Saturday, January 16, 2010

Die kerk raak groen! Oor eko-spiritualiteit en kerkwees in die nuwe millennium

Dit is nie ‘n maklike ding om te sê nie, maar toe die Eskom-krisis ‘n ruk terug ontstaan het, het ek ook ‘n positiewe kant daarvan ingesien. Vir die eerste keer het sommige verbruikers besef elektrisiteit is ‘n skaars artikel. Die vermorsing van krag is myns insiens ‘n vergryp teen God se skepping: ons moet heers oor die skepping, sê Genesis 1:28. ‘n Heerser, die koning, is in Bybelse denke iemand wat omgee vir dit wat aan hom of haar toevertrou is. Jy buit niemand en niks uit nie en jy sorg dat dit ook nie deur ander gedoen word nie. Die koning versinnebeeld God se besorgdheid en sorg vir die skepping. Slegte konings wat mors met die welsyn van hul mense en koninkryk is nie verdra nie, maar het onder skerp veroordelings deurgeloop. As ons heers oor die skepping, beteken dit dat ons daarvoor verantwoordelikheid aanvaar – met besorgdheid. Ons moet lief wees vir God se skepping.

Daarom gee ons om vir die aarde en kan ons nie skade veroorsaak nie. Iemand wat byvoorbeeld nie ‘n lig agter hom of haar afskakel nie, doen verkeerd – dit is vermorsing. Mense wat lugreëlings laat loop waar dit nie nodig is nie, verniel ons skepping. Iemand wat ‘n sigaretstompie uit sy motor se venster smyt, oortree nie net die wet nie maar verloën ook sy Christenskap. Mense wat papiersakke oor die vlaktes uitgooi, gaan op die ou ent in ‘n stukkende wêreld woon.

Ek was nie bly oor die elektrisiteitskrisis nie, maar ek was hoopvol dat dit vir ons sou help om te besef dat die skepping bedreig word en dat ons op geleende tyd lewe oor die toekoms van die planeet. Dit is net jammer dat ons nou in oproer is omdat elektrisiteit so duur gaan word, terwyl ons eintlik in oproer moet wees omdat ons so verskriklik mors met krag.

Dit raak nie net elektrisiteit nie. Ons stuur ook op ‘n wêreldwye voedsel- en waterkrisis af. Dit is ontstellend om die projeksies oor toekomstige voedselverbruik en watervoorsiening te hoor. Ses jaar gelede was ek deel van ‘n groep wat ‘n konferensie oor water gereël het en ek was toe al verstom om te hoor waarheen ons op pad is.

‘n Mens kry maklik toegang tot die groter prentjie as ‘n mens die voormalige Amerikaanse Vise-President, Al Gore, se opsienbarend film, An Inconvenient Truth, sien. Dit is die soort van film wat ‘n mens in groepe, kampe, kerkrade en gemeentes kan wys as inleiding tot ‘n gesprek oor watter uitdagings ons geloof in ons huidige tyd in die oë staar.

Die kerk kan ‘n spesiale rol speel om ons wêreld ‘n leefbare plek te maak waar ons gerieflik kan woon – in die paradys wat die bestem was om te wees. Ek onthou byvoorbeeld die merkwaardige werk van Tinus Daneel, hoogleraar in missiologie by Unisa, wat in ‘n indrukwekkende projek ‘n dekade of wat gelede die Sionistiese goepe in Zimbabwe sover gekry het om bome te plant. Tinus was nie net ‘n uitstekende akademikus nie, hy was ook iemand wat die implikasies van geloof en kerk-wees verstaan het.

Ons kan klein dingetjies doen om die groot vloed te keer: weier om plastiek-sakke in winkels te koop wat een keer gebruik word en dan in die vullisdrom of op straat beland. Ek het lank terug vir Shoprite gevra om minder papier in hul kasregisters te gebruik om papier te spaar. Dit het gewerk en deesdae koop ek meestal net by hulle en PicknPay omdat hulle sulke klein eko-vriendelike versoeke hoor en sensitiewe gebruike het. Ek het al met ons plaaslike Spar-winkels gepraat, maar daar het een bestuurder vir my vertel dat mense nie omgee vir die driedubbele reuse-kasregister kwitansies wat vir hulle gegee word nie. Ek sien hulle mors nog steeds verskriklik met papier, salig ongevoelig vir die duisende bome wat in die slag bly oor hulle beleid. In ons gesin probeer ons nie die motor gebruik as ons kan loop nie, ens. ens.

Wanneer die kerk hieroor nadink, het dit vir my te doen met die hart van die evangelie. Ek dink nie die kerk moet aktivisties word oor ekologiese kwessies om getalle te trek nie. Die berig hier onder in die New York Times, wat my weer aan die dink gesit het oor die kerk en eko-spiritualiteit, is tog weer so treurig – asof die kerk bestaan om groot getalle uit te stal. Wat is dit tog dat ons so behep is met kerke wat met groot getalle moet imponeer? Die groot dinge gebeur dikwels juis waar mense met visie aan die werk is, ongeag die getalle. 'n Klein groep kan dikwels die werk van duisende mense doen. Ons weet dit mos uit die Bybel: Die profete was die enkeles, selfs die ongewildes. Jesus het net 12 apostels gehad, by wyse van spreke en hulle het hulle ook vinnig uit die voete gemaak toe dit saak gemaak het. Maar God, wat getrou bly aan mense wat omgee, was daar en is daar – en die kragtige ommekeer het plaasgevind. Daarom begin die kerk die debat wakker maak. Dit is wat die Evangelie van ons vra: In dankbaarheid vir al die gawes wat ons ontvang uit die Here se vrygewige hand, moet ons iets teruggee en instrumente word vir die terugbring van die paradys ook nou reeds op ons aarde. Ons betrokkenheid by eko-spiritualiteit kom op uit ons innerlike, waar die Gees ons dring om God se skepping lief te hê – veral in die klein dinge.

Groente kweek en verkoop in die kerk se agterplaas? Dink net aan al die vindingryke aksies wat gemeentes op tou kan sit om sorgsaam oor ons aarde te heers.

Pastors in Northwest Find Focus in ‘Green’

Matthew Williams for The New York Times

Published: January 15, 2010

MILLWOOD, Wash. — State auditors told Millwood Community Presbyterian Church last summer to close its farmers’ market on the church parking lot or the lot could no longer be claimed as tax-exempt. Without hesitation, the church kept the market and paid the $700 in annual taxes.

Matthew Williams for The New York Times

The Rev. Craig Goodwin and Millwood Community Presbyterian Church in Spokane see their farmers’ market as a ministry.

Money is tight, but the locally raised beef and vegetables and, most important, the environmentally minded customers had become central to the 90-year-old church’s ministry.

“It’s like we’ve got more going on in our parking lot than we do within the walls of the church,” said the pastor, Craig Goodwin.

Across the Northwest, where church attendance has long been low but concern for the environment high, some church leaders and parishioners are ringing doorbells to inform neighbors — many of whom have never stepped inside the sanctuary down the street — about ways to conserve energy and lower their utility bills. Some view the new push as a way to revitalize their congregations and reconnect with their nearby community.

Religious leaders have been preaching environmentalism for years, and much attention has focused on politically powerful evangelical Christian leaders who have taken up climate change as a cause. Yet some smaller, older and often struggling mainline churches are also going greener, reducing their carbon footprint by upgrading basement boilers and streamlining the Sunday bulletin, swapping Styrofoam for ceramic mugs at coffee hour and tending jumbled vegetable gardens where lawns once were carefully cultivated.

“I’ve never been good at door-to-door evangelism,” said Deb Conklin, the pastor at Liberty Park United Methodist Church in Spokane, Wash., where an aging and shrinking congregation of about 20 people worships on Sundays. “But this has been so fun. Everybody wants to talk to you. It’s exciting. It’s ministry.”

Several mainline church leaders in the Northwest said environmentalism offered an entry point, especially to younger adults, who might view Christianity as wrought with debates over gay rights and abortion.

A study released in December by the Barna Group, which more typically studies trends among evangelicals, said that older, mainline churches faced many challenges but that their approach to environmental issues was among several areas that “position those churches well for attracting younger Americans.”

“We actually encourage it as a way to get people into the churches,” said LeeAnne Beres, the executive director of Earth Ministry, a Seattle group founded in 1992 that has guided many area congregations through environmental upgrades over the past decade but has recently emphasized more direct political action for pastors and parishioners. “That is what people are interested in, and I don’t see anything Machiavellian in that.”

“It’s fertile ground,” Ms. Beres said, “and these are issues that people are predisposed to care about here in the Northwest.”

Several pastors said they had worked to ground environmental activism in religious teaching and more traditional areas of ministry, particularly social justice, to distinguish it from secular environmentalism. That might mean discussing the impact of climate change on people in countries susceptible to rising seas or on other species, what Hunt Priest, the rector of Emmanuel Episcopal in Mercer Island, Wash., called “the web of creation.”

“For a little while some people forgot this was a spiritual issue,” Mr. Priest said, “and we’ve reclaimed that now. I think we got caught up in things like changing light bulbs and saving paper and having the power company come out and do an audit.

“All important, but for us it needs to be about how we live our lives as Christians now that we know more about what we’ve done to the environment.”

Mr. Priest, who recently joined Ms. Beres and other pastors to lobby staff members of Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats of Washington, for a cap on carbon emissions, said he was wary of viewing environmentalism as a “church growth program.” He noted that while some mainline churches had reported increased attendance as they emphasized the issue, Emmanuel’s congregation, now about 250 families, had declined even though the church had been active on environmental issues for more than a decade.

Still, he said, concern for the environment “can be a spiritual growing edge.”

“Greening a congregation,” as some call it, is not always easy. At Westminster Congregational United Church of Christ near downtown Spokane, built in 1893, the congregation has about 200 people, down from 2,000 a few decades ago. The pastor, Andrea CastroLang, said the church recently had an energy audit and that while it has made some of the proposed changes, including upgrading the boiler, some were impractical for the soaring, heat-leaking sanctuary.

“They were like, ‘It’d be really great if you could lower your ceiling,’ ” Ms. CastroLang said. “We said, ‘We can’t do that.’ ”

Food is at the forefront of some local efforts, and it is central to the changes under way here at Millwood Presbyterian. In 2008, Mr. Goodwin, the pastor, and his family experimented with eating only locally grown food. Mr. Goodwin, who blogged about the experience, said that he had not been particularly environmentally minded in the past and that the shift came as he tried to help his church engage more with the modest neighborhood surrounding it. The congregation, once 1,700 people, had shrunk to 420 five years ago but has since risen to about 500, he said.

Mr. Goodwin said the farmers’ market, originally conceived by a teenage girl in the congregation, Kelly Hansen, was part of what he hoped would be environmentalism at a basic level, what he called “place making,” with the church a shaping force.

“We’ve been trying to sort out how we flesh out a future in this community,” Mr. Goodwin said. “Instead of ‘How do we get people in here?’ It became ‘Let’s get ourselves out there.’ ”

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