12. Sharayah McDonald- Outside Reading 4

 For my term paper, I discussed the different main religions' perceptions on responsibility to protect the planet. Through my research, I found that statistically, white Evangelical Christians are the least likely to believe in climate change, or believe that we should do something to mediate it. In response, Dr. Redick sent me his paper entitled, "Kenotic Walking Journal for the Study of Religious Experience" to give me a new perspective on Christians and their environmental beliefs. The first thing about this paper that I noticed is that both myself and Dr. Redick included Genesis 1:26-28 in our discussions on Christians and the environment. I much appreciate Dr. Redick's perspective, that rather than taking dominion over every creature of the earth as the verse suggests, humans should humble themselves, or empty our authority, to instead serve all the creatures of the earth and regard them as fellows or equals, and serve them above ourselves. This perspective is also held by St. Paul, who writes a letter detailing how Christ emptied Himself to come to earth in human form and serve humans, and put our needs above His own. Another interesting point in this article is that Christ did not necessarily empty himself; he let the Lord do it by passively accepting his fate and letting God use Him for His plan of saving humanity. If Christ were to have emptied Himself, this would have been too much insertion of control, and the control He would have had over emptying Himself. This is a very weird paradigm, for it makes me question how we as humans should empty ourselves without actually doing it ourselves, especially in relation to the environment. Are we supposed to let God empty us until we are humble, and then protect His living creatures out of mutual respect for them? For Christians, is it something that must be done before they begin protecting the environment? Or rather, does the very act of being called to treat God's creation as equals mean you have been humbled by God for His grand plan? I personally was raised Christian, so I am looking at this through a Christian's perspective. I believe that God has a grand plan for everyone's life, so in this paper does Marion mean we will not hear our calling from God until he humbles us by emptying us? I feel like it is very much up to the reader's interpretation, along with how they will try to passively be emptied and humbled. Perhaps, Evangelical Christians simply need to change their mindset from one of domination over the earth to one of passively waiting for God to humble them, and protecting the earth will coincide with that simultaneously.