Episcopalians Join Protest Against Drilling in Arctic Refuge
Episcopal News Service. May 14, 2001 [2001-112]
Jan Nunley, Jerry Hames, Editor of Episcopal Life
(ENS) Three Episcopal priests were among 22 religious activists arrested on May 3 at the Department of Energy building in Washington, D.C. during a public protest of the Bush administration's energy policy and its support for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
The demonstration culminated two days of meetings and lobbying on Capitol Hill. Police moved in as the protestors stood or knelt in prayer at the entrance of the federal building after a public service that drew about 150 supporters from as far as California and Alaska.
The Rev. Sally Bingham of San Francisco, the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas of Watertown, Massachusetts, and the Rev. Robert Massie of Somerville, Massachusetts were among those who were handcuffed and taken into police custody. They each paid a $50 fine after being detained from 12 to 16 hours in jail.
Bullitt-Jonas said her decision to participate in the demonstration came from a conviction that she needed to bear witness to the environmental crisis and global climate change. "It came during Holy Week as I was praying through the vigil, arrest, trial, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus," she said. She said she wanted to witness against today's "greedy mindset that the earth is ours to devour."
Like 17 others in the group of 22, it was the first time she had been arrested.
Bingham, who wore vestments decorated with a depiction of wind-generated energy, said she and Bullitt-Jones sang hymns in their dark and dirty cell while they waited for release.
"Ours was only an inkling of what people go through when their dignity is insulted, but our lives will be changed because of it. No one will ever accuse me of not standing up for what I believe in," said Bingham, one of the founders of Episcopal Power and Light, an energy conservation organization.
A few protesters wore T-shirts that said "Religious Witness for the Earth," the name of the organization that organized the protest.
Religious Witness for the Earth describes itself as "an independent network of religious and spiritual people from diverse faith traditions dedicated to public witness in defense of God's creation."
In February, the group issued "A Call to Religious Witness for the Arctic Refuge," which declared that ANWR "must be forever protected as a sacred place for the Gwich'in, a haven for wildlife, and a cathedral for the human spirit to glory in God's handiwork. To drill for oil there would be a sacrilege."
"Every religious tradition teaches us to hold sacred the wonders of creation, yet wantonly we desecrate them," the declaration says. "Every religious tradition cautions us to temper our cravings for sensation and material things, yet we pursue them addictively, vainly hoping to fill our spiritual emptiness. Every religious tradition forbids theft, yet every day we live unsustainably, we steal from our children and our children's children.
"Throughout the world, poor and working people, and especially people of color, are pollution's first victims. When we see the earth and its creatures wounded, we cannot pass by on the other side."
Episcopalian signers of the Call include Bingham, who chairs the Commission for the Environment in the Diocese of California; Kwok Pui Lan, professor of theology and spirituality, Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Massie, who is executive director of the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES); Bishop Mark MacDonald of the Diocese of Alaska; and Jonathon Solomon, chair of the Gwich'in Steering Committee in Alaska.
Since the declaration was first released, the Bush administration reversed a previous commitment to regulate carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, withdrew the United States from international discussion of the Kyoto agreement on global climate change, cut energy conservation programs, and pressed for accelerated development of fossil fuels in ANWR and in a broad range of other public lands.