At Bath United Church of Christ in Bath, Me., the Rev. Bill Bliss sees no point in preaching to his congregation a gospel of how to save the environment. It is not that his church members would balk at using God's resources efficiently. Indeed, many members of his church, where he often lowers the thermostat to 60 degrees in winter, are so well-versed in protecting the earth that he would be preaching to the choir.
"Environmentalism comes up regularly in my sermons, but I don't have to harangue my parishioners about wasteful and polluting ways," Mr. Bliss said. "Our congregation gave up Styrofoam a long time ago." Mr. Bliss said he was "the kind of guy who gives up driving a car for Lent.''
"I do it to experience God's creation at a more human pace," he said. "And I'm not participating in enriching oil corporations."
That is why he sometimes rides his bicycle in snowstorms and hitchhikes from town to town.
Efforts like those of Mr. Bliss, his congregation and other like-minded churchgoers have put Maine in the forefront of religiously motivated environmental activity, said Paul Gorman, director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, an organization of Christian and Jewish groups, in Washington.
A pivotal moment for the state came last fall, when the Maine Council of Churches' Environmental Justice Program and Maine Interfaith Power & Light Inc., part of a national network that advocates "green'' electricity from renewable sources, asked local congregations to choose two or three new environmental tasks. About 36 congregations now have mostly lay-led environmental groups called EarthCare teams, up from 24 last fall, said Anne Burt, director of the Maine Council of Churches' Environmental Justice Program in Portland. Congregations have been introducing environmentalism into Sunday schools, undergoing energy audits of their churches, reducing cars idling and changing the very buildings in which they meet, with window replacements and added insulation.
Beyond the usual newspaper recycling and turning off lights, they are also holding energy-efficiency fairs, buying organically grown coffee for coffee hours and exploring possibilities of using solar power for their facilities. Three small congregations have saved about 900,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere, Ms. Burt said.
"We are building an environmental movement in the pews," she Burt added. "What's exciting about our teams and similar movements around the country is that we're taking actions with people who see themselves as church-going people, not environmentalists. They're beginning to see saving the planet through new eyes, through a faith journey."
Why Maine? "So much of our Maine economic base, like our skiing, fishing, maple sugar and wood industries, is tied to our natural resources," Ms. Burt said. "And they're all being threatened."
For those who consider environmental stewardship central to leading a godly life, many of Maine's houses of worship are "ahead of the game," Mr. Gorman said. At a time when many religious leaders are asking politicians to support legislation to curb global warming, "no one would be surprised if this is going on in California, but Maine is a bellwether state," he said, adding, "Here's a very evolved program that's got institutional support of churches; it's not just eight people meeting in a church basement."
The First Parish Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, in Saco, Me., is building a more energy-efficient house of worship to replace the one that burned.
"They don't teach a lot of Construction 101 at seminary," said the Rev. Dr. Douglas Nielsen, the senior minister. "But if you think about your own house, it's not all that different; it's just that the church is larger. If people see their house of worship taking things seriously like energy efficiency for appliances and lighting, heating and cooling systems, then it may invite them in their own houses to take it that seriously as well. It's not just a head trip."
But support is not automatic.
"I get a lot of 'no's' in my parish when I bring things up like, 'How about if we use cloth napkins for the Lenten luncheon?' '' said Sally Chappell, a member of the EarthCare team at St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church in Bridgton, Me., which recycles and uses green electricity in the rectory. "I've heard people in parishes in different states come to loggerheads over disposable and nondisposable dishes. I don't want to offend my fellow parishioners. I'm trying to promote ecology without being a pain in the you-know-what."
Still, momentum is spreading, said Christine James, congregational outreach coordinator for Maine Interfaith Power & Light in Brunswick. "I go to faith communities that have yet to get started with earth stewardship," Ms. James said, "and individuals wonder, 'How can I possibly make a difference to the melting of polar ice caps or the weakening of the ozone layer?' I let them know there are dozens of other congregations in Maine working on it, too."
Education is helping. "In the classroom, when I am talking about social action in the life of the church, I always identify the environment as one of the central issues along with war and peace and human rights that churches need to address," said the Rev. Dr. Bill Imes, president of the Bangor Theological Seminary, which is supporting construction of an Indian wind farm in South Dakota. "If we believe that God created this world, then we believe we are called by God to look out for this world."
Children are learning, too. At St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in Yarmouth, Me., where "we are infusing into our whole life as a worshipping community a sense of the earth as a sacrament," students learn that some light bulbs generate "God's gift of light" more efficiently, said Libby Moore, a Sunday school teacher and chairwoman of the church's Environmental Stewardship Committee. "A lot of my students who are 4, 5, 6 years old are already recycling at home," she said.
"After church," she said, "sometimes I catch them in the creek with cattail heads. The seeds fly through the air and they say, 'Look, the breath of God.' They're making connections."