Renewal: Stories from America's Religious-Environmental Movement

Filmmakers Marty Ostrow and Terry Kay Rockefeller's Renewal is comprised of eight documentary vignettes, each recording an incident that demonstrates a connection between religious practice and environmental activism in the U.S. The episodes briefly sketch a number of different approaches taken by practitioners of various traditions: Christianity (including evangelicals, Roman Catholics, and several Protestant denominations), Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Native American beliefs. One New Jersey congregation updates its facilities to conserve energy; another in Mississippi fights industrial contamination. A mosque develops a relationship with sustainable farms, while a Jewish learning center incorporates environmentalism into its traditional curriculum, and a Buddhist group acts to save forests. In New Mexico, Catholics and Native Americans join in rituals designed to protect natural resources, while in Appalachia evangelicals protest mountaintop mining. As a whole, the film advances the idea that the Earth is a sacred trust that persons of faith must work to preserve, along the way illustrating various means through which religious communities, interfaith movements, and individual believers can respond to that challenge. DVD extras include extended versions of the eight episodes. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)