New Orleans church celebrates Earth Day in a new building that is green as can be

Six years after Hurricane Katrina forced a small Lakeview church to rebuild from scratch, its members have done so in a way few other congregations have matched, creating an ambitious, environmentally green building that embodies the congregations very theology. With the arrival of Earth Day 2012, the members of Community Church Unitarian Universalist of New Orleans have a tight, bright church of 4,200 square feet designed from day one to consume as little fossil-fuel energy as possible.

And now comes something like a certificate of success: Marchs electricity bill from Entergy totaled $48.83.

The Environmental Protection Agency says the Lakeview congregations new home is the first house of worship of its kind in the country.

The Unitarian Universalist rebuilders in Lakeview are the spiritual and ethical heirs of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and the 19th century New England Transcendentalists.

Famously liberal and pluralistic, big-tent Unitarian Universalism describes itself as a creedless religion devoted to seven broad ethical principles. Generally, the denomination celebrates human dignity, equality, peace, social justice, democracy, the right to conscience and each individuals search for truth.

An old joke Unitarian Universalists tell on themselves: Why did the Unitarian Universalist cross the road?

To support the chicken in its search for its own path.

But another unifying principal and the underpinning for the Lakeview church is respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

We have in this congregation people who want to walk the way they talk, said the Rev. Jim VanderWeele, the pastor of Community Church since 2002.

They do believe were depleting the ozone layer, and if thats not a point of jeopardy for people now, it will soon be so. We believe its important for everybody to reduce his carbon footprint.

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New Orleans church celebrates Earth Day in a new building that is green as can be