The Kairos Call to Action recently issued by the United Church of Christ’s Council for Climate Justice builds on what Martin Luther King, Jr. called “the fierce urgency of now,” and an understanding of Kairos time as time that is ripe, pregnant, and urgent time. The call to action urges congregations to begin a decade of focus on one of the UCC’s “3 Great Loves”: Care for Creation.
We, as the church, have the opportunity to assert that we are fully committed to our first calling as caretakers of God’s creation. In contrast to destructive theologies of dominion/domination over the Earth, we have the opportunity to manifest a theology of kinship with creation and a spiritual connection to Mother Nature.
As Pope Francis put it in his encyclical, Laudato Si’: On the Care for our Common Home, earth and human ecology are inextricably intertwined. That means that as we care for creation, we also care for the other two great loves to which we in the UCC are committed: neighbor and children. Climate science tells us that the next decade will be decisive if we are to interrupt the dangerous course of planetary warming that we are on. Now is the time.
In response to this call, the Social Justice Action Team at The Church of the Palms has initiated a Creation Justice task force which will build on the steps taken by COTP in the past, and intensify these efforts. We have shared our mission and goals with you on our page on the church website.
Over the next year and more we will be offering opportunities for learning and actions that you can take as households, and we will work with the trustees to examine and take action on ways that the church itself can reduce its carbon footprint. We will update you quarterly on our work together. If care for creation is something for which you have a passion, please consider joining the taskforce. You may contact Terry Starr at [email protected] to indicate your interest.
Let us covenant with one another to seize this moment and commit ourselves to this Kairos Call to Action, as a congregations as households, and as individuals; joining in the healing of our sacred earthly home.
—Beth Moore, Creation Justice Task Force
Note: I am indebted to the UCC’s national website and a speech by Rev. John Helt at the Wisconsin UCC’s annual conference gathering in June 2020 for much of this content.