In the past, churches and scientists rarely propagated the same message, but at least in one area, that has changed. Religious organizations across Rhode Island see damage to the planet as an offense to God’s creation.

Throughout the year, congregation after congregation joined the newly established state chapter of Interfaith Power and Light, part of a national campaign to mobilize worshippers to help fight global warming.

Maybe it’s the unique nature of this crisis — one that threatens economic security and the quality of life for the next generation — that brought Rhode Island’s faithful into the fold, with more than 20 houses of faith statewide signing up to intensify their role as environmental stewards.

“I never thought it was a faith issue, but it fits in quite naturally,” said Eric Roberts, who attends St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church in Kingston.

Protecting God’s creation is the driving message of the campaign, while theoretical questions about the history of the Earth are not largely debated, said Roberts, who teaches biology at Rhode Island College and regularly rides the bus to work in Providence.

Nationwide, 25 states have started chapters of the interfaith campaign, including about 4,000 congregations.

Conservation is not at odds with religious beliefs, Roberts said, and congregants are more focused on human impact on the planet and what they can do to ensure a livable future for their children and grandchildren.

Established in January, the group has asked all members to order energy audits on their facilities and host educational events to spread awareness on climate change, said the chapter’s director, Howie Brown.

Many of them discovered that their facilities were wasting energy by using inefficient incandescent light bulbs and switched to energy-saving compact fluorescent lighting.

In January, Rhode Island Interfaith will hold the state’s first faith-based climate change meeting, in Warwick.

On Nov. 15, St. Augustine’s hosted a climate change presentation by a volunteer with The Climate Project, a nonprofit outreach organization started by former Vice President Al Gore.

In the basement of St. Augustine’s, volunteer Mary Jane Sorrentino showed an abbreviated slide show from Gore’s now-famous documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, to about a dozen people on the rain-soaked evening.

Some of them occasionally gasped at the alarming climate change statistics Sorrentino flashed onto a white cotton bed sheet pinned to the basement’s wall.

“It’s embarrassing to see how we compare to the rest of the world,” said St. Augustine congregant and Exeter resident Bob Richardson. “No wonder they hate us.”

Richardson had just learned that Americans produce more than five times the worldwide average of carbon dioxide pollution per person, and that the U.S. government has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty which member nations pledge to systematically reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.

Rabbi Amy Levin and her congregation are taking seriously their call to environmental action.

In one of the most significant steps taken by a Rhode Island Interfaith member, the Temple Torat Yisrael in Cranston is incorporating green building technologies in the planning of a new synagogue in East Greenwich.

It has already purchased six acres, Levin said, and is now on a search for an architect with extensive knowledge of green building practices.

“Since we have begun the process of looking for a new home this has been a high priority,” she said. “They will have a mandate from us to explore all available options in renewable materials, energy savings and [reducing our] carbon footprint.”

Levin said the synagogue might try to get the U.S. Green Building Council’s prestigious Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification, which requires several environmentally responsible technologies in design, construction and operation.

This undertaking is all part of what her faith has been already teaching, Levin says.

“Judaism has been a very environmentally aware religion [for] more than 2,000 years,” Levin said.

Known to carry strong influence in American politics, religious groups can use their organizational strengths to support climate change legislation and educate millions of congregants on the effects of global warming on a regular basis.

Chris Wilhite, the Rhode Island chapter director of the Sierra Club, said he sees the growing connection between the religious bloc and environmental awareness as an opportunity to make changes.

“Churches are one of the most powerful partnerships we can strike,” Wilhite said. “They are a force to be reckoned with politically.”

Wilhite said the proliferation of houses of worship making an effort to curb global warming is a sign that more people recognize the problem.

Marianna Richardson, Bob Richardson’s wife and also a member of St. Augustine’s, said environmentalism appeals to her from her overlapping roles as a grandmother, a person of faith and a consumer.

Richardson said she thinks it has taken a lot of people a long time to face climate change because it’s frightening.

“I think human capacity to deny what they are afraid of is a huge issue with stuff like this,” she said. “I think I am knowledgeable above average and above average in what I do, but I am nowhere near my potential in what I can do.”

ngarcia@projo.com