OUR HISTORY

Christians For The Mountains (CFTM) is the result of several streams that converged over the past several years.  In October, 2003, several persons met at Lost Cove/Harper Creek Wilderness Study Area in North Carolina to prayerfully draft a statement on that area.  This was co-sponsored by the Religious Campaign for Forest Conservation and Appalachian Voices.  At that time some talk was made of starting a regional project.

In October, 2004, Matt Wasson, Fred Krueger, and Allen Johnson met near Boone, North Carolina, to deliberate the concept of a regional network and strategies to energize and motivate Christians and their churches and leadership to actively care for and advocate for God’s creation.  A special focus was on the mining method known as Mountaintop Removal as an egregious assault upon the mountains and the communities in their shadow.

A few months later Bob Marshall and Allen Johnson, both West Virginia residents, worked up a planning conference in Charleston, West Virginia, held May 13-14, 2005, to organize a strategy to protect and restore God’s creation in the Appalachian region. Deriving their stance from an array of scriptures including Psalm 24’s “The Earth is the Lord’s, and all that it contains” the group pledged their efforts to mobilize Christians and their churches to combat grievous ravages against God’s Earth such as Mountaintop Removal coal extraction. 

This initial meeting was first of all to see if there was interest in such an organization, and if so, to begin steps to set it up.  A number of persons known to be Christians and active in creation care issues were invited, although this still represented only a fraction of active Christian conservationists in our region. A Letter of Declaration was written to disseminate among the Christian communities of our region. A Steering Commitee was set up for governance.

Two weeks later several persons involved with the startup of CFTM participated in a rally at the Massey subsidary's Goals Preparation Plant at Sundial, WV, where Marsh Fork Elementary School lies precariously in the shadow of coal prepartion silos and a looming and enormous slurry impoundment.

In July Newsweek Magazine contacted CFTM looking to do an article on spirituality and grassroots environmental activism. The August 29, 2005 issue's theme was focused on a wide range of spirituality. Tucked in this was about 3/4 page on Christians For The Mountains. This burst of national publicity was the first of many media spots that have come our way since then, generating considerable interest in Christian involvement with environmental issues as well as bringing mountaintop removal into national attention.

The public was invited to a conference the weekend of November 11-12 to build organizational vision, set goals, and develop the network to implement these goals. 40 people participated in the conference, coming from Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Virginia, Missouri, and Washington, DC. The conference included a keynote address by Denise Giardina, a viewing of a draft of the slide show being developed, a talk by coalfield resident Ed Wiley, an open session of sharing by all participants, a presentation on the biblical and theological mandate for earthkeeping by Howard Snyder and Greg Leffel, a goal setting session facilitated by Janet Keating, and a keynote address by Jack Spadaro. Kate Long led singing. Southwings provided flyovers for 12 participants, while other folks visited Kayford Mountain for a tour of a mountaintop removal site by Larry Gibson. For more details, go to this report.

Developing a toolkit was the priority that seemed to consume much of 2006. Dave Cooper had offered CFTM his MTR Road Show slides and script to develop our own DVD, and after some scouting around, BJ Gudmundsson of Lewisburg, WV, stepped up to work up the DVD. Gudmundsson was West Virginia filmmaker of the year for 2005. Allen Johnson had known her for decades and had encouraged her to work on an earlier film on the life of newspaper editor Cal Price. Cooper's slideshow was duly "baptized" with further footage, music selections, and script adjustments, and christened "Mountain Mourning." The film debuted at the Healing Mountains Conference in May. CFTM was one of many co-sponsors of this event. The DVD was well-received. With that encouragement, and with more space available for the DVD, two further features were eventually added during the summer, one on Maria Gunnoe and the other on Larry Gibson. A short selection of a piece on MTR by a high school group and a message by Bob Marshall rounded out the DVD. In September CFTM began self-publishing and distributing DVDs.

That fall Bill Moyers featured CFTM in a PBS special. The program was revised and shown as a stand-alone program a year later, generating a huge outpouring of letters expressing support for our work and outrage against MTR.

The West Virginia Wilderness Coalition invited CFTM to participate in its wilderness campaign, which eventually led to a color booklet, God's Gift of a Wild and Wonderful Land and a DVD of the same name, produced by BJ Gudmundsson. The Wilderness project became a pilot project that appears to have promise for other areas. Importantly, CFTM encourages Christians and their churches to appreciate, protect, and softly use wild places.

In 2007 CFTM continued to garner publicity within Christian groups and people nationally with mounting advocacy. The DVDs went through further printings, up to about 2500 copies. A brochure was developed. Further partnerships materialized. In May CFTM participated in a Religous Leaders Tour of Mountaintop Removal in eastern Kentucky. This tour, led by Fr. John Rausch and facilitated by Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, resulted in considerable press and film coverage, generated new converts to oppose MTR, and further developed partnerships.

A lot of doors were opening up for CFTM, but as a volunteer networking organization it was struggling to enter those doors. With the help of a loan from Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, an intern was sought and procured. Since August, Robert Sage Russo has been traveling extensively meeting with churches, college students, at conferences, and collaborating with Dave Cooper and Larry Gibson on some of their travels. Having "Sage" as an intern is enabling CFTM to have considerably more outreach capacity.

2008 promises to be a pivotal year in pushing MTR on to the national stage. This is time that MTR take the stage as a moral issue for Christian people to conscientiously grapple with and act upon. "The Earth is The Lord's" and we need to treat it accordingly.