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Models of God, is an extended critique of the God of historic Christianity as patriarchical,
monarchical, hierarchical, exclusive, and triumphalist. She opposes this model because it
advances a view of God as distant from and uninvolved with the world, and promotes attitudes of
militarism and dominance on the one hand and passivity on the other, justifies escapism from
responsibility, focuses on sin and obedience, undermines an appreciation for the non-human
world/environment, and "condones control through violence and oppression."
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How can this litany of evils be laid at the door of historic Christian theism? Much of the
force of her critique is derived from her contrasting the repudiated features of the historic
Christian model with other, more favored aspects of God from within the Christian tradition and
her allegation that these two sets of traits are logically incompatible. The favored set of traits
includes God as nurturing, caring, and empathic, centering on God's identification with all of
creation, including those who suffer. These traits promote a destabilizing but justice-promoting
message of unqualified love working to befriend the needy, the outcast, and the oppressed. She
advocates a nonhierarchical model of God that sees God as acting "through persuasion and
attraction," a co-participant in human history with the cosmos as God's body. According to
McFague, these two sets of traits are fundamentally opposed. The former is a "direct assult" on
the latter.
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If we accept the historic interpretation, she says, "we not only accept a salvation we
do not need but weaken if not destroy our ability to understand and accept the salvation we do
need. The triumphalist mythology makes impossible the interpretation of the way to our
salvation on several points."
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She admits her portrayal of the historic Christian model could be
a caricature, but insists that her allegations "are the direct implications of its imagery."
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"This is
the logical implication of hierarchical dualism: God's action is on the world, not in it, and it is a