Join in the Faith Contingent of the March in Philadelphia, on eve of the Democratic National 
Convention

[To add your signature to this Call, please write "Yes" and any other comment in the comment section below, with your name, what town you live in, your email, and a phone number.]

A Call to Communities of Faith and Spirit

We invite all people of faith and spirit to join with us to support, and, if possible, to join in the Faith Contingent of the March for a Clean Energy Revolution, as we gather in Philadelphia on July 24, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention.

We ask this in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King’s outcry invoking “The fierce urgency of Now.”

For beneath and beyond all our diversity as members of different faith communities, we stand as one in our concern for individual health and dignity; for justice in society; for the sacred vibrancy and vitality of the endangered web of life on Earth, our common home.

For us, these concerns arise from the sense of the Sacredness of the universe that fills our lives with joy.

Yet all these concerns are violated by current policies that prioritize money and power over the well-being of the planet and all its inhabitants - especially, and urgently, through the burning of fossil fuels.

The shepherds, farmers, and fisherfolk among our ancestors learned the practical wisdom of worthy relationships among human communities and other lifeforms of the Earth - a proto-science infused with loving care. This loving wisdom was encoded in our sacred texts.

Today, science increasingly affirms the sense of interwoven Unity that suffuses what the ancients taught and teach us. Our science today warns us that continuing to extract and burn fossil fuels endangers both those who live where extreme extraction takes place, and life on the planet as a whole. Extremes in weather and outbursts of unfamiliar diseases already bear out these warnings.

Our ancient texts also warn us against the growth of decision-making pyramids of power that are top-down, unaccountable, tyrannical, and addicted to preserving their own power.

We see these dangers today in corporations that for the sake of their enormous profits have corrupted our politics and deliberately lied about the science their own experts reported to them.

And our sacred teachings call on us to feed the hungry and empower the powerless. Yet the effects of burning fossil fuels damage the poor first and worst. We need planning and restraint to redirect our resources from the wanton waste of the affluent to the urgent needs of the poor.

Our sacred wisdom teaches us that we can restrain our impulses to gobble up all life in ways that make this kind of sharing and of self-restraint a joy, and not a painful crushing of the self.

We call on the political leaders who shape our economy and our technology:

STOP FRACKING NOW

KEEP FOSSIL FUELS IN THE GROUND

STOP DIRTY ENERGY

MAKE A QUICK AND JUST TRANSITION TO 100% RENEWABLE ENERGY

We call on our leaders to end all subsidies to fossil fuel and to focus our funds and our attention on helping neighborhoods turn to community-based renewable energy, creating the jobs that can make this happen, and joyfully celebrating our myriad cultures.

It will take national decisions by public officials, business executives, and religious & cultural leaders to renew health, neighborliness, and vitality at the grass roots and pavement tops of our society.

Join with us to elevate these issues in our national discussion and build a national movement for a world based on love, justice, and sustainability.

Join with us in supporting a strong faith presence in the March for a Clean Energy Revolution, this July 24th, in Philadelphia — and if for you it’s possible, join in the March itself.

Join with us as we use the occasion of the Democratic National Convention to urge all political parties: --

In this moment facing the fierce urgency of Now, turn away from destruction and despair, turn to planting and nurturing the Beloved Community!

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 PLEASE SIGN IN for the FAITH CONTINGENT: Please go to the comment section below and write "Yes" and any other comment , with your name, what town you live in, your email, and a phone number.  Then please click here -- <http://www.cleanenergymarch.org/get-involved/call-communities-faith-spirit/> and scroll down to sign. 

The Shalom Center has been deeply involved in planning for the Faith Contingent. Please sustain us to do this work by clicking on the "Contribute/Sustain" banner in the left-hand margin and then follow through by contributing. Write "Clean Energy" in the "Honor Of" box.

Thanks! -- and blessings of shalom, salaam, peace, Earth!  --  Arthur