Restoring creation with
By Mary Birdsong
Hope, love, commitment and communal responsibility echo throughout their lives and work, and are woven into all they say and do. Hope for the planet; love for God, neighbor and all of creation; commit- ment to reducing energy use and fossil fuel consumption; and responsibility for each other and the earth.
faith
David Rhoads
The six people, one faith-based environmental organiza- tion and two congregations on these pages are working daily to care for creation. They have different concerns: some focus on local projects that build community; others fi ght shale gas hydrofracturing and the Keystone Pipeline; while still others teach, write and train others into action.
But the driving force behind all their work is an activism that has been shaped by faith.
‘Caring for creation is a vocational effort to love and restore creation because it is the right thing to do.’
“Caring for creation is a vocational eff ort to love and restore creation because it is the right thing to do,” said David Rhoads, director of the grassroots environmental organization Lutherans Restoring Creation (LRC) and profes- sor emeritus of New Testament at the
Lutheran School of T eology at Chicago (LSTC). “I’m motivated not by accomplishments or even by
any assurance that what we do will ‘work,’ but by the grace and love of God so present everywhere in creation,” he added. “We need personal and social transformation.” Rhoads has lived these words since 1998 when he started a group that works to develop LSTC as a green seminary. He also had a hand in creating the ecumeni- cal Web of Creation and T e Green Congregation Program, which provide workshops and resources for churches interested in “greening” their church. Now, as LRC director,
‘Learning about these crises we face … made me more committed.’
he oversees its operations as a clearinghouse of envi- ronmental resources and networking for the church (
www.lutheransrestoringcreation.org). LRC hosts the Energy Stewards Initiative, an online
platform that assists congregations and camps in reduc- ing their energy usage and carbon footprint, and off ers a website providing worship resources. Rhoads, a member of St. Andrew Lutheran Church,
Racine, Wis., was drawn to this mission because he believes we are in deep trouble as a planet. “Since I began this work, I’ve studied global climate change, air pollution, land degradation, waste, deforestation, overpopulation, freshwater depletion, among others. Learning about these crises we face has sobered me and made me more committed,” he said.
David Rhoads is director of Lutherans Restoring Creation, a grassroots envi- ronmental organization that provides resources to the church, congregations and outdoor ministry sites.
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