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For Immediate Release: Novemeber
19, 2002
Media Contact: Suellen
Bilow (415) 557-4282
Wallace Stegner Environmental Center of the
San
Francisco Public Library
in association with
California Interfaith Power and
Light presents
Caring for Creation
Faith and Environmental Responsibility
Turning down the thermostat - just a good way to save money or a religious duty?
Well, according to a new generation of religious leaders, it might
just be a sin to waste energy.
A movement has been building in the faith community to connect traditional wisdom
to contemporary environmental issues such as global warming, and many
congregations are heeding the call. "No institution is better suited to preach clean air, water, and land than the
institutions that profess a love of God and God's creation," says the Rev. Sally G. Bingham, Environmental Minister at Grace Cathedral in
San Francisco.
The community is invited to San Francisco Main Library's Koret Auditorium, 100
Larkin Street (near Grove and Market), on Wednesday, December 4 at
6:30pm to hear a free and enlightening dialogue about faith and environmental
responsibility. A panel of local Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious
leaders will discuss environmental activism in the context of their
individual beliefs and the most current environmental work occurring
in the faith community.
Scott Schafer, host of The California Report on KQED-radio, will facilitate the
evening's dialogue. Featured speakers include the Rev. Sally Grover
Bingham, Rabbi Stephen S. Pearce and Dr. Hamid Mavani.
"Caring for Creation" is sponsored by the Wallace
Stegner Environmental Center of the San Francisco
Public Library in partnership with California Interfaith Power and
Light and is funded by a grant from the Mary A Crocker Trust.
All programs and exhibitions at the Library
are free of charge and
open to the public.
For more information, please call (415) 557-4277.
Caring
for Creation Panelists
- The Rev. Sally Grover Bingham, a priest in the Diocese of California,
currently serves as
the Environmental Minister at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. She
is the founder and executive director of The Regeneration Project, a nonprofit
ministry working on a religious response to global climate change. Ms. Bingham
also co-chairs California Interfaith Power and Light, a coalition of faith
groups committed to taking action to stem global warming. She was appointed
by Mayor Willie Brown to serve on the Commission on the Environment for
the City and County of San Francisco.
- Rabbi Stephen S. Pearce is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco,
the oldest Jewish congregation west of the Mississippi River. He is the
past president of the Northern California Board of Rabbis, and board member
of the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, and the Graduate Theological
Union. He is author of Flash of Insight: Metaphor and Narrative in Therapy
and co-author, along with Bishop William E. Swing (The Episcopal Bishop
of California) and Father John P. Schlegel (President of the University
of San Francisco), of Building Wisdom's House: A Book of Values for our
Time.
- Dr. Hamid Mavani, the Religious Director of the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern
California, has a master's degree in Islamic Studies from McGill University
and is in the process of completing his PhD thesis on Shi'a theology (kalam).
He has translated two booklets, one from Arabic to English by Ayatollah
Seestani titled Contemporary Legal Rulings in Shi'i Law and another one
from Persian to English titled A Guide to Islamic Medical Ethics. He also
edited the work of Ayatollah Fadlullah titled World of our Youth and Divine
Consultation (Istikharah).
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