Spirituality, Environmental Issues, and ICSD’s Mission

Can spirituality help solve the world’s environmental challenges? In this inspiring presentation, Rabbi Yonatan Neril, Founder and Executive Director of the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development (ICSD), explores the vital role that faith, spirituality, and religious communities can play in addressing climate change, environmental degradation, and the global ecological crisis.

Rabbi Neril explains how caring for the natural world is deeply rooted in spiritual values shared across many religious traditions. He presents a compelling vision for how faith communities can become powerful agents of environmental stewardship by reconnecting people with nature, promoting sustainable living, and inspiring meaningful action to protect creation.

The presentation also highlights the mission of the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development, which works to bring together religious leaders and communities from diverse faith traditions to advance sustainability, environmental education, and interfaith cooperation. Through dialogue, education, and practical initiatives, ICSD encourages faith-based solutions to some of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges.

This video was recorded at the Symposium on Ecologically Informed Theological Education in Washington, D.C., held in March 2017. The symposium brought together more than 70 seminary presidents, deans, and faculty members to explore how faith, ecology, and sustainability can be integrated into theological education and the preparation of future religious leaders.

The event was co-organized by the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development, the Washington Theological Consortium, the Green Seminary Initiative (GSI), and the Methodist Theological School in Ohio (MTSO), and hosted by The Catholic University of America’s School of Theology and Religious Studies. The symposium formed part of the Seminary Environmental Leadership Initiative, supported by the Luce Fund for Theological Education through the Henry Luce Foundation’s Theology Program, with additional support from the Julia Burke Foundation.

If you are interested in hearing more commentary from Yonatan Neril on global ecological circumstances, check out our video on his speech at the Interfaith Climate and Energy Conference!