Today Pope Francis released his Encyclical On the Environment a document which I have only skimmed and read excerpts from, but will happily endorse.
Having been home-schooled in a Fundamentalist Evangelical environment I was led to believe that Climate Change was a lie, or at best a natural occurrence that was not affected by humans at all. There was no talk about what it meant to care for our home, to honor and love it. In fact I was told that “Mother Earth” was a concept created to keep people’s minds off of “The One True God” and that Earth Day was intended as a distraction from time spent focusing on Jesus.
So it is extremely refreshing for me to read the words of the leader of one of the largest Christian denominations and have them be positive, after all it isn’t very often amongst more conservative branches of Christianity that we see “Mother Earth” spoken of with respect instead of denigration as a “pagan goddess.”
As a Christian with strong Pagan & New Age leanings, I am thrilled to be here (Living in this World) when this was published. Now we need to act on it and fix things! No more destruction, nor more death,
Create a Living Sustainable World, Don’t Kill it!
Olivia Jackson is a trans theatre artist, feminist-faith activist, writer, reader and anarchist.