The Kallio Lutheran church is one of the landmarks of downtown Helsinki, Finland. It's over a hundred years old, has two pipe organs, and lots of tourist visitors. Yesterday the church was notable for another reason. The congregation collaborated with the environmental organization Greenpeace to hang banners from the church tower proclaiming "Warm Our Hearts, Not our Planet." These weren't random statements about climate change. American President Donald Trump was in the city for what proved to be a shameful meeting with Russian Premier Vladimir Putin.
The key though is that a Christian congregation with a historic past was willing to put its building to good use challenging an administration which has contempt for domestic environmental legislation and has abdicated its leadership role in the Paris Accord or Agreement is an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It was adopted universally in 2015 but after Trump was elected the United States opted out, to the dismay of millions of Americans.
There can be no doubt where the message of the banners is directed. They are in English, after all, and while Trump may not have seen them, the world has. There are many ways for communities of faith to "speak truth to power" and this is a meaningful effort.
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