WATERLOO - Elizabeth Becker's ponytail whipped in the wind last weekend as the teen dug her spade into the grass outside First Congregational United Church of Christ.

Soon, with help from members of two other downtown church youth groups, the 18-year-old was ready to plant a white pine sapling in the exposed soil.

"I believe in God, and this is God's creation," the East High School senior said, after carefully arranging mulch around the young tree. "We have to step up and keep it the way he wants it."

To Becker, who spent her morning planting trees near other downtown churches, the link between faith and the natural world is clear. It is a view that is gaining traction in churches, synagogues and mosques across the country and in the Cedar Valley. As pollution and global warming have gained increasing attention in secular society, a growing number of faith communities have added environmental stewardship to their ministries.

"Every faith tradition has an ethic that calls us to care for creation, but we've ignored that for hundreds and hundreds of years," said Sarah Webb, a member of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Cedar Falls. "The environmental crisis is calling us to action, and people are now looking to their faith traditions for inspiration."

A recent poll by Phoenix-based Ellison Research found 41 percent of Americans believe harming the environment is a sin.

On March 10, the Vatican made that proclamation official, listing pollution - along with drug use, genetic manipulation and social and economic injustice - as areas of sinful behavior for today's believers. Later that day, leaders from the Southern Baptist Convention released a statement saying: "There is undeniable evidence that the Earth - wildlife, water, land and air - can be damaged by human activity, and that people suffer as a result."

Great awakening

Although environmental preservation efforts have been greeted with lukewarm public support since the 1970s, local religious leaders hope preaching sustainability from the pulpit will have a lasting effect on Cedar Valley churchgoers and their neighbors.

For evangelical Christians, one of the first steps is removing the issue from the political sphere, said Tri Robinson, founder of "Let's Tend the Garden," an environmental stewardship ministry based in Boise, Idaho.

"It's been an interestingly controversial topic among evangelicals," Robinson said in a March speech at the University of Northern Iowa. "When people think about Christians, especially evangelicals, they think of a group of people that is antagonistic toward anything that is green. And a lot of evangelicals still think that way themselves."

Here is the logic: Since the 1960s, the environmental movement has been the turf of left-wing liberals, who also support abortion rights and gay marriage - causes most evangelicals consider abhorrent.

"Two camps emerged out of Roe v. Wade, a conservative camp and a liberal camp," Robinson said, referring to the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case that struck down state laws restricting a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy. "The environment fell in with the liberal group. It was therefore equated by many Christians as a liberal agenda (item), and they pushed it away."

But recent scientific findings have made it impossible for Christians to continue to ignore environmental stewardship, said Robinson, who was in the Cedar Valley last month to present a "God is Green" conference at Heartland Vineyard Church in Cedar Falls.

In November, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the first time called the evidence for global warming "unequivocal." Trends of increasing air and water temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising ocean levels all point to a permanent change in the Earth's climate spurred by human activity, the report states.

In response, Cedar Valley churches scheduled tree-planting outings, added long-lasting light bulbs to their sanctuaries and encouraged members to bike or carpool to Sunday services.

Sermons and Scripture study sessions have also focused on the environment.

"We've started talking about how God's heart for people is really revealed in how we honor and care for our earth," said Chris Reeves, executive pastor of Heartland Vineyard. "We talk about it spiritually, but we also talk about it practically, like the importance of recycling and how to cut down the energy we use."

Making changes as a faith community is easier than making changes alone, said St. Luke's member Webb.

Two years ago, Webb and fellow St. Luke's members Ann Eastman and Kate Dunning, developed Cool Congregations, an energy efficiency program designed especially for church-goers. They started the initiative by asking 25 families from their home parish to reduce energy use by 10 percent via simple lifestyle changes, such as using compact fluorescent light bulbs, washing clothing in cold water and weather-proofing their homes. Over one year, the participants reduced their carbon dioxide emissions by 67 tons, the equivalent of removing 12 cars from Iowa's roads.

"Americans represent about 5 percent of the world's population, but we contribute about 25 to 30 percent of the world's CO2 emissions," said Webb, who uses a computer program to help Cool Congregations participants measure their family's "carbon footprint." "We try to help people make the connection that their actions here affect people elsewhere and are having a very real impact on our planet."

Since 2006, Webb and her cohorts have introduced the Cool Congregation program to roughly 100 churches in the Midwest.

"We are reaching a lot of people, and it feels fantastic," said Webb, whose work is supported by Iowa Interfaith Power & Light. "During our workshops we go to Scripture, we talk about how God tells Adam and Eve to tend the garden in Genesis."

Bible study

Most faith traditions call on adherents to care for the earth, according to Harvard University's Forum on Religion and Ecology.

Muslims believe the earth is subservient to man, but that humans have a responsibility to not exploit the environment. Jewish texts teach that God renews his creation daily, and that humans are both a part of nature and separate from it. Christians believe the biblical figure Noah agreed to a holy covenant that would ensure nature's gifts belong to the human race as long as we respect the earth and each other. One of the guiding principles of Unitarianism is an interdependent web of existence.

Today, religious leaders are increasingly calling on those tenets when preaching a "green" message.

"It's become a concern because when we look around we know that something is happening with the environment that is not good," said Dave Cushing, director of adult faith formation for Waterloo's four Roman Catholic parishes. "We've always known in some theoretical sense that our faith spoke to environmental stewardship, but when you come face-to-face with it as an issue of survival, you have to pay attention."

From 1990 to 2005, total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions have risen by 16.3 percent, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. If greenhouse gases continue to increase, scientists predict the average temperature at the Earth's surface could raise 3.2 to 7.2 degrees above 1990 levels by the end of this century. Although those numbers may seem small, researchers believe the change would dramatically alter the earth's ecosystem and affect plant, animal and human health.

This spring, Waterloo's Catholic churches offered a Bible study course on humankind's responsibility to care for the earth. Last month the parishes co-sponsored a Cool Congregations session with First Congregational United Church of Christ members.

For Catholics, climate change is also a social justice issue. Impoverished Americans are hit hardest by rising energy costs, and developing nations are already feeling the effect of food shortages and environmental disasters linked to global warming, Cushing said.

"This isn't a political issue anymore," he said. "It's a moral issue, an ethical issues and a justice issue.

"From that perspective, we can't ignore it."

Contact Mary Stegmeir at (319) 291-1482 or mary.stegmeir@wcfcourier.com.