Oikotree

Ecology, economy, and empire

Climate change called a human rights issue and a moral issue for all

The World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee in February 2011 noted that the UN Human Rights Council has adopted a landmark resolution affirming access to water and sanitation as a human right. The WCC is particularly concerned that water has been commodified. Access to water remains unequal and marked by injustice and discrimination. Guillermo Kerber (pictured) is the WCC's program executive for climate change.

The Anglican primate of Southern Africa, Thabo Makgoba (pictured), a participant at the World Economic Forum in Afria, wrote to his faithful saying that the issue of climatic change is a moral imperative for all. He was looking to the U.S. to lead and "do the right thing." He said profitability is put before before justice today, "so that at a time when there is more wealth in the world than ever before, we also have . . . alarming environmental destruction." He asked the World Economic Forum to "recognize the need to put justice first, in caring for people and planet, and to recognize that real prosperity can only come from making the well being of people and planet our primary concern."

Water is a major ecumenical focus nationally and internationally

At a July event in Germany marking the end of the World Council of Churches' (WCC) Decade to Overcome Violence, the WCC general secretary, Olav Fykse Tveit, said that "it may well be that in the coming years water will be at the center of conflicts." See the resources and activity of the Ecumenical Water Network, identified by Tveit as being supported by the WCC and demonstrating "a link between peace with nature, and peace between peoples who find themselves in conflict over vital resources.” Tveit made an appeal through saying "our high water usage has an impact on the water economy that in many places is getting out of balance."

John McCullough, the executive director of Church World Service (CWS), testified earlier this year before the House of Representatives' Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission at a hearing on the right to safe water. CWS works to fosters a sense that water and sanitation are necessary to dignified human life. When technologies for this are simple and inexpensive, he said, communities generate systems that they can and do maintain. McCullough followed a UN water expert who said that water quality is not being monitored globally. See her brochure on water and sanitation as a human right.

A new Advocacy and Solidarity Commission (ASC) of the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) has decided to make its current climate justice/eco-justice thematic focus center on water. Members of ASC include Shantha Ready Alonso (pictured), who is an advocacy and outreach specialist on the National Council of Churches (NCC) eco-justice staff; Luciano Kovacs, who staffs North American WSCF work; and Christopher Ferguson, the WCC representative to the UN, who is a WSCF senior friend.

Online curriculum helps churches examine economic justice

The North American Working Group for Covenanting for Justice, a grouping of churches related to the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, has prepared a curriculum available online. It contains five workshop modules that can be downloaded, complete with a facilitator's guide and online videos for use. The modules looks at globalization, climate change, farmworker wages, environmental justice and human rights, and faithful purchasing and the global sweatshop economy.

Additionally, a book written by a South African academic, Choose Life, Act in Hope by Puleng LenkaBula, is now available for use throughout the world. It is available through contacting the WARC offices by e-mail. Several documents remain available:

See also the resolution on just globalization approved by the 217th General Assembly (2006) of thePresbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

An August 2008 statement, “Exploring the Reality and Theological Challenges of Ecology, Economy and Empire from Feminist Perspectives,” offers several recommendations. U.S. Presbyterians Rebecca Todd Peters and Margaret Aymer Oget attended the WARC/WCC consultation that produced the document.

The Geneva-based online Globethics.net network has amassed a large digital library particularly intended to assist persons in the global South who reflect on ethical issues, with attention to developing countries and countries in transition. Founded in 2004, the network's board members include PC(USA) member Heidi Hadsell (pictured left). Those who heard him when he was a part of an Interfaith Listening team will recall another board member, Muhammad Muchasin of Indonesia (pictured right).

The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) reaffirmed its policy priorities -- including the environment, human rights, and poverty -- when it rebuffed leaders of the Christian right who called it to silence its involvement that could shift emphasis away from the "great moral issues" of our time. Among environmental statements evangelicals have signed are:

Victims of human trafficking are defined as those who are subjected to force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of forced labor or sexual exploitation. An ecumenical conference at the end of September 2008 highlighted specific programs that can be used locally to counter this abuse, preferably by ecumenical groupings. Conference participants included Presbyterians Una Stevenson, Betty Jones, Ann Hayman, Martha Bettis Gee, and Jon Chapman (pictured). Thereafter, Stevenson was one of the leaders in presenting the issues of human trafficking at the PC(USA) Big Tent event in 2009.

* The theme of March/April issue of Horizons, the magazine for PC(USA) women, is human trafficking. Find an article on sexual exploitation by Una Stevenson (May-June 2008 issue) and another on U.S. farm workers by PC(USA) staff woman Noelle Damico (November-December 2008 issue).

* Articles on human trafficking in the May 2007 issue of Contact, a WCC magazine

* A statement of a December 2007 international group organized by the WCC, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Council for World Mission with recommendations about both modern forms of slavery and the continued legacy of the former transatlantic trade

* The March 2008 issue of Reformed World, a publication of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC), on "Do not submit again to the yoke of slavery" (guest editor PC(USA) associate stated clerk Robina Winbush)

The PC(USA) has offered to make human trafficking awareness training available to presbyteries. See the story of a recent event. See a downloadable bulletin insert for congregations.

Two very different recent news items highlight the significant interweave of religious support needed today in dealing with immigration issues. Within the U.S., the story is the editorial essay on immigration in the new 2011 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches by Presbyterian leader Eileen Lindner. She writes that research shows Americans have not been strongly influenced by religious leadership as they form opinions about immigration policy. Recently, however, evangelicals have joined Protestants, Catholics, and Jews in calls for immigration reform. The advocacy of U.S. bodies will be scrutinized internationally by ecumenical and interfaith bodies and may give new opportunity for collaboration. A second story comes from Libya through the ENI ecumenical news agency, and it deals with one aspect, refugee needs. In Tripoli, Christian clergy are appealing for help for stranded Eritrean refugees who urgently need an opportunity to go elsewhere. Use a Church World Service video, "A Future with Hope, online or order a DVD.

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Ecumenical & Interfaith News Network - PCUSA

Ecumenical & Interfaith
News Network - PCUSA