Christian Roman

(Marquette, Michigan) - The new non-profit Earth Healing Initiative, based in Michigan s Upper Peninsula, is honoring faith-based and Native American environmental projects across the Great Lakes. The interfaith Earth Healing Initiative (EHI) is currently collaborating with the USEPA to promote the Great Lakes 2008 Earth Day Challenge iacross eight states including providing faith community volunteers and spreading the word in churches and temples. The EHI is one of several faith-based environment projects created by the non-profit Cedar Tree Institute in Marquette, Michigan. Rev. Jon Magnuson said it's important for people of faith to protect the environment because the Christian church is at a tipping point in its relationship with itself and the Earth. Quoting nineteenth century theologian Walter Rauschenbusch, Magnuson said if a man or woman wants to be a Christian - she or he - must stand over and against things as they are and condemn them in the name of a higher conception of life revealed by Jesus. I believe the environmental crisis that we are now involved in is a great tipping point in the church s own evolution of its self-understanding, Magnuson. Roman Catholic theologian Thomas Berry talks about three rivers converging at this time in human history, said Magnuson, Cedar Tree Institute/Earth Healing Initiative founder. The first river is an avalanche and explosion of scientific knowledge that is pointing to the interconnectedness of everything, Magnuson said. The greatest polluter of Lake Superior (is) a major factory in China.' We have atmospheric loading here where contaminants are carried over by wind currents and then deposited in rainfall, said Magnuson. The second stream is the health crisis that is facing us - the CDC (reports) 80 percent of all cancers are environmentally triggered.' The third river Thomas Berry calls Indigenous wisdom - wisdom from the native communities around the world that is resurging

In the earliest days of Christian missionaries, the Roman emperors saw their existence as a threat.