Every Sunday, worshippers in Belfast honor their Creator by plunging their hands into a sink of soapy dishwater. Plastic spoons, paper napkins and foam cups are banned from morning coffee at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Miller Street in hopes of building a faith community that treads more softly upon the Earth.

“This whole Earth has been created, and we as humans ought to be taking care of the place where we live. … We need to play our part,” said Happy Bradford of Belfast, who joined the congregation’s recent effort to become certified as a Green Sanctuary. It is one of just 21 UU churches so designated nationwide.

Eastern and indigenous religions often center the exercise of their faith in the natural world. And the Unitarian Universalists, long known as a liberal denomination, embraced ecology as part of their official doctrine during the environmental movement of the 1960s.

From Moses to Muhammad, from Protestant reformer Martin Luther to Pope John Paul II – religious leaders through the ages have provided examples of the human role in the stewardship of nature.

But only recently in the United States have mainstream Judaism, Islam and Christianity begun to speak of a responsibility to care for the Earth – a change that Paul Gorman of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment calls “an almost universal religious awakening.”

“We are not the environmental movement at prayer,” he said, discussing the theological basis of his arguments. “[The environment] is a profoundly spiritual and profoundly moral issue. This is the religious community trying to be religious.”

Both Christians and Jews draw their nature ethic from the story of Adam and Eve, who many in the faith environmental movement believe were granted not “dominion” (as the King James Bible says), but “responsibility” over the Earth and all its creatures. Throughout the biblical books shared by Christians and Jews, verses speak of the Earth as belonging to God, perfect in its creation. To mar that perfection with pollution and climate change, they say, is no less than sinful.

“I think churches really had a wake-up call that the Earth is in trouble. We’ve kind of turned a corner and begun to understand that the first commandment was to take care of the garden, to care for this Earth,” said Andy Burt, a Quaker who heads the Maine Council of Churches’ environmental justice program.

Some Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, Catholics, Episcopalians and Jews across Maine will participate in a “creation” Sabbath, a religious celebration of Earth Day during their regular services next weekend, which marks Earth Day 2005.

Many synagogues plant trees to celebrate Tu B’Shevat – the commemoration of God telling the Israelites not to destroy fruit trees in besieged lands, as recorded in the Book of Deuteronomy.

A similar prohibition on harming God’s creation, even in times of war, can be found in the Koran.

“It’s like God is saying, ‘I’m going to give you a gift, and your responsibility is to maintain that gift in the best way possible,'” said Mahmoud El-Begearmi, a professor at the University of Maine in Orono who has become a spokesman for his Islamic faith in eastern Maine.

The three major Western religions all share some concept of the “golden rule,” a call to care for others as a reflection of God’s love. As global environmental problems – many caused by Western pollution – have a disproportionate impact on Third World nations, environmentalism has become a new means of treating your neighbor as yourself, for some.

That might mean something as simple as buying “free trade” coffee, certified to come from sustainable farms that treat their workers well, or it might be as big as challenging the U.S. government on its environmental policies.

Last year, 13 leaders, representing most major Western faith traditions, joined with scientists in an open letter coordinated by the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, urging President Bush and Congress to take action to address global climate change.

“We do not have to agree on how and why the world was created in order to work together to preserve it for posterity. … Earth’s climate embraces us all,” they wrote.

Since the 2004 election, churches, particularly the evangelical congregations involved in the gay marriage and right-to-die debates, have been portrayed as a bastion of Republican politics. But evangelical Christians were in fact leaders of this environmental awakening, their testimony considered key to the preservation of the federal Endangered Species Act in 1996. And the Evangelical Environment Network took a stand against gas-guzzling vehicles in 2003 with its nationwide “What Would Jesus Drive?” campaign.

“This is not about red-blue religion or the culture wars,” Gorman said, citing a Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey in which a majority of believers from all denominations stated support for strong environmental regulation, even when tied to lost jobs and higher prices.

Closer to home, about three dozen Maine congregations have created EarthCare teams to work within their communities increasing energy efficiency and reducing pollution.

. St. Anne’s Catholic Church in Gorham is creating an organic garden to produce vegetables for its food pantry.

. The Bath United Church of Christ encouraged its members to buy local produce and to give up foods that require extensive transportation, donating their savings to charity.

. The Midcoast Friends Meeting has retrofitted its Damariscotta building with energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs and biodiesel heating fuel.

In fact, at least 27 churches and synagogues have participated in free energy audits conducted by the Maine Public Utilities Commission. The energy conservation that resulted has kept hundreds of thousands of tons of greenhouse gases from being emitted into the atmosphere, Burt said.

“People came together and realized there was a moral and religious component to the energy choices we make,” Burt said. “The choices that we make about energy impact people around the world.”

In 2000, Maine churches drew national attention for their role in the creation of Maine Interfaith Power and Light, a nonprofit “green power” company that supports wind, solar, biomass and hydroelectric power. In its first two years of providing power, the company has served more than 3,000 customers – including churches all over the state – and the movement is growing, said outreach coordinator Christine James.

“We hear this little buzz,” James said. “There’s something going on in the faith community.”

EarthCare teams from around the state will meet from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday, May 15, at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Belfast, where Gov. John Baldacci and representatives from the state Department of Environmental Protection will be on hand to discuss the faith community’s role in combating global warming. For information, visit www.meipl.org.

Fast Facts

Earth Day: April 22, 2005

Roots: Began in 1970

Theme: “Protect Our Children and Our Future”

Alliance: National Religious Partnership for the Environment, Amherst, Mass. Founded by four major faith groups: the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, U.S. Catholic Conference, National Council of Churches of Christ, the Evangelical Environmental Network. www.nrpe.org