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Inspired
Inspired is the nation's leading public radio show about faith, ethics and spirituality. Each week we offer you analyses of the big headlines alongside lesser-told stories – those of Orthodox Jewish artists and African-American atheists, Muslim feminists and spiritual seekers. Through these stories, a rough sketch of our country’s religious landscape begins to emerge. It’s a marketplace of beliefs and ideas too complex for sound bites, and too important to ignore.
This week on Interfaith Voices:
Young, Evangelical and Green
Kyle Meyaard-Schaap grew up in evangelical church that separated God from the environment and fostered mistrust in anyone who subscribed to a green ethic. But now the national organizer and spokesperson for Young Evangelicals for Climate Action explains to other evangelical Christians that it was his faith that led him to a life advocating for the planet. He talks about his personal evolution on the subject, and how he tries to persuade Christian climate change deniers that human beings must become better stewards of the Earth.
Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, national organizer and spokesperson for Young Evangelicals for Climate Action
The Green Sheep of the Congregation
Our guest panelists represent three faiths – Islam, Judaism and Buddhism – and share stories from the intersection of faith and environmental advocacy. They say they know it can feel lonely to be the “green sheep” of the congregation, the one who stands up and asks that more attention be paid to the environment. But they also say that religion – all religions – give followers a framework for speaking uncomfortable truths and connecting belief to action. They also tackle eco-anxiety, the fear of environmental chaos that too often, they say, leads to inaction.
Joelle Novey, director of the D.C., Maryland, and Northern Virginia chapter of Interfaith Power & Light
Priscilla Martinez, blogger for Salam Mama sustainable living and member of the Interfaith Power & Light steering committee
Kristin Barker, director of One Earth Sangha
Divinity Meets Ecology
Professor Mary Evelyn Tucker holds a joint appointment at Yale Divinity School and the university’s School of Forestry and Environmental Science and has long believed that religion and ecology are disciplines that should be studied in concert. The religious world has much to say about how we understand the natural world, and the natural world can show us how we can better live out the tenets of our faith. She said she is heartened by the flowering of activism among religious groups around the world in response to the most threatening of climate crises.
Mary Evelyn Tucker, co-director of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology
