by Grace Ji-Sun Kim
Climate change is no longer a distant threat or something we can brush off as nothing to worry about. It is evident, and we are feeling the deep consequences of what is happening to the Earth due to climate change. We are witnessing that storms are intensifying, and the droughts are becoming disastrous and even deadly. Hurricanes are growing more destructive as people’s livelihood is being destroyed and erased. Floods are displacing entire communities, and people are losing their lives. Wildfires consume what once seemed permanent and are moving faster than they can be contained, destroying everything in their path. The climate crisis is not abstract or just a theory; it is embodied, lived, global and destructive.
When poison enters the human body, the body reacts almost immediately. It produces fever, pain, convulsions, exhaustion and even death. These are not signs of weakness; they are signs of resistance to foreign objects or materials entering someone’s body. The body is fighting back against what threatens its life. It tries its best to fight and, if it is unable to fight back, death looms and takes over. The planet is doing the same thing as it convulses, as human beings pour toxins and harmful wastes into the air, soil and waterways. The Earth is reacting to our way of life our own bodies do to poison.
Humanity has built systems of overconsumption rooted in greed, individualism and extraction. We have treated the Earth not as kin, but as a commodity. We have taken as much as we possibly can to commodify it and make a huge profit off it. Take, for example, water bottles. We are taking water, which is free, flowing, accessible and part of nature, and commodifying it for huge profit. Water is necessary for everyone and everything to exist on the planet. It is the lifeblood of the Earth; but we have taken what is freely given to us, bottled it, shipped it all over the world, and sold it at a high profit. We are commodifying but also causing so much pollution by taking it everywhere around the globe, as the waste from plastic bottles is causing great harm to the soil, water and the air.
Humanity’s greedy and harmful ways of life are destroying the planet, and now the Earth is responding. In Korean society and history, we have a word for this kind of suffering: han. Han is a Korean concept that is difficult to translate into the English language, as it is deeply embedded in our history and cultural experience. Korea is a small country that has been constantly invaded by China, Japan or other neighboring countries. It has gone through colonialism, war and lots of devastation. As a country, Koreans have collectively experienced han.
Han is a deep, collective anguish that is like a piercing of the heart caused by injustice. It has described the sorrow of colonization, war and oppression. It names wounds that linger across generations and are passed on through one generation to the next. It can be experienced by a community or by an individual. It is unjust systems such as racism, colonialism, patriarchy and other systems that cause deep pain, anguish and devastation.
As an eco-theologian, I believe the Earth is also experiencing han. The forests, the oceans, the atmosphere, the animals, the fish, the birds are experiencing han as they live under an unjust system of human greed, overconsumption and unfairness. The Earth is crying out from a deep piercing of the heart caused by pollution, poison and waste. Han is a deep suffering from pain, harm, violence and injustice. And as people of faith, we cannot turn away from the Earth’s cry of suffering and pain but must turn to it and do our best to stop it.
Trees, water, air and soil are being destroyed against their will due to our actions, which contradict the will of nature, and animals are producing han. The Bible describes this idea of creation’s han (Roman 8:19-23), yet we have not taken it seriously. We have ignored the han-ridden cry of nature and animals and are causing ecological disasters. We must repent of anthropocentrism against nature and animals and work to dissolve the han of creation.[1] Nature is groaning under the weight of this oppression.
How We See God Shapes How We Treat the Earth
Much of Christian history has relied on metaphors to talk about God. Many of them have been dominant, masculine metaphors for God, such as Father, Lord, King, Master. These metaphors are not neutral and benign, as they shape and influence our imagination and understanding of who God is. When God is imagined as a dominating ruler, it becomes easier for humans, especially those in power, to justify their own domination and power over others, to rule over others, colonize others, and exploit them through enslavement and indentured labor. Those in power feel that they are closer to God and can do likewise to others around them who are darker-skinned or women. White and patriarchal images of God have supported sexism, racism, colonialism, and war. Now we can see that it is also supporting ecological destruction. If God is imagined as a conqueror, then conquest seems holy, whether you are doing it to others or to the Earth.
This dominant patriarchal theology has grave consequences for human beings and the Earth. It has justified crusades and colonial expansion. It has sanctioned violence against others, and it has shaped how we treat and damage the Earth. If we believe in a domineering patriarchal God, we feel entitled to dominate creation. We assume the Earth will endlessly replenish itself and therefore our actions will have no consequences against the Earth. But the Earth cannot sustain limitless extraction, commodification and exploitation. It replenishes only when human beings stop being greedy, destructive, wasteful and overconsumption ceases.
Reimagining God in the Age of Climate Crisis
Our image of God shapes our thoughts, ethics and behavior. If our theology blesses domination and exploitation, our world will reflect it. Therefore, in this time of climate crisis, this Anthropocene moment, we must reimagine God, which will stop reinforcing such harmful actions to others and to the Earth.
In my book, Earthbound[2], I argue that we need to move beyond speaking of God merely as a noun, a fixed object of doctrine. Scripture itself invites us to see God as dynamic, active and becoming. It has always been there; we have often ignored it or focused on the images and metaphors that legitimized the powerful white men.
When Moses stands before the burning bush and asks God’s name, God replies, “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14). In Hebrew, this is an imperfect tense, which means that it is a verb of ongoing action. It can also be translated, “I will be who I will be.”
Here, God is telling us that God is not static. God is movement, and God is becoming.
This matters as it shifts the theological paradigm and allows us to see God in a different light and perspective. It changes us from seeing God as static to a God who is a verb. This ignites our imagination to see God as living, acting, creating and liberating. God, who is a verb, does not allow our faith to be passive or static, but also active. To imagine God as a verb is not to freeze God into our likeness, but challenges the long historical and theological understanding of who God is. This way of imagining God also pushes us to participate in God’s ongoing action of love, justice and renewal.
When we turn to the New Testament, Jesus continues this pattern of using the verb “to be” to talk about himself. In the Gospel of John, Jesus describes himself as “I am the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6). “I am the bread of life,” (John 6:35), and “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). These are not static titles that Jesus is using to talk about himself, but rather, they are relational and active realities of who Jesus is. It is like what we find with God and Moses. If we are created in the image of God, then we too must become verbs. We must be people who act in love, hope, justice and liberation.
The Church as God’s Body in the World
Ecofeminist theologian Sallie McFague proposed that we imagine the Earth as God’s body.[3] This is not pantheism, which believes that everything is God. Rather, this is panentheism, which states that God is in all things and all things exist in God. If the Earth is God’s body, then harming the Earth is wounding God and what God has created and loves. If the trees, rivers and creatures are infused with divine presence and the Spirit of God is in all, then ecological destruction is spiritual violence against God. Thus, climate justice is not just a social and scientific problem, but a moral and theological issue. Therefore, we must act quickly to change what has been wronged.
This reimagining changes everything about God and about the world and each other. We are not conquerors of the Earth who can take everything that we wish from it. We are caretakers and stewards and not destroyers. We are participants in God’s ongoing creative work.
To be a church in this century means seeking and seeing God in all of creation. It means listening to the Earth’s han and doing our best to stop and prevent han towards the Earth. It means recognizing that salvation is not only about souls, but it is also about soil.
There is urgency here, and we cannot remain silent any longer. We cannot sit comfortably in our homes while creation groans under unjust systems which cause han. Faith is not spectatorship, but it is participation and action.
If God is verb and God is active love, then we must also be active. We need to be active in climate justice and work together with others in our community and churches. We must be active in resisting extractive economies and be part of the active reimagining of the church as a community committed to the flourishing of all creation. We must become a church for tomorrow that embodies liberation, restoration and care for the Earth. We need to image God not by domination, but by love. We join the God who is becoming and work together to heal the Earth’s han.
Grace Ji-Sun Kim is Professor of Theology at Earlham School of Religion. She is the author of 26 books, most recently, Feminist Theologies, Earthbound, and When God Became White. Kim is the host of Madang podcast, a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media, and blogs on her Substack: Loving Life. She has appeared on MSNBC, PBS, BBC Radio and C-Span.
[1] Andrew Sung Park, The Wounded Heart of God (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1993), 44.
[2] Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Earthbound: God at the Intersection of Climate and Justice, (Orbis Books, 2025).
[3] Sallie McFague, The Body of God: An Ecological Theology, (Fortress Press: 1993).
