A good number of Uniting Church people from the ACT and NSW, and beyond, joined with people from a wide range of faith traditions from across the continent and Aotearoa New Zealand, at the first national conference in Canberra of the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC).
The Friday evening began with the Kiddush, a welcome to the Sabbath, with blessings and sharing of wine and bread, as is the Jewish custom for the Friday evening start of Sabbath. This was led, and explained, by Rabbi Jonathan Keren-Black from the Leo Baeck Centre in Melbourne.
A Welcome to Country was offered by Uncle Wally Bell, of the Buru Ngunawal Aboriginal Corporation, who sang and spoke in language as he explained the spiritual importance of land for the First Peoples of the country. This was followed by an introduction to the Conference by the President of ARRCC, Thea Ormerod, and a welcome to participants from Bishop Stephen Pickard, Director of the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, which was the location for the conference.
Spirituality is at the centre of the ethos of ARRCC, so prayers were led by people of faith from the Hindu, Muslim, Brahma Kumaris, and Buddhist faith traditions.
This was followed by a powerful reflection on how Indigenous spirituality informs the work of caring for and protecting the environment. The reflection was offered by Murrawah Johnson, a young Wirdi woman from Wangan and Jagalingou country, the land of the Galilee Basin where it is proposed to build the monstrous Adani coal mine. She is an activist, inspired by Eddie Mabo and others of his era, who has worked hard towards the goal of stopping the Adani mine. “When you love your people, amazing things can happen”, she observed, bringing a strong sense of optimism into the conference deliberations,
The Muslim speaker quoted a verse of the Quran which appears to provide a direct commentary on the climate emergency that we are currently experiencing, not shying away from the contribution that human beings have made to that emergency: Corruption has appeared in the land and the sea on account of what the hands of men have wrought, that He may make them taste a part of that which they have done, so that they may return. (Quran, 30:41)
That seems, to me, to be a powerful statement in our current context. It does not seek to excuse human beings for the scenario we are facing; in fact, it centres the ecological crisis deep in the heart of the spiritual dis-ease of human beings. It also signals some hope: is it possible that we might return (repent, change, transform) as a result of what we are currently experiencing. That means it is as much a spiritual, or religious, matter, as it is a political, legal, economic, and social matter.
For links to people and organisations noted above, see
http://www.buru-ngunawal.com/426483484
https://grist.org/grist-50/profile/murrawah-johnson/
https://www.arrcc.org.au/about
https://www.arrcc.org.au/arrcc_national_conference
https://about.csu.edu.au/community/accc/about
For some of my other blogs on the environment, see
https://johntsquires.com/2019/11/08/look-up-to-the-sky-look-down-to-your-feet-luke-20/
https://johntsquires.com/2019/09/18/supporting-the-climate-strike/
https://johntsquires.com/2019/06/25/873/
https://johntsquires.com/2019/03/09/laudato-si-mi-signore-1/
https://johntsquires.com/2019/03/09/laudato-si-mi-signore-2/
https://johntsquires.com/2019/03/09/laudato-si-mi-signore-3/
https://johntsquires.com/2019/03/09/laudato-si-mi-signore-4/
An Informed Faith 
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