In response to the lead paper

I agree wholeheartedly with the lead paper about how the image of God as a lord, king, almighty, et cetera no longer applies to the present day and must be reworked if humans wish to have any chance at preserving the Earth. As McFague points out, the aforementioned metaphors and titles of God “and the concepts that accompany them of God as absolute, complete, transcendent, and omnipotent permit no sense of mutuality, shared responsibility, reciprocity, and love” (19). I believe the standard way of viewing God (as all-powerful) makes humans complacent, as if God will do all the work , or as if we, as lowly subjects, don’t have the capacity for a universal ecological sensibility or the authority to take measures to nurture the world as well as each other. Furthermore I believe that the image of God as a lord, king, et cetera is a dangerous one in present day society because, as is addressed in the lead paper, most present day governments are not dictatorships or monarchies, but democracies. In fact, most of the tyrants of histories have been solitary men and women striving for absolute rule. Why, then, would Christians wish to associate God with those that have abused their power? This isn’t mean to be an attack on God or anything of the sort, I just thought it was an interesting idea.

Regardless of whether or not the titles and metaphors attracted to God change, it is essential that humans get rid of the “us” vs. “them” mentality. Instead, everyone should be working together to protect our world instead of blowing it up and stripping it mercilessly of its resources.