Faith and the Rights of Nature
We had a wonderful Cafe conversation! Find the article follow up with video clips: “We made the Earth a member of our Congregation.”
Does nature have rights? Join us June 7th at the Climate Cafe Multifaith about a movement that is growing in communities and internationally to recognize that nature has a right to exist. A river has the right to flow with water and be habitat for fish. The otters and egrets have a right to catch those fish, dig dens and build nests, and raise pups and chicks along its banks. Unfortunately, while some see the river as wild, free, and life giving in its own right, others might see it only as a commodity to be bulldozed, bottled, polluted and sold. Tuesday June 7th, 11:00am Pacific Time / 2:00pm Eastern Time. Register.
Across the ideological spectrum people recognize the value of land and the life that rises from it. A movement is growing to ensure that the ‘rights of nature’ are protected. For some that means enshrining those rights in law. Indigenous people, communities, every day folks, and people of faith have begun the work of naming, achieving, and protecting nature in the courts.
These new laws are starting to show up in church law and denominational as official resolutions to protect and respect the life-giving aspect of the natural world, as well as its right to exist—the right of rivers to flow, otters to fish, and egrets to rear their chicks.
Come to the Climate Cafe Multifaith on June 7th and join Rev. Robert Shore-Goss in a conversation about the Rights of Nature, as well as how he lead an effort in the United Church of Christ to enshrine these rights.
Rev. Dr. Bob Shore-Goss is a retired UCC clergy, college professor, and theologian. He has earned a Th.D. in Comparative Religion from Harvard University, with a specialty in Tibetan Buddhism and Christian Theology. He pastored the first Creation Justice Church in the UCC (North Hollywood, CA) and served on the UCC Environmental Justice Council for six years. He now serves as well on the Florida UCC Conference as Co-Chair of the Environmental Justice Team. He authored God is Green: An Eco-Spirituality of Incarnate Compassion and The Insurgency of the Spirit: Jesus’s Liberation Animist Spirituality, Empire, and Creating Christian Protectors. For a full exploration of his books, see the website mischievousspiritandtheology
Photo of bird and lake, Orlando, Florida, by Savannah Asah.