Four
Massachusetts Conference clergy were among 22 activists arrested during
an interfaith demonstration in front of the Department of Energy in
Washington, D.C., early in May.
A new, Littleton-based group, Religious Witness for the Earth,
was protesting the Bush administration’s energy policies, particularly
a proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The demonstration culminated two days of lobbying on Capitol Hill. It
began with a approximately 100 people taking part in a worship service
on the sidewalk, and ended with the arrest of those who knelt in prayer
in front of the building’s entrance.
Among
those arrested were Andrea Ayvazian, Dean of Religious Life at Mount
Holyoke College; Richard Fournier of Northampton; Kelly Gallagher, Associate
Pastor of First Church in Northampton; and Kate Stevens, pastor of the
United Congregational Church, UCC, in Conway. Mary Brandt, a member
of First Church in Northampton, participated in the protest but did
not choose to get arrested.
Those
arrested were handcuffed and taken to jail, where they spent between
12 and 17 hours. They were released after paying $50 fines.
“We chose to take part in civil disobedience and suffer the consequences.
We were willing to do that. It’s a way to make a really strong statement,”
Stevens said.
“We literally knelt down in prayer – clergy with stoles and albs and
robes and yamakas – it was very dramatic,” she said. “It was unusual,
I think, for the police to be arresting people who were clergy. It was
scary for them too; it broke down that image of hippees out protesting.
These were their ministers being arrested.”
Religious Witness for
the Earth bills itself as “an independent network of ... people
from diverse faith traditions who are dedicated to public witness in
defense of God’s creation.”
The group formed in February with a Call to Religious Witness for
the Arctic Refuge, which is aimed at focusing attention on the Bush
Administration’s drilling proposal. More than 800 people, including
150 clergy, have signed on to that call.
Stevens said that for her there is no question that conservation is
a spiritual concern.
“This
group is looking at the environment from a moral, religious perspective
as opposed to a financial or technological or scientific understanding,
and that’s where it rightly belongs,” she said.
Return
to United Church News front page
Return
to Massachusetts Conference home page
