This issue is focused primarily on the celebration of Earth Day, which has turned into Earth Month in recent years with environmental events happening throughout the month of April. Additionally, LeeAnne Beres writes about her recent trips to the Holy Land as a lead in to an upcoming Earth Ministry eco-tour in January of 2009.
The focus of this issue is political advocacy from a faith perspective. Among the central challenges we face in living out our values are the Christian calling to "speak truth to power" and to "speak the truth in love."
This issue of Earth Letter celebrates Earth Ministry's 15th anniversary and reflects on that journey together. For those of you who have been members for some years, we hope this issue stirs your memories. For those of you who have joined us more recently, we hope that this issue gives you a snapshot of our joint ministry, and of your fellow travelers.
Prophetic leadership is the backbone to societal change. In this issue, we hear from some of today's emerging environmental leaders including Paul Hawken, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, and Episcopal Bishop Steven Charleston.
This issue features articles from each of the four keynote presenters of the Interfaith Creation Festival. In addition, Bill McKibben, one of the nation's most articulate writers on environmental concerns, highlights the complementary roles of youth and older generations in the environmental movement.
The central focus of this issue is a closer look at the mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches' involvement in political advocacy. We will hear from activists both local and national. This issue provides a number of windows through which we can see the Christian calling to political activism in action. We hear from persons within our government, from writers, and citizen activists.
In this issue, we seek to gain some perspective on the varying definitions of stewardship. To accomplish this task, we have enlisted the help of four capable people. We offer a personal story of serving in West Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer, a look at the connections between stewardship and the cultural issues of poverty and wealth, a perspective from a non-profit that preserves environmentally-significant land, and a primer on "takings", a law that makes environmental protection difficult.
This issue of Earth Letter focuses on the contributions of youth and young adults to the environmental justice movement within the Protestant and Roman Catholic communions. If you look at the average age of the membership in many of our mainline churches, you find a lot of gray-haired people. On the other hand, if you look at secular environmental organizations, you see many active young adults, and a lower percentage of the gray-haired crowd. We have asked these young folks to tell us their story.
This issue focuses on the June 2006 National Council of Churches' Eco-Justice Conference in New Orleans. The conference brings together church activists from across our nation. It offers education, inspiration, and a network of fellow activists. The choice of New Orleans as the host city is central to this year's conference. Since Hurricane Katrina devastated that region, the city has become the focal point for environmental, social, racial, and economic justice concerns.
This issue focuses on "lessons from Katrina". If September 11, 2001 is emblazoned in the mind of America as the day we lost our sense of invulnerability to attack, then August 29, 2005 should stand as the day mainstream American began to see the intimate interconnections between environmental issues on the one hand and poverty, race, and privilege on the other.
