Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, pictured with her husband, Ron, is a teacher and writer who views ecological and social healing on three levels. Vocationally, she focuses on a worldview, but she also works for change on institutional and personal levels.
is inextricably tied to social justice, what is sometimes called “climate injustice” or “climate colonialism.” A month in India revealed to Moe-Lobeda that
Ron Root, a member of Zion Evangelical Lutheran, Dayton, Ohio, is a leader in that congregation’s effort in community gardening and the installation of a windmill to provide the garden with water. (The “Z” was mistakenly carved backward on the cornerstone, and the church has kept it as part of its identity;
www.zionelc.org).
Cynthia Moe-Lobeda
“All of my classes, public speak- ing and published works aim to build moral power and hope for the work of earth-healing and justice- seeking,” said Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, a member of University Lutheran Church in Seattle. A professor of theology and envi-
ronmental studies at Seattle University, Moe-Lobeda has been working for environmental justice for more than two decades and has authored or co-authored four books. Her most recent, Resisting Structural Evil: Love as
Ecological-Economic Vocation (Fortress Press, 2013), “helps people explore how we are intimately connected to sisters and brothers near and far, and how we might transform those connections from being exploitative to being life-giving,” she said. Moe-Lobeda said ecological and social healing hap-
pens on three levels: lifestyle change, which are personal things we can all do; structural change, the ways institu- tions operate; and consciousness or worldview change, how we view society at large. Her teaching, writing and speaking are focused on worldview change. For her, the crisis of climate change
“many economically impoverished people around the world already are displaced and dying due to the climate change … caused disproportionately by the world’s industrialized societies, including ours.” But she’s keenly aware of the
other levels, joining efforts to get Seattle University to divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in clean energy; and making changes at home (bus and bike, rather than a car), motivated by a friend whose family makes one lifestyle change each month. Tough still visited by despair,
‘Nothing we do toward ecological healing is done alone. We work as part of a cloud of witnesses—tran- scending conti- nents, cultures and time.’
her faith helps her find hope. “Once upon a time, I gave up hope,” she said. “I
was overcome by the sense that the powers of systemic injustice-racism, imperialism, economic exploitation, ecological devastation and more—were simply too strong.” A Lutheran pastor reminded her of the ramifi- cations of the resurrection. “Tis resurrection faith does not excuse us from
responsibility,” she said. “It is we humans who must ‘put a spoke in the wheel’ of carbon emissions and the economies that depend upon them. … Nothing we do toward ecological healing is done alone. We work as part of a cloud of witnesses— transcending conti- nents, cultures and time.”
Author bio: Birdsong is a freelance writer living in Erie, Pa. She specializes in environmental and nature writing.
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