Faith Inspires: The Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development

Editor's note: Every week, HuffPost Religion shines a spotlight on religious people doing good work in their communities. If you would like to recommend a faith-inspired organization, initiative or person in your community, send an email to [e-mail] or tweet to @huffpostrelig using the hashtag #faithinspires.

This week's Faith Inspires highlights the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development (ICSD), a Jerusalem-based organization of inter-religious leaders who promote environmental consciousness and responsibility together. Through their Seminary Students Sustainability Program, Muslim, Christian and Jewish students learn side-by-side about sustainability and co-existence. The organization leads "eco-tourism" trips throughout the Holy Land. And on March 19, ICSD will host the Interfaith Climate and Energy Conference, which will bring together a diverse group of religious leaders to talk about the religious imperative to protect the earth.

What motivates ICSD?

As Japan’s nuclear energy crisis, the BP oil spill, and global climate change increasingly show, humanity faces significant challenges with regard to living sustainably on the planet. All three issues point to both crises and opportunities. They challenge us all to live better and walk more wisely and responsibly on the Earth.

HuffPost Religion applauds the good works of the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development. You can follow ICSD on Facebook and Twitter.

Now, we want to hear from you! Who's making a positive impact in your community? Let us know by sending an e-mail to [e-mail] or tweeting to @huffpostrelig with the hashtag #faithinspires.

Comments

[soma77]

04:32 PM on 03/18/2012

We see, hear, taste, smell and feel gross energy, but at the same time we can experience subtle energy. There is a limit to our senses and this boundary marks the experience of gross life because the subtle energy fields are out of our ordinary range of experience. Technology has shown us that there are subtle levels in our world, which we are not aware of because our senses are limited to the gross strata only. In order to experience the finer energies of life, it is necessary to improve our sense of being by aligning with the soul. The church needs to focus on the energy in the physical and spiritual realms and away from right wing propaganda.

http://thinkunity.com

[lastwarning2earth rev14]

04:29 PM on 04/12/2012

You speak of feelings of the self and finer energies and the need for an experience. I don't think thats christian. Its New Age Occult talk or new age propaganda.

[soma77]

04:01 PM on 04/13/2012

Christianity is not a narrow prison that one has to escape from, but the church dogma is. The teaching of Christ are about aligning with the soul, it is not about bowing down to a plastic Jesus that glows in the dark.

[glitterpet]

09:22 PM on 05/22/2012

.. it's OLD christian before it was corrupted by politics around the time the Council of Nicea; read the Gnostic gospels, or writings by Cathars and other "heretical" takes on the life of the soul -- even old pagan shamanistic practices throughout the world speak of these things -- not to mention mystic traditions within Islam and Judism.

So-called "New Age" borrows and cherry picks from a lot of traditions including those I mentioned. But the values encouraged by this project have appeared throughout human history and have been a sustaining prescence, an underground river.

I believe you are mistaken in calling these values as expressed, "occult propaganda" and non christian -- and you know what? So what if it is? Anything that helps people live tegether peacefully and speaks to our better selves, and supports walking gently opon the earth, is fine by me . . . I wish them the very best!

[fredaskribent]

09:31 AM on 03/15/2012

“Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children.”
-Native American proverb

There is not an animal (that lives) on the earth, nor a being that flies on its wings, but (forms part of) communities like you. Nothing have we omitted from the Book, and they (all) shall be gathered to their Lord in the end.
—Quran 6:38

Muhammad, peace be on him, said, “Muslims will always earn the reward of charity for planting a tree, sowing a crop and then birds, humans, and animals eat from it”
(Al-Bukhari and Muslim)

[glitterpet]

09:23 PM on 05/22/2012

Thank you for sharing. Bright blessings! =)

[Hillbilly49]

09:36 AM on 03/10/2012

If Christianity ever becomes a force for good; then I will applaud it.

[jcshiloh]

10:07 AM on 03/10/2012

Apparently it was just an amazing coincidence that every Communist of historical note publicly declared his atheism … .there have been twenty-eight countries in world history that can be confirmed to have been ruled by regimes with avowed atheists at the helm … These twenty-eight historical regimes have been ruled by eighty-nine atheists, of whom more than half have engaged in democidal162 acts of the sort committed by Stalin and Mao …
The total body count for the ninety years between 1917 and 2007 is approximately 148 million dead at the bloody hands of fifty-two atheists, three times more than all the human beings killed by war, civil war, and individual crime in the entire twentieth century combined. Vox Day

[glitterpet]

09:24 PM on 05/22/2012

. . . what has this to do wiht the article -- oer did I miss a comment in the thread? Thanks.

[lastwarning2earth rev14]

04:32 PM on 04/12/2012

Don't tell me your controled by a demon: let me guess.

[glitterpet]

09:26 PM on 05/22/2012

. . peopole control their own demons, since they create them by inviting ignorance and hate into their lives and let it drive how they treat other living beings and the planet. . .

[Neil20]

04:32 AM on 03/10/2012

The message of sustainable development and the respect of the earth's environment hardly finds any mention in the hundreds and thousands of churches of practically all denominations in the US and Canada. People are too self-centred to even think of such things. The Judeo-Christian religions have never emphasized on the respect of nature and the environment. Even though there are certain passages in the Bible ( especially in the OT) that tell us the greatness of God and his works no emphasis is put further by the prophets. In the NT environment has no mention at all. In Hinduism on the other hand, a lot of emphasis is laid on protecting the sacred groves, the birds and the beasts. In Buddhism kindness to all living things is also preached. Because of the lack of such teachings in the Bible Christian men and women who have explored America, Africa and other places showed very little respect for the environment. That is why Republican presidential candidates like Romney, Santorum and the rest of them only talk of exploiting the beautiful land of America to the hilt for maximum profits. I hope Americans wake up to the idea of sustainable development before it is late.

[Sister Lauren]

01:35 AM on 03/15/2012

In contrast, the Native American religion says a lot about loving and protecting Mother Earth.

We are still here.

[glitterpet]

09:27 PM on 05/22/2012

. and I for one am greatful you are! Bright blessings! =)

[doodlebug2]

08:59 PM on 03/09/2012

I am not religious and aeth, but I do like when religions get behind things I support like sustainability and enviromentalism. Hypocritical?

[Brightening]

06:24 AM on 03/10/2012

Not hypocritical, religion can be a force for good.

[Sister Lauren]

01:40 AM on 03/15/2012

No, sensible.

You might enjoy this,

Cult of the Green Dragon
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cult-of-the-Green-Dragon/121700311230749

[StevePD]

04:04 PM on 03/09/2012

God put the Sun in the sky to give us energy, right? Let's use it.

Although I would advice you all to reconsider your stance on birth control, and your breeding directives. As you indicate, there are enough humans now. And same sex relationships should be embraced, not oppressed.

[Katherine Appello]

03:58 PM on 03/09/2012

Good for environmental cooperation, but on renouncing faith, WRONG. The bible, God and evolution, for anyone who had a brain are perfectly compatible. As for the greatness of a secular worldview and what that has gotten us, hello have you seen the state of humanity and world? Secular is equal to me me me, I, I, I and do as you please no consequence, no boundaries, nothing so long as your pleasure and desire is met and satisfied. Workin out real well for humanity and the world, not.

[elblanc0]

05:58 PM on 03/09/2012

Most of the conflict in the world today is conflict over diverging religious belief systems. Secular is hardly what's wrong with the world today. I think it's time for you to re-think.

[MarconiDarwin]

06:54 PM on 03/09/2012

" The bible, God and evolution, for anyone who had a brain are perfectly compatible."

Only if that brain has been corroded with a steady dosage of superstition, since a very young age.

"As for the greatness of a secular worldview and what that has gotten us, hello have you seen the state of humanity and world? "

Yes, have you read what the Dark Ages were?

[olestormy]

02:03 PM on 03/09/2012

Faith is what keeps otherwise honest people from looking for the truth.
With all the great advances in science and technology; I think it is a perfect time for the religiously faithful to question their faith. This certainly applies to all religious faiths; Christian, Islam, Judaism, and all who believe in a supernatural controlling God.

With all the DNA evidence that has been repeatedly duplicated within various scientific specialties; the arguments against evolution should be questioned by people honestly looking for the truth.

There is now so much repeatable evidence that the universe, and all matter, were created in a big bang; that here again, the religious faithful must question their faith.

What a shame that we are still killing one another over differences in religious Dogma.

[LuisD]

01:36 PM on 03/09/2012

I'm an atheist, but any effort to curb suburban sprawl, reduce automobile dependency, increase research and development into clean alternatives, promote transit use, build smarter denser cities and reduce emissions... is good in my books.

[MarconiDarwin]

01:34 PM on 03/09/2012

Incomplete name for the organization

"The Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development OF SUPERSTITION" is what would be apt.

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

02:54 AM on 03/10/2012

you do realize that this point of view firmly puts you within a minority of 1 per 7,000,000,000 right?

There are people who don't believe in interfaith initiatives, but they are 99% religious zealots.
There are people who don't think that sustainability matters at all because god made the world with enough resources, but they can't even secure enough delegates to take away an hour of Romney's sleep.
And there are people who think that religious zealotry and the abuse of the masses potential to fall for religious zealotry is what causes 80% of the problems concerning fossil fuels and the wars fought because of them. But they tend to understand that sustainability IS a problem, and they're fewer than 10% in every major nation on earth.

You, my dear friend, are an even more rare species.

[MarconiDarwin]

03:16 AM on 03/10/2012

argumentum ad populum is a logical fallacy. Please refrain from using it in an argument, it is tantamount to abject surrender.

In other words, not A Good Thing.

Speaking of Romney, he is now skeptical of AGW.

Got anything else?

[glitterpet]

09:36 PM on 05/22/2012

. . . try and see the big picture . . .people talking and working together rather than shooting each other over differences in "superstition" or who has the only "right" handle on truth. . . to me they sound far more sophjsticated and 21st century in their thinking than some of the posters here who take cheap shots to trivialize their efforts, or make glib comments that mistake meaness for wit. .