Marylanders across the religious spectrum, from rabbis to imams to representatives of the Piscataway people, gathered together at the Oakland Mills Interfaith Center on Thursday, Nov. 21. There was one issue that had brought this diverse group of people together: protecting the wildlife of the Chesapeake Bay and the surrounding environment.
This is the mission of Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake, a coalition of religious leaders from across the state who have committed to using their positions as clergy to advocate for environmental justice.
Their annual Chesapeake Champions Interfaith Breakfast, modeled after the National Prayer Breakfast and the first of its kind in the area, offers an opportunity for these leaders to convene, discuss their progress and look towards their advocacy goals for the next year.
And with the incoming presidential administration threatening to gut environmental protections, Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake’s work has become more important than ever.
“We are clearly in a race against time that will require community engagement, political will, innovation, inclusion, tolerance, values and ethics, and financing and partnerships,” said Meenal Harankhedkar, executive director of IPC. “We’re calling on everyone to strengthen their actions to mitigate climate change, restore ecosystems and protect the health of the planet.”
IPC was first conceived of at the 2004 National Council of Churches’ “Holy Waters” conference, which took place in Annapolis, but this idea would not lead to an actual organization until 2010.
In 2013, the organization expanded its focus to include religious leaders from outside of the Christian community, rebranding from Chesapeake Covenant Community to Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake.
With environmental justice being so deeply tied to the idea of tikkun olam, there are many Jewish congregations who have taken IPC’s partner pledge.
In the Baltimore area specifically, these include Bolton Street Synagogue, Chizuk Amuno Congregation and Har Sinai-Oheb Shalom Congregation.
Rabbi Michael Hess Webber of Columbia Jewish Congregation delivered an opening prayer for the event.
“We hear and see that the earth, our shared and sacred home, is calling out to us more loudly and with more urgency every day,” Webber said. “This morning, we gather from all the corners of our Chesapeake region to heed its holy call to action. Each of us has a unique role to play in repairing the harm that has been done to our environment and in protecting the earth.”
Bonnie Sorak, IPC’s director of outreach, is also a CJC congregant and former chair of its Green Team. Sorak noted that congregations from different religions working together to promote environmental justice not only gives them more power together than they would have alone but also encourages cross-cultural communication.
She highlighted a pilot program CJC is taking part in called Garden Guardians, in which they are working with several Christian churches to create and care for rain gardens.
“The group of congregational garden leaders has been meeting for almost a year. This has fostered an appreciation of the environmental work that we all must do and a better understanding of how their different religions inspire the work,” Sorak explained. “Through this program people of different religions come together for a common purpose.”
For 2024, IPC’s main legislative focus was on the Whole Watershed Act, which established a fund meant to help restore five Maryland watersheds in hopes of improving local water quality and creating a better habitat for native aquatic life. The act was successfully passed in April, and will go into effect in July 2025.
“It was a really big, ambitious idea and a big policy lift from last year’s legislative session,” said Matthew Stegman, Maryland staff attorney at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. “The reason we were able to get this bill across the finish line is because we had a really big coalition of folks, coming at it from all different perspectives, that were able to express why this was important.”
With the Whole Watershed Act in the rearview mirror, one of IPC’s upcoming projects is the Maryland Bottle Bill. This legislation, designed to reduce litter and encourage the recycling of plastic products, would create a deposit program for recyclable bottles and cans. Del. Jessica Feldmark, one of the sponsors of the Maryland Bottle Bill, also spoke at the event.
The Chesapeake Champions Interfaith Breakfast concluded with the announcement of several new partner congregations. Of these 11 new partners, the only new Jewish congregation is Bet Aviv — which actually operates out of Oakland Mills Interfaith Center, where the event was held.
“Bet Aviv has been involved for quite a while in composting at our Shabbat services and other events,” said Darla Strouse, Bet Aviv’s president-elect. “We signed on to continue working toward environmental goals by continuing to use compostable goods for our services and other events.”
