The world is facing record-breaking temperatures year after year, and an increase in climate-related catastrophes. Since scientists have made it abundantly clear that this crisis is the result of human actions, denial is not a morally responsible option. We must accept that how we live, consume, and govern has everything to do with the state of our planet. If we are to save our precious ecosystems from destruction, we must recognize our grave errors and make intentional and spiritual lasting changes in how we live. The cost of inaction is far too great.
Han: The Suffering of Creation
Our destructive ways, our unchecked pollution and exploitation, wound the land, pollute the air, poison the waters, harm the animals, and threaten God’s creation in all its forms. But the Earth does not suffer in silence. It cries out—in storms, in droughts, in wildfires and rising seas—pleading with us to change our ways. This cry of anguish, of deep sorrow and injustice, echoes the Korean concept of han: a collective, generational suffering that carries both pain and resilience. The Earth is groaning with han, and it is calling us to repentance, to healing, and to justice—not just for ourselves, but for all of creation.
Han can be translated as a piercing of the heart through an experience of unjust suffering. In Korean history, han has expressed the collective trauma of Korean people, particularly through the wounds and trauma of colonization, war, patriarchy, and poverty. Korea, a small peninsula that was repeatedly invaded by larger powers such as Japan and China, knows the deep pain and ache of han. It is not merely an individual feeling but a communal and national pain that is passed through generations.
Everyone and everything suffers. But that deep, unresolved pain born from oppression, injustice, and historical trauma—that’s han. We find it in the suffering of women who have been subjected to sexism for generations, in the trauma of people of color who have endured racism. In the United States, various oppressive systems rooted in white supremacy have brought about genocide, slavery, and indentured servitude and have given rise to policies and ideologies that even today continue to harm entire communities.
The near erasure of Indigenous peoples was not an accident of history but a deliberate outcome of doctrines like Manifest Destiny and the Doctrine of Discovery. These teachings, supported by the church, declared that white settlers had divine permission to seize Native lands simply because Indigenous peoples were not Christian. Such theology not only justified conquest but dehumanized those who stood in its way. Han is the cry that rises from this injustice, which is carried in the bodies and spirits of the oppressed, a cry that demands recognition, repentance, and repair.
When Africans were forcibly taken and brought to America, they were enslaved, stripped of their humanity, and treated as property. They were bought and sold like cattle, subjected to brutal violence, silenced, and devalued at every turn. This legacy of dehumanization is the fruit of racism, an ideology that upholds white supremacy by demanding the submission and control of Black bodies. This is han—a cry of pain that runs through generations.
Han also lives in the suffering of women. Women have long endured systemic injustice through patriarchy, a structure that normalizes abuse, assault, and silence. It is a system that legitimizes inequality in both society and the church. In churches, women are often relegated to secondary roles, their voices dismissed, their callings questioned, and their gifts denied. Patriarchy breeds a theology that subordinates women and sanctifies their oppression.
This compounded pain of being marginalized, violated, and ignored is han. It is not just personal suffering. It is collective, historic, and spiritual. It is the ache carried in the bones and memories of the oppressed. And it demands that we not only listen, but respond—with truth, justice, and transformation.
As a theologian, I believe this concept of han must be extended beyond human suffering to encompass the pain of all creation. When we pollute, exploit, and commodify the Earth—hoarding its resources and profiting from its degradation—we inflict tremendous han upon the Earth and its creatures. The animals, birds, oceans, forests, and atmosphere all suffer from our unjust actions.
And like all those who suffer han, the Earth cries out in anguish and suffering. Severe storms, rising temperatures, floods, droughts, and climate disruptions are not random—they are signs of a planet in pain. They displace people and animals, turning them into climate refugees. They destroy homes, devastate habitats, and bring death to creatures great and small. The intensifying winter storms and record-breaking heat waves are the Earth’s way of showing us that something is deeply wrong. They are the Earth’s cry for justice, for healing, and for life.
Romans 8:22 says that all of creation is “groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor.” Today, these groans of creation call us to a new way of living, one that honors balance, sustainability, and life. To ignore these cries is to reject the kingdom of God and continue down a path of destruction. But if we listen—truly listen—we may yet find a path to healing, for ourselves and for the world we share.
God at the Heart of Climate Justice
As Christians, we must reflect deeply on our faith and how it informs our relationship to creation and the damage due to climate change. How we imagine and view God shapes how we live and think. Unfortunately, traditional Christian metaphors have often limited God to a white, male, throne-sitting judge—a static figure of power, dominance, and control. Much of traditional Christian language about God does little to support the flourishing of all creation but rather upholds systems of domination over the Earth and its creatures.
This theological imagination has not only failed to protect creation; it has enabled systems of white supremacy, patriarchy, and environmental destruction. Such a God-image encourages domination over others and the Earth rather than building a relationship with the Earth and creation. It reinforces a hierarchy that places white, male, human power at the top—and the rest of creation beneath. No wonder the Earth groans.
But God is not a metaphor for empire and domination. God is not a weapon of control. The language we use about God must reflect a God of justice, creativity, love, and movement. A God who is not simply Lord or King, but one who creates, empowers, enlivens, and sustains. A God who relates dynamically to all of creation.
In my forthcoming book, Earthbound (Orbis), I argue that we must reimagine God not just in nouns, but in verbs. God is a verb—one who moves, loves, creates, breathes, nurtures, and transforms. And when we understand God in this way, we are invited to do the same: to move, to nurture, to transform, and to live sustainably and justly. This vision of God invites us to engage with the world in the same way. It reminds us that we are co-creators with God, called to nurture and protect the Earth, not exploit it. And when the Earth speaks to us of the suffering we have inflicted, we must listen.
Our inaction and indifference have already cost too much, and the consequences are unfolding before our eyes. Climate justice is not just environmental work, it is spiritual work. It is the sacred task of healing God’s creation from the han that humanity has inflicted on it.
Romans 8 says that “we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” Humanity is suffering, too. Yet the Spirit of God moves among us, summoning us to hear the Earth’s cries, and to imagine new ways of living that are rooted in justice, compassion, care for the Earth, and care for one another.
Image: Unsplash/ Jet Dela Cruz
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