'Community of All Creation' a Far Cry from Fossil-Fuel Dependence

The Social Principles Part 2

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A United Methodist Insight Exclusive

In 1989, a United Methodist layman named Bill McKibben wrote a book he called "The End of Nature." In his book McKibben proposed that human activity, particularly burning fossil fuels, threatens global extinction of all life on earth.

Then a professor of environmental studies at Vermont's Middlebury College, McKibben's book ignited the modern environmental movement. Now he's acknowledged as the godfather of a worldwide campaign to reduce global warming that has spurred cataclysmic climate change.

While McKibben (in photo above) didn't participate directly, his work undoubtedly influenced The United Methodist Church in choosing to make "Community of All Creation" the first topic of its revised Social Principles, which went into effect Jan. 1. They're contained in the 2020/2024 Book of Discipline, the collection of church laws and policies.

Today, more than 36 years after McKibben's book, the United Methodist Church has an unofficial advocacy group, UM Creation Justice Movement, which sends out monthly creation care tips and includes a "Fossil Free UMC" subset. Dozens of churches and annual conferences have their own "green teams" and seek alternative energy providers such as solar installations. The EarthKeepers program affiliated with the General Board of Global Ministries has trained dozens of people to be creation advocates in their local settings.

"Community of All Creation's" preface quotes Methodism's founder, John Wesley, from his sermon titled "Upon Our Lord's Sermon on the Mount:"

The great lesson that our blessed Lord inculcates here ... is that God is in all things, and that we are to see the Creator in the glass of every creature, that we should use and look upon nothing as separate from God ... who pervades and actuates the whole created frame, and is, in a true sense, the soul of the universe."

That's a far cry from "Drill, baby, drill."

"Community of All Creation" begins by describing the world as "Creation in Peril" because of "unsustainable human activities" leading to "degradation and wholesale destruction of the natural environment. The section cites ecosystems' destruction, global warming and climate change, and fossil-fuel dependence as the primary threats to life on Earth.

Whether human beings are conscious of it or not, we are participants in and beneficiaries of complex natural ecosystems made up of myriads of symbiotic relationships between living organisms such as animals, plants, insects and microorganisms, and the physical environs they inhabit, including air, water, and soil.

Rather than a radical all-at-once approach, "Community of All Creation" cautions against solutions that would worsen the current situation such as turning to nuclear power to generate energy or "geo-engineering" some biospheres that could risk "unpredictable side effects." It also acknowledges that transitioning from fossil fuel dependence likely would lead to economic disruptions that cost people their livelihoods.

Hence the UMC advocates that "plans for developing and deploying alternative sources of energy should minimize negative financial impacts by investing in strategies that support people in successfully transitioning to new employment, strengthen the social safety net to deal with the loss of jobs and income, and provide ample educational and retraining opportunities."

In other words, the United Methodist Church officially believes the opposite of what the new federal administration is enacting, such as deleting "climate change" from government websites and promoting fossil fuels over solar, wind, water and geothermal energy sources. One of President Donald Trump's Inauguration Day executive orders puts the financial burden of dealing with climate change on individuals, removing government and corporate responsibility according to ProPublica, an independent investigative news outlet.

Former EPA execs warn of dangers

As of Feb. 27, historian Heather Cox Richardson reported in her "Letter from an American" newsletter:

"The administration continues to insist it is cutting 'waste, fraud, and abuse,' but the reality that it is cutting programs on which Americans depend is becoming clearer. During yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, Trump indicated that the next major round of workforce cuts will be at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), created by Congress in 1970 at the urging of Republican president Richard M. Nixon to protect clean air, land, and water. Trump said that 65% of the 15,000 people who work there will be fired; an official later clarified that the president meant that the budget would be cut by 65%.

"Today, three former heads of the EPA warned in a New York Times op-ed that Americans would miss the agency “when it’s gone.” William K. Reilly and Christine Todd Whitman, who headed the EPA under Republican presidents, and Gina McCarthy, who headed it under a Democratic president, recalled how between 1970 and 2019 the EPA 'cut emissions of common air pollutants by 77 percent, while private sector jobs grew 223 percent and our gross domestic product grew almost 300 percent.' The EPA minimizes exposure to dangerous air during wildfires, cleans up contaminated lands, and tests for asbestos, lead, and copper in water,,\ delivering health benefits that outweigh its costs, the authors say, by more than 30 to 1."

Those facts provide a sober backdrop to the next section, "Stewardship of Creation," which exhorts church members to see themselves as the guardians of God's creation. United Methodists are called to "respect, protect, and care for the creation and all interrelated aspects of it." Then it advises United Methodists to devote their attention to challenges such as:

  • environmental racism, through which many communities of color have become dumping grounds for dangerous, toxic substances,
  • sustainable policies and practices,
  • food justice, which encompasses not only feeding people but also reducing the detrimental influence of agribusiness and monoculture,
  • caring for all creatures,
  • protecting space from militarization and economic exploitation, and
  • affirming both science and traditional wisdom.

In each case, the UMC's leaders have adopted approaches that directly oppose Trump Administration policies.

Nuclear power not supported

For example, the executive order "Establishing The National Energy Dominance Council", authorizes "approving the construction of natural gas pipelines to, or in, New England, California, Alaska, and other areas of the country underserved by American natural gas; facilitating the reopening of closed power plants; and bringing Small Modular Nuclear Reactors online...." The UMC denounces at least a portion of that objective, nuclear power, as a high-risk means of energy production that results in polluting radioactive waste.

The final subsection of "Stewardship of Creation" does something that the new federal administration and its political supporters have opposed: "We affirm the value of science and reason in providing deeper understandings of the origins and functioning of the cosmos." The section also affirms that traditional wisdom from Indigenous communities, gained from generations of observation and interaction with nature, can provide context for empirical science.

The General Conference, the UMC's top legislative body, leaves to churches and individuals to choose the specific steps to enact the Social Principles' aspirations. Nonetheless, United Methodists are being encouraged to think prayerfully about caring for God's creation, from using washable coffee cups over disposables through choosing an energy provider and avoiding fossil-fuel investments.

Next: The Economic Community.

Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011 as a media channel to amplify news and views by and for marginalized and under-served United Methodists. Please email Insight for permission to reproduce this content elsewhere.