. He recounted the efforts of the Earth Quaker Action Team, which he co-founded, to lobby PNC Bank to stop funding mountaintop-removal coal mining. They started small, sitting on the lobby floor and worshiping in a few banks in one state, then expanded until they were holding simultaneous worship at banks in 13 states. They also disrupted a shareholder meeting by holding their own meeting at the same time and place, having purchased enough shares to be there. The effort took five years, but eventually PNC agreed to stop funding the destructive mining practice.

At a time when many people fear for the future of our country, listeners were buoyed by George’s optimism born of long experience and his analysis about the slow pace of change. As he reminded us in his closing words, “We’re in it together, and we can do together what we can’t do alone.”

To hear George describe these experiences in his joyful, engaging way – including how bank managers responded to Quakers worshiping in their bank lobbies and what PNC shareholders did when demonstrators began to sing “This Little Light of Mine” – listen to the recording of the full meeting on our YouTube channel.

In an excerpt from George’s memoir, Dancing with History: A Life for Peace and Justice, read how George describes the obstacles he and other activists encountered when they sailed into a war zone with medical aid during the Vietnam War. A documentary about his life is due out in November.

As we approach one of the most consequential elections in history, Third Act Faith hosted an interfaith workshop on preaching an election sermon, led by Rev. Dr. Jim Antal, Rabbi Stephanie Kolin, and Imam Jamal Rahman.  A video of this online workshop is available on the Third Act Faith YouTube channel.

In his introductory remarks, Rev. Antal, a member of the TAF Coordinating Committee, noted that trusted religious leaders have offered election sermons since 1634, in order to reflect on the moral qualifications of those running for office. Many clergy are hesitant about doing that now, fearing they will violate IRS regulations against endorsing particular parties or candidates.

But the ban on such partisan actions does not preclude discussion of politics, which the panelists described as the way we order our life together. As Rev. Antal said, “Engaging public life is as important as any purpose of the church, the synagogue, or the mosque….I think that one of our responsibilities as clergy is to help shape our life together, as a community, as a nation, and as a world.”

In describing the importance of justice in the Jewish tradition, Rabbi Kolin said that Jews are not allowed to pray in a sanctuary without windows so that they are aware of the needs of the outside world. Prayer shouldn’t draw us inward, but outward and upward and towards other people, she said. “Politics and the public square, and prayer and ritual are not so different, if through all of them we’re meant to be thinking about how we take care of each other.”

Citing the Islamic scholar and poet Rumi, Imam Rahman echoed that idea, saying that Muslims around the world form a circle as they bow in prayer, but they must also be of service to each other. “Be a lamp, a lifeboat, or a ladder to others,” Rahman said. “Voting is an act of service to others.”

All three religious leaders noted that congregations offer space where people of different political beliefs and parties can come together to find common ground. In over twenty years of working with a rabbi and a Lutheran pastor as the “Interfaith Amigos,” Imam Rahman said the three have learned that the best way to overcome polarization is to get to know each other.

Noting the unique place of sanctuaries at a time when media and political parties are amplifying ideological differences, Rev. Antal said, “An election sermon can remind our congregants that chief among our many concerns–as people of faith–is our concern for the common good.”

Reports from the breakout conversations also emphasized the importance of loving neighbors, including those with different political beliefs. By creating safe space that is lacking in other parts of society and drawing on their sacred scriptures, congregations can make a huge difference in how American culture navigates the coming months and years.

The panelists and participants offered some specific suggestions for preaching election sermons and for individual actions. Asked to share a relevant scripture passage, Rabbi Kolin offered Numbers 27:1-11, a story about how the daughters of Zelophehad challenged Moses and other leaders to deal fairly with them after their father died. Imam Rahman cited several passages, including a caution to consult your own heart, no matter what religious authorities say, which is mentioned 132 times in the Qur’an.

Rev. Antal compiled a list of resources for preaching an election sermon. He will also be taking part in another panel on Tuesday, October 1, at 4:00 PM CT/7:00 PM ET, discussing “Politics, the Media, and the Church’s Role in Truth-Telling in an Election Season.” Details and the registration link are on the website for the Wisconsin Council of Churches and the Clergy Emergency League, which is sponsoring the event.

Finally, workshop participants were encouraged to compare party platforms and candidates’ positions to specific religious texts or values that they hold dear. Rev. Antal offered a list of moral principles that most religions embrace: addressing the needs of the least of these among us, assuring and advancing justice, promoting the common good, telling and adhering to truth, and preserving and restoring the integrity of creation. These could form the core of an election sermon, and they provide clear guidance to all of us as we prepare to cast our votes in November.

You can also read articles by Rev. Antal on preaching an election sermon and on the sacred right to vote.

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.

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.

As “Summer of Heat” continues in New York, Third Actors are taking action in their own communities during Elders Week, July 8-13. From Augusta, ME, to San Francisco, and from Minneapolis to Broward, FL, elders will host rallies, demonstrations, sing-alongs, and other events to pressure Wall Street banks to stop using our hard-earned retirement savings to fund the climate crisis.

Third Act Faith folks are taking part in these actions and also stepping up during SOH’s Faith Week, July 29-August 3. To provide spiritual grounding for these and other SOH events, TAF has prepared a recorded contemplative service, designed to speak across traditions and address the ethical and spiritual dimensions of climate activism.

Rev. Dr. Jessica McArdle created the recorded contemplative service. Including interfaith chants, prayer, and petitions, the recording provides an immersive guided forest meditation. Designed to invite participants to experience the natural world’s refreshment, the recording’s intent also underscores the earth’s fragility and our summons to safeguard what has been entrusted to us.

An environmental and social justice activist, Jessica is also a practicing contemplative with twenty-five-plus years’ of experience in ordained ministry, including interfaith chaplaincy. She also serves on the Environmental Ministries Team of the Southern New Conference of the United Church of Christ, which supports greening local congregations and enlisting faith communities to protect democracy. She blogs at thespiritualactivist@blog.

The contemplative service is available on TAF’s YouTube channel for individuals or congregations taking action during Elders Week, Faith Week, or any of the 12 weeks of Summer of Heat. We invite anyone anywhere to view our virtual service as a way to engage in prayer and solidarity with those taking action in New York and across the country.

If you do not live close enough to New York to take action on Wall Street, visit Third Act’s Summer of Heat page to locate an action near you during Elders Week, or to see how you can take part from home.

On August 1, as part of Faith Week, members of TAF will join people of faith from GreenFaith, Dayenu, Earth Quaker Action Team, and XR Mindful Rebels for a day of food, song, art, and meaningful spiritual practice in Citi Plaza. If you can be there in person, register here.

Again there are options for those who cannot be in New York. On August 1 at 1:00 PM PT/4:00 PM ET, GreenFaith is hosting a Virtual Action Hour, to flood Citibank with phone calls. In the meantime, you can sign this letter calling on Citibank to do the right thing: stop funding fossil fuel expansion in the Gulf South, invest in clean energy, and reverse the environmental racism that they have been bankrolling for years.

Seeing both the election season and global temperatures heat up can make us anxious. To address the stress of working on these issues, Third Act Faith is offering monthly online contemplative practices.

Each session begins with a short introduction, followed by a meditation of about 20 minutes, with a short period to debrief. Most will last 35-40 minutes. Because these are spiritual experiences and not informational events, the meditation sessions are not recorded.

Many people equate contemplative practice with Buddhist meditation, but most religions have contemplative traditions. Spiritual practices like meditation, breath awareness, gratitude, and compassion resonate with many people who are not religious. These practices help us develop empathy, improve focus and attention, reduce stress, enhance creativity, and cultivate resilience.

TAF online practices complement Third Act’s monthly Hope & Joy sessions. These 90-minute interactive sessions feature experts in such fields as neuroscience, psychology, faith traditions, sociology, and philosophy to help connect contemplation and action. Visit the Third Act Events page for information on upcoming sessions.

Religious leaders like Franciscan friar Richard Rohr recognize the importance of connecting action and contemplation. Seeing the two as inseparable, Rohr founded the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC), whose vision is “transformed people working together for a more just and connected world.” CAC faculty include Rev. Dr. Brian McLaren, who spoke at TAF’s February meeting.

While Rohr’s work is rooted in Christianity, TAF is partnering with the Garrison Institute, which draws on contemplative practices more broadly, believing that “contemplation is key to discovering insights and innovations which lead to transformative action.” TAF is working specifically with the Institute’s Pathways to Planetary Health initiative, which recognizes the deep interconnection between the wellbeing of people and Earth. Teachers associated with this project will lead our sessions periodically.