DETROIT, Nov. 18 — A broad coalition of religious groups is preparing a grass-roots campaign linking fuel efficiency to morality, with some ads going so far as to ask: "What Would Jesus Drive?"
Leaders of the effort are coming to Detroit on Wednesday to meet with William Clay Ford Jr., the chairman and chief executive of the Ford Motor Company. They will also meet with executives at General Motors.
"We are under a commandment to be faithful stewards of God's creation," said Paul Gorman, executive director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, an umbrella organization of Christian and Jewish groups. "This is a crisis in God's creation at the hands of God's children."
Leaders of many groups within the partnership have signed a letter to the Big Three's chief executives asking for improvements in fuel economy. They say they have a biblical mandate to be good stewards of God's creation and a responsibility to the poor who are especially harmed by pollution. And they decry supporting "autocratic, corrupt and violent" governments that produce oil.
"We write now to ask you in the automobile industry a more explicit question," the letter said, "what specific pledges — in volume, timing and commitments to marketing — will you make to produce automobiles, S.U.V.'s and pickup trucks with substantially greater fuel economy?"
The letter was signed by an array of denominations, including American leaders of the Serbian Orthodox and Swedenborgian churches; Frank T. Griswold, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal church; David A. Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee; and the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
The letter says the groups will send study materials to 100,000 congregations of varying faiths and "train hundreds of clergy and lay people as spokespeople for energy conservation and fuel economy." Mr. Gorman said he hoped the meetings on Wednesday could begin a civil dialogue with Detroit.
A spokesman for Ford, Jon Harmon, said: "We know that environmental issues are important to a lot of people for a lot of different reasons. Our first thing is that we want to make sure they have an understanding of the good things we have done," including Ford's pledge to improve the fuel economy of its sport utility vehicles by 25 percent by 2005.
The campaign could create complications for G.M.'s Chevrolet brand, which makes S.U.V.'s like the TrailBlazer and has been courting religious conservatives by sponsoring a Christian concert series. Mr. Gorman took a dim view of the relationship, saying "Chevrolet is encouraging people to buy automobiles which are poisoning God's creation."
One of the smaller groups in the religious partnership, the Evangelical Environmental Network, is behind the "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign. But much of its effort will be done pulpit-to-pulpit by disseminating bumper stickers, pamphlets and magazines on the topic of Christianity and fuel economy. An ad in Christianity Today magazine will show a plaintive Jesus next to a clogged superhighway. TV spots will be shown in four states — Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and North Carolina — but distribution will be limited with an initial shoestring budget of $65,000.
"When we look at the impact on human health, it's significant, and when we look at global warming, the projected impacts are going to be hardest on the poor," said the Rev. Jim Ball, the head of the evangelical group, who drives a Prius hybrid. "How can I love my neighbor as myself if I'm filling their lungs with pollution?"
Such views are not typical of religious conservative leaders. An article on the home page of the Christian Coalition questioned the wisdom of Mr. Ball's advertising campaign and echoed Detroit's claims that toughening long-stagnant fuel economy rules would lead to safety risks with only minimal environmental gains.
Some postings on Mr. Ball's Web site, www.whatwouldjesusdrive.org, were more pointed.
"Jesus would drive a Hummer" read one message, referring to G.M.'s gas-guzzling S.U.V., while another said, "This is a Web site with a liberal agenda and this has nothing to do with the Bible!"
Rabbi David Saperstein, the Washington representative of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the central body of Reform Judaism, said, "The letter raises the issue of urging the automobile companies to engage with the ethics and human impact of what it is they are producing and to think about the values beyond the profit line."
Not all members of the National Religious Partnership have signed onto the effort. The Catholic Conference of Bishops, which last year drafted a lengthy statement asking for more action on global warming, is not taking an active role.
"We share some of the goals and welcome the dialogue," said John Carr, the director of social development for the conference.
"We would be less likely to talk about what would Jesus drive," Mr. Carr said, "and more likely to talk about how to advance the common good of workers, consumers and the poor, who pay the greatest price for environmental degradation."