-Caveat Lector- Subj: Fwd: Church and Synagogue Leaders ask Bush to protect Nation's Forests Date: 01-02-02 02:11:38 EST From: Lightparty To: Lightparty BCC: Ecotoday FYI: What is the significance of this new environmental awareness? Press Release Religious Campaign to Nation's Capital on Mission to Save America's Forests Church and Synagogue Leaders ask Bush to protect Nation's Forests Taking its crusade of forest preservation to Congress and a new Administration, the Religious Campaign For Forest Conservation begins a round of meetings in Washington, D.C. this week with Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, members of Congress, and other Bush Administration officials Long dismayed over industrial logging in the National Forests, the assembled coalition of clerics and laypersons will press for legislation to end commercial timber harvesting on America's public lands. Founded three years ago against a backdrop of disappearing ancient forests, the Religious Campaign For Forest Conservation represents a broad swath of America's religious groups making common cause to convince lawmakers that logging public land is a moral and spiritual affiance Campaign Coordinator Fred Krueger, of Santa Rosa, California, said, "We have requested a meeting with President Bush so that we may explain that religion carries a profound moral obligation to protect the Creator's forests. Americans of faith are reaching out to the new President to help him and his Administration realize that protecting God's final forests is a vital concern to large numbers of Christians and Jews." At a Monday morning prayer breakfast, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service Michael Dombeck will receive an award from the group in recognition of his efforts to save what remains of America's pristine forests. Throughout the week, delegates from the Religious Campaign will meet with members of Congress to urge passage of legislation protect all National Forests from continued clear-cutting. Mr. Krueger stressed that his group also aims to be heard by the incoming Administration. "President Bush must recognize that America's religious communities are heartsick at the way our nation's forests are being logged to obliteration by a few unaccountable corporations. He has the responsibility to halt the rampant destruction going on in the Creator's forests. Ours is a spiritual message that we pray he will hear and take to his heart." As industrial logging has reduced old-growth forests in the United States to a fraction of their former glory, there has been a corresponding upswing in the number of religious leaders speaking out for strong governmental protections. Stressing that their campaign is a religious one rather than a gathering of environmental activists, the Reverend Owen Owens, recently retired as director of racial and environmental justice for the American Baptist Churches' Office of National Ministries, said, "Must we destroy tomorrow to live today? No! Jesus calls us to live so that we lay the foundation for better days to come. Today, vast clear-cut wastelands cry out for Christ's stewards to save the remnants of ancient forests so they may continue to glorify their Maker." Affirming the religious message, Connie Hanson, national president of Christians Caring for Creation, stated "The commercial logging and destruction of our National Forests, God's creation, is an outrage, and a wrong that must be righted. This is a moral and a spiritual issue! That is why we are calling for protection and restoration of our forests." Recognizing that cessation of timber harvesting can cause economic dislocations, Mrs. Hanson also wants what she calls "restoration jobs for forest communities and their workers." Speaking for many of the Campaign's Jewish members, Rabbi Warren Stone, Chair of the Environmental Affairs Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, stated that "As a Jew and a Rabbi, preserving and protecting God's creation of forests, wilderness and diverse species is a moral and spiritual mandate of my Jewish tradition. How important it is to join other faith traditions who share this common vision." Additional comments: Endorsing the position that their national effort is part of Jewish belief, Dr. Barak Gale, chair of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Coalition for the Environment and Jewish Life, said that "Our campaign in Washington coincides with Tu B'Shevat, our New Year of the Trees, and we will recite blessings over the fruit of the trees and the earth. The work of the RCFC in advocating for responsible stewardship of our National Forest is a major blessing for the earth." Highlighting the group's belief that forests are one of God's unique creations, Brother Keith Warner, ofm, a Roman Catholic Franciscan friar at Mission San Juan Bautista, California, relates that "St. Francis of Assisi sang of the beauty of Creation, and found God in it. The destruction our society is meting out on forest ecosystems is a travesty, and people of faith must speak out with a moral voice to stop it." A second Franciscan, Brother Jacek Orzechowski, from Durham, North Carolina, stressed that "believing in God and caring for the integrity of God's forests are two sides of the same coin." Reflecting the history of the Episcopal Church's involvement with social issues, Beverly Meeker, a member of the Episcopal Environmental Network at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, said "When I stand in the wilderness, I am in awe, as in the Beginning; eyes open for the first time, I ken the hand of God at every turn. And God says to me, this is your home. Now care for it, grow with it, protect it." Another Episcopalian, the Reverend Sally Bingham of the Episcopal Committee on the Environment, in San Francisco, succinctly states that "Any arbitrary destruction of Creation is a direct insult to our Creator." With only a scant three percent of America's original forests still standing, some RCFC members express a sense of urgency in their mission. Dr. Robert Jonas of Watertown, Massachusetts, believes that "The work of the Campaign is a Godsend at this time in our nation's history. People of diverse Christian and Jewish denominations are finding a common focus in our love for God's forests. We expect more and more churches and synagogues to join us in our fight to protect the cathedrals of our National Forests." Dr. Bob Marshall of Kenna, West Virginia, asserts that "the evidence is clear and irrefutable that our public forests are dangerously abused by commercial timbering. I am encouraged that so many Christians and Jews are now taking seriously the Scriptural mandates that we must defend, protect and preserve God's sacred forests." For the Reverend Peter Moore-Kochliacs, a Methodist minister from San Diego, forests are part and parcel of God's handiwork. "God's forests have a right to life, a right not intrinsically linked to the human. We humans are to be earthkeepers for God's good creation. When we endanger God's forests, we diminish God and also ourselves." The thrust of the Religious Campaign appears to enjoy broad, national appeal among religious leaders, as shown by a glance at the map. As the Reverend Lisa Gray of the American Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. explained, "I am involved in the Religious Campaign because God gave us dominion over the earth, which means a loving preservation of Creation. Our leaders need a lesson in God's grammar, so that they understand the true meaning of the Creation Story, and of our assignment on this earth." Up in Hallowell, Maine, Beth Wheatley believes that humans "have a fundamental responsibility to protect and care for all life. What are forests but life? We must end industrial logging in the National Forests now. Before even more life is lost." Joining the delegates will be Julia "Butterfly" Hill, whose two-year occupation of the thousand year-old redwood tree known as "Luna" brought worldwide attention to the destruction of America's forests. "We are at a critical point in the history of ancient forests," said Ms. Hill. "It is imperative that we protect the fragments of forest we have left so that future generations may enjoy the Creator's gifts." Allen Johnson, producer of Creation Song radio in Dunmore, West Virginia, offers a glimpse of the effect of over-logging in Appalachia. "I live in a forest community that has felt the effects of a boom-and-bust extractive economy. Trees and people are both treated as expendable. Our nation must come to value the people who live in forest communities." A perspective from the Eastern Orthodox Church comes from Dr. Vincent Rossi, a theologian in Forestville, California, who demonstrates the common linkage between various beliefs under the RCFC umbrella. "It is spiritually and morally impossible for any truly religious person to separate the worship of God from loving and respecting creation," said Rossi. "If you don't love trees, you don't love God." "The bible guides my approach to forests," said Tom Herschelman, from the Saron United Church of Christ's Eco-Justice Task Force in Sheboygan Falls, WI. "In the creation story, God saw goodness' in the creation before and after humans were created. For this reason we respect the created order and love and respect God's creation. Rather than dominate creation, we are to have dominion -- which means to care for the life and processes created by God as God would care for it. For this reason, I am asking legislators to honor God by ceasing commercial logging on our public forests." Jim Davidson, a businessman and member of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod in St. Paul, Minnesota, also reflects on Scripture and our national predicament. "Most Americans know Christ's parable of the Prodigal Son: A son squanders his inheritance in sinful living. America IS that prodigal son, squandering an inheritance of earth's most magnificent forests on junk mail and slick ads. As a nation, we must repent and return to the Creator's plan, passing a legacy of healthy forests on to future generations! And from the damp wintry reaches of the Pacific Northwest, Pentecostal Minister Peter Illyn of La Center, Washington, said "Stewardship is not idolatry; it is faithfulness. I became an environmentalist because I am a hristian. If I love the Creator," Reverend Illyn concluded, "I must take care of creation." Unity of the faiths on the issue of forests was a theme of Peggy Bruton, a Lutheran from Olympia, Washington. "The faith community needs to unite and remind itself that concern for the earth is our mandate. We have to assert that our approach to the natural world must not be informed by greed. Our goal has to be to live in sustainable harmony with nature. We've strayed from this mandate and we have to restore the balance. With the future of our forests in jeopardy, we must remember our God-given mandate for forest stewardship." The delegation of the Religious Campaign for Forest Conservation will be in Washington, D.C. through February 8th. "During these busy days," said Campaign Coordinator Fred Krueger, "we hope to sound a clarion call to the new President and the Congress that men and women of religious belief demand that this immoral destruction of God's remaining forests be ended now." Religious Campaign for Forest Conservation 409 Mendocino Avenue, Suite A, Santa Rosa, CA 95401 Fred Kreuger Director (707) 573-3162 __________ EcoNews Service - Always online for Ecology, Consciousness & Universe Exopolitics. EcoNews http://www.ecologynews.com/ Prague http://mujweb.cz/www/ecologynews/ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/Vancouver, BC V6M 1V8 <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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