The Episcopal Church needs to spend more, much more, on creation care. How we fund it is essential.
In discussion of the budget proposed at the 80th General Convention, voices from both Houses took to the microphone to inquire about creation care. This ministry priority received the smallest portion of budget allocation, which is indeed a concerning revelation that reflects a real and pervasive apathy that creation care leaders have been fighting for a long time. PB&F’s budget is, however, an incomplete picture.
The nature of creation care (pardon the pun) means that budgetary allocations may differ from other areas. Imagine it like a house: sustainability often looks less like building something new and more like cleaning and renovating what we already have. Under the surface of small funding requests, there is vital sustainable budgetary work in re-imagining how we spend our money. Examples include investing differently, choosing efficient travel options, hiring sustainable vendors, etc.
Additionally, creation care is highly contextual. The legislation on this year’s consent calendar is largely designed to empower ministries at levels of governance with more specific charges, like dioceses and investment managers. You can explore these resolutions in our article summarizing this year’s creation care resolutions here. This passes the programmatic spending buck to other institutions, removing those line items from the General Convention’s scope. Concern regarding this strategy’s efficacy is valid, and even within the strategy the General Convention has future potential to establish stronger, better-funded systems of churchwide support including network building, resource indexing, ministry incubation, etc.
Make no mistake: creation care needs more funding, and it needs it yesterday. Importantly, however, sustainability also requires every other branch of our church to reevaluate the way we operate, and much progress in this regard will never appear in a creation care line item. If you are concerned about a 1% budget allocation to creation care, you are right! As we leave Baltimore and return to our local contexts, we must extend this critical eye for sustainability to those ministries and budget items not labeled “creation care” that nevertheless impact creation.
The Episcopal Herald 