FossilFreeUMC

by William (“Bill”) Myers and Kenneth Lynn Jobe

Introduction

How did the UMC get from its declared mission of discipleship of Jesus Christ, “to transform the world”, to continuing to invest over a billion dollars in fossil fuels when it is fully informed they annually kill and harm millions of people and massively damage the biosphere upon which all life depends?  How can the timidity with which our church now shrinks from fully confronting the climate crisis be transformed into more courageous efforts to promote a stable climate and the healing of humanity and the biosphere?

Below, we two lay Fossil Free UMC task force volunteers, Lynn Kobe and Bill Myers, discuss our individual church experience regarding these questions. We invite others to consider our thoughts and help the church live up to its ideals.

PASS THE WORD

By Lynn Jobe

On the advice of my friend Bill, I read Martin Luther King’s letter from Birmingham jail. King was jailed in 1963 for leading peaceful protests in Birmingham.  An open letter criticizing King and asking him to go slow was written by eight clergymen and then published in a local paper. Two were Methodist bishops. King’s is an inspiring letter. Of all the examples we might choose, I think King’s effort to achieve racial justice in the 60’s is a good example for us to follow today to encourage our Church to be bolder in its stance against burning fossil fuels. There are so many natural parallels. King’s letter speaks volumes of truth.

I began my journey with the Church related to climate change in the office of Congressman Walter Jones in Greenville, NC.  His was district 3, which includes 2/3 of the east coast including the Outer Banks.  Evidence of sea level rise was abundant including flooding of seaside town streets and home destruction.  He listened comfortably and respectfully to my appeal that he support a particular House bill which was, and still is, one of the best bills ever proposed to address climate change.  He was a nice man.  Easy to talk to.  Then he said, “I need to hear from more constituents like you before I can support this bill.”   That put me in my place.  The conversation was over.  In tennis it would have been a strong forehand volley just above the net proceeding to the unprotected corner of my baseline.

I said, “Okay” to myself.  I asked, “Where are the good people?  The people, if they knew the score, who would be anxious to support policy to meet the climate change threat?”  My clear answer was the Church.  Ann Street United Methodist Church in downtown Beaufort, NC.  I worked up the courage to ask my minister out to lunch.  He was very popular.  A big handsome guy and a previous chaplain in the Army.  The pews were packed every Sunday.  Both services.  We had lunch on the waterfront in Beaufort.  Good comfortable conversation. Just like Congressman Jones, a good guy.  I made my appeal by describing the problem and the hope that our Church could be more vocal toward our Congressman about climate change and sea level rise.  Perhaps we could start with a small committee in the Church.  He was okay with my story until it came down to action from the Church.  He reminded me that his job was to save souls for Christ.  Without saying it directly, it was clear that he would not support a committee in the Church making noise about the ills of climate change.

Below is from King’s letter on page 6.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

Are we white, or any other color, moderates who just wish to keep the peace and in so doing allow our neighbor to suffer and our children to suffer even more?  Are those of us trying to speak, intimidated or maybe just uneasy at the inelegant prospect of confronting “white moderates” or church leadership with a message that cries to be sent? 

Below is from King’s letter page 8.

I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: “Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother.” In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: “Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern.” And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which made a strange distinction between body and soul…. 

Do we understand that our conversation in the Church concerning climate change leaves room for doubt and avoidance?  The tenor and tone of our language in the UMC usually speaks to the positive work being done and by its very nature deflects from more appropriate unambiguous and direct language which leaves no room for avoidance. Language like:

“Given the massive scientific evidence that carbon emissions need to be reduced to near zero by 2050 and the clear evidence that humanity is suffering due to these emissions, with the certainty that incremental suffering will continue until emissions go down sharply, Wespath should immediately stop investing in fossil fuels.  All Agencies of the United Methodist Church and the Creation Justice Movement should use their full leverage and communication resources to send messages to all Conferences and their Leadership that their voices and energies are needed to stop the flow of fossil fuel.”

Jesus told us as recorded by Matthew, “You are the salt of the earth.  But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?  It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.”

DOING LOVE IN THE TIME OF CLIMATE CHANGE

By William (Bill) Myers

World scientific and governmental leadership warns that the worsening climate crisis driven primarily by reliance on fossil fuels now poses the greatest danger to human survival and welfare in our known history. That threat falls disproportionately on children and future generations as its main victims. That is why I, like many, address the climate crisis primarily from the standpoint of the present and future wellbeing of the world’s children. That touches my heart. Imagine being a starving child, or its grieving parents unable to help it, in a poor country contributing little to the problem but ravaged by droughts or floods caused by the fossil fuels addiction of distant rich societies who in their selfish comfort don’t care what happens to others. That feeling turns my stomach, and my life therefore includes a mission of love to help end that threat of needlessly dying children and grieving families stoked by the selfish greed of people like me.   

One of the pleasures of that mission, in which I work internationally, is being engaged with climate activist colleagues who radiate love and compassion for both people and planet, especially for children. They come from many backgrounds, and their diversity generates creativity and fresh perspectives in helping children and their communities survive and thrive. There are pediatricians and other health sciences professionals fighting for climate policies that will not condemn children or the human species to early demise. There are lawyers organized to help kids take fossil fuels promoting governments to court to enforce laws protecting the environment to help protect children. There are human rights advocates pressuring companies and governments to honor rights of both people and planet. There are organized elders—sometimes working intergenerationally  with youth—lobbying governments at all levels to adopt climate policies serving the common good now and for generations ahead. There are community organizers who work with poor and oppressed communities, often with special attention to the young, to make polluters accountable and halt emissions damaging both population nature. Not least of all, there are vast numbers of organized children and youth defending their own futures by demanding reduction in fossil fuels use and adoption of policies and practices more sustainable to the human species and the biosphere on which it depends for survival. Some are religious organizations, such as the World Council of Churches representing over 350 denominations, or World Vision that annually invests roughly $3 billion over dozens of countries helping lift the poor and their children to sustainable decent livelihoods, or the British Methodist Church that announced its disinvestment from fossil fuels in 2021.   

I am often impressed by the passion—love—these colleagues and allies bring to saving real people, in real situations, in real places in the here and now. This commitment in heartfelt devotion beyond mere duty generates creativity in addressing complicated reality, and it assures success is defined by the well-being of those served rather than the convenience of intervenors. Love drives imagination, courage, dedication and success.   

Unfortunately, I don’t feel in the UMC establishment that kind of heartfelt concern and devotion for the well-being of real people around the globe. Instead I often sense a kind of intellectualized—maybe even theologized—distance that addresses climate change more as duty to abstract policy than as love for living and breathing people. The comments from Martin Luther King cited by Lynn in his above essay reflect my observations as well. We don’t want to unsettle and inconvenience ourselves too much, even though what we address is the most desperate global crisis in known human history. We observe and comment but don’t really engage our hearts, not even for our children. I wonder if we even know how to love. How otherwise can one explain the UMC’s knowing perpetuation of climate crisis death and damage, including to our children, through morally irresponsible investment in provenly lethal fossil fuels?

Rev. Sharon Delgado, long leader of Fossil Fuels UMC, in her book Love in the Time of Climate Change: Honoring Creation, Establishing Justice masterfully describes why the UMC should as a matter of Christian love care about and address climate change. But she can’t make us feel and live that love. We have to generate it ourselves. But how?

I would like to submit for your consideration a way of thinking that has come late to me, but that now in my old age I find useful in starting to learn how to actively love in a time of climate change. I personally find its broad intellectual and spiritual roots most beautifully expressed in Thomas Berry’s great classic, The Great Work: Our Way Into the Future. I see three fundamental bases from which love must spring.

First is understanding who we are in terms of our complete interconnectedness with each other and all life. That is a fundamental modern scientific finding, but also a spiritual insight from many sources, including Christianity. We need to understand ourselves as part of the whole, not as “individuals” somehow separate from it. We are who we are through our relationships. Every “Me” is a “We”, and that “We” can encompass the planet. 

Second, through our interconnectedness we experience the presence of God in all.  Loving God means loving the whole works, the first part of the Great Commandment.

Third, because we are interconnected, everybody on Earth is our neighbor, and living the second part of the Great Commandment entails loving them all, including those dying kids and their grieving parents we help make suffer and that haunt us.  We have to work out how to become such globally loving neighbors in practice, which is not simple. But maybe we can start with children.

Love in the time of climate change, I propose, may have to be unsettling love that yanks us out of our familiar comfort zones both personal and institutional, propelling us into courageous new relationships we may not yet fully understand or feel easy with. But isn’t that a definition of growth?

Maybe that is where the UMC as a church has to go in order to grow in more ways than one. What if it completely divested from fossil fuels and then, driven by love more than profit, re-invested that money in healing people and planet from the damage we already have caused, building a healthy world for children and generations to come? 

What scenario would best fit our denominational mission, “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world”?   

Bill Myers is retired from the United Nations and continues to be internationally involved in young persons’ climate rights. He is a member of Elk Grove United Methodist Church near Sacramento.

Kenneth Lynn Jobe served 4 years as an officer on a nuclear submarine.  During a 34-year career with Corning Incorporated, Lynn managed large capital projects.  After retirement he walked the 2,000-mile Appalachian Trail in a single season and remains interested in unspoiled nature.  Lynn is working to build momentum toward passage of meaningful legislation to curb carbon emission.