Green Faith: How can we create spiritual and social connection?

This week is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. And we are writing to you amidst an unprecedented global pandemic. I am worried about the world. This is an urgent moment. Pandemics bring out everything that is wrong with a society but they can also be the catalyst for making things right.

As in years past, we are asking for your help on Earth Day. Frankly, we hesitated to send a fundraising appeal this year. We do not want to appear to benefit from a crisis and we understand that you may support other important causes, or have been economically affected. And we completely understand that.

But we also know that at this moment we have to turn towards each other. All of our faiths teach us so. We are building communities of care and resilience as a human family. We are coming together in faith communities, and developing the power that will prepare us for not just what is happening today, but what is to come. And yes, now is the time to start this transformation. For that we need your generous help. If you are able to, will you give generously today?

We at GreenFaith are especially worried about these three urgent threats:

First, with the rise of intolerant governments, authoritarian leaders around the world are having a heyday, resorting to state surveillance, racist, and violent state power to restrict democratic and human rights.

Second, with the world economy collapsing, oil, gas, and deforestation corporations--and the banks that finance them--are demanding large government bailouts. Under cover of COVID-19, they are seeking the wholesale dismantling of environmental protections. The idea that precious funds should bail out the world’s wealthiest corporations, not the people whose lives are at stake, is hard to fathom.

Third, we must acknowledge that the weaponization of religion is also part of the problem we face. Around the globe, religious fundamentalists are legitimizing and affirming violent governments and extractive industries in the name of an unloving and misguided extremism.

As we are sequestered in our homes, these triple threats of authoritarian governments, extractive corporate power, and religious fundamentalism are right at our doorstep.

Faith and spirituality matter in times like these. They are an anchor, a source of energy and perseverance that keep us going when times are hardest. We know that at this moment we have to turn towards each other. All religions demand that we love our neighbor, open the door to the stranger, and protect and care for those most vulnerable. We, as people of faith spirit, are called to work with greater urgency than ever.  

Will you support this work?

COVID-19 has accelerated our work to organize communities of faith for climate justice. The disruptions the virus is causing are similar to what we can expect as the number of climate emergencies grows.

The pandemic, just like the growing number of climate crises, is also hurting the most vulnerable among us. Frontline communities are disproportionately affected: people of color; people who are homeless, people who are incarcerated, undocumented families, and people with jobs not able to be done from home. They are at much higher risk and are, in fact, dying at much higher rates. These enormous health disparities are compounded by an economic crisis as tens of millions of people lose their jobs.

The suffering is heartbreaking. The injustice is wrong.

We are responding. By engaging in deep spiritual reflection and by building relationships with one another. By working with local leaders--people like you--who know what the needs are in your communities, and who are fighting for the solutions.

Will you support this work in this moment when nothing is the same and when everything has to change?

Specifically, here is what we are doing right now to confront these threats:

• Connecting with each other in Circles of Care and Resilience. They provide spiritual respite and solace with faith leaders offering their reflections, and bring us together as the GreenFaith community in mutual care to build a world of love, justice, and compassion.

• Supporting religious leaders with online tools as they connect with their congregations and create Circles of Care and Resilience.
• Hosting a global Interfaith Call for Care and Resilience this week on Earth Day that brings together religious leaders to make the connections between our religious traditions, climate change, and COVID-19.
• Launching local online Pray-Ins to share our fears, hopes, and compassion with our communities.
• Protecting our right to vote our faith and climate justice values, and turn out for the election.
• Demanding with our international partners that resources for the recovery from COVID-19 are invested in the communities that are hit hardest--the majority of which are in the global South.

Our faith gives us the courage to turn towards great challenges--in prayer and in action. We have done so before and we are doing it now, and we hope you are able to support us with a generous donation.

In this moment of global pandemic and economic crisis, we feel called to do everything that we can to transform our fear into love and our sadness and anger into action. We know that you feel the same, and we are so glad we are in this together with you.

Thank you so much for your support, and we pray that you are safe.

In Faith,

Rev. Fletcher Harper

Executive Director, GreenFaith