Crown & Cross Columbia’s Journal of Christian Thought
The Columbia
Crown & Cross Fall 2014 STAFF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Siqi Cao SEAS’15 MANAGING EDITOR Marcos Martinez CC’16 STAFF EDITORS Sarah Durham CC’16 Jason Reid CC’17
LAYOUT EDITORS Eshiemomoh Osilama CC’16 Alex Liu SEAS’15
CONTRIBUTORS ESSAYS Luke Foster CC’15 Susanna Im BC’15 Marcos Martinez CC’16 Jason Reid CC’17 Andy Truelove CC’17
POETRY Lilian Chow CC’15
Yoo-Nah Park BC’15
Eshiemomoh Osilama CC’16
Rachel Chung BC’16
Emily Lau CC’17
ONLINE EDITORS Lilian Chow CC’15 Emily Lau CC’17
WEBMASTER Anji Zhao SEAS’16
CONTACT If you are interested in getting involved, join us on Mondays at 9 p.m. in Lerner
Nadia Naomi Mbonde BC’17 Chelsea Lo BC’14
ILLUSTRATIONS Alex Liu SEAS’15 Eshiemomoh Osilama CC’16 Chelsea Lo BC’14
PHOTOGRAPHY Lilian Chow CC’15 Esther Jung BC’15
West Ramp Lounge or e-mail us at
Yoo-Nah Park BC’15
columbiacrowncross@gmail.com
Mariel Kim BC’16
Check out our blog and print issues online at crowncross.org
Eshiemomoh Osilama CC’16 Andrea Arellano CC’17 James Xue SEAS’17 Paul Kim
Cover Photo and Inside Back Cover Photo by James Xue SEAS’17
A Letter From The Editors How many of us really see Christianity as liberating? So often our liberties seem to be in direct conflict with the rules imposed by the faith we espouse, making Christian freedom difficult to make sense of. Our faith demands uncomfortable things of us: we must love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, and forgive, even if for the seventy-seventh time. Where is freedom in these things? But as Christians we know that this paradox of freedom is at the heart of our faith. The Biblical story shows us that our choice is not whether to serve a master, but rather which master to serve. To reject God is to accept sin’s mastery over us. To reject Jesus’ sacrifice is to accept that we must instead redeem ourselves. And when we meditate deeply on the perfection of God’s love for us, we come to realize that it’s not all that bad to be enslaved to Christ. We chose Freedom as the focus of our conversation, precisely because we believe that though it is a difficult conversation to have, it is one worth having. We hope that you, reader, will join us as we challenge ourselves to understand what it truly means to live free. In this issue, our writers ponder various questions related to Christianity and freedom. Marcos Martinez explains how Christianity can provide a framework to understand our deepest human longings, Emily Lau unmasks the way our ignorance blinds us in her poem about a pugnacious gourami, and Luke Foster inspires Columbian Christians to embrace the Core as a liberating constraint. Though this journey was not easy, we hope that somewhere between these pages, you will experience some small piece of the incredible Love that inspired this issue. “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:22-23) To God be the Glory,
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In This Issue
Finding Freedom in Constraint Marcos Martinez
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Hobby Lobby Implications & Misconceptions Andy Truelove
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Education for Liberty Luke Foster
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Perfect Love Casts Out Fear Susanna Im
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The Biblical Origins of Freedom as Non-Domination Jason Reid
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Songs of Colour Lilian Chow
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14 Poetry
Gourami Emily Lau
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Divine Encounter Nadia Naomi Mbonde
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For When He Closes A Door Eshiemomoh Osilama
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Freedom Walker Chelsea Lo
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Columbia Crown & Cross
Essays
James Xue (SEAS’17) is majoring in Computer Science. He is originally from Irvine, California and loves eating In-N-Out.
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Finding Freedom in Constraint
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Marcos Martinez
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Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter plurality opinion, Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) 2 Timothy Keller, The Reason for God 3 Ibid.
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Andrea Arellano (CC’17) is from California and is majoring in Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
eligious people are rarely thought of as free, tical contract that comes from God and over which we since they are supposed to abide by the dochad no choice, rather than as a horizontal one which we trine they choose to embrace, often at the cost carefully crafted for ourselves for discriminatory purof their own opinions and deposes. As a matter of fact, had sires. In popular culture, freewe had the authority to define dom is commonly understood this belief system that we try as both the capacity to think to follow, we would have cerfor oneself and as the absence The kind of freedom that is highly tainly done it differently, since of constraints. People who are valued in contemporary society accepting it requires numerthought to be free are those requires those who pursue it not ous constraints for us. Just to who can make their own dename a few precepts, it is gento submit to something greater cisions without having to give erally agreed among Christian than themselves. explanations to anyone. The denominations that we must kind of freedom that is highly always forgive, that we should valued in contemporary socinot accumulate wealth beyond ety requires those who pursue our needs, and that we should it not to submit to something greater than themselves. not have sex before marriage. The underlying assumption behind this notion of Some non-Christians are often shocked at how infreedom is that truth is relative, and thus people have credibly limiting these principles seem, yet they fail to different, equally legitimate options to choose from. As the Planned Parenthood v. Casey ruling reads, “At the heart of one’s liberty is the right to define one’s concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe,”1 implying that all these self-made concepts are valid. The existence of an absolute truth is an unpopular claim since it implies that some people are right and others are wrong. As Timothy Keller puts it, by deeming some beliefs “heresy” and some practices “immoral,” Christianity looks to contemporary observers like “an enemy of social cohesion, cultural adaptability, and even authentic personhood”2 because it deprives us of that right to define our own concept of meaning, and it fails to acknowledge how diverse those definitions can be across cultures. However, as Keller also argues, there is no way to avoid exclusion once a community is established.3 For even under relativistic assumptions, communities need to be defined by characteristics that distinguish them from the rest—otherwise there would be no need for them at all. And if absolute truth indeed exists, we Christians claim to have discovered it. We see it as a ver-
Eshiemomoh Osilama CC’16
recognize how much we agree with them on this point. Regardless of our faith, Christian or non-Christian, we all see these rules as constraints. All of us feel spite, greed, and lust (even though we might have different names for them) and we find them hard to overcome.
Some non-Christians are often shocked at how incredibly limiting these principles seem, yet they fail to recognize how much we agree with them on this point.
However, Christians differ from non-Christians in that we are called to understand these constraints in context of the complex gospel story—one that bluntly tells us “you are not your own, for you were bought with a price,”4 yet also promises “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”5 4 5
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 John 8:36
Christians believe that surrendering to feelings that may seem so natural, such as spite, greed and lust, is not good for us since it goes against the original purpose for which we were created. Like fish are meant to live underwater and trains are meant to stay on their tracks, we are meant to follow the path that God has drawn for us and has revealed through Scripture; no matter how appealing the alternatives are, we believe that we could not possibly be better off diverging from it. The Gospel promises us rewards far greater if we follow Jesus Christ than whatever earthly good comes of living otherwise. And throughout Scripture we see that God is faithful in His promises. Indulging in earthly pleasures might provide us with instantaneous gratification, but it does not satisfy us in the long run. We catch glimpses of happiness and beauty in books we like to read, music we like to listen to, and places we like to visit, but we can never capture these ideals for ourselves. Happiness and beauty do not follow us around—they stay in the objects where we found them even after we depart from them, and there is often a painful longing associated with leaving pleasure behind. Free will that means surrendering to our immediate desires is not liberation if we ultimately become slaves to them. Christianity offers us a way out from this enFall 2014
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slaving pursuit by guaranteeing that one day God will receive us into His fullness and we will need nothing else. It not only promises us to see beauty in the face of God, but also “to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it”6 for eternity. In exchange for this, Christian constraints seem like a small price to pay.
Christianity offers us a way out from this enslaving pursuit by guaranteeing that one day God will receive us into His fullness and we will need nothing else. However, despite knowing that there is something better out there, many Christians wouldn’t mind ignoring that person who hurt us, spending money carelessly, or getting laid every now and then without having to marry someone first. Because God often feels distant, it is common for us to sometimes doubt His promises and believe that our hopeful submission to these constraints is in vain. And when we think about how we won’t experience His promise of eternal life until after our death, the wait seems interminable. Imagining all the temptation we have to resist until then makes us cry 6
C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
out “O Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.”7 Yet experience teaches us how to combat this skepticism: often, the more obedient we are, the closer God feels to us, which increases our faith and in turn, our obedience. For those who are not religious, this might appear to be a cycle of self-deceit. But Christianity provides us with a framework to understand the nature of our deepest longings that we cannot make sense of through reason alone—a framework that both matches our personal experiences and is reasonable based on our interpretation of the evidence we have at hand. Once we recognize that there is this yearning for meaning and fulfillment within us, how can we consider ourselves free? Until we find a way to satisfy it, we cannot. And the dominating notion of freedom in our society is simply not enough. If experiencing true freedom for eternity requires submission to constraints for the rest of our earthly lives, we say so be it, “for a day in Your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.”8 Marcos Martinez (CC’16) was born and raised in Paraguay, where he learned the value of people, pets, and air conditioners. He considers himself as spontaneous as an INTJ, Economics-Mathematics major can be. God keeps surprising him day after day with His faithfulness, and he hopes to convey some of that through CC&C.
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Saint Augustine, Confessions Psalm 84:10
Eshiemomoh Osilama CC’16
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Hobby Lobby Implications & Misconceptions
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Andy Truelove
his past June, the Supreme Court addressed the issue of whether the owner of a closely held private company could be forced to provide types of birth control that violate his or her religious beliefs. This was a result of the Affordable Care Act that mandated certain types of coverage in employer-provided health plans. According to USA Today, the birth control methods required by the Health Resources and Service Administration were the twenty approved by the Food and Drug Administration—four of which prevent fertilized eggs from implanting and are otherwise known as abortifacients.1 The Green family, owners of Hobby Lobby, which already provided several types of birth control on the health plan prior to the act’s passage, sued the federal government on the grounds that covering these four types of abortifacients violated their religious beliefs. The Greens opposed any device or chemical that prevents a fertilized egg from implanting because of their belief that life begins at conception.2 In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, a 5-4 majority sided with the Green family, citing that their free exercise of religion was substantially burdened by requiring them to pay for the four abortifacients. Following this ruling, there was outrage throughout the media and public because many people felt that it enabled
employers to intrude into the personal health care decisions of their female employees. However, the ruling was in fact a defense of an individual’s religious liberty that took into account the laws in question and applied them in defense of an individual’s closely held religious beliefs. Before examining the actual legal impacts of the decision, let’s first address some misconceptions that have come up in the media. First and foremost, this decision does not mean that any company can refuse to cover contraceptives based on their religious beliefs. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg claimed that this decision would result in companies having the ability to “opt out of any law they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs.”3 Justice Kennedy dismissed this criticism by pointing out that the law does not have “the breadth and sweep ascribed to it by the respectful and powerful dissent.”4 This is due in part to the limits placed on the types of companies eligible for an exemption. Publicly held companies such as Walmart, Target, Macy’s, or McDonald’s cannot even apply this precedent simply based on the fact that they don’t have a defined set of owners. More importantly, Hobby Lobby was eligible for exemption because it is a privately held company that has from its founding exhibited explicit religious beliefs.
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Wolf, Richard. “Justices Rule for Hobby Lobby on Contraception Mandate.” USA Today. June 30, 2014 2 Supreme Court majority opinion: Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, 573 U.S. 134 (2013)
Supreme Court dissenting opinion: Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, 573 U.S. 134 (2013) 4 Supreme Court majority opinion: Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, 573 U.S. 134 (2013)
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So a privately held company cannot suddenly espouse new found religious values in order to save money on contraceptive-related costs. Despite the controversy surrounding it, this precedent protects individuals that own a private company from laws that force them to fund what they firmly believe to be immoral practices. Another misunderstanding that must be addressed is that Hobby Lobby is not opposed to covering contraceptives to its female employees, for they currently cover sixteen types. What they are opposed to is covering abortifacients, drugs that induce immediate abortion by preventing fertilized eggs from implanting. Hobby Lobby already provides its employees with contraceptive alternatives to the use of these four abortifacients. The Green family’s opposition was not to contraception itself, but rather to funding devices or medication that would stop the natural development process of a human zygote. The Greens’ main interest was to defend themselves from coercion by the government to pay for something they consider to be morally reprehensible. The case goes beyond whether a woman has the right to these abortifacients or not; the question is if the government has the right to breach the conscience of her employer. When the government forces one to act against one’s religious belief, it infringes on what many consider to be at the core of their identity. By putting one’s religious belief in conflict with the law, the government creates an undesirable ultimatum: one must either choose to stand by one’s belief and face punishment from the government or relent and suffer from a crisis of conscience. This is where the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (RFRA), passed in 1993, comes into play. The act’s purpose was to prevent laws that would substantially burden an individual’s free exercise of religion. Despite the media attention given to the Hobby Lobby case, few criticisms address this piece of legislation, which is piv-
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otal to understanding why Hobby Lobby appealed their case not under First Amendment grounds, but under the RFRA. The main question that had to be addressed by the Supreme Court was whether the provision of abortifacients in fact represented a substantial burden for the owners of Hobby Lobby. The RFRA clause in dispute is “governments should not substantially burden
When the government forces one to act against one’s religious belief, it infringes on what many consider to be at the core of their identity.
religious exercise without compelling justification.” Justice Samuel Alito writes in the majority decision, “Hobby Lobby’s statement of purpose commits the Greens to ‘honoring the Lord in all [they] do by operating the company in a manner consistent with Biblical principles.’”5 This establishes that within its founding document their company had explicitly held religious beliefs. Hobby Lobby has brought these beliefs to the forefront of their business model. They are closed on Sundays at the expense of their profits because they believe their employees should have a day of rest to spend time with their families, and in worship if they so choose. The majority concurs with Justice Alito that these four abortifacients are a substantial burden upon the Green family. This alone is not enough to grant Hob5
Supreme Court majority opinion: Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, 573 U.S. 134 (2013)
by Lobby an exemption, for under the RFRA, one must also consider whether the government has a compelling interest to require the Greens to provide these four abortifacients despite the substantial burden upon them. The compelling interest clause is crucial to the functionality of the law. For example, if a family owned a company that refused to cover blood transfusions based on their religious beliefs, the government can require them to do so under the compelling interest to protect an individual’s life. In the Hobby Lobby case, the five justices in the majority agreed that the government did not have a compelling interest in mandating coverage of these four abortifacients, given the fact that Hobby Lobby already offered contraceptive alternatives to its employees. The compelling interest clause is often overlooked, which is why many people, including Justice Ginsburg, make the argument that under this decision any employer could claim a particular medical procedure violated its religious beliefs. Alito addresses this concern by concluding “Congress, in enacting RFRA, took the position that ‘the compelling interest test as set forth in prior Federal court rulings is a workable test for striking sensible balances between religious liberty and competing prior governmental interests.’”6 The RFRA was not meant as a way for an individual to impose their religious beliefs on another, but as a means to strike a balance between the common good and the religious rights of individuals. A correct balance of the two fosters good intentions in individuals who come to the public square, which is vital for the proper development of civic and social life in the United States. The RFRA was enacted as a means by which one can judge the sincerity of an individual’s
The RFRA was not meant as a way for an individual to impose their religious beliefs on another, but as a means to strike a balance between the common good and the religious rights of individuals.
belief, then determine whether a law provides a substantial burden on this belief, and finally if the government has a compelling interest to nevertheless impose its will. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby undoubtedly polarized the political world, yet much of the controversy comes from
misinformation. The decision was reached by applying the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act to the case of the Green family, rather than the First Amendment. Under the RFRA, there was a strong case that Health Resources and Administration Services overstepped its bounds in not providing Hobby Lobby with a waiver to the contraception mandate. The RFRA fulfilled its purpose by preventing the Green family from going against their personal religious beliefs. Those who believe that it is ethically wrong to exempt companies from providing abortifacients should aim at repealing the RFRA. But those of us who believe that defending the religious liberty of the individual against the government is vital to our republic find comfort in this ruling, for it protects our freedom from government coercion. As for the Green family, they can continue to run their business by the Christian principles that they hold dear, without federal intrusion and with a clear conscience. Andy Truelove (CC’17) grew up in the great state of Texas, he is majoring in Political Science and concentrating in Business Management. He loves to grow in his faith through Christian community.
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Supreme Court dissenting opinion: Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, 573 U.S. 134 (2013)
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Education for Liberty Luke Foster
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very new arrival to Columbia College—and to some extent to SEAS as well—confronts the paradox of the Core. College, as we all tend to conceive it in our mythical imaginings, is a time of liberation. At eighteen, we get to throw off our parents’ authority and take charge of our own destinies. We get to set our own schedules, choose our own values, and re-invent ourselves. Most of us carry these assumptions, whatever faith tradition we come from, because it is the American college myth. But, as we progress through Columbia, this picture will turn out to have been a rather narrow, selfish vision of having all the benefits of adulthood with hardly any of the costs. These fantasies of freedom immediately meet the solid bulwark of the Core Curriculum: Fully one-third of our coursework is chosen for us! That art class you wanted to experiment with conflicts with your LitHum section. This doesn’t look like the four years of free experimentation college was supposed to be.
It assumes that some texts are worth more than others, that the Aeneid matters more than Harry Potter. Many of us are slow to mature past this initial, freshman resentment of the Core. It seems like an interruption to our lives, the imposition of an alien agenda. And the more deeply we reflect on it, the deeper the problem seems. It does indeed assume that all of us who study at 11 Columbia Crown & Cross
Columbia should be capable of navigating the intellectual tradition this university stems from. It assumes that some texts are worth more than others, that the Aeneid matters more than Harry Potter. Surely all this is an affront to our freedom to ponder upon ideas from our own point of view, to make up our own minds?
I believe the Core actually holds out a unique and precious kind of liberty, one far richer than the typical, tired myth about college. I believe the Core actually holds out a unique and precious kind of liberty, one far richer than the typical, tired myth about college. And I believe that it is particularly Christian Columbians who should celebrate this. There is a paradox of authority and freedom at work here that underlies so much of the human experience in a fallen world. The Core aims to give us an education in “the liberal arts”—not as having anything to do with partisan politics, but stemming from the same root as “liberty.” Etymologically, at least, the Core’s rigid structure claims to be a liberating experience. Every thinker who considers human choice-making grapples with a version of this problem: authority makes freedom possible, yet it also threatens it. There must be some overarching direction and order to society to make individual freedom more than anarchy. But it’s a perilous paradox: Plato’s Republic pursues orderly cohesion to the
point of totalitarianism. And it’s a modern as well as an ancient problem: Rousseau eventually suggested the citizen must be forced to be free. The Bible’s wisdom prepares us to ask good questions about freedom, so often invoked as a totemic word-god. The Bible doesn’t portray complete autonomy as an option for the human condition. Only God is absolutely free, and he has been absolutely self-giving in Trinitarian love through all eternity. Yes, before the Fall, when everything was in perfect harmony, we were free agents ruling over creation—but only as long as we remained in submission to the Creator. As soon as Adam and Eve grab for the only created thing not given to them, the thorns and thistles rebel against their rule. If we abandon God to worship idols, we become slaves to sin. And the New Testament continues to make the pattern clear: In Matthew 6:24, when Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God
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110
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Though the Core’s requirements in some sense “master” us, there’s another, far more onerous master that the Core is saving us from.
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and money,” it’s far more than a warning against greed. We are always mastered, owing our allegiance and loyalty to something. What does all of this mean for seeing the Core as a liberating constraint? However excellent it may be, its authority cannot ultimately save us. But it can be a means of grace to us, just as political order and parental authority do not substitute for God’s commands but are nonetheless awfully good for us. Though the Core’s requirements in some sense “master” us, there’s another, far more onerous master that the Core is saving us from. That is the monstrosity of a technocratic, utilitarian education, one where we learn to jump through hoops to manipulate tools to maximize our income one day. Fall 2014 12
Alex Liu (SEAS’15) is a computer scientist who bakes. A native New Yorker, he enjoys walking quickly.
The Core reminds us that we must work to live, not live to work. From our very first days on campus, it makes us examine, over and over again, through literature, philosophy, music, and art, what it is to be human. It lifts us out of the everyday narrowness of studying the one thing we’re particularly good at, and helps us get a sense of the whole picture of Truth. Physics interweaves with music, poetry with philosophy, and the structures of the Core teach us to think freely. And a Core education can send us out into the world as confident agents, knowing our place and our principles, and possessing the moral imagination to work redemptively in it.
But if we believe the world, and human experience, to be created and redeemed by Goodness, Truth, and Beauty—as we Christians do—then we can trust that ideas are real, and have eternal value.
But, admittedly, so little of our education here feels that meaningful or liberating. This sense of wonder, awe, and joy often gets lost amid the daily grind. When you’re trudging back upstairs at three in the morning with your half-dry laundry, when you’re dashing to Blue Java minutes before they close to buy the last coffee, when you’re hunting through Lerner for a stapler so you can turn the Plato paper in—where’s the liberation in that? 13 Columbia Crown & Cross
The franticness that is such a part of our campus’ life is partly an inevitable consequence of living in a flawed world. As delightful as the ideals of the Core are, we experience them amid the confused messiness of life East of Eden. But I also believe there’s a cultural reason too: It’s hard to sustain belief in the value of the Core’s questions of humanity if we don’t ultimately connect them back to divinity. Christopher Noble, professor at Azusa Pacific University, has written in The Chronicle of Higher Education that it’s ultimately up to religious students and colleges to save liberal arts education. What he means is that, without believing in transcendent reality, there’s little reason to study anything beyond what will provide us with immediate wealth and power. If Darwin, Marx, and Freud were right to lower the horizons of human meaning, why study their ideas, or anyone’s? But if we believe the world, and human experience, to be created and redeemed by Goodness, Truth, and Beauty—as we Christians do—then we can trust that ideas are real, and have eternal value. Thus, as Christian Columbians, not only should we affirm the liberating constraint of the Core, but we hope that the liberal arts might free Columbians to examine more than material reality. Luke Foster (CC’15) is a football-playing, Barcelonasupporting, Tolkien-reading amateur theologian. Born in Malawi and raised in Mozambique, he cherishes history, philosophy and literature and is always willing to pontificate a lot of piffle with you on any of the above subjects.
Songs of Colour
Lilian Chow
I Crimson heat crawling Up my neck till All dry Thin cracks emerge. Tiny flames dancing Upon my chest and More words Bring a burst. II Navy deep flowing Past my body till Drains out The magic lost. Little droplets glistening On my fingertips and Lingers still A small reminder.
IV Golden rays smiling Upon my face till It spills Grandeur a mess. Bright sparks flying Onto my cheeks and Such irony A painful delight.
III Mauve dark approaching Near my ankles till It morphs Into smoky rings. Royal silk rippling Down my waist and Lifts me To the light.
V Lime shrubs murmuring Around my ears till A hush Settles in peace. Serenity carefully dawning Across my back and Dark leaves Dance in shadows. VI Plum peach pouring Before my eyes till Dark now It comes alive. Soft ribbons pirouetting Along my collar and Sing to The settling glory.
Lilian Chow (CC’15) studies English, Educational Studies and Psychology, and calls the beautiful city of Hong Kong home. She loves taking pictures and writing about what she sees, and is always mesmerised by the many ways our simple surroundings reflect the majesty of the King. and the beauty of God.
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Gourami Emily Lau
The pugnacious gourami glides through pellucid waters of his Atlantis, surveying silent vassals who drift past in a haze of torpor, as if through thick, saccharine molasses. The white sunlight glances off imperial armors of living color, scarlet, cerulean and gold – a serene, hypnotic kaleidoscope of glassy distortions. Gourami, Great Monarch of the four-cornered Sea, fearlessly plumbs the sun-drenched depths of his domain. For he cannot conceive of leviathans that lurk below down, down, down in the blackness that no starlight can penetrate. Nor can he imagine the briny waves that beat against the jagged rocks and melt into the coarse sands of beaches. Unfathomable is even the feeble surge that could carry him away – far into the vast unknown. Complacent to dwell ensconced in the ignorance that makes courage false, O regal gourami reigns supreme over all in a bucket’s worth of ocean.
Emily Lau (CC’17) grew up in New Jersey with a deep and abiding love of books. Currently, she is studying English and Comparative Literature and is always on the lookout for good novels to read. She also loves worshiping God through poetry and song.
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James Xue SEAS’17
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Divine Encounter
Nadia Naomi Mbonde
Like the warm embrace of a Lover I felt His arms around me, Chest to chest, Cheek to cheek, As I lay there helpless On the floor. The Lover told me, “Your heart Is so beautiful, so good and pure” I gasped with incredulity, Could the Prince of Heaven really Be talking to me? A divine encounter with the Lover Was like no other, As my tears trickled down my face Onto His, He did not care, But lovingly wiped them away With his fingers, I felt His hands upon my head, Enveloping my hair in His grasp, I look into His eyes, And I was transported through space And through time.
Eshiemomoh Osilama CC’16
I know that He loved me, I’ve felt His touch, His Hug, even His kiss, For I know my Lover is Mine, And I am His. Nadia Naomi Mbonde (BC’17) enjoys sharing her faith and communicating with God through music, dance, and poetry.
Esther Jung (BC’15) is majoring in Neuroscience and Behavior. Outside of the classroom, Esther enjoys shooting portrait/fashion/food photography and blogging. Through her photos, she hopes to share the often overlooked beauty in everyday life.
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Susanna Im
here was a time in my life when fear controlled me. Growing up with stereotypical tiger parents, I was under the constant pressure of having to succeed. My parents worked low-paying jobs in order to support my education, sacrificing their dreams to pave the way for mine. Because of this, I have always felt the heaviness that comes from knowing that their sense of success is contingent upon my achievements. My parents’ pressure on me was also rooted in my family’s somewhat unique situation. My only sibling is autistic, and my parents believed they had “failed” in matters relating to my brother. While we love him dearly, I knew my parents sometimes felt hopeless about his condition. Consequently, I felt like I had to do all the things he couldn’t do because of his disability. To show them that their sacrifices were not in vain, I worked tirelessly to please them. For my parents, success has always been defined by score-driven, resume-building standards. In my senior year, when I received rejections from universities that my parents had hoped I would attend, they criti-
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cized me because my scores weren’t up to par with their standards. I felt their disappointment looming over me, and this feeling persisted as I began my college experience. In sophomore year, I fell into a slump that evolved
To show them that their sacrifices were not in vain, I worked tirelessly to please them. into a serious problem my junior year. My major and pre-med courses became increasingly difficult, and all the studying in the world didn’t seem to make a difference. I thought focusing on my extra-curricular activities would give me an edge during the medical school application process, so I began to invest more time in opportunities that could build up my resume. When I received my EMT certification, got accepted into Co-
James Xue SEAS ‘17
Perfect Love Casts Out Fear
lumbia University Emergency Medical Services (CUEMS) and began to achieve success by their standards, my parents immediately gave me their stamp of approval. They loved to hear stories about different patients I encountered and my experiences driving an ambulance around Manhattan. It was these small yet rewarding moments of approval that made their disappointment bearable. But as I put more time into CU-EMS in hope of getting a promotion, I began to struggle even more academically. Eventually, my overall state of anxiety began to affect my performance in CU-EMS as well. I was breaking under the pressure of attempting to bring up my grades while trying to save face in CUEMS. In light of the circumstances that seemed impossible to manage, I felt terrified and began to micromanage my life in an attempt to cling onto what little control I had left. Every night, I lay awake for hours, and whatever sleep I did get consisted of recurring nightmares. I was trapped in a cycle of fear that had become so natural that I forgot how to live differently. To make matters worse, I was afraid of telling my parents how much I was struggling. I kept hiding my problems from them, and lived in constant paranoia of anyone seeing past my façade. And all this time, though I believed in a God, my identity was solely based on others’ view of who I was. I was wrapped up in pleasing
Mariel Kim (BC’16) is a junior majoring in Computer Science, who enjoys DIY projects, baking, and YouTube. You can find her frequenting downtown and the city’s many cafes.
everyone, in performing who I was supposed to be. With these burdens on my heart, I went to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s summer retreat, Basileia, where Christians from InterVarsity chapters from colleges across New York and New Jersey meet to explore their faith together. There, God met me in the midst of my fear. In an exercise to contemplate and respond to how God replaced Adam and Eve’s sin with His grace, we each wrote down our deepest personal struggle on
My first step in experiencing freedom from fear and disappointment began with learning that God had never intended for me to let success define who I am. a paper cutout fig leaf. I wrote on mine: “the pressure to succeed and the fear of disappointment.” As I began to share my struggles with an InterVarsity staff worker, I couldn’t stop the flood of tears that erupted from me. For two years, I had kept the conflict with my parents and the feelings of inadequacy bottled up inside, trying to act as if nothing was wrong. In that moment, I realized God was telling me to let go of the burden of thinking that I was the savior of my family and to experience freedom from the cycle of fear in which I had trapped myself. As I placed my fig leaf at the foot of the model cross, I experienced my first glimpse of peace, knowing that these burdens had never been mine to bear. My first step in experiencing freedom from fear and disappointment began with learning that God had never intended for me to let success define who I am. As I meditated on the possibility of freedom from these insecurities that had plagued me for so long, I finally decided to reveal to my parents how much I was struggling academically. Although mustering up the courage was difficult, I prepared for the confrontation in prayer. When I admitted to my parents that I would need to take a gap year to improve my grades and build up my resume in preparation for medical school, they—surprisingly—did not respond with disappointed criticism. Instead, they were very understanding about this change and supported me entirely. This response baffled me, and in that moment, I knew that this change could only be through God’s incredible grace. He softened my parents’ hearts, freeing from the need to hide my failures. I realized that God had never abandoned me. He was Fall 2014 20
constantly pursuing me even as I was not seeking him. In the weeks following Basileia, students who spent the summer in NYC met every week to read the Bible together. During these meetings, in what then seemed like a coincidence, many of the passages we discussed directly addressed fear and how to overcome it. And as we dived into scripture, I saw my own story unraveled across the pages.
Immediately, I realized how my fear and anxiety were the thorns that choked up my faith and trust in God.
alternative from living in fear: “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”2
In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus explains the consequences of worry and fear through the analogy of a sower scattering seeds “among thorns.” He describes how “the thorns grew up with [them] and choked [them.]”1 Immediately, I realized how my fear and anxiety were the thorns that choked up my faith and trust in God. I had been so consumed by my own life and my own problems that I could only look inward to myself for solutions. I had been distancing myself from God and trying to resolve my own struggles until, in a nightmarish positive feedback loop ending in overwhelming self-concern, I had pushed Him completely out of the picture. Like the thorns, my fears that had began small and innocuous grew and grew along with me until they eventually started to choke me. But God tells me not to be afraid and gives me an
Here, Jesus describes how God takes care of His creation, reassuring us to not be anxious—for if God cares for the birds and the lilies, how much more will He care for us? For me? He dares me to lay aside my anxieties and instead “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” promising that “all these things will be added to you.”3 God revealed to me that if I stop living my life consumed by self-concern and start living for “His kingdom” and “His righteousness,” then all my needs (not wants) will be met. God challenged me further to remain faithful to Him despite hardship and suffering through my reading of Job. Job’s wealth, children and health were taken away from him and he was left with nothing. In spite of the suffering he faced, Job ultimately declared, “I know that You can do all things; no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.”4 Scripture reminded and encouraged me to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and
1
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Luke 8:7
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Matthew 6:25-26 Matthew 6:33 4 Job 42:2-3 3
Paul S. Kim is a pastor at New York Presbyterian Church based in Long Island City, Queens. He loves capturing moments with his ministry through photographs.
He will make straight your paths.”5 Amazingly, Job remained confident in the Lord despite the circumstances surrounding his life. I took encouragement from this man who lost everything yet was able to remain faithful to God, knowing that God was still in control. Through the scriptures, God continues to liberate me from fear. One simple, but incredibly powerful verse sums it up: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”6 When I feel like I am in the valley of the shadow of death, I ask God how much He loves me. God answers by reminding me of His precious Son on the cross, and tells me, “This is how much I love you.” I often question if God will provide for me. But when I consider how He sacrificed His Son to die for our sins in order for us to have a relationship with Him, I realize that He has already provided me with the greatest gift of all—Jesus Christ. As I begin to embrace God’s perfect and sacrificial love for me and believe that He wants to have a genuine relationship with me, I am able to put my circumstances and problems into perspective. I can 5 6
now see that He is far greater than any and all of the difficult circumstances in my life. The God who sent His only Son in order to save us from darkness is also the God who is in control of all things. Through my struggle with living in fear and paranoia, my relationship with God grew from a theoretical and impersonal knowledge of Him to an intimate relationship with Him. Now, as I enter into a relationship with God, I am allowing Him to take the driver’s seat of my life. I find comfort and peace that is not dependent on transient things, like my academic success and my status in the CU-EMS hierarchy, but on God’s perfect love alone. Susanna Im (BC’15) is majoring in Neuroscience and Behavior. She loves going to Barnes & Noble, playing Candy Crush, and watching YouTube videos of children (not creepy at all).
Proverbs 3:5-6 1 John 4:18
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For When He Closes a Door
He and I are standing. He’s closed the Doors. He’s shut the Windows. The curtains are obscuring my views.
Eshiemomoh Osilama
Standing, He and I are together, He and I alone, With no keys from this white-walled and brightly-lit room. Standing, I await, The good for my Future His thoughts for my Fate. Yes, He is my Judge and my Jury.
Standing, He and I are alone, He and I together, as I age in with this space and the drowsy lights dim. I’m still Standing by my Doubt and my Worry. But, I have no one to envy. Only Him, I can trust. That He might Stand by His Will. The Doors are still closed. The Windows are still shut. So I might just Stand still.
Eshiemomoh Osilama (CC’16), from Boston, Massachusetts, is majoring in Biology and loves to write. He is so grateful to be a part of CC&C again for its second print issue and feels blessed to be part of a team such as this.
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Yoo-Nah Park (BC’15) was born and raised in the Hudson Valley, but now lives in the Jersey ‘burbs. She often daydreams about farming and owning a small bookstore cafe. She is majoring in East Asian Studies with a concentration in Art History and minoring in Economics.
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Freedom Walker Chelsea Lo
An old man and a young man stared into each others’ eyes. One was the first To speak: Son, let me tell you a story. I once knew a babe with blue eyes. His face was pure, like a pearl of the softest pink, but his eyes were of startling blue. Clear and sharp, they pierced and shined with the strength of oceans. Years passed. He became a man. Taut and strong, a specimen of dictated beauty. Arms like a tiger, head like an ox, legs like a lion. But his eyes: they had grown over with film. Father, who is this blue-eyed man? How did this god grow blind? Son, I will tell you so that you may see. Upon this man I saw white scars looped in runes around his tiger arms. Wounds—white and searing. But he—he, I knew, found them pretty— for his scars glowed hypnotically under the metal sun, and his brethren, they too saw only badges and glory. As chalk lit by fire forms a searing pillar to blind one from the night, white vines marked the alpha freedom walker of the mud brine earth. He was free but for: without liberty.
Father, you speak cryptically. Tell me what you mean. Son, listen and I will tell you. For generations, many sons were born and not a one had escaped the visitation of the devils. Every day as the sun rose, the black one’s angels would come and fling their whips at men. A lash for each transgression; a strung, hoarse effort to prevail. But starling boys and marble angels stood still with bare faces, unafraid. Around them sinews and acrid throats, buckling joints and mouths of jagged tar. But whips merely grazed man’s flesh, and but few returned home branded in battle. (The devils were always screaming in days past, for it was harder then to fool men…) Now they come to our bedsides, dancing easily across our thresholds, and with languid confidence they come: gently, softly lashing the sons of our generation. White wounds, so beautiful before, now turned to smarting coils of barbed wire (but still, only the observant prey see and feel the grotesque); Blood visible beneath the silver, streams of lava writhing with venom in the beds of open wounds. All around black caverns but the dancers don’t bat an eye. They lie down happy, burying themselves in beds of white snakes, helplessly, happily, shackled to the bedframes by their own tattoos while smoke from devil throats finds passage through ignoble sockets. Seeping past wide, fleshly nostrils, tendrils find their way home to frantically beating hearts. And so the smoke sings and pumps, while the devils crow lullabies discordant, laughing with the din of a thousand twisted horns. Their shadows swing on the rungs of as many towers of Babel, weaving between the carrion wings of their familiar. Down below their prey leap with abandon and dance on broken ground. A frenzy of reckless revelers, their steam rises to heat an air already heavy with the beating of: mottled wings. It is easy to slay when the résistance is so easily deceived.
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Father, I do not understand. Of what do you speak? Which men sleep with snakes? Why do prey present themselves for the kill? Child, clear the film from your eyes and see. You are free to walk on streets Only because murderers are put behind bars. You are free to live in peace Only because enemies are extinguished. You are free to seek justice Only because taxes are paid. Know this: Freedom is never free; and never can it romp without its playmate Constraint. I tell you, once upon a time a man was set free And in his ecstasy he leaped! Into the net of the world. Father, I beseech you, tell me what happened to the blue-eyed man? Son, he woke one day when the metal sun had turned to rust, and for the first time in his life, he saw the world in black night .
Chelsea Lo (BC’14) graduated this past May from Barnard College, where she studied Economics and Political Science. She now works in finance in New York City. She is thankful for her communities here, with whose help she hopes to become a good and faithful servant.
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The Biblical Origins of Freedom as Non-Domination Jason Reid
W
hat is Biblical freedom, or freedom from sin? I believe there are several ways to understand it. The notions of positive and negative freedom that Isaiah Berlin distinguishes in his essay Two Concepts of Liberty can help us grapple with this question. Berlin defines positive liberty as “mastery over the self,” which in the Biblical context can be interpreted as mastering sin, and thus becoming freer because sin is under our control and our decisions are no longer influenced by an external force. On the other hand, Berlin understands negative liberty as “the absence of interference by others,” which leads us to understand freedom from sin as not having it interfere with our ability to make the right choice. I find these two interpretations of Biblical freedom unsatisfactory, and I believe that Philip Pettit’s understanding of freedom as non-domination provides a better answer to this question. Pettit discusses this notion in his book Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government as a critique to the dichotomy that Berlin established between positive and negative liberty. Pettit finds fault with Berlin’s definitions of positive and negative liberty because “mastery and interference do not amount to the same thing.” He claims that it is hypothetically possible for a slave to have
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a master who does not interfere with him at all. Accordingly, there is no real dichotomy between mastery and lack of interference, for they can both occur simultaneously. Pettit believes that this leaves room for liberty as non-domination. Unlike negative liberty, which focuses
Biblical freedom should be best thought of as a state of being where there is some interference from sin but one is not mastered by sin.
on the absence of interference, liberty as non-domination focuses on the absence of domination—a lack of a master over oneself. This conceptualization of freedom better complements Berlin’s definition of positive liberty as mastery over the self. Biblical freedom should be best thought of as a state of being where there is some interference from sin, but one is not mastered by sin,
which corresponds to Pettit’s definition of freedom as non-domination. For Pettit, freedom as non-domination is much more than a philosophical possibility, it is a historical reality. Pettit believes that non-domination was how both elites and the common people of the Roman Republic understood liberty, and that this conception of freedom was carried on throughout history by writers in the republican tradition. While I think that Pettit is correct when he argues that the ancient Roman republicans understood liberty as non-domination, I believe that this notion has much older and Biblical roots. Pettit states that in the classical republican tradition, “liberty is always cast in terms of the opposition between liber and servus, citizen and slave… The condition of liberty is explicated as the status of someone who, unlike the slave, is not dominated by anyone else.” Let us explore whether the Bible discusses liberty in a similar manner. In Exodus, Joseph’s descendants are described as being held as slaves in Egypt. The Egyptians “ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field.”1 The Israelites were miserable in their condition and they “groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.”2 Therefore, it falls to God to deliver the Israelites from slavery. God tells Moses: “Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and 1 2
Exodus 1:13-14 Exodus 2:23
I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.’”3 It is interesting that God tells Moses “I have remembered my covenant. Say therefore to the people of Israel…” This suggests that the main reason why God delivers the Israelites from slavery can be found in the covenant that they made with God. Looking back into Genesis 17, when God first makes a covenant with Abraham, God tells Abraham: “I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”4 Here, God is conferring citizenship upon Abraham—He is making him a citizen of the City of God and promising Abraham that the City of God will reign on Earth. Consequently, it would not be right for the Israelites to be slaves on Earth when they were meant to rule over Canaan. Clearly, the freedom that God is giving the Israelites is non-domination, by freeing them from their Egyptian masters. 3 4
Exodus 6:5-6 Genesis 17:6-8
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sense because logically, both freedom as non-interference and freedom as self-mastery are irreconcilable with the Gospel story. The notion of negative freedom does not apply to us because human beings are fallen, and sin will always interfere in our lifetimes. Thus, if Biblical freedom is indeed negative freedom, humans are not free at all because sin constantly interferes with our lives. In the same way that God delivers Israel out of slavery to other nations, Jesus delivers humanity out of slavery to sin. When Isaiah prophesizes the coming of Jesus, he contrasts the sinful way in which the Israelites conceived fasting with the way Jesus’ fast will look like. He says, “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?”5 This is precisely what Jesus did through his death on the cross. By conquering death and sin, he released humans from bondage to them. The consequences of Jesus’ actions can best be understood as non-domination because before, humans were mastered by sin, but now, humans have a way out through the forgiveness that Jesus’ death and resurrection have given us. However, sin is not absent in our lives, for “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”6 Paul discusses this in 1 Corinthians: “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you might be able to endure it.”7 Though sin still interferes with our lives through temptation, Paul assures us that through Christ we are freed from slavery to sin. Biblical freedom, therefore, should not be understood as negative liberty, but rather as non-domination. From these previous examples, there is strong Scriptural evidence for Biblical freedom to be understood as non-domination. The abundance of evidence makes 5
Isaiah 58:6 1 John 1:8 7 1 Corinthians 10:13 6
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Though sin still interferes with our lives through temptation, Paul assures us that through Christ we are freed from slavery to sin. Similarly, positive freedom has its problems because trying to master sin as much as possible can be dangerous. One danger is that trying to master sin can lead to pride. A good example of this comes from Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll tries to prevent himself from becoming Hyde, who is full of vice, by engaging in philanthropy. However, when walking in the park one day, Jekyll thinks about how good he is, which causes him to transform into Hyde, due to his pride. This shows a significant downside to freedom as self-mastery—it relies on our insufficient human nature. Freedom as non-domination seems to work best with the reality of living as fallen human beings in a broken world. It allows for interference from sin, but it also dictates that we as Christians, through Jesus’ blood, will not be dominated by sin. Jason Reid (CC’17) is a politics and sports junkie from Southern Maryland studying History and English. He hopes to engage the Columbia community and show that, even in a deeply secular culture, Christianity still has much to offer.
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