With a belief that they must speak out for the silent, some people of faith in Tucson are giving a voice to Mother Nature.

Fueled by heightened media attention to global warming, worshippers and congregations are turning their attentions to the environment. They view protecting the Earth as a justice issue, infusing it with a passion that many historically devoted to ending racial, gender and economic inequality.

Nationally, the Sierra Club has ventured into religious communities for support of its environmental advocacy, and religious groups ranging from evangelical Christian to Zoroastrian are urging greater protection of the Earth and its endangered species to members of Congress and the United Nations.

Internationally, the Vatican declared in April that abuse of the environment is against God's will and urged the world's 1 billion Catholics to be more green.

And in Tucson, some congregations are auditing their own energy use and pollution, and educating their worshippers about environmental threats unique to the region, including what they see as the precariousness of the local water supply.

"A river has a right not to be drained dry. The Earth has rights, and to care for the Earth we can't do it in the abstract," said the Rev. Stuart Taylor of St. Mark's Presbyterian Church in Midtown, who is rereading the Old and New Testaments from an environmental perspective.

Taylor will give a series of sermons this fall, which he is calling "The Green Bible," based on what he believes the Bible says about protecting the environment. Some environmentalists, for example, interpret the Bible as saying the Earth is God's body and that as humans we are assaulting our deity.

"We're looking at the Bible anew. The old interpretations have not served the Earth well," said Sylvia Thorson-Smith, a St. Mark's elder and a retired professor of sociology and religious studies. "Jesus was deeply rooted in the Earth."

Of a more practical nature, St. Mark's plans each week to give its 400 members "climate-change solutions" that they can do themselves. Those tips include replacing older heating and cooling systems with new, efficient models; cleaning the condenser coil on the refrigerator; turning off computers at night and putting them in a power-save mode; washing clothes in warm or cold water; and buying in bulk, which reduces packaging.

Other groups, including the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Northwest Tucson, sell compact fluorescent light bulbs as a way of encouraging worshippers to replace their incandescent bulbs with ones that last longer and use less energy.

The church also is considering banning non-vegetarian food from its premises.

"Eating beef is a huge pollutant of the Earth," said the church's minister, Susan Manker-Seale, who posts the menu of the local vegan restaurant Lovin' Spoonfuls on her church's walls and has the restaurant cater events. "We're not trying to force people to do anything, but we do want to inspire them to learn."

Manker-Seale's congregation recently voted to become a Green Sanctuary, part of a program within the Unitarian Universalist denomination that requires congregations to complete steps, including a community "green" project.

Vegetarianism is one of the less popular ways of going green, but Manker-Seale believes more people should be paying attention to damaging effects of the meat industry. Animal-welfare groups have recently begun promoting a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report that says the livestock business generates more greenhouse-gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined.

Other congregations have held electric-car demonstrations, switched to china and silverware instead of disposable plates and utensils, sponsored alternative gift fairs that included sales of reusable water bottles, and adopted villages harmed by global warming.

St. Philip's in the Hills, Tucson's largest Episcopal church, recently put together a "green team" of people aiming to infuse the congregation with more awareness of environmental stewardship. The church is performing an audit of its own energy consumption, and this month will begin a series of events focused on being green.

"We'd consider the Earth as the ground of all our being. It supports and sustains us and is one binding need we all have. It feeds us and it fuels us," said Greg Foraker, director of adult formation at St. Philip's. "The Earth is really central to Christian tradition, but the news we've been hearing lately reminds us that we can't let go of that core faith."

One of the upcoming speakers at the St. Philip's events will be Susan Kaplan of Tucson's Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life.

Kaplan publicly lectures anyone she sees drinking bottled water, explaining that most of the bottles end up in the landfill. Though she doesn't give faith-based reasons for her admonitions, she says the principles of her faith were a key motivator for her newfound passion.

She considers her environmentalism an extension of "tikkun olam" — a Jewish directive meaning "repair the world" — and has even written a rap song about her views that she performs to various Jewish groups.

"Remember those bad plagues we read about at Seder? Well today there are more, and they got greater and greater," the lyrics say. "Trash and rubbish, dirty air and dirty water. Waste and too much driving, The Earth is under slaughter."

Road cleanups, film screenings and education sessions about recycling are among activities that Kaplan's group sponsors.

Recently, the group helped the Tucson Hebrew Academy acquire a grant from Tucson Electric Power Co. to install solar panels on the school to generate electricity. Kaplan hopes to do more interfaith environmental projects in the future.

One local "green" interfaith initiative already in the works is a series of classes about Genesis sponsored by St. Mark's Presbyterian Church and Temple Emanu-El, a Reform Jewish congregation in Midtown. The classes begin Oct. 23.

When it comes to protecting the Earth, some would argue that Genesis appears to contradict itself. The first chapter talks about dominating the Earth, while the second chapter refers to stewardship. Environmental readings weigh on the side of stewardship, saying God would never have wanted the Earth desecrated.

Added interest in Jewish holidays that emphasize nature, like the harvest festival of Sukkot and the Jewish New Year for Trees, Tu B'Shevat, are signs that worshippers are paying more attention to the planet, Temple Emanu-El Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon said.

He noted that it was a young worshipper studying for his bar mitzvah a few years ago who got the synagogue to begin recycling the paper it uses.

"The environment is too important to be left just to politicians," said Cohon, whose synagogue has held workshops and field trips focusing on Tucson's water supply.

"Faith communities have a responsibility to educate in a variety of important areas — as rabbis, ministers, priests and imams, we need to look to the good of the whole community.

"Some of it is park cleanup, awareness of water usage; some of it is pushing people to recycle," Cohon said. "These are small things, but if everyone does them, they are not so small at all."

On StarNet: Read StarNet's "Desert Beliefs" blog for more coverage of faith and values at go.azstarnet.com/desertbeliefs.

'And God created humankind in God's image... having dominion* over the earth.' — Genesis 1

"The Green Bible," a theological and spiritual overview, will be offered by the Rev. Stuart Taylor at 9:45 a.m. on three consecutive Sundays, beginning Sept. 16, at St. Mark's Presbyterian Church, 3809 E. Third St.

A series titled "Greening Our Faith: Exploring the Wonder of Our World" begins at 12:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 30, in the East Gallery at St. Philip's in the Hills Episcopal Church, 4440 N. Campbell Ave., with a free showing of "The Great Warming." The film examines evidence that human activities are provoking an unprecedented era of atmospheric warming. A discussion will follow.

"Go Green," a special section on ideas for saving energy, money and the environment in our homes, workplaces and communities, runs Sept. 13 in the Star.

Some key passages for "Green Bible" interpretations:

"Ask the animals and they will tell you!" — Job 12:7. Some have interpreted this passage as poetic hyperbole. Others say it calls for a meaningful conversation with the animal world.

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now, and not only the creation but we ourselves groan inwardly." — Romans 8:22-23. Some religious leaders are reconsidering this passage as a call to examine how creation is "groaning" under the weight of environmental destruction.

"Your Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven" — Matthew 6:10. From an environmental perspective, some say the words of the Lord's Prayer remind us that Jesus' message was about how we transform our life here on Earth.