Recommended Viewing: Methodists in Climate Mission Videos

The UMC in Switzerland (Evangelisch-methodistische Kirche [EMK] Schweiz) has been producing a series of videos about Methodist (and broader Christian) involvement in climate-related work. These #MethodistInClimateMission videos are part of a larger #MethodistInMission series produced by the EMK Schweiz. The three videos released thus far are in a mix of German and English, sharing stories of Methodists around the world engaged in climate-related mission. They are a useful resource for those looking to expand the conversation on climate mission across cultural and national borders.

Part 1 is primarily interviews in German of four EMK-Schweiz members (Michael Hari, Rev. Sarah Bach, Christian Rolli, and Thomas Oczipka) but features an English-language interview at around the 12:45 mark with Frances Namoumou of the Ecological Stewardship & Climate Justice Program of the Pacific Council of Churches.

Part 2 is primarily in English with interviews of three European Methodist leaders: Daniel Steinvig of the United Methodist Church in Denmark, Filipa Teixeira of the Methodist Church of Portugal, and Hamish Leese of the Methodist Church of Great Britain.

Part 3 is primarily an extended interview in English with Dr. Carmody Grey, a Catholic theologian at the University of Durham in England.

Recommended Reading: Climate Change, Natural Disasters, and the UMC in Zimbabwe

United Methodist News Service published a piece earlier this week entitled, "Storms destroy two church institutions in Zimbabwe." This headline accurately sums up the main event in the story, but it omits what I found most interesting. In commenting on the disaster, UMC Bishop Eben Nhiwatiwa remarked, "Within 24 hours, all roofs were blown off from buildings at our two institutions by a heavy, windy storm. Experts are saying that it is because of the change in the climate," adding, "We never used to get cyclones in Zimbabwe."

While it is impossible to ascribe any particular storm solely to the effects of climate change, Nhiwatiwa is right that climate change is driving more extreme and often more harmful weather. This connection prompts a reminder and an open-ended question.

First, the reminder: While climate change is polarized along liberal / conservative lines in the United States, that is not true elsewhere. The politics of climate change look very different outside the United States, so US United Methodists should resist making assumptions about the environmental views of United Methodists outside the United States based on other political or theological positions.

Second, the question: The UMC is well-known for its disaster response work through UMCOR, both within the United States and globally. What happens to that ministry focus in a world changed by climate where there are increasingly more disasters, many more than the UMC and UMCOR could ever respond to?

Recommended Reading: Climate Justice for All

The World Methodist Council, in conjunction with the Methodist Church in Britain and other Methodist bodies from around the world, is sponsoring a creation care movement called Climate Justice for All. The youth-led initiative is an effort that "seeks to mobilise the Methodist family on issues of climate justice." The campaign is particularly focused on lobbying national leaders in advance of the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland on November 1 – 12, 2021. The campaign is creating worship and education resources around climate change and has an active social media presence. There are opportunities for individuals and congregations to become involved around the world.

Recommended Reading: European Methodist Council Adopts Climate Pledges

The European Methodist Council (EMC), a consortium of the Methodist, Wesleyan, and related United/Uniting churches in Europe, including The United Methodist Church, met last month on Sept. 14-17 in Italy. One of the main outcomes of the meeting was the adoption of a set of "climate pledges" ("Klimaversprechen"). These promises, entitled "Hope in God's Future"/"Hoffnung auf Gottes Zukunft," represent ways in which both the Council and its member denoninations pledge to reduce their impact on the environment. The promises are available both in German and English. German delegates to the EMC have written (in German) this article about the meeting is a whole.

Recommended readings: Wespath and Climate Change

This recent UMNS article outlines ways in which Wespath, The United Methodist Church's pension and benefits organization, in making efforts to encourage and invest in initiatives to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide is seen by scientists as an important contributor to the process of climate change.

These recent developments are likely to be of interest, not only because of their connection to creation care as a facet of mission, but because of their connection to larger denominational debates about the denomination's environmental responsibilities and its investment policies. As this, this, and this story relate, whether or not Wespath should divest from all fossil fuel companies was an item of debate at 2016 General Conference. This more recent debate follows earlier policy changes from 2015 to screen out some forms of fossil fuels from the fund's investment portfolios.

Recommended readings: United Methodists and #COP21

One of the major international news stories from the past month has been the climate change talks held in Paris, referred to by the abbreviation COP21. While the negotiators at these talks represented governments, there was active participation in the talks by a range of people and organizations, including The United Methodist Church.

For a sense of what United Methodists were doing at the talk, you can watch this series of videos from the General Board of Church and Society, showing a day-by-day recounting of UM activities at the summit. This article from UMNS also gives a sense of the religious dimension to the summit.

The agreement that came out of COP21 has been widely hailed, including by United Methodists and other religious leaders. This UMNS article and this press release from the World Council of Churches give a sense of that range of positive responses.

Among the reasons the COP21 summit is of particular interest to this blog is that not only is the Earth's climate by definition a global matter, much of the United Methodist interest and advocacy around climate change has come from beyond the United States. The UMC in the Philippines has been especially active around climate change, as evidenced by this recent story. European United Methodists participated in a pilgrimage to COP21 and were then among the participants there, as were United Methodists from Africa and the Philippines. The UMC in Liberia has set up a Climate Change Task Force following the conclusion of the summit. As I have suggested before, the Central Conferences may prove to be the most important impetus for the UMC to remain engaged with issues surrounding climate change.

Recommended Reading: Laudato si

If you haven't heard by now, Pope Francis released an encyclical about care for the environment which touches on, among other things, climate change. Did you know, though, that you can find the full text of the encyclical online from the Vatican?  It's available here and well worth a read.

Once you've read that, if you'd like a United Methodist perspective on the pope's encyclical, Thomas Kemper, head of GBGM, has written one that's available here.

Will impetus for United Methodists to address environmental issues come from the Central Conferences?

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Assistant Professor of Religion and Pieper Chair of Servant Leadership at Ripon College.

I was struck by the juxtaposition of these two United Methodist news stories from the last week: the first about a litter clean-up project undertaken by a Zimbabwean church and the second about a coastal cleanup project undertaken by United Methodists in the Philippines. Both projects earned praise from local environmental organizations, and while the environmental connection was stronger in the Philippines cleanup, both projects seemed to stem at least in part from motivation to care for the environment.

Nor is this the first time that Filipino United Methodists have shown concern for the environment. Within the last year, Filipino United Methodists have participated in a climate walk, and students at UM-affiliated Wesleyan University-Philippines have launched a climate change movement. Moreover, some of the environmental initiatives of Filipino United Methodists have had clergy and episcopal support, as the articles demonstrate.

In the United States, support for environmental causes has waxed and waned over the years, but recently, the United States has been behind other developed nations and even many developing nations in terms of concern over climate change specifically, as this article and this article show.

While there are certainly many faithful American United Methodists who are working to mitigate negative human effects on the environment (such as United Methodist Bill McKibben), these articles raised a question for me: Is it possible that real impetus for United Methodists to address climate change and other environmental issues will come from the Central Conferences, not the US?

There are reasons to think so beyond just the survey data linked to above. For reasons of geography and level of economic development, it is likely that other countries around the world will be negatively impacted by climate change before the United States is, making these issues more pressing for them. Moreover, since other countries lack the set of political factors that make climate change and environmentalism controversial in the United States, a United Methodist climate initiative from the Philippines or elsewhere could face less domestic opposition. While only time will tell, I think the Central Conferences are a good place to look for United Methodist energy around addressing climate change and other environmental issues.

Westerners solving problems they cause

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Assistant Professor of Religion and Pieper Chair of Servant Leadership at Ripon College.

UMNS just published this story about things that Rev. Marcos Tamega Jr. learned from UMCOR's recent disaster response readiness training held in the Philippines in February. I think this is a great program of UMCOR, but I was struck by a fact cited in the article.  It said, "A United Nations report has identified the Philippines as the country that is the third most at-risk for disaster because of climate change."  This certainly gives a sense of urgency to disaster response readiness training in the Philippines.  Disasters are likely to continue striking and with increasing ferocity and frequency.

Yet I was also led to wonder if UMCOR-organized disaster response funded largely by American United Methodist donors, such as that to Typhoon Haiyan, was another example of Westerners solving problems that they had helped cause.  There are many examples throughout mission history, the history of Western development projects in Majority World countries, and general Western interactions with the Majority World of Westerners providing the Majority World with solutions to problems that were caused in the first place largely by Westerners.

It's a great set-up for Westerners.  They can, through obliviousness or disregard, continue to cause problems in other countries and therefore not have to change how they do things, but also get the nice glow of feeling like they've helped the less fortunate, even though they are responsible for that misfortune. It's not such a great set-up for non-Westerners, who have to live with the initial problems and the disruption or demeaning that often comes with receiving Western help.

While Western countries are certainly not the only ones emitting greenhouse gases and other climate-change inducing chemicals (China is one of the biggest polluters in the world), Western countries in general, and the United States in particular, pollute at a rate that is far higher than their share of the world's population.  Therefore, I don't think it is unfair to see climate change as a problem that is largely (if not entirely) caused by Westerners.  An increase in the prevalence and frequency of disasters has been predicted as a consequence of climate change.  Thus, Western disaster relief efforts in the Philippines (or Vanuatu or elsewhere) is to some extent a Western solution to a problem caused at least in part by Westerners.

I don't mean this piece as a criticism of UMCOR.  I think UMCOR is a fantastic organization that deserves our support.  Nor do I mean to suggest that Westerners should not help suffering people affected by storms or other disasters.  We should.  I do mean, however, to suggest that if our response to climate change-linked disasters is simply to provide more disaster relief, then we are merely treating symptoms, and we are at moral fault.  Westerners must be willing to humbly change our ways to prevent harm to others, not just give generously once they have been harmed.