“Let Justice Roll Down”: Faith and Environmental Fairness

On April 3, 1968, when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King joined the Memphis Sanitation Strike to demand better pay and working conditions, he repeated a verse from the prophet Amos that he had quoted frequently: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”  Indeed, religious conviction has stood at the forefront of many justice movements not only among ancient prophets, but also in this past century.

While scientists measure and communicate the depth of our environmental problems, the problems themselves, and the solutions, are at root spiritual ones: we can only live well on the earth to the extent that we recognize how deeply the entire human race is interconnected, and how deeply dependent we all are on the earth itself and its other species. In this critical time in the world’s history, congregations are called to stand up for healing.

The Church of the River welcomes The Rev. Dr. Patricia K. Tull as this year’s guest lecturer in the Burton D. Carley Noted Speaker Series. Rev. Dr. Tull is an environmental theologian and author of Inhabiting Eden: Christians, the Bible, and the Ecological Crisis and other books on the Bible and theology.