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The most prominent Protestant seminary in the United States will divest itself of all investments in fossil fuels.
“We have sinned . . .”, wrote Union Theological Seminary president Serene Jones in an article in Time magazine.
Fossil fuel investments constituted 11 per cent of Union’s US$108 million endowment.
Removing such investments is an act of atonement for contributing to the “sin” of climate change, Ms Jones said.
“Climate change poses a catastrophic threat. As stewards of God’s creation, we simply must act to stop this sin,” she said.
Union’s board voted unanimously for the change.
Ms Jones said Union is the first seminary in the country to take such a step
Union Theological Seminary, based in Manhattan in New York, bills itself as the flagship of American progressive Protestant theology.
It has been home to luminaries such as Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Union will host a conference called Religions for the Earth ahead of the United Nations’ Climate Summit in September.
At least 100 other religious institutions, universities, cities, counties and other organisations have divested or started to divest from fossil fuel companies, according to Union.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Church in France has joined an interfaith initiative to fast on the first day of each month to highlight the issue of climate change.
Catholic, Orthodox Christian, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist leaders in France have all pledged support for the “Fast for the Climate” campaign.
The fasting on the first day of each month will last until a United Nations climate conference in Paris in December, 2015.
A spokesman for the French bishops’ conference said the Church calls on state and local governments to take decisive steps against climate change.
The campaign is also an invitation to Christians to change their lifestyles, he said.
Earlier this month, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga confirmed that Pope Francis is writing an encyclical on environmental issues, including global warming.
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