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creation care blog

"Suspended in Time" © Christine Labich
"Suspended in Time" © Christine Labich

Fasting in solidarity with Sunrise hunger strikers

This is a crucial week in the fight to include strong climate policy initiatives in the $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act, including the Civilian Climate Corps (CCC) and the Clean Electricity Performance Program (CEPP). Fifty Republicans and the corporate Democrats most captive to the fossil fuel industry – Senators Joe Manchin (West Virginia) and Kyrsten Sinema (Arizona) – are pushing to gut the most significant climate legislation this country …

Climate-Crisis Preaching: Selected Resources 

Looking for guidance as you prepare pastoral and prophetic sermons about the climate crisis?  Here is a short list of resources for preachers that was assembled in September 2021 by the Rev. Dr. Jim Antal (Special Advisor on Climate Justice to UCC General Minister and President) and the Rev. Dr. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas (Missioner for Creation Care [Episcopal Diocese of Western MA & Southern New England Conference, UCC] and Creation Care …

An appeal to Congressman Richard Neal: No cuts in climate, care, jobs, or justice

I spoke about the moral imperative to fund the legislation; other speakers addressed the bill’s impact on health care, housing, jobs, and poverty. This legislation is being actively supported by faith-based climate groups across the country, including Interfaith Power & Light, Creation Justice Ministries, Catholic Climate Covenant, Dayenu, and many more. Some of my remarks are below: I’d like to speak to Congressman Neal as one Christian to another.  We …

“Pray, learn, act, and advocate”: MA bishops declare climate emergency

On March 23, 2021, the bishops of the Episcopal dioceses of Massachusetts and Western Massachusetts issued a declaration of climate emergency, with suggested resources and actions. Spring is unfolding around us, and this weekend Holy Week and Passover will begin.  Christians and Jews around the world will experience again our sacred stories of liberation from the bondage of slavery and death.  We will experience again our freedom to weave Beloved …

6 lessons coronavirus can teach us about climate change  

Out of caution, many are keeping physical distance from each other. But out of compassion, many are helping any way they can — staying connected by phone or internet with those who are lonely; sewing masks for desperate health care workers; making donations to groups that help migrants and the homeless; pushing for policies that protect the lowest-earning members of society. If there was ever a time in which humanity …

Greta Thunberg compels us all to be prophets

This op-ed, co-written by Leah Schade and Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, was published in newspapers in Louisville, KY; Frankfort, KY; and Northampton, MA (December 18, 2019). The picture of Greta Thunberg on the cover of Time magazine as its 2019 Person of the Year is both inspiring and sobering. Standing on an outcropping of rocks at the ocean’s edge, she gazes toward the sea. The splashing waves at her feet are a …

Global climate strikes: Standing for life

On September 20, 2019, more than 4 million people around the world went on strike to demand bold action to stop the climate crisis. Global Climate Strikes, inspired by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, were carried out in more than 150 countries, from Australia and the Pacific Islands to India, Turkey, Europe, and across the United States. Countless people of faith, including Episcopalians, took part, and I am thrilled to say …

Our planetary cathedral on fire     

Firefighters risking everything eventually brought the flames under control, and, some twelve hours after it began, the fire was snuffed out. We awoke the next morning to study the ruins and to give thanks for what was still standing: bell towers, pipe organs, and rose windows. Rebuilding began. But Notre Dame is not the world’s only holy place: every culture has equally precious places that mediate the transcendent. Every mosque …

Here to stand with trees

Below is a statement about biomass that I gave at a public hearing held by The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) in Springfield on June 5, 2019. My name is Rev. Dr. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas. I’m an Episcopal priest with an ecumenical job. I serve as Missioner for Creation Care for the 375 churches of the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ, and also for the Episcopal Diocese …

U.S. religious leaders issue “Religious Declaration of Unprecedented Human Emergency”

What is an emergency? Merriam-Webster defines emergency as “an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action.” Does climate change count as an emergency? Not if an “emergency” is necessarily “unforeseen,” for when it comes to climate change, scientists have been sounding the alarm for decades, telling us that burning massive quantities of fossil fuels would lead to catastrophe. Of course, the fossil fuel industry …

Header image: "Suspended in Time," by Christine Labich