Faith Groups Go Green

by Sue Ann Larson

In centuries past, dawn and dusk found the faithful entering cavernous cathedrals for prayers. Leaded glass panes dimmed and directed light slantwise, accompanying worshippers along with altar candles’ flickering shadows. Stone walls, slate floors and a seeping damp chill welcomed one and all. These ancient monuments were created for awe and grandeur, not comfort or efficiency.

Fast forward to structures created for worship in the 20th century. Often outfitted with expensive inefficient heating systems, worshippers simply accepted as matters of course the drafts from prized but uninsulated window mosaics and spotty heat from radiators seeping passively to the outside world.

Few historic places of worship, be they churches, synagogues, temples, or mosques, took future utility bills into their design consideration. But by the late 1970’s things began to change. Encouraged by decades of optimism and government support for renewable energy, Episcopal Priest Sally Bingham of Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco, with a colleague from Massachusetts, pioneered a concept in the new millennium that altered the understanding of many faith groups regarding their responsibilities for care of God’s Creation. Rev. Bingham saw an opportunity for the religious community to put faith into action and play an active role in reducing the threats of climate change by applying energy advances to houses of faith.

Their organizing resulted in a program design named “Episcopal Power and Light.” It was based on the premise that when places of worship performed energy audits, tightened up the leaks, updated light bulbs, covered their stained glass windows, and perhaps added solar panels, the savings would be so great that many power plants could be retired, no longer needed because the church had found a new way of creating “Power and Light.” Their actions created a Kairos moment for the church, a new opportunity to bring about a needed change. The concept spread and faith groups across the country joined with their own Interfaith Power and Light programs, including here in Wisconsin:

Huda Alkaff [Photo courtesy of Women's Earth Alliance] — **Huda Alkaff** [Photo courtesy of Women's Earth Alliance]

Ecologist Huda Alkaff, an interfaith leader in Milwaukee, founded Wisconsin Green Muslims in 2005 to connect faith, environmental justice and sustainability through education and service. She initiated a “Green Ramadan” observance that now is implemented in twenty states. Alkaff’s passionate advocacy and leadership in the Islamic community has earned her the Obama White House Champions of Change for Faith Climate Justice Leaders award in 2015. She is one of 2017’s Voices for 100% Renewable Energy. Her current work focuses on Faith Communities for Equitable Solar.

Wisconsin Conference of the United Church of Christ (U.C.C.) responded to the U.C.C. Climate for Justice campaign with the installation of solar panels on the conference headquarters in Deforest. The National U.C.C. has defined the next decade as a window of diverse opportunity in which people of faith are called to an all-out mobilization of their gifts and resources to become carbon neutral or carbon negative congregations.

Perhaps the most ambitious green building project effort rests with the Benedictine Women of Madison whose 34,000 square foot monastery building earned the highest possible rating from the U.S. Green Building Council (63 of 69 points), a U.S. record for new construction projects. In 2018, the sisters traveled to Cartagena, Columbia to receive the inaugural Assisi Award at the 28th Congress of Conservation Biology, an award that acknowledges that faith-based conservation is contributing significantly to the common global effort of conserving life on earth. Their mission is to ‘weave prayer, hospitality, justice and care for the earth into a shared way of life as an ecumenical Benedictine community.’

**Holy Wisdom Monastery [Photo courtesy of Holy Wisdom Monastery]**

Each of these individuals and communities inspire and offer hope for a shared purpose in addressing the climate crisis. As Rev. Bingham noted, “The community of faith can set a model for the secular world. When people who love God stand up to steward God’s gifts, other people take notice.”

Splash photo by Stephanie LeBlanc on Unsplash

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