The current Earth Day was first observed on April 22, 1970, as an “environmental teach-in” at two thousand colleges and universities and ten thousand elementary, middle school and high schools across the United States. It was a grass-roots response to a series of environmental disasters, in particular the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, and a growing awareness that, in particular, air and water pollution were causing increasingly severe problems.
While initially a secular issue, many religious institutions have endorsed the goals of Earth Day, educating their followers on the need to be good stewards of God’s blessings. The United Methodist Church has a statement on Environmental Stewardship that begins:
All creation is under the authority of God and all creation is interdependent. Our covenant with God requires us to be stewards, protectors, and defenders of all creation. The use of natural resources is a universal concern and responsibility of all as reflected in Psalm 24:1: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.”
Emmanuel United Methodist Church, in Laurel, Maryland, decorates the altar with a variety of items to reflect the liturgical calendar, or the pastoral message, or other themes. This April the altar had a particularly wonderful decoration in recognition of Earth Day:
The tree, surrounded by paper butterflies and birds and decorated with paper flowers, was beautiful and moving. And recyclable.
