Environmental tipping point: Faith communities have a duty to protect the Earth; and Native Americans, other Indigenous peoples can teach us a lot about respecting nature

(Marquette, Michigan) – The new non-profit Earth Healing Initiative, based in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, is honoring faith-based and Native American environmental projects across the Great Lakes.

The interfaith Earth Healing Initiative (EHI) is currently collaborating with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to promote the Great Lakes 2008 Earth Day Challenge involving about 37 projects in eight states including providing faith community volunteers where needed and spreading the word about the event in churches and temples.

Faith communities across the Great Lakes basin will be involved in the challenge and other Earth Day events.

The EHI is one of several faith-based environment projects created by the non-profit Cedar Tree Institute in Marquette, Michigan.

Rev. Jon Magnuson said it is important for people of faith to do their part to protect the environment adding the Christian is at a “tipping point” in its relationship with itself and the Earth – adding “the church needs to be here.”

Quoting nineteenth century theologian and social reformer Walter Rauschenbusch, Magnuson said “if a man or woman wants to be a Christian – she or he – must stand over and against things as they are – and condemn them in the name of a higher conception of life revealed by Jesus.”

“I believe the environmental crisis that we are now involved in is a great tipping point in the church’s own evolution of its self-understanding,” Magnuson said while sitting on the stoops of his Marquette home near the shores of Lake Superior.

Roman Catholic theologian Thomas Berry “talks about three rivers converging at this time in human history,” said Magnuson, who is the executive director of the Cedar Tree Institute and the founder of the Earth Healing Initiative.

“The first river is an avalanche and explosion of scientific knowledge that is pointing to the interconnectedness of everything,” Magnuson said.

“The greatest polluter of Lake Superior has recently been identified as a major factory in China,” he said.

“We have what we call atmospheric loading here where contaminants are carried over by wind currents and then deposited in rainfall,” said Magnuson with seagulls from Lake Superior squawking overhead.

“But along with the interconnectedness of everything, the second stream (mentioned by author Thomas Berry) is the health crisis that is facing us – the CDC (the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta) suggests now that 80 percent of all cancers are environmentally triggered,” Magnuson said.

“The third river is what Thomas Berry calls ‘Indigenous wisdom” – wisdom from the native communities around the world that is resurging,” Magnuson said. “For instance, their protection and use of plants – both in Latin and South America as well in parts of north America – the protection of sacred sites,” he said.

“We realize now these are connected to protection of plants, animals and an ecosystem that hilds great medicinal qualities for communities and individuals,” Magnuson explained.

“So these rivers are coming together,” said Magnuson, raising his hands and interlacing his fingers in a gesture representing the merging of Berry’s three great rivers.

“It is an historic time – it is a tipping moment – a tipping point – the church needs to be here,” Magnuson said.

Magnuson recognized the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin near Green Bay that has three projects connected to the EPA’s Earth day Challenge and thanked the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC) and other northern Michigan tribes that have participated in other Cedar Tree Institute events like the four-year restoration of Upper Peninsula wild rice beds by at-risk teens and tribal elders called the Manoomin Project.

The KBIC participated in the three Earth Keeper Clean Sweeps that saw the public turn in over 370 tons of hazardous waste, pharmaceuticals and electronics across northern Michigan. The annual Earth Day (2005-2007) collections were part of the interfaith Earth Keeper Initiative.

“The Native American community has been a partner with us from the very beginning on everyone of our projects,” Magnuson said. “They have not only sent volunteers but on one particular instance they provided several trucks to be able to haul polluted materials and hazardous waste.

“So we are thankful to many of the tribes here in northern Michigan for being partners and we look forward to working with tribes in the Earth healing Initiative,” Magnuson said.

The Cedar Tree Institute co-founded the Upper Peninsula Earth Keepers who work closely with ten faith traditions on a wide range of environment projects that include college students, at-risk teens, American Indian tribes and others.
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The CTI Earth healing Initiative is developing the same relationship with the same faith communities in northern Michigan and others across the Great lakes.

The faith communities include Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalist, Baha’i, Jewish, The Religious Society of Friends (commonly known as the Quakers) and Zen Buddhist.

The founder of two interfaith environment groups is often asked by people around the globe to explain the best way to start an effective similar interfaith group in their own community.

Along the shores of Lake Superior, creating similar interfaith environmental groups was discussed by leaders of the Earth Healing Initiative and the Upper Peninsula Earth Keeper Initiative, both based in Marquette, Michigan.

This warm and calm day in May 2008 produced the tiniest of ripples in an unusually calm Lake Superior as wildlife heralded spring in the background.

The serene setting was perfect to discuss interfaith environment work and how it can be created in others areas of the world.

This video includes the thoughts of Rev. Jon Magnuson, director of Lutheran Campus Ministry (LCM) at Northern Michigan University (NMU) in Marquette, MI; and Rev. Tesshin Paul Lehmberg, head priest of Lake Superior Zendo, a Marquette Zen Buddhist temple; and Lutheran Bishop Thomas A. Skrenes of the Northern Great Lakes Synod (NGLS) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).