Eco-Justice Connection

An initiative of the North Carolina Council of Churches

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90 Years Rooted in Faith: Journey through Time

By Susannah Tuttle, Eco-Justice Connection Director

As we celebrate 90 years of faithful work for justice and equity this year, we’re sharing stories of 90 Years Rooted in Faith that reflect the heart of the North Carolina Council […]

90 Years Rooted in Faith: Journey through Time

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As we celebrate 90 years of faithful work for justice and equity this year, we’re sharing stories of 90 Years Rooted in Faith that reflect the heart of the North Carolina Council of Churches. Each month, you’ll hear from staff and long-time friends of the Council as they highlight the transformative impacts we’ve had on our community and our vision for the future. Stay tuned for these inspiring reflections throughout the year!

I’ve been part of the North Carolina Council of Churches staff since 2011, where I design programming and advocacy efforts centered around our ‘Call to Care for God’s Creation.’ This work is guided by the principle that addressing the causes and consequences of global climate change is a moral imperative. The Council’s Eco-Justice Connection framework is ‘rooted in faith,’ seeking to connect people of faith and conscience with both the natural ecological world and the human-constructed, financially driven economic system—two realms that currently seem disconnected from the responsibilities God calls us to uphold.

As humans among millions of species, our lives are part of an interdependent web, intricately woven with existence and the experience of the Divine. My faith rests in the belief that all of God’s creation is a dynamic, spiraling force of communication that extends throughout the Universe and beyond. I hold that time is both a profound illusion and, and simultaneously, one of the deepest truths.

Could the people living at the time of Jesus’ birth have ever imagined that Earth and all its species—including humanity—would evolve into the world we know today? The Magi, the wise men who followed celestial signs, may have had some insight into what the future held, even centuries ahead. As scholars deeply versed in astronomy and perhaps early mysticism, they were trained to interpret the stars, believing that celestial events could foreshadow earthly transformations—such as the rise of great figures or the dawn of new eras.

Thoughts and questions like these inspired me to enter seminary in the 20th century and still occupy my mind today, 25 years into the 21st century, marking the first quarter of the third millennium since Anno Domini—”in the year of the Lord.” The socio-political struggles during Jesus’ lifetime resonate with the challenges we face today, highlighting the profound question of where each of us are standing in the wilderness at this moment as we face tyranny and the collapse of democracy across the United States. This question takes on many layers in the context of the global climate emergency, which affects all peoples and transcends any single religion or group.

As the North Carolina Council of Churches reflects on the past 90 years, we are also called to creatively envision what the world will look like 90 years from now, in 2115. While it’s difficult to imagine that far ahead, there are babies being born today who may still be alive then—if we faithfully answer the call to protect the people and places we love. 

This is our mandate—spanning from the past to the present and into the future: to love God and ourselves enough to heal what has been harmed, and to follow the teachings of Jesus, as well as those of the great Magi who came before, who walk among us now, and those yet to be born.

To be a part of the North Carolina Council of Churches is a tremendous blessing. The work we do to educate, inspire, and mobilize our congregational network—and all those they reach—is the vital work of our time. May we honor it and continue to nurture and grow it so that it may endure, in the name of peace, love, and justice for all.

Join us in continuing this legacy of justice and courage.
Click here to donate directly to Susannah Tuttle’s fundraising page!
Your gift supports the Council’s equity and compassion work across North Carolina.

My History, My Journey, My Inspiration, My Children

By chris

There is a future I want for my children – and for all children – and for the children of all children.  It is a future of abundance, diversity, beauty, […]

My History, My Journey, My Inspiration, My Children

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Kathy Shea and her kids, Meg and Joey.
Kathy Shea and her kids, Meg and Joey.

There is a future I want for my children – and for all children – and for the children of all children.  It is a future of abundance, diversity, beauty, health, equity and peace.   The potential for that future is still real, but it is threatened.  Global climate change is one of the greatest threats to realizing that future, and it is up to those of us living and making decisions now to curb that threat and steer a new course for the future.  Here’s the story of why I work with NCIPL, seeking to mobilize the faith community to be the leaders charting this new course.

Over 30 years ago, I started my career as a pediatrician because I love children and wanted to help them grow up healthy and strong, and to reach their full potential as happy, fulfilled adults.  I concentrated on wellness and prevention and found my niche in university student health.  Then one day in 1990, after a particularly wonderful experience being told by a patient that she had completely abandoned all her self-destructive behaviors in favor of healthy ones because of the care and advice I had given her, I had an “ah ha” moment that changed my life.  I suddenly realized that her healthy lifestyle choices could only work if there was a healthy environment supporting them.  We all need clean air, clean water, wholesome food and the ecosystems that produce them in order for our personal choices to bear healthy results.

So, I decided to do something about my “ah ha” and went back to grad school to learn about the public health implications of environmental degradation. The idea was that it would be obvious to everyone that healthy bodies and healthy environments were inextricably interdependent.

Unfortunately, the “health message” for why we should care about restoring environmental balance was not strong enough either alone or in combination with the “economic”, the “ecologic”, or the “equity” messages to change the trajectory of most environmental harms, chief among them global climate change.  The forces causing climate change are powerful and the fact that the globe is still unequivocally and increasingly warming is proof that these standard approaches are ineffective.  I became despondent as I continued working with less hope and more fear year after year.

Then came another “ah ha” experience.  In 1999, I helped put together a Lenten series at my church on environmental theology.   With one of our pastors and a fellow environmentalist, we reframed our message within the context of our faith, and I found a new freedom and a new power that was completely unexpected.  Instead of developing scientific, logical, fact based arguments for working to restore creation, we found the scriptural instruction in our sacred texts and familiar traditions to do so.   Honoring and caring for creation in all forms is what we are told to do by our Creator.  It’s just the right thing to do.  We don’t need to look farther than our faith to know that we as a species are off track and need to change.  Even better, all faith traditions share this same theme.

So what could be more natural than for a medical doctor with and environmental sciences and engineering degree to start working with NCIPL?  Recognizing that the real power to change comes not from the head with facts and figures but from the heart with awe and love, I took the opportunity to work first as staff and now as a volunteer with the only organization in the state with the explicit mission to work on positive responses to the climate crisis as a matter of spiritual practice and faithful action.  I believe that the work of NCIPL is the work I need to be doing to help realize my hope for all children’s futures.  I hope you will join me in that work by giving of your time, your talents and your treasures.  A great time to start is now with a donation to this matching grant challenge.  Every dollar helps us grow our reach and strengthen our effectiveness.  Please give generously.

Kathy Shea

NCIPL Senior Advisor