Sacred Resistance: Eco-Activism as Ceremony

The #NoDAPL movement at Standing Rock (2016-2017) ushered in a new era in spiritually grounded eco-activism. Direct-action campaigns infused with spiritual rhetoric and marked by rituals of non-violent resistance have sprung up in predominantly rural regions all across the country, leading to mass arrests and gaining widespread media attention. Three of the most high-profile examples include: the Anishinaabe-led #StopLine3 oil pipeline resistance in northern Minnesota; the coalition of Swamis and Baptists who helped to derail the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in Virginia; and the partnership of Mennonites and Roman Catholic Sisters who resisted a fracked gas pipeline in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

There are, of course, obvious and important differences separating these three pipeline resistance movements—in geography, in demographic make-up, in religious diversity, and in messaging. However, after participating in extensive field work and direct-action organizing with each of these movements from 2016-2022, I observed several significant points of continuity: (1) all were anchored by a shared understanding that direct-action in defense of the Earth constitutes a sacred duty; (2) all were explicitly committed to principles of non-violent mass action, even while wrestling internally with different interpretations of non-violence; (3) all employed the performance of religious ceremony as a tool of direct-action; (4) all overtly embraced an intersectional theory of justice; and (5) all became the locus of new, interreligious spiritual communities transcending traditional lines of religious belonging.

Anishinaabe & Interfaith Coalition (Line 3): For the Anishinaabe people, Northern Minnesota is known as Akiing, “the land to which the people belong.” For thousands of years, the Indigenous people of the region have understood their relationship to the natural landscape in spiritual terms, rendering protection of the land a sacred duty. The announcement by Enbridge to force a major tar sands oil pipeline through treaty territory—including through tribal rice fields and traditional hunting grounds—represented a direct assault on Anishinaabe treaty rights, cultural integrity, and tribal sovereignty. It also posed a grave threat to Mississippi River, by pumping 32 million gallons of tar sands oil daily through river crossings. A network of Native and non-Native groups, including an interreligious coalition of faith communities and religious leaders, organized a massive grassroots campaign to resist the project. Enbridge anticipated the opposition, putting $8.6M in escrow to employ law enforcement as private security at their construction sites and to fund police suppression of the grassroots resistance. The #StopLine3 movement built a multi-pronged campaign, pursuing legal, regulatory, educational, and public relations strategies. It also organized a huge direct-action campaign involving mass training sessions, six resistance camps, and a steady stream of disruptive actions that resulted in more than 1,000 arrests of peaceful pipeline opponents. Those actions included the building of a sacred midewiwin lodge directly in the path of pipeline construction, and the performance of prayerful Indigenous dances at active work sites.

Yogis & Baptists (Atlantic Coast Pipeline): The successful, spiritually anchored campaign to derail the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) brought together an unlikely coalition of faith traditions. At the core of the coalition were Hindu yogis from the Satchidananda Ashram and members of two African American Baptist congregations in Buckingham County, Virginia. But other crucial participants included members of the Catholic Worker Movement, Indigenous leaders, self-identified Wiccan practitioners, and many others. While members of the ashram primarily framed their resistance as defending the sacredness of the natural world, the Baptist congregations led with a Gospel commitment to racial justice. In keeping with the longstanding American tradition of locating the most toxic industrial threats in low-income communities of color, project heads chose to build the pipeline’s sole Virginia-based compressor station—with its ear-splitting noise and dangerous levels of air pollution—in the majority (84%) Black community of Union Hill. Consequently, the multi-religious coalition was a classic example of intersectional collaboration. Participants engaged in wiccan-inspired prayer circles of resistance, an interreligious resistance camp, and marches that led to arrests. 

Mennonites & Catholic Sisters (Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline): When an Oklahoma-based pipeline company announced plans to build a high-volume fracked gas pipeline through 200 miles of Pennsylvania’s farmlands, forests, and watersheds, local residents created Lancaster Against Pipelines (LAP) to block the project. Although LAP was a federal non-profit with no formal religious ties, spiritual rhetoric permeated the movement. Appeals to the sacred, faith, and care of creation were ubiquitous themes of speeches, emails, and social media posts. LAP’s work was also marked by a strict commitment to peaceful action informed by the region’s deep roots in Anabaptist pacifism and the Mennonite affiliation of the movement’s leaders. A pontifical order of Roman Catholic sisters known as the Adorers of the Blood of Christ were among the property owners whose farmland lay in the pipeline’s path. The Adorers embrace a strong eco-justice ethic as a core element of their religious charism. Moved by LAP’s shared values, and compelled by the courage of Indigenous Water Protectors at Standing Rock, the Sisters partnered with LAP’s direct-action campaign to fight the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline. At the center of their shared resistance was a rustic outdoor prayer Chapel built directly in the construction corridor. The Chapel of Resistance, as it came to be known, quickly became a pilgrimage site for spiritually motivated eco-justice seekers, a gathering place for weekly vigils declaring climate justice a spiritual imperative, and a physical blockade against pipeline construction that resulted in 29 arrests during a series of non-violent direct actions. Catholics, Mennonites, Quakers, Buddhists, Jews, non-religious and self-described anti-religious folks joined together at the Chapel each week for prayers, songs, testimonies, silence, and the reading of religious texts, united in a shared commitment to defend the sacred Earth. The movement also filed numerous lawsuits seeking religious freedom protections in federal court, all of which were ultimately rejected, revealing stark disparities around whose—and which—religious convictions are, and are not, legally protected. 

• My paper will offer both visual and narrative snapshots of ritualized acts of resistance from the frontlines of these three spiritually grounded pipeline fights, while examining key points of continuity across the movements.