Friends,
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This month, more than 100,000 people in the United States are training in nonviolent direct action as part of the 99% Spring coalition, of which FOR is a part.
Did you join a 99% Spring training last week? We'd love to know! If not, the organizers have created a web-based resource that will help you train in nonviolent action.
Whether you're training for actions coinciding with Earth Day and the Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, nonviolent actions as part of the Occupy General Strike on May 1, the 350.org-sponsored "Connect the Dots" Climate Impacts Day on May 5, or your own local initiatives, the 99% Spring online nonviolent action training will be a valuable resource.
Join the online nonviolent action training now.
The training takes less than one hour to complete, and you don't have to finish it all at once.
We'd love to hear your impressions of the training when you finish, and any plans you have for nonviolent actions as a result!
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The Fellowship of Reconciliation's Statement of Purpose includes the principle that our members will "endeavor to show respect for personality and reverence for all creation."
In recent years this commitment has led us to be increasingly involved with environmental issues and more particularly with the challenges of climate change. Many assessments, including that of the U.S. military establishment, argue that the effects of climate change will drive the experience of violence globally in coming years as the inequities of the world are experienced by decreasing food, shelter and human well-being security. Beyond the basic moral argument for respect of all creation, we also recognize the risks to a life of nonviolence are deeply implicated in climate concerns.
Over the past six months, I have been working with an expanding coalition of faith-based communities to discern ways of bringing shared concerns about the environment to the attention of Congress: Interfaith Moral Action on Climate.
The United States is the only developed nation in the world which has not adopted policies informed and responsive to climate change issues. And the blindness to these issues at the level of a national policy agenda then easily percolates into a large part of the U.S. population, which feels climate concerns need not be taken seriously. This coalition places important responsibility for changing this dynamic in faith-based values and communities.
Visit the coalition's website for resources which can be used in congregational contexts, with friends and family, and in local groups and affiliates of FOR.
If you can, join me in Washington D.C. on April 24 for a procession, worship service, and visits to Capitol Hill -- I would love to have your company.
If it makes more sense to organize locally, I urge you to do so -- register your local event on the Interfaith Moral Action on Climate website, and then let us at FOR know so we may promote it to others in your area!
For an environment of justice, nonviolence and sustainability,
Mark C. Johnson, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Fellowship of Reconciliation |
