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Caring for God's Creation Love and gratitude for God's creation lie deep within religious life. From mountaintops to forests, green pastures to still waters, stars in the sky and lilies of the field, we experience the grace of our Creator and the gift of our presence here. With Earth in grave environmental peril, many religious Americans are seeking to respond through our faith. Through the many gateways and galleries of this website, we offer resources and accounts of how people of faith are acting upon God's mandate to be stewards of our precious Earth. Partners in Stewardship The National Religious Partnership for the Environment is an association of independent faith groups across a broad spectrum: the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Council of Churches U.S.A., the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, and the Evangelical Environmental Network. Each Partner — in common biblical faith but drawing upon its distinctive traditions — is undertaking scholarship, leadership training, congregational and agency initiative, and public policy education in service to environmental sustainability and justice. Together, they seek to offer resources of religious life and moral vision to a universal effort to protect humankind's common home and well-being on Earth. |

Noah Alliance, National A version of this article by Dorothy Boorse originally appeared in the Summer 2007 issue of Creation Care magazine. “Speaking Truth to Power” Noah Alliance helps keep endangered species afloat “Well,” said an insistent congressman. “Well, which is it, artificially help prairie chickens breed in my state or lose jobs” He didn’t wait for a response. “Chickens or jobs? Which? Which?” Gathering her thoughts as quickly as she could, Dorothy Boorse answered, “Well, congressman, I’ve...
Read moreMount St. John Dayton, OHVisit site... In 1985 the state of Ohio dug a 14-acre, 40-foot deep gravel borrow pit on the Mt. St. John property, ...
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Baltimore, MD Kayam Farm organically grows healthy food for the Pearlstone Conference & Retreat Center and greater Baltimore, Maryland community, while offering both Jewish and non-sectarian hands-on agricultural and environmental education. They hope to reconnect people with their food and with the earth, inspiring social and ecological responsibility in the Jewish community, greater Baltimore, and beyond. Kayam Farm’s 5 acres cultivates organically grown vegetables, culinary & medicinal herbs, fruit orchards, vineyards, berry & asparagus patches, and small grains. The Kayam program...
Read moreNational Association of Evangelicals, Christianity Today, and the Evangelical Environmental Network In March 1999,...
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Catholic Diocese of RichmondEcological Working Group St. Paul, VA Educating congregants about the...
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Benedictine Women of Madison, Madison, WI The monastic community of the Holy Wisdom Monastery in Madison, WI have been hearing and practicing a lot concerning stability: Their new strategic plan focuses on growing their community in ways that will bring stability and strength to the work of the sisters; Ecumenical Board member Judith Rock claims stability is more countercultural today than celibacy; and a local environmental expert noted that the root system of prairies like the one stewarded at their monastery...
Read moreWashington, D.C. In early April 2004, Joe Sheldon, Professor of Biology and Environmental Science at Messiah ...
Read moreThe United Methodist Church of Santa Cruz has started an initiative to build a new LEED Certified house of worship under the leadership of Pastor Michael Love. They have, through inspiration from the national level, begun to embrace the call to environmental stewardship. Efforts have been made to connect with other local organizations, and also to improve the congregation at the home church. The congregation hopes to protect and renew the environment with the use of the building. One goal is...
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South Carolina — Reverend Michael McClain is working with the National Council of Churches (NCC) to reach out to historic black churches, explain the ways in which climate change is impacting poor people and people of color, and invite them to sign the National Council of Churches’ Faith Principles on Global Warming. Although global climate change affects all people, it hits people of color and those living in poverty the hardest.
Read moreOrthodox Fellowship of the Transfiguration Santa Rosa, California Mention of God's gift of creation has long been a part of Orthodox liturgies, and the primary spiritual leader for the Orthodox Church worldwide, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, is often referred to as the "Green Patriarch." Thus, Orthodox members of the Eco-Justice Working Group of the National Council of Churches and others felt it was high time to have a national organization for Orthodox scholarship,...
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Oscar Romero Catholic Worker House Oklahoma City, OKVisit site... Daily contact with small, struggling farmers, combined with commitment to the social justice teachings of the Catholic Church, led members of the Oscar Romero Catholic Worker House in Oklahoma City to begin thinking of ways to re-create the local food system. Local residents desired fresh, healthy foods and farmers needed a way to sell their goods directly to the public. Connecting local producers and consumers...
Read moreMaine Interfaith Power & Light, Inc. Brunswick, ME In 2003, laypeople and clergy from the Saco-Biddeford area of southern Maine came together as a coalition formed between the First Parish Congregational Church, Unitarian-Universalist Church of Saco-Biddeford, and the Sisters of the Good Shepard, to accept the challenge posed by the Maine Council of Churches’ Environmental Justice Program, a state partner in NRPE’s Interfaith Climate and Energy Campaign and Maine Interfaith Power and Light....
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Boston, MA — Boston COEJL, coordinated by Susie Davidson and Amelia Geggel, began a statewide “Pledge to Green" synagogues in Massachusetts. The Pledge, a nonbinding promise to practice more environmentally-conscious measures, is viewable on BostonCOEJL.org, which will post progress reports of individual synagogues. Over 15 Boston-area synagogues have signed on to the pledge. Boston COEJL members, who are available for consultations and Basics of Greening talks for children and adults, have also posted a Green Guide for Massachusetts Synagogues, with information...
Read moreSanta Rosa, CA The Religious Campaign for Forest Conservation, based in Santa Rosa, California, is surrounded by the awe-inspiring grandeur of the California Redwoods forest, and has not taken the beauty of its environment for granted. In 2000, the efforts of the group, which manages and coordinates the voices of seven self-supporting religious programs, were among those acknowledged by President Bill Clinton when he cited religious voices as part of the rationale for declaring the “roadless rule.”
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