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Bexley Seabury Seminary launches climate justice and spiritual resilience program

May 22, 2026

[Episcopal News Service] Earlier this year, Bexley Seabury Seminary launched a virtual Climate Justice & Spiritual Resilience certification program, with the goal of helping Christians develop practical and theologically grounded knowledge and skills to carry out eco-spiritual and justice ministries effectively. The yearlong program is divided into four, four-week courses in order: eco-theology; biblical studies in ecojustice; prayers, rituals and proclaiming climate justice; and eco-grief, resilience and joy. Last month, the program launched with the eco-theology course to introduce participants to the science, ethics and justice frameworks that support climate ministries. Each course is open for individual registration, though students are required to complete all four of them to earn the certification.        The first five participants just completed the first course. The second, enrolling now, will begin in August. In it, enrollees will learn how to preach and teach texts that address ecological justice through different lenses, such as systemic theology and critical race theory. Texts will include the Eco Bible, Laudato Si’ and others. “There are a lot of people that are becoming actively involved in climate justice activism, but they don’t always have enough of a grounding to know what that really means to … understand and interpret what they’ve been hearing at the parish and the diocesan level with creation care,” Julie Lytle, director of Distributive and Lifelong Learning Initiatives and associate professor of education leadership at Chicago, Illinois-based seminary, told Episcopal News Service. “My hope is that the students bring the wisdom that they’ve gathered from the conversations in each course back to their creation care committees at the local level and find some creative and unique ways to meet the needs around them.” Lytle helped establish the program and provided feedback on the curriculum throughout its development. The four course topics are intentionally different because “being a disciple is not just about knowing something about one particular thing,” Lytle said. “By putting these seemingly disparate areas together, you have a much more integrated whole to be able to understand what God asks of us in Scripture.”  The program uses a flipped classroom model, which requires students to read, watch videos and write reflection prompts before each class. The students then spend the 75-minute session, held via Zoom, discussing what they’ve learned and how to apply it to their personal advocacy efforts and ministries. Students will also meet virtually outside class for peer support and discernment. The four instructors include the Rev. Stephanie Johnson, the program’s director; Delia Heck, an environmental science professor at Ferrum College in Virginia; the Rev. Melanie Mullen, a priest in the Diocese of Washington who previously served as The Episcopal Church’s director of reconciliation, justice and creation care; and Phoebe Chatfield, a climate advocacy specialist who focuses on Indigenous sovereignty and previously served as associate for creation care and justice for the church. Johnson and Heck previously served on the church’s Task Force on the Care of Creation and Environmental Racism. “I think this program is a way we can embody being a people that really go out loving God’s world and loving God’s people as a whole,” Mullen told ENS. “There are Christians out there who really want to take their faith to the next step and take on some leadership roles for how we really live in creation care and make a change.” Chiseche Salome Mibenge, a human rights lawyer, educator and former Episcopal Relief and Development board member, enrolled in the program because much of her work focuses on gender equity. “In my work, I have encountered this intersection of poorer outcomes for women and girls when there’s environmental injustice, regular climate disasters and poverty,” she told ENS. “I’m really interested in the way that the program’s faculty see an intersection between liberation theology and environmental justice to build a better and safer world for everybody.” The eco-theology course was “really anchoring” for Mibenge. Her favorite session, she said, required students to group in pairs to share how their childhood experiences and upbringing helped shape their views on the environment and climate change. “My partner and I both happened to grow up in rural areas – in his case, the rural U.S., and in my case, rural Zambia. Our relationship to land and to farming and restoration of farming techniques has influenced us today in our relationship to land as people of faith and people who are advocates for social justice in our own communities,” Mibenge said. For Episcopalians, environmental stewardship and advocacy are “a constant work in progress, because the world shifts – climate shifts – people come in and out of the conversation. It’s been foundational to The Episcopal Church since the first Earth Day in 1970. This is a ministry for us,” Johnson told ENS. During the third course, which will begin in January 2027, students will hone their preaching skills on climate justice, create rituals for communities facing ecological loss and integrate creation care into the liturgical calendar. Beginning in February 2027, the final course will address grief, exhaustion and the spiritual cost of engaging in sustained environmental justice work. Students will use art, literature, nature and community building to develop habits that can help them mentally and spiritually continue their advocacy work. “We have enough space in our Episcopal theology and church to … speak up in all of these spaces and do justice,” Mullen said. Episcopalians can learn more about the church’s support for the environment and public health here. -Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.