IREJN/Sacred Trust Forum

Keynote Address: "Religion and Ecology: The Problems and the Promise"

For decades, environmental issues were considered the concern of scientists, lawyers, and policy makers. Now, the ethical dimensions of the environmental crisis are becoming more obvious, What is our moral responsibility toward the future generations? How can we ensure equitable development that does not destroy the environment? Can religious and cultural perspectives help solve environmental challenges? Our challenge now is to identify the vision and values that will spark a transformation toward creating a sustainable future. Such a multiform planetary goal requires not just managerial or legislative approaches - the saving of forests or fisheries. Undoubtedly, these are necessary, but our goal needs a vision of that future, evoking depths of empathy, compassion, and sacrifice for the welfare of future generations. We are called to a new intergenerational consciousness and conscience.
John Grim comes from the Missouri drift plains of North Dakota where he grew up leaning against the winds until they blew him east to study with Thomas Berry in the history of religions at Fordham University. His area of scholarly exploration is indigenous traditions and in those studies he undertakes field studies in the summer with Crow people in Montana, and in the winter with Salish peoples in Washington state. Currently he is a Senior Lecturer and Research Scholar at Yale University, and Environmental Ethicist-in-Residence at Yale’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics. With Mary Evelyn Tucker he is the co-founder of the Forum on Religion and Ecology and series editors of World Religions and Ecology a 10 volume publication from Harvard University Press and the Center for the Study of World Religions. In that series he edited Indigenous Traditions and Ecology: The Interbeing of Cosmology and Community (Harvard, 2001). He has been a professor of religion at Bucknell University, and Sarah Lawrence College where he taught courses in Native American and Indigenous religions, World Religions, and Religion and Ecology. His published works include: The Shaman: Patterns of Religious Healing Among the Ojibway Indians (University of Oklahoma Press, 1983) and edited volumes with Mary Evelyn Tucker entitled, Worldviews and Ecology (Orbis, 1994, 5th printing 2000), and a Daedalus volume (2001) entitled, "Religion and Ecology: Can the Climate Change?" John is also President of the American Teilhard Association.

Margaret Bullitt-Jonas: Spiritual Resources for Seizing Hope in a Season of Despair

There will also be workshops on local food and influencing public policy with speakers to be confirmed at a later date.

Program

4 p.m. Registration/Displays

4:30 p.m. Keynote Address by The Rev. Sally Bingham

5:30 p.m. Workshops Session A

6:30 p.m. Dinner and free time for viewing displays

7:30 p.m. workshops Session B

8:30 p.m. Closing Meditation

Cost $30 including dinner(Vegetarian) $20 for students

Session A

Our Place in the World: Restoring Initiation to Religious Education

Dr. David Blumenkranz, Director, The Center for the Advancement of Youth Family and Community Services, Glastonbury CT

What's Toxic, What's Not

Garry Ginsburgy, Ph.D., a State Department of Public Health toxicologist and clinical professor at the UConn School of Medicine

Climate Change in New England: Benchmarks and Strategies

Chris Nelson, Senior Air Pollution Control Engineer, state Department of Environmental Protection

Sustainable Measures: Measuring What Matters

Maureen Hart, President, Sustainable Measures, West Hartford, CT

Session B

The Earth Prayer Experience: To Celebrate Our Place in God's World

Lynn Johnson, Director, Center for Serenity, West Hartford, Co-Founder Earth Prayers West Hartford

Cultivating an Organic Connecticut

Bull Duesing, Executive Director, Northeast Organic Farming Association of Connecticut

Cool Congregations

Shirley Adams and Dr. Letitia Naigles, Committee on the Environment for the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut

Current Trends in Socially Responsible Investing

Dan I. Olson, Financial Planning Associate, Smith Barney Green Advisor

Sacred Trust Forum 2006, Roger S. Gottleib, keynote speaker.

Religious Environmentalism, A Source of Hope in A Dark Time

In a time of darkening environmental prospects, frightening religious fundamentalism, and moribund liberalism, the remarkable and historically unprecedented rise of religious environmentalism is a profound source of hope. Throughout the world theologians are asserting that environmental degradation is sacrilegious, religious leaders are making bold statements about our responsibilities to preserve creation, and people of faith are becoming environmental activists. Religious environmentalism joins contemporary struggles for a sustainable society with the values of democracy, human rights and pluralism; and provides a uniquely encompassing political perspective in which the entire environmental movement can voice its hopes for the care of all of life.

Roger S. Gottlieb is Professor of Philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He is the author or editor of fourteen books and more than 50 articles on environmentalism, religious life, political philosophy, Marxism, feminism, the Holocaust, and disability, including A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and our Planet's Future, This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment, and A Spirituality of Resistance: Finding a Peaceful Heart and Protecting the Earth. For the last fifteen years Gottlieb has concentrated on the political, ethical, and religious dimensions of the environmental crisis and on the broad social and normative connections between religion and politics

WORKSHOPS

Session A

Resources for Christian Education: Models for Your Faith Community
Sharon Ely Pearson, Children’s Ministries and Christian Education Coordinator, the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut

Water: A Blessing in Crisis
Sister Rosemarie Greco, DW, Administrator, Wisdom House Retreat and Conference Center, Litchfield, CT

Using Alternate Energy Sources: Stories from the Ground
Steve Grant, reporter at The Hartford Courant who specializes in writing about the outdoors

The Heart Beat of the Earth: A Drumming Workshop
John Boiano, Pulse Integration, Vernon

Resources for Congregations: Worship and Education
The Rev. Tom Carr, Pastor of First Baptist Church, West Hartford, and Co-Chair of the Interreligious Eco-Justice Network

Looking Ahead: Clean Energy Markets in Connecticut
Bob Wall, New England Regional Director, SmartPower Inc.

Living Well While Doing Good
The Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper, Senior Minister, Judson Memorial Church, New York, NY, and author of “Living Well While Doing Good”