What the United Church of Canada (UCCan) needs now is a Greta Thunberg approved vision of a plausible future for the planet.
Here’s what I think the UCCan can offer:
- 100% commitment to zero carbon by 2030.
This would apply not only to buildings, but also to all programs and activities including worship, meetings, travel, etc. It would also include active participation in existing climate crisis networks, political activism at all levels, boycotts and other economic pressures. - Multi-generational community.
We have decades of experience creating and maintaining personal connections of caring and friendship that are open and inclusive across all categories of gender, race, age, ability, orientation, culture, etc. We also have firsthand experience of learning to apologize and what it takes to make amends and seek reconciliation. We have gained understandings of the shapes of personal well-being and life-giving relationships. - A big story.
Being rooted in a multi-thousand-year story helps give perspective to present experiences. We are not the first generation to fear there is no plausible future. Our big story helps us to avoid fear-mongering and false-hopes. - Spiritual practices.
Dealing with the pressures of everyday life, work, and family as well as global issues of the climate, war, and the economy can be a recipe for toxic stress and anxiety. We have experience with practices that help one stay centred and connected. - A church that isn’t religious.
The UCCan locates itself within the globally diverse and conflicted collective of those who look to Jesus of Nazareth. Yet in our looking to Jesus, we do not see a religion. We see a way of being; a way of living fully and truly. We see a call to live justly and in right relations with all beings. We are not interested in proving anything to anyone. But we do want the way the world works to be fair for all.
David Ewart
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