Walks of Life: Spirit & Faith

The following members of spiritual and faith-based communities support the Endangered Species Act.

Father John Dear

Gandhi once said that you can measure society by the way it treats its animals. While we struggle for justice and peace for the whole human race, try to end global warming and clean up the earth, we must also work to protect all God's creatures. From Isaiah to Jesus to St. Francis to Rachel Carson and Jane Goodall, history's greatest leaders and visionaries have insisted that protecting all creatures is a moral imperative. The Endangered Species Act has helped us do that for decades. Now more than ever, it needs to be upheld, enforced, strengthened and widened so that no creature is ever endangered again, so that all creatures can live in peace, so that one day we can welcome a new world of nonviolence.

Bud Ryan, co-coordinator Pax Christi New Mexico

The Endangered Species Act is vitally important in preserving God's Creation in all of its splendor. Humans have been granted by God, stewardship over this Creation, so it is our job to protect all creatures, especially those most at risk. The Endangered Species Act says YES to God's Creation.

Rabbi Daniel Ziskin

At the end of each day of creation, as recounted in Genesis, the Creator says the world was "tov" or "good". On the sixth day, when creation is completed, it is proclaimed that the world is "tov maod" or "very good". The message is clear. The Author tells us that an intact ecosystem is much better than its piecemeal components. So protecting each and every species from extinction is truly a way we can live in the image of our Creator.