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Everybody’s doing it: Evangelicals, Episcopalians, Southern Baptists, Roman Catholics, Jews, Buddhists, and Muslims. Prayer in response to the oil spill has become a form of social action for creation. If you haven’t been invited to a prayer vigil in the past 100 days, perhaps you haven’t checked your Facebook page, or you are don’t believe in having believers as friends.
This national appeal to God may have seemed like a naïve cry for help in an overwhelming situation. But the groundswell of prayer now has become a collective spiritual response to a national ecological crisis.
The hundreds of thousands of hands joined together in prayer – literally from sea to shining sea – reflect a growing and united religious environmental movement. If people of faith and environmentalists can harness this momentum, at a time when every household in the country is bearing witness to the oil spill, their power could be transformative.
In my childhood home of Fairhope, Ala., family friend Kelley Wolff Lyons organized an interfaith candlelight vigil called the Blessing of the Bay that drew 150 people at sunset to the shores of Mobile Bay. When I went home for the Fourth of July, I too prayed for this sacred space, where boom lined the coast like yellow Legos in the water.
Religious groups including the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Council of Churches, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have issued statements against the oil spill and calls to protect God’s creation for future generations. Prayer in response to this disaster has brought together faith traditions that often seem more divided than united by toxic issues.
A study conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life showed strong consensus across religions for environmental protection, in contrast to divisive issues such as abortion and gay marriage. This shared value provides powerful common ground for the 85% of the U.S. population who identify with a religious affiliation.
After the Southern Baptist Convention, evangelical leader Russell D. Moore described the oil spill as a Roe v. Wade moment, a time for evangelicals to recognize their responsibility as Christians to care for creation. After touring the Louisiana coast with Christian, Muslim, and Jewish leaders, the Rev. Sally Bingham called the spill “an insult to God and a sin against creation.” As first responders to disaster, people of faith from diverse traditions are cleaning up the oil, providing financial assistance to families, and praying.
For the past three months, I have repeated a prayer in response to the oil spill that is taped on my fridge. Now I am ready to fall to my knees with a new prayer for action, advocacy, and reflection that could transform our relationship with the earth. This prayer for the future stems from my deep grief over the violation of a place – the Alabama Gulf Coast – where I feel closest to God.
As an environmentalist, I pray that environmental organizations will view faith communities as serious allies for action. Such alliances have formed in my current hometown where North Carolina Interfaith Power and Light has partnered with a green jobs training program, Asheville GO, to involve congregations in weatherizing 300 low-income homes. Across the country, people of faith are holding carbon fasts during Lent and installing solar panels on churches based on a moral imperative for justice and care of creation.
As a mother, I pray that this partnership results in powerful lobbying for public policy that supports healthy communities for my children’s future. Such legislative success is evident in the work of Earth Ministry and the Environmental Priorities Coalition, a network of 25 environmental groups in Washington State that advocates for environmental legislation. As the only faith-based organization in the network, Earth Ministry provides advocacy training for people of faith to lobby for issues like clean water, green jobs, and renewable energy.
As a Christian, I pray that reflection and prayer become strategies for a new environmental movement that inspires hope in the midst of uncertainty. Religious leaders like Martin Luther King used prayer to influence radical social change in our country. Prayer provides the space for discernment, so we stay quiet long enough to open ourselves to the improbable. We need that space to confront not only the devastating impacts of the oil spill, but also the long-term reality of climate change.
Theologian Karl Barth said “to clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder in the world.” The kingdom of heaven is now, not pie in the sky, waiting for us at St. Peter’s gates. Now let us pray.
This article first appeared as an op-ed piece in the Charlotte Observer on Aug. 5, 2010.
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Warren Bowman