A LARGE majority of churchgoers believe that their church is not paying adequate attention to environmental concerns, according to an opinion poll published this week.
The poll, carried out for Christian Ecology Link, an interdenominational body, revealed that 65 per cent of church members and 70 per cent of regular church goers thought their church "should give a much higher priority to environmental concerns".
"These findings should spur every church leader into action" said Tim Cooper, coordinator= of Christian Ecology Link, in response to the results. These findings, he said, "show clearly that the church has so far failed to respond adequately to
people's growing concern about environmental problems".
Mr Cooper called on church leaders to take up opportunities to provide appropriate ethical and theological training and encourage their churches to act responsibly in their use of land, buildings and purchase of consumer products.
The poll findings follow the launch earlier this month of Christian Ecology Link's Greening the Church campaign. This campaign aims to encourage churches to carry out an annual ecological audit to measure their own environmental impact, and offers study guides for church group discussion and a series of papers on environmental theology.