EARTHKEEPING NEWS A NEWSLETTER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COALITION FOR CHRISTIANITY AND ECOLOGY Volume Five, Number Two November/December 1995 PRESBYTERIANS LATEST TO FORM GRASSROOTS ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORK Presbyterians for Restoring Creation (PRC) is a newly formed national grassroots fellowship within the Presbyterian Church, USA. PRC wants to help members and their congregations respond to the urgent call, issued in a 1990 Presbyterian policy statement, to address the environmental justice crisis as a mission priority. The network extends the limited resources which the national office can devote to environmental justice. Presbyterians are not the first. In 1986 the Network for Environmental and Economic Responsibility of the United Church of Christ was formed. NEER brings member congregations into partnership with the national office staff in raising awareness of the dangers of toxic waste and climate change from human activities. NEER took 55 people to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, and has awarded "Whole Earth Church" certificates to several hundred environmentally active UCC congregations across the country. The Friends Committee On Unity With Nature was founded in 1987. FCUN is a spiritually centered organization of North American Quakers seeking ways to integrate their concern for the environment with Friends' long-standing testimonies for simplicity, peace and equality. Through its newsletter, BeFriending Creation, and other publications, FCUN promotes grassroots networking among Friends and like-minded non-Quakers. The Episcopal Environmental Coalition is a national network of concerned Episcopalians formed in 1991 to support the work of the Presiding Bishop's Environmental Stewardship Team. Its goals are to organize environmental committees in provinces, dioceses and parishes to address the crisis facing God's planet Earth; to develop and distribute educational and worship resources; and to work for environmentally sound federal legislation. The Presbyterians for Restoring Creation network was officially launched during the 1995 General Assembly in Cincinnati. Co-founder William Gibson, retired director of the EcoJustice Project in Ithaca NY, gives four reasons for such an organization: To make the Presbyterian environmental policy statements come alive in presbyteries and congregations across the country. To help the national denominational leadership keep in touch with people all around the church, to determine cooperatively the strategies and tactics needed to reverse the trends that are destroying God's earth. To support individuals and congregations, because we are in for a very long haul. To advance the dialogue on the tough issues that underlie the threat to this planet. "We are talking about the most fundamental issues of how people live," said Gibson. We are talking about the need for frugality, for sharing, for making sufficiency possible on a planet that is still growing. At the same time we are living within an economy that depends upon over consumption to function, that depends upon wastefulness. I have always found it extremely difficult to get a group of people to talk about the basic restructuring that is needed in the United States economic system and the global economy." Contacts: NEER co-conveners, Donald B. Clark, 12 Terrace Ave., Nutley, NJ 07110, 201/667-0079; and Albert G. Cohen, 696 South Madison, Pasadena, CA 91106, 818/796-2951. FCUN, 7700 Clarks Lake Rd., Chelsea MI 48118-9420. Episcopal Environmental Coalition, c/o the Rev. Franklin Vilas, St. Paul's Church, 200 Main St., Chatham NJ 07928. PRC, c/o Bill Knox, PO Box 2146, Boone, NC 28607, 704/262-3881. Home     Table of Contents