The awakening we need requires urgency translated down to the communities

In Margaret Swedish ‘s amazing and disturbing and yet, hopeful book,  this quote  is but one of the instances where she expresses the feeling about the responsibility of the theological communities to awaken their people from “slumber” and out of the practical denial that keeps us procrastinating the measures we need to be instigating in response to the Climate Crisis. Continue Reading

Two faces of Apocalypse: The Church must take on the call to preach both in a time of Climate Crisis.

I just finished the book (Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love by Elizabeth A. Johnson) this morning, and I’ve been wandering ( and wondering) about for a couple of hours since. I’ve spent a part of that time diving back into Margaret Swedish’s “Living Beyond the End of the World: A Spirituality of Hope”. These two books Continue Reading

My challenge to UMComm and all church Communications agencies

I posted this comment to UMNS Facebook post on UMComm (United Methodist Communicaitons) ‘s 75th anniversary observance: UMComm has certainly been out there, utilizing media, telling the story, and telling lots of stories which have highlighted the church’s presence across a wide range of issues. This is something to be proud of. What I am wondering TODAY, however, is where Continue Reading

Where we find ourselves as a Church, how we got here, and where we need to go in this time of Climate Crisis.

There’s so much to say about this response to an email I sent to a denominational news website: Me: since your reply to my question about Climate Crisis coverage,  it’s been 24 days,  and I don’t think ONE article has appeared anywhere on [your main website]  Seems that the News staff might need a dedicated Climate reporter,  like many of the Continue Reading

The absence of any sustained and serious effort re: The Climate Crisis in recent UMCom history

So, I scan the timeline*, and at no time has the issue of the Climate Crisis been considered worthy of a serious communication effort, even as this has become glaringly obvious as a reality of IMMENSE social , political, and economic upheaval. When will this cross the threshold from “an issue” among others, to a Crisis worthy of SERIOUS ethical, Continue Reading

Climate as “Topic” on Denomination’s Website?

So I see this page on UMC.org under “What We Believe” and “UMC Topics”  at http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/united-methodist-topics I scan,  see no listing for Climate Change or even Environment. So I click “Ask A Question” and submit this: I am asking this questiuon from the page http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/united-methodist-topics I want to know if “Climate Change” or “Climate Crisis” is ever going to make this list? Continue Reading

upcoming UMComm 75th anniversary: Will they help the church to tell the Climate Story and to participate in the New Economy?

Saw this article on the UMC.org website this week,  and ,  as I am apparently programmed to do,  reflected upon it in the context of “A Church in a time of Climate Crisis”,  or “A Planet in Peril” (as I once heard Phillip Clayton say).  There was no place for me to make comments below this article which was published Continue Reading

“An evangelism of ecology” Let’s do it.

Yes! Pope Francis devotes an entire chapter of the encyclical to the need for an “ecological conversion” among Christians, “whereby the effects of their encounter with Jesus Christ become evident in their relationship with the world around them. Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or Continue Reading

A New “Earth-Honoring Faith” is required; a new Reformation

“By asserting that nature has a value in and of itself, Francis is overturning centuries of theological interpretation that regarded the natural world with outright hostility—as a misery to be transcended and an ‘allurement’ to be resisted.” – Naomi Klein in “A Radical Vatican?” via The New Yorker Yes, Naomi, it is a STEEP theological legacy that must be reformed. But Continue Reading

Is the Climate Crisis to become an issue of major emphasis and effort for the church?

another choice quote from the above article by Naomi Klein: We’re here because many powerful Church insiders simply cannot be counted upon to champion Francis’s transformative climate message—and some would clearly be happy to see it buried alongside the many other secrets entombed in this walled enclave. – Naomi Klein in “A Radical Vatican?”, New Yorker Magazine I get this same sense Continue Reading