By Rev. Fletcher Harper, Executive Director, GreenFaith
The United States stands at a crossroads. The federal administration is dismantling hard-won climate protections, withdrawing from global agreements, and seeking to unleash a surge of fossil fuel expansion. Civil liberties are under siege—environmental advocates face surveillance and intimidation, and public dissent is increasingly criminalized. Within months, decades of climate progress have been undone.
And the climate crisis is causing real harm right now. In 2024, global temperatures exceeded 1.5°C. The U.S. was battered by deadly hurricanes, raging wildfires, and over two dozen billion-dollar climate disasters. The scale of destruction is large, growing, and deeply unjust.
But immobilized despair is not the answer – even in this challenging time. People of faith are called to respond with courage and clarity. Research shows that the most potent antidote to authoritarianism is when trusted leaders and communities speak out and take action. Across lines of race, religion, class, and geography, the vast majority of Americans overwhelmingly support clean air, clean water, and meaningful climate action. This is a moment for moral leadership rooted in love, justice, and faith.
GreenFaith is stepping forward with hope, urgency, and fierce resolve. We are a lead organization for Sun Day, a national mobilization for climate justice and clean energy on September 19–21, 2025. In congregations across the country, millions of people of all faiths will raise their voices for a just and livable future.
A few weeks ago, with Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and Jewish allies from diverse communities, we lit a green lantern at Boston’s historic Old North Church to signal a moral uprising. The mayor joined us and lit up several of the city’s bridges in green—a public inspiration and signal of the promise of clean energy.
We are organizing faith communities across the country to preach and show public support for a just energy transition this September. Join us!
It will take sustained, collective effort to build the clean energy future that dismantles the fossil fuel industry’s power, to ensure a just energy transition, and to protect civil society in an increasingly repressive political environment. That’s why we’re building spiritual fortitude and relational power that can endure and win.
In 2024, we trained nearly 3,000 faith leaders—Black, Brown, Indigenous, immigrant, working-class, queer and straight, from traditions including Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and traditional African and Indigenous religions—to organize their communities, speak out with conviction, and take strategic action. From Citibank’s headquarters in New York to those resisting oil in Nigeria and coal in Indonesia, our message is clear. Everyone deserves to live in dignity, and the Earth is sacred.
Sun Day builds on this foundation. It is a collective call to action—and a spiritual invocation. In cities and towns across the U.S., people of faith will hold public vigils, sermons, and creative actions demanding an end to fossil fuel subsidies, a just and rapid transition to clean energy, and investment in communities on the frontlines of climate and economic injustice.
Faith communities provide belonging and moral clarity and nourish the courage, joy, and solidarity needed to meet this moment.
We are bridging diverse faith communities, building a unity of purpose, and renewing our spiritual capacity to rise in defense of all life and justice. The path ahead is uncertain, but we walk it with faith on fire.
Rev. Fletcher Harper
Executive Director, GreenFaith
