Crown & Cross Columbia’s Journal of Christian Thought
Christ’s Crowning Glory Gendered Grace in the Book of Isaiah Escaping the Prison of Guilt
Columbia’s
Crown & Cross
Spring 2014
EditorialTeam Siqi Cao SEAS’15 Chelsea Lo BC’14 Lilian Chow CC’15 Luke Foster CC’15 Marcos Martinez CC’16 Lingzi Zhuang CC’16
Contributors Articles
Siqi Cao SEAS’15 Luke Foster CC’15 Tatianna Kufferath CC’15 Sarah Durham CC’16 Marcos Martinez CC’16 Jesse Peterson
Poetry
Chelsea Lo BC’14 Brian Kim SEAS’16 Eshiemomoh Osilama CC’16
Photography
Lilian Chow CC’15 Yoo-Nah Park BC’15 Noah Zinsmeister CC’16
Artwork
Chelsea Lo BC’14 Eshiemomoh Osilama CC’16
Design Team
Siqi Cao SEAS’15 Lilian Chow CC’15 Henry Murphy CC’15 Yoo-Nah Park BC’15 Eshiemomoh Osilama CC’16 Zach Ho CC’17
Submissions
We would love for you to contribute to our upcoming issues as well as our online blog. We welcome various forms of expression, from photography and artwork to extensively researched articles to blog entries. See below for ways to reach out to us with any ideas or questions.
Contact Us
Whether you have questions, would like to contribute, or just would like to speak with one of our editors, we would love to engage with you! Contact us at columbiacrowncross@gmail.com or visit our website below for more information about who we are and what we do!
Online Launch
Visit our webpage at www.crowncross.org to access this issue online! We are also launching an online blog, and would love to have you contribute and provide feedback. Stay posted for more information!
Special Thanks
We would like to thank First Things, in particular R.R. Reno and David Mills, as well as the Augustine Collective for their invaluable advice, guidance, and kind support. We are also incredibly grateful for our friends, family, and community on campus that made CC&C possible!
Cover photo by Chelsea Lo BC’14
Letter from the Editors “ All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king.” J.R.R. Tolkien Welcome to the very first issue of the Columbia Crown & Cross! We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we loved putting it together. Columbia was founded in 1754 as an Anglican liberal arts college. Much has changed since then, but we believe that the Christian faith can contribute much to an academic life. We’re also convinced that the ideas and diversity of a university can enrich the life of faith. We hope to start a fruitful conversation that will encourage longtime followers of Jesus and intrigue those who are curious about Christianity. As human beings, we long for meaning, for harmony, for things to make sense and be put right. We all want to know the transcendentals: goodness, truth, and beauty, the wonderful things beyond the walls of the world. God, making us in His image, gave us both the capacity and the desire to search out the light He’s built into creation. Despite our rebellion, God entered into the limitation and brokenness of our humanity to redeem it and bring it to glory. That means all truth is God’s truth, and we have the joy and privilege of worshipping our Creator through our work as students. We are also called to prepare to love our neighbor through our work, speaking into and sometimes challenging the culture of our campus, our city, our country, and our globe. We hope to challenge ourselves, our readers, and Columbia as a whole to dare to conceive of being human as something with mystery, glory, and ineffable worth. Too often, human dignity is seen as primarily being about consumption, intelligence, or achievement. This inaugural issue offers pieces like Sarah Durham’s exploration of Isaiah as redeeming misogyny, Siqi Cao’s use of 16thcentury literary criticism to read the Bible with fresh eyes, and Tatianna Kufferath’s reflections on depression and despair at Columbia. Join us as we embark on this journey. It is a journey of the mind but also of the heart, and especially of the spirit. We draw inspiration from Pope John Paul II’s Fides et Ratio: “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know Himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.”
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Essays Christ’s Crowning Glory
Luke Foster
God’s Sovereignty in the Midst of Depression
Poetry 4 7
God’s Love Brian Kim
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Tatianna Kufferath
13 Into the Grey
Eshiemomoh Osilama
14 When Golden Heat alights on still white birch Chelsea Lo
Poetry and the Redemption Story
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Siqi Cao
Gendered Grace in 19 the Book of Isaiah Sarah Durham
Escaping the Prison 24 of Guilt Marcos Martinez
Our Place in God’s 27 World Jesse Peterson
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Noah Zinsmeister (CC’16) majors in Economics-Mathematics. He has been taking photographs for over four years and continues to expand his artistic horizons. His past work includes Finger Lakes Feast, a storytelling cookbook, and photographs published in numerous magazines, journals, and exhibitions. Visit noahzinsmeister.com for more of his work.
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Christ’s Crowning Glory Luke Foster Every Columbian has seen our University’s crest a
thousand times. It is to be found on everything from that delightful admissions letter to the flags flapping above South Lawn to the 116th Gates. But how often do we really stop to think twice about what that image—the crown topped by a cross and flanked by two more—really means? Symbols have power, a power to allude to rich depths of the past and to evoke aspirations for the future. Nike’s famous swoosh does both, looking progressive while alluding to the Greek goddess of victory. Sometimes the symbol transcends its own apparent nonsensicality—I have no idea what apples have to do with computers, but Apple’s logo commands respect the world over. But symbols are more than brands. They can assemble armies and erect empires. Italy’s Fascists named themselves after the fasces—the bundles of axes that the consul’s bodyguards would carry in Classical Rome. It was a very deliberate statement of their intent to re-create the Roman Empire, with immediate and bloody consequences for Ethiopia and Albania. Symbols are bound up with national identity, too. I have always thought it says much about the best of England, as a little country that has stood alone against the world, that its flag is the Cross of St. George. It’s a reference to the legend of the plucky knight who overcame a dragon much too big for him. It stands for life out of death, for hope out of despair, for the triumph of the underdog. One reason, I think, why we don’t usually make the effort to decipher the Crown and Cross of Columbia is that it alludes to unfashionable ideals. We are 21stcentury people, raised to believe in individual liberty and free choice. And that freedom is not directed to anything higher than consumerism. The Supreme Court stated in the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” In
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popular culture, the Backstreet Boys put it, “I Want It That Way.” Modern Western and particularly American culture has enshrined the view that we are fundamentally consumers who should be liberated to choose the goods, values, and lifestyles we want for our comfort. The Crown and Cross crest suggests a different vision entirely. Most directly, it refers to Columbia’s founding as an Anglican college: the fruit of a Christian Church under the British monarch. It reflects the assumption that reigned in Europe from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment: the highest spiritual and political authorities in the land must be linked. The king has a responsibility to direct his people towards the good, and the Church must provide spiritual guidance to the people and moral correction to the king. This political theory neglected religious liberty and democracy, and its failings helped provoke the American Revolution. But the Founding Fathers did not reject the Crown and Cross’ assertion that we all have a claim on each other, a shared responsibility for a good life together as a community.
“For the Crown and the Cross stem from something much older and deeper and grander than the reign of George II, who was King when Columbia was founded in 1754. The Crown and Cross allude to Jesus Christ and his kingdom.” For the Crown and the Cross stem from something much older and deeper and grander than the reign of George II, who was King when Columbia was founded in 1754. The Crown and Cross allude to Jesus Christ and His kingdom. Paradoxically, His cosmic rule was declared when He was humiliated on Good Friday and vindicated on Easter as God raised Him to new life. And His reign over the world will be fully realized on that day when, as the Nicene
Noah Zinsmeister CC’16 Creed says, “He will come again in glory.” That is why Advent, the season of the church year leading up to Christmas, both celebrates the baby who came in the manger and prays all the more fervently the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come.” The New Testament story is the story of the Crown and Cross, and it radically reshapes our understanding of freedom and of power. Philippians 2:5-11 tells us that Jesus, co-eternal Son of the Father, had the most absolute power of any being ever in existence. Free to do anything He wanted, He gave up His majesty out of love for us. Yet His utter self-gift revealed His true glory, His radically generous love. This is why cultures that Christianity has influenced have had their understanding of kingship radically reworked. If Jesus’ kingly authority flows from His sacrifice, power is never something to grasp but to use in generous service. C.S. Lewis put the ideal best at the end of The Horse and His Boy. “For this is what it means to be a king: To be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat, and when there’s hunger in the land, to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in the land.” Our modern Western culture has a particularly hard time with the Crown and the Cross. But no people or time has ever had an easy time applying Jesus’ story.
Classical culture did not understand being human in terms of consumerism. The Greeks and Romans believed in an objective good life to be found through the heroic pursuit of virtue. But, for Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, virtue was supremely moderation—restraint, a sense of balance, rational control in all things. Cicero, in his De Amicitia (“On Friendship”), argued that you could only befriend someone who was equally virtuous. You could never relate to someone who might not have everything together. The ancient Chinese Confucian philosophers also aspired to impeccable standards of virtue. But Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi also understood the good life—a life of freedom and meaning—as one of self-possession. They did emphasize how very much we need and are shaped by our communities, our cultures, and especially our families. But ultimately the junzi (noble person) was to possess him or herself through reason and the cultivation of virtue.
“But there is a deep blessedness and peace that comes from loving people who are hard to love.” Jesus modeled for us a radically different nobility. He taught us that we ultimately flourish not through responsibility and restraint but through giving
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ourselves to serve others for and from a joyful love.
have space for our characters to grow.
Though this is deeply counter-intuitive, it can and does resonate with our experience. Many of us have known a paradoxical joy in volunteering with the needy. Neither patiently working through a math problem with a child in an afterschool program nor helping to feed and clothe a homeless man looks enjoyable from the outside. But there is a deep blessedness and peace that comes from loving people who are hard to love.
And any married couple who has lived out their vows will testify to this. There will come days when one’s spouse seems the least lovable person on the planet. But that’s precisely why St. Paul called marriage a “mystery” in Ephesians 5 and called on husbands to give their lives to love their wives.
“As Christian Columbians, the beauty of the college’s Crown and Cross crest is that it reminds us, as 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 teaches, “You are not your own. You were bought with a price.”” Families work on this principle too. We do not love our siblings because they merit our love. They are ours, and we must accept them, whatever painful memories or accumulated resentments lie between us. And if we love them and they love us no matter what, all sorts of joyful memories can sprout and we
As Christian Columbians, the beauty of the college’s Crown and Cross crest is that it reminds us, as 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 teaches, “You are not your own. You were bought with a price.” We have been shown kingly majesty and humble sacrifice in the Cross of Christ. Now we are called to find lives of true freedom in taking up our own crosses and following Him. 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.
Lilian Chow (CC’15) studies English, Educational Studies and Psychology. She loves taking pictures and is still mesmerised by the many ways our simple environment reflects the majesty of the King and the beauty of God.
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God’s Love
Brian Kim
Why would a God so high come down to die for me A dot in a sliver of time of a speck in the galaxy A part of a fallen kind that spits on the hand who feeds Five senses a limited mind yet I claim that my eyes can see My eyes have to turn from the dot Focusing on the picture instead I am so broken and far from God That even the east seems close to the west Yet this gap was bridged by the cross Bringing life to things that were dead And now this love is more than a thought As His actions now prove what He said To show love God came and died So the fallen is now redeemed When love below reflects what is high Only then can I begin to see I know that God created my life As a dot that grows to a tree Watered by love I can reach new heights And God’s love will become my own seeds Brian Kim (CC’16) is studying Computer Science with aspirations to be a doctor. In his spare time, he loves reading books, discussing theology and philosophy, and playing tetris.
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God’s Sovereignty in the Midst of Depression “Everything seems so pointless...”
Tatianna Kufferath
“I think about what would happen if I just didn’t wake up in the morning...” “I know I’m supposed to pick myself up and keep going, but I just can’t see the use anymore...”
As a freshman at Columbia, I would walk across
campus with a sense of hope and wonder. I would pause to look up at Butler Library and smile to think that somehow, for whatever reason, God had led me here. Now, as a junior—perhaps a bit more jaded than I once was—I often find myself with my eyes toward the ground. As my Columbia experience progresses, it seems that gloominess has crept into my day-to-day. More and more, statements like the ones above seem to characterize the conversations I overhear and engage in with others. At a university that places an almost impossible workload upon its students, along with high expectations about the internships they’ll gain, the careers they’ll pursue, and the connections they’ll make, it’s no wonder that students feel beaten down by life’s daily demands. A 2011 Columbia Health Services reported that, “Stress at Columbia is a unifying experience and the only commonality (norm) across all schools with which students can identify.” This “stress culture” that all Columbians know too well can lead to deep depression and hopelessness. In each semester of my freshman and sophomore years, a Columbia student committed suicide. In almost all of these cases, depression and stress have been listed as factors in these students’
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decisions. It is not surprising, then, to say that for many, this sense of weariness that seems to be a general part of the Columbia experience becomes more than just a temporary case of the blues, but a deep, pervasive sadness that can affect their ability to lead their everyday lives. What can we do when it seems impossible to “Keep your head up” or “Pluck yourself up by the bootstraps” or, as Paul commanded in Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice!”? This question can seem especially troubling for Christians. The greatest news of all has been given to us—that Christ died to set us free from chains of sin that kept us from God, that His resurrection from the dead was the beginning of setting the world aright. In response, how can we not be examples of joy, peace and contentment to an anxious world? Reconciling the Christian hope we are meant to have with the crushing experience of hopelessness, anxiety and sadness we may actually feel can seem like an irresolvable struggle. This apparent conflict can make Christians who struggle with depression feel as if it were taboo to tell others what they’re going through, and leave those who don’t struggle with depression at a loss for what to say to their friends who approach them about it. What does God offer to His children who are depressed? Is depression contrary to the Christian life?
Let’s consider another set of statements:
“My spirits were sunken so low that I could weep by the hour like a child, and yet I knew not what I wept for...”
“I feel alone in the universe...” “That darkness surrounds me on all sides—I can’t lift my soul to God—no light or inspiration enters my soul... what do I labor for?” These statements, unlike the first set, are not from fellow students. They come instead from the private writings of some of the preachers and saints that Christians today hold in the highest regard. Charles Spurgeon, the man of “sunken spirits,” was one of the most famous orators of his day, earning him the moniker “The Prince of Preachers.” Yet he suffered greatly, not only from persistent physical ailments, but from periods of “causeless depression” which gave him an immense amount of spiritual turmoil and anguish. Martin Luther, the man who started the Protestant Reformation and changed the course of church history forever, was also the man to remark that he “felt alone in the universe.” His struggles with anxiety and depression were so strong that he pleaded with his friends and his wife never to leave him alone for fear that he might harm himself. Mother Teresa, who gave her life to serve the poor of India and became for many a symbol of purity and Christian love, suffered from deep pain and wrote to God of a pervasive spiritual and mental “darkness” that refused to leave her.
“Martin Luther, the man who started the Protestant Reformation and changed the course of church history forever, was also the man to remark that he “felt alone in the universe.””
The private struggles of these revered Christians demonstrate that depression does not stand apart from the Christian life. Nor is it a burden only for those who have somehow failed to understand the promises of the Christian faith. In fact, for these Christians, their periods of depression were central to their relationships with Christ. Perhaps their most deeply held conviction was that, although their depression could at times seem “causeless” or overwhelming, they never believed their struggles were meaningless. Spurgeon, for example, suffered from more than just psychological pain. Aside from physical ailments—chronic gout left him with inflamed joints and his wife became an invalid at the age of 33—Spurgeon was beset with tragedy early on in his career. On the night of his first major preaching event, seven people were killed in a stampede when the crowd lost control. For years afterward, he was criticized and hounded by fellow preachers. But despite his trials, Spurgeon held a firm conviction that there was a purpose to his suffering. He wrote of his depression, “I am afraid that all the grace that I have got of my comfortable and easy times and happy hours, might almost lie on a penny. But the good that I have received from my sorrows, and pains, and griefs, is altogether incalculable... Affliction is the best bit of furniture in my house.” He believed that it was God who was in control, God who allowed him to experience this sadness, and
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God who was renewing him by it. He did not see his trials as pointless suffering, but as an instrument of God’s grace.
“A friend once remarked to me, “One of the most frustrating things about being a Christian and being prone to depression is this: that there is a light, that there is a mountaintop, but I just can’t reach it.”” But what could possibly come of this weariness and pain? Mother Teresa believed that it brought her closer to the Lord by making her totally dependent on His promises. She wrote of her experience, “God cannot fill what is full—He can fill only emptiness— deep Poverty… It is not how much we really have to give—but how empty we are—so that we can receive fully in our life and let Him live His life in us.” Mother Teresa saw the deep emptiness she experienced as a means by which to purposely wait to be filled by the Lord, rather than by the temporary things that bring happiness in this world. A friend once remarked to me, “One of the most frustrating things about being a Christian and being prone to depression is this: that there is a light, that there is a mountaintop, but I just can’t reach it.” It is one of the most difficult experiences I can think of— to want to exclaim with the joy of David in Psalm 34:8, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” and yet to feel more like David in Psalm 6:6, “I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping.” Yet the Psalmist knew something that is difficult to remember in the midst of suffering. As Christians, we serve a God whose character and being exceeds our own experience of Him. The same David who cried out in Psalm 6 testifies in Psalm 34 yet again, “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all” (vv. 18, 19)—not because he had yet been delivered from all suffering, but because he knew that God had promised to do so, that this Savior and Redeemer is not just the God he was experiencing in the moment, but a God who by His very nature saves and redeems and promises to do so. The nature of Christian hope is not in something that we can see or experience now. It is in the future coming of Christ to fix everything that is broken, and to begin His plan of
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renewal for the world. Paul writes in Romans 8 that this renewal includes the “redemption of our bodies.” He continues, “For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” (vv. 23-25) We are not just “prisoners in the dark” wandering through “Egyptian wilderness” that goes on forever. As Christians, when we seek to comfort each other in depression and anxiety, we are not just seeking a hand to hold as we head into inevitable oblivion. We can continue to strive in the midst of darkness because we know there is a reward beyond it. Continuing to believe and trust in the midst of that darkness that God is who He says He is and that His plans will come to pass is the greatest testimony of faith. The darkness that Mother Teresa felt in her soul endured even to her death. She wrote late in her life, “I want to smile even at Jesus and so hide if possible the pain and the darkness of my soul even from Him.” And yet she remained adamant in her trust in God, writing, “Pray please that I keep smiling at Him in spite of everything. For I am only His—so He has every right over me.” Such faith and endurance is in true imitation of Jesus, “who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2). Despite unspeakable pain, Jesus looked to the rich reward ahead of Him—to the glory of His Father and to His beloved people finally in their rightful place as sons and daughters of God. When we endure through seasons of anxiety and despair, we are following in Jesus’ footsteps. We are looking forward to the joy set before us, to our prize—Jesus Himself—and that prize will be far greater than anything we can imagine. The light people strive for and the joy people experience here on the earth are only a taste of it.
“We can continue to strive in the midst of darkness because we know there is a reward beyond it.” One thing I must clarify—by no means do I make any claim that depression, sadness, and despair are good. We are meant to trust in God’s sovereignty in the midst of depression. As Christians, we can see depression as a chance to rely on God’s promises and to imitate Jesus in endurance and faith. Our perseverance in the midst of depression and support of each other through these times is a testimony to the power of our faith. Yet none of this in any way negates the significance of the pain that those who
Lilian Chow CC’15 suffer from depression experience. I do, however, hope to convey that good can arise out of terrible and painful experiences. Most importantly, I hope to convey that God has plans “for welfare and not for evil…to give a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11) to those who are depressed, that He is close to those who are suffering, and that He has not forgotten them in the midst of their pain and sadness. Not only are they not forgotten, but they are understood. It is good to look to Christians like Spurgeon, Luther and Mother Teresa as examples because they point, ultimately, to the One who truly provides hope to the depressed. The Lord knows what sorrow is like, because He is our Creator and thus knows our emotions intimately. Moreover, because of Jesus’ life and death, our God knows the depths of human sorrow and despair. We must not forget that God put on flesh to become a “man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief ” (Isaiah 53:3). Before He endured the cross, Jesus testified that His “soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Mark 14:34). Jesus, too, felt overwhelming hopelessness and grief. Jesus, too, felt isolated and utterly alone. Jesus, too, prayed to the Father that such suffering would pass from Him.
“Jesus’ resurrection promises that in the aftermath of sadness and of pain comes deep and complete renewal.” But He endured it. He conquered it, and He rose again. Jesus’ resurrection is the event that heralds a new order of things, a new way of living. Jesus’
resurrection promises that in the aftermath of sadness and of pain comes deep and complete renewal. In the church today it is easy to take for granted the idea of the cross as a symbol of redemption. We must place ourselves back at the foot of the cross where Jesus died, and see Jesus’ death through the eyes of those who followed Him. What good could possibly come from killing, in the most brutal way, an innocent man who had only healed and brought hope to the sick and oppressed? When Jesus cried out before He died, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) the disciples must have echoed His words. The cross, at first glance, seems everything contrary to the symbol of grace, forgiveness, and redemption that it has come to be for Christians today. Yet Jesus’ death on that cross, and His subsequent resurrection is what today enables our hope. Thus an ugly instrument of torture becomes a beautiful symbol of God’s mercy and perfect plan for the world. Luther recognized this paradox, and it was this strange image of God revealing Himself when He seemed all but hidden, that brought Him through the darkest times of depression and hopelessness. He called this “a mark of the revelation which is concealed under the contrary.” The night Jesus died, the land was covered in darkness, the earth quaked, and all hope seemed lost. We have the privilege to know that this was not the end of the story. God’s word dictates that “weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5). The cross was a reminder to Luther that God is working in the midst of suffering, that His plans will not be hindered.
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The cross is that symbol for us, as well. And it is not the only one. God has placed small, tangible reminders all around us. Bit by bit, God is renewing this broken world. Spring, with its flowers, comes after the cold of winter. Friends fight and reconcile. Babies are born. People reflect the imaginative, innovative personality of their Creator. Jesus came to “bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound… to comfort all who mourn—and to grant for those who mourn in Zion—to give them a beautiful headdress for ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning” (Isaiah 61:1-3). Jesus came to do these things. And He will come again. And on that day He has promised that He will “wipe every tear from their eyes”, and “neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain.” (Revelation 21:4)
The morning will come. Maybe not
today. Maybe not tomorrow. But as Christians, we look forward to eternity, to Jesus’ kingdom fully established, to a new heavens and a new earth—one
that has no place for depression. Until then, we must point each other to this hope. As a church, we must not only provide a forum for people to talk openly about their experiences of depression and despair, but also reassure those who suffer that they are not alone. We must not condemn each other in periods of hopelessness, but instead encourage and pray for one another to once again be captured by the beauty of God’s ultimate plan. We can look to the signs of redemption all around us, to the cross which symbolizes God’s faithfulness when all seems dark, to God’s promises that suffering is not meaningless, and to the coming day when He will bring the renewal of all things—including our souls, bodies and minds. Tatianna Kufferath (CC’15) is studying Psychology, and enjoys exploring the intersection of faith and clinical practice in that field. She hopes to become a therapist for children who have witnessed or experienced traumatic events. She is a member of Columbia Faith and Action.
“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain.”
- Hebrews 6:19
Lilian Chow CC’15
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Into the Grey
Eshiemomoh Osilama sometime after Midnight when the Streetlights turn for Empty Roads I step out into the Grey and wait for Meaning to find me helpless I might choose to wander and follow the Streetlights down the Sidewalk and over a Hill bending and splashing Gold off the Darkness or I might choose to trail the Branches of Some Tree as they knot and pierce a Heavy Sky while waiting for Meaning to find me out there in the Grey above the Moon crowns the Night and falls back into the Horizon and my Lonely Shadow dances beneath my Feet and the Light spins around me though I am lost the Universe holds me at its Center as the Dawn rises again I wish for the Night and the Grey that I dare to enter. Eshiemomoh Osilama (CC’16) is a Biology major from Boston, MA, who loves to write. Being a part of CC&C this semester has really been a blessing to him, and he is looking forward to being a part of what God wants CC&C to achieve.
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When Golden Heat alights on still white birch
Chelsea Lo 14
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When Golden Heat alights on still white birch hear them shiver Long have they stood, each among the other; regal— but alone. For none defer, all prefer to stand as steel rods, rakish branches clawing at the sky (how vast and empty it can seem). Not an arm to another, not a wayward eye— each to his own plot. For a hundred, a thousand, ten million billion years: it’s how it has always been. What are the still white birch? Run your hands down their sides and they won’t flinch, so cold. so resolute. But if you could peel back their bark, see past their armor: Would they have dark hearts of splintered wood? veins of rusted metal? giblets of stone, chilling to the touch? Or would you find infuriated goblins, wraiths who have been screaming all these years, beating their tiny fists on hollow walls to be rid of their white prison? Who knows what roots hold the tall tree? (many men know, if you hold your warm blood to the ice, she will numb you before you melt her). An army of steel rods. No man could bend it.
But: When Golden Heat alights on still white birch the forest comes alive, wood becomes flesh, dull turns bright, opal begets gold. Friend, open your ears! the trees (oh, Awake, under the soft tendrils of my Golden love!): you can hear them humming. Dear brothers who I have watched grow old in this forest Dear sisters whose gracious shade has turned to gloom Dear fathers whose backs have become stiff, weary with age Dear mothers whose sigh has long since ceased to escape, When will wood be reborn silver shine again cold heart fall for its Savior? How long must we wait for cloud to never pass and sun to always beam, for rays to alight on cold birches and never leave? Friend, tell me Is it a fool’s fairytale? a weakling’s hope? But when steel rods turn to angels’ staffs, how Beautiful will the forest be. Chelsea Lo (BC’14) grew up in the wooded suburbs of Maryland, where she learned to love sunshine. A senior studying Economics and Political Science, she is on a quest to build inner clarity and embrace her faith, but will happily make stops along the way for less serious pursuits, among them pining 24/7 for chicken & waffles and cooing at YouTube videos of drowsy puppies.
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Poetry and the Redemption Story Siqi Cao
“All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” 1 Peter 1:19-25
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Nearly two-thousand years have passed since
the death of Christ and the earliest beginnings of the Christian church, creating a chasm between contemporary Christians and their ancient counterparts. Not only are we temporally displaced from the characters depicted in Scripture, but we are culturally removed as well. As a result, we feel estranged from the events and people of the Bible. Through a purely historical lens, the Christian Bible is a story of God’s people that is impossibly distant from any notion of what we consider to be our reality as God’s people. And through a purely philosophical lens, the Christian Bible becomes a handbook of metaphysics unavoidably interpreted from a modern approach, with basic assumptions entirely different from those of two millennia ago. Essentially, by choosing to understand it through either a historical or philosophical lens, we will inevitably find the Bible difficult to decipher. But I do not think God intended for us to see Scripture in this way. Rather, it is through the poeticism of the Biblical narrative
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that God communicates to us in a way that we can understand, the only way we can understand.
“Rather, the breadth of poetry extends to all corners of fiction, and its power lies both in its ability to instruct us towards virtue and goodness and in its ability to do so in a way that we delight in the instruction.” Precisely what do I mean by poetry? First, let us put aside the conventional idea of poetry as sets of stanzas fitting neatly into some ABAB or AABB rhyming scheme. Poetry is, to borrow the words of Sir Philip Sidney, an art of imitation intended to “delight and teach, and delight to move men to take that goodness in hand… and teach to make them know that goodness whereunto they are moved”1. In short, the essence of poetry cannot be limited by the structure of its verses. Rather, the breadth of poetry extends to all corners of fiction, and its power lies both in its ability to instruct us towards virtue and goodness and in its ability to do so in a way that we delight in the instruction. Sidney wrote his essay Defense of Poesy, from which the quote was borrowed, in an era of skepticism
1 Defense of Poesy
surrounding the value of poetry. Responding to critics, he maintains that because of its power to delight towards goodness, poetry is not less than history or philosophy, genres typically well esteemed, but rather more. This delightfulness of poetry, he argues, with force sufficient to move men towards goodness, is what allows it to surpass the two. The philosopher, on one hand, is limited to an audience already educated in its logic; Sidney laments that only with “attentive, studious painfulness” may a reader decipher any sort of truth from philosophy. At its best, assuming the author is fully understood, philosophy offers precepts that lack examples of application in modern life. And if we choose an entirely historical approach instead, we quickly realize the problem with historicism lies in itself. A priori, a purely historical approach is self-limiting because history is a practice in which we define, contain, and separate events into periods of history, a process that culminates in our alienation to the status of observer. In its most basic sense, pure history demands objectivity and leaves no room for participation; it can offer examples of great virtue but without truths that are pertinent to us, the lonely outsider.
“And can we claim to be educated in the ways of God, who created the heavens and the earth, the light and the darkness? If we cannot, then for all our “attentive, studious painfulness” what grand metaphysical truths can we expect God to teach us?” Therefore, if we seek a Biblical interpretation intimately relevant to our lives, attempting to understand Scripture by reducing it to a list of metaphysical truths or to a series of historical accounts is incredibly frustrating. In doing so, we read the Bible as something less than what it really is. To interpret Biblical Scripture as entirely philosophy, would we not have to be educated in the logic of God? And can we claim to be educated in the ways of God, who created the heavens and the earth, the light and the darkness? If we cannot, then for all our “attentive, studious painfulness” what grand metaphysical truths can we expect God to teach us? Instead, if Scripture is merely history, then we become the lonely observer disenfranchised from God’s love. In the Book of Deuteronomy, God tells His people whom He led out of Egypt, “For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your
hands. He knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing”2. If this is only history, then certainly God cannot be speaking to us.
“It is the Biblical narrative–the story that is undeniably the backbone of the entire text and continues today–that delights us towards goodness and, like poetry, moves us.” The beauty of the Bible is precisely that the story it captures is more than philosophy or history: it is the story of God’s people captured by poetry. And it extends beyond the mere presence of poetic heroes; for indeed the Bible has many, like Abraham who was counted righteous for his faith, David whom God blessed with wisdom, and Paul who was a humble servant of the early church. The poeticism of the Bible is much more than the appearance of a few poetic heroes or a collection of poetic moments. It is the Biblical narrative–the story that is undeniably the backbone of the entire text and continues today–that delights us towards goodness and, like poetry, moves us. Time and time again, God offers us examples of His poeticism. His poetry begins with the poetry of creation and how He brought organization to a world that was without form and void. Perhaps the most-read chapter of the Bible, Genesis 1 reads, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light”3. As I gaze into the night sky, I cannot but delight in the grandeur of Him who scatters stars across time and space and calls them by name. And in moments of self-importance, the stars themselves reveal my littleness and God’s omniscience. It is He who “formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”4. It is He who imbues me consciousness, with reality. Of what then will I be proud when I meditate on the One who authored space and time and penned my very reality into existence?
2 Deuteronomy 2:7 3 Genesis 1:1-3 4 Genesis 2:7 Spring 2014
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“Instead we are beings intimately woven into a poem in which God tenderly shows us what to love, how to love, and why we love. ” Here is where Biblical poetry moves past Sidney’s conception of poetry as fictional art which delights us and moves us towards virtue and goodness. The Christian Bible is more than this because it is a poem of truth rather than of fiction. It is the story of God’s steady redemption of humanity: though cursed by sin, beloved by a Father to the extreme that He would send His Son so that we might know Him, the grand poet of the universe. Biblical poetry is one of sonship, climaxing in the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of His Son through whom we are made heirs in the Spirit5. In his letter to the Romans, Paul writes, “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now”6. In this way, God’s poetry makes real to us the declaration that we are not alone. We are not strangers peeking in on the history of His people, because as our lives unfurl, so does another chapter
5 Galatians 4:3-6 6 Romans 8:22
of His story. We are not academics searching to excavate truth from a divine treatise. Instead we are beings intimately woven into a poem in which God tenderly shows us what to love, how to love, and why we love. Our intellect is finite, yet God, in the guise of a poet, communicates to us in ways we can understand. So let us not mistake Biblical poetry for the fantastical epics of Homer, the love sonnets of Shakespeare, or the historical epics of Neruda. Because the Bible is divine poetry, we cannot study it as we do any ordinary work. The poetry of Scripture is not smaller than we are, but rather much greater7, one that has been authored by an unfathomable Creator. In it, the roles of poet and poem are reversed and we are no longer the creators but the created. This story began in the beginning, continues today and requires sincere effort to understand. And it challenges each of us to understand our individual stories in light of the story. Siqi Cao (SEAS‘15) enjoys warm breezes, good books, and making creepy faces at security guards. She recently discovered that Toni Morrison lives within driving distance of her home so she plans on stalking the author during the weekends.
7 Lesslie Newbigin from Daniel Taylor
Siqi Cao SEAS’15
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Gendered Grace in the Book ofSarah Isaiah Durham
Last semester I reached the conclusion that the
more cosmetic chemicals I put on my face in the morning, the smoother my social interactions go that day. Brownie points for leg-lengthening heels, never mind the pain. When the cold doesn’t keep us in the Columbia pea coat, tighter clothes can’t hurt, either.
With this conclusion came a sobering realization. Louder than the occasional Dove True Beauty or Aerie Real Campaign1 is the army of images surrounding me that claim: beauty is power. And this message actually corroborates my daily experience.
“Their brilliant marketing strategy is to sell this power for the price of their product, packaged with the promise of exacting love from our beholders.” All of us have felt beautiful at some point. There is nothing so empowering. It feels delightfully dangerous to be aware of others trying to please you. As women, our need for this power is as biological as it is emotional, for from the beginning we have always had to act in view of an empowered other2. This is why American Apparel never clothes both halves of their female models simultaneously, why Vogue perfume ads make token female nudes into accessories. Their brilliant marketing strategy is to sell this power for the price of their product, packaged with the promise of exacting love from our beholders3.
1 Both campaigns purport to showcase real women and
celebrate their imperfections, with at least the latter pledging not to retouch their photos in any way. As one snide internet commenter remarked, “From now on, we will only use women who are naturally smoking hot.” 2 For a paleoanthropological perspective, see the last section of this essay where I discuss differing male/female survival strategies. (Power, Camilla. 2004. Women in prehistoric art. In New Perspectives on Prehistoric Art, edited by Günter Berghaus, pp. 75-104. Praeger, London.) 3 I owe the language of “sell[ing] this power for the price
They count on our penchant for selfempowerment—for who does not want that “all shall love me, and despair”4?—but following their advice to put ourselves on display actually puts us into the power of others. Like a European nude caged by her picture frame, we become appraised by our beholders. And the attention promiscuity brings cannot counterfeit true love. As Aristotle perceived5, what we really want is not attention (or “honor”, as he terms it) but that which honor signifies: true and abiding value. My final realization was that I had followed their advice. I had bought the product, I had clawed for beauty because it hinted at goodness, and in the process had drained myself of real wholesomeness. _______________ God rescued me. Brooding in the uncharitable chapels of my mind, I was providentially distracted by the Old Testament Book of Isaiah. In the midst of my disillusionment, here lay my solution. Here, in God’s people, Israel, was another woman following a promiscuous quest for power who had looked up too late, degraded and devalued by the very thing she set store by.
An unlikely source of comfort! Isaiah, with its sixtythree chapters of divine judgment interspersed with utopic redemption, is one of those Old Testament books prompting claims like Columbia WikiCU’s, that “the old testament God is schizophrenic”6. But the modern Christian reader of Isaiah encounters bigger problems than Yahweh’s mood-swings making
of their product”, plus the European nude metaphor later on, to John Berger’s 1972 book Ways of Seeing (chapters 3 and 7). 4 From Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: Galadriel at her mirror, envisioning herself armed with the One Ring: “Beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! …All shall love me and despair!” 5 I apologize for bringing CC into this. (Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII, “On Friendship”) 6 http://www.wikicu.com/Literature_Humanities
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her LitHum class snicker. Provocative at least and offensive at worst is Isaiah’s choice to cast Israel, God’s chosen people, as a promiscuous woman. Isaiah’s opening characterization of Zion sounds like “slut-shaming”: “How the faithful city has become a whore” (1:21). Israel’s transgressions are continually described as female: her daughters “[glance] wantonly with their eyes” (3:16); her idolatry is equated to promiscuity, a traditionally female vice. I found myself wincing at punishments seemingly engineered for Israel’s sexual humiliation: in return for her pride, the Lord “[strikes] with a scab the heads of the daughters of Zion, and [lays] bare their secret parts” (3:17). The narrative thrives on this politically incorrect gendered metaphor, and the modern Christian reader’s instinct is to execute some serious damage control: “Surely God should be more sensitive! Isn’t gender inequality unequivocally rotten, a curse from the Fall?” In fact, that is precisely Isaiah’s point. The reason Isaiah became an overpowering source of comfort for me was because of its gendered passages: more importantly, because of its gendered promises. They proved to me not only that God takes special note of the world’s abuses of women, but also that He has the power and intention to gender-specifically remedy them. He does not offer us an off-the-rack, androgynous salvation but instead one poised to address women’s age-old complaints of being treated as reproductive machines, military plunder, and sexual objects. Of course, Isaiah can also comfort male believers, but only if they are ready to be spiritually emasculated, recognizing that they are as powerless and condemnable before God as a sexually compromised woman was before her stone-casting community. They may take heart, however, for this admission grants them access to Isaiah’s sumptuous redemption—which is, by the way, also couched in explicitly feminine terms. After all, if women got the short stick at the Fall, then they should receive the juiciest firstfruits of redemption. _______________ My first installment of hope came from realizing that far from celebrating ancient women’s downtrodden condition, Isaiah was using it as a mirror image of both male and female believers’ spiritual effeminacy—in the most unfairly stereotypical sense of the word. Just as ancient women’s welfare
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was determined by male authorities who fought over their heads, so all humans’ spiritual welfare is determined not by our own virtuous exertions but by the masters we choose.
“To become what Tim Keller deems “honest intellectuals,” we must recognize that like virtually all women in ancient societies, humanity is not free. Mastered by default, our only choice is which master we will serve.” Throughout the book of Isaiah runs the privileged male dialogue of war. While the fat [tom]cats of the 6th century B.C. push around Risk pieces on a map of the Levant, Israel—our understudy—appears as a prisoner of war. A non-contender, she stands watching as her “men fall by the sword”: her male guardians dead, she sits on the ground (3:26). Isaiah’s portrayal of women as war-torn cargo is sickening: we read of “seven women….[taking] hold of one man in that day, saying, “We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, only let us be called by your name” (4:1). And I could only deal with this when I realized that it was meant to be sickening. Rather than ridiculing, Isaiah is actually validating female suffering by deeming it to heinous enough to typify all of humanity’s lack of spiritual agency. Male and female, we all must depend on—or, really, worship—something. To become what Tim Keller deems “honest intellectuals”7, we must recognize that like virtually all women in ancient societies, humanity is not free. Mastered by default, our only choice is which master we will serve. _______________ The second gender-neutral use for Isaiah’s metaphor is to illustrate that all believers, like Israel, repeatedly engage in the spiritual hook-up culture of idolatry. Isaiah harnesses the unique stigma of female promiscuity in order to convict both male and female believers that, as Jesus said, since no one is without sin, no one should be casting any stones8. Indeed, probably the only good use for the overblown stereotype of female vice is to turn it on its head, attributing its repugnancy to all believers. Male and female alike, we are ever unwilling to give up our idols, but infinitely ready to give up on God. This
7 Tim Keller, Encounters with Jesus, 28-30. 8 John 8:7, Jesus defending an adulteress condemned to death.
Siqi Cao SEAS’15 explicit account is meant for all of us: “Deserting Me, you have uncovered your bed, you have gone up to it, you have made it wide; and you have made a covenant for yourself with them, you have loved their bed, you have looked on nakedness” (Isaiah 57:8). By targeting the very thing Israel, personified as an ancient woman, would (wrongly9) be most valued for—her sexual integrity—Isaiah meant to show that we have made ourselves just as worthless through intercourse with idols. Only by such scandalous equation can our idolatry show its ugliest true colors. Isaiah’s point is that God’s disgust for idolatry—no arbitrary prudishness, but a righteous hatred of the sins of His people—outzeals even the harshest stigma placed by ancient societies on female promiscuity. _______________ Isaiah’s feminine metaphor, then, gives the ancient agony of women a gender-transcendent meaning and purpose: to illustrate humanity’s similarly desperate spiritual condition. But even once the metaphor is explained, the reality behind it still remains: male
9 To be deemed sexually worthless is the heaviest blow a woman can receive—especially, I argue, in an ancient, near-Eastern culture which prized public modesty to the point of “honor killings.” It should not be, of course: such thinking is the twisted product of a chain of abuse where she is first valued ONLY for her sexual capacity (for progeny or for pleasure) and consequently compromised once this, her only “marketable skill”, is called into question.
and female may be spiritually equal, but they are equally depraved10.
“Without God, people do realize this, and despair. They choose their poison: career milestones, cultural achievement; beautiful families and sustainable lifestyles; non-profit work, altruism, contributing to the global storehouse of knowledge.” What is the way out? Without God, it is impossible to manage the realization that we are so “effeminate,” so at the mercy of idols whom we will never satiate with our attention, effort, or time. Terrifying, to be like a bartered prisoner ignorant of her next master except he be a cruel one, to realize that until death we will be subject to a ceaseless slurry of abusive relationships in which love will never be secure. Without God, people do realize this, and despair11. They choose their poison: career milestones, cultural achievement; beautiful families and sustainable lifestyles; non-profit work, altruism, contributing to the global storehouse of knowledge. These are the highest intentions that Columbia’s unredeemed graduates can come up with, and while they may
10 JOHN CALVIN! (Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 489.) 11 David Foster Wallace realized this, and despaired. Spring 2014
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keep them from being more overtly “eaten alive”12 by money, sex, and power, what image they bear is already darkening.
“The real beauty of Isaiah’s strategy is how he declaws the female stereotypes of weakness and promiscuity and proceeds to deflect their stigma upon the very males that perpetuated them.”
“soldier,” “judge,” “prophet,” “diviner,” “elder,” “the captain of fifty” and the “man of rank” (3:2-3)— representing male leaders of all times and places who have crowed over the eye splinters of their female subjects—are forcibly fed their own medicine, and the shame they have heaped on female promiscuity serves to deepen the very slur they receive when Isaiah pronounces them all “a people laden with iniquity” (1:4). And while his nastiest female epithets are for both male and female believers, Isaiah’s most appealing passages contain feminized promises that the female believer can actually appreciate more than the male.
Grieving for these lost, we do not grieve “as [those] do who have no hope”13. Isaiah’s solution is sufficient to anchor all believers’ hopes, yet tailored to offer female believers relief for their peculiar mode of abuse by the world. God’s achingly beautiful course of action throughout the rest of Isaiah is to draw from the dregs of society its most disenfranchised members. And as He sets right what has been done to women since our species began, the corollary is that He will set right what sin has done to human beings ever since the Fall.
Because through all of homo sapiens’ evolutionary history, the sexes have been in conflict. Pursuing her own survival strategy by investing in her offspring, female homo found herself chronically abandoned by the male “philanderer,” whose own strategy was to distribute his genes, Genghis Khan-style, among as many partners as he could manage14. Throughout history men, too, have had their share of an unflattering archetype: that of the father who abandons his children.
The real beauty of Isaiah’s strategy is how he declaws the female stereotypes of weakness and promiscuity and proceeds to deflect their stigma upon the very males that perpetuated them. The “mighty man,”
Is it coincidence, then, that God has “called” Israel “like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, / like a wife of youth when she is cast off ” (54:6)? That where the male philanderer of evolutionary fame
12 David Foster Wallace, “This is Water” 13 1 Thessalonians 4:13.
14 See above Camilla Powers article (endnote 3.). TL; DR: Male hominins were scumbags.
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has abandoned her and her children to die, God will make her children “say in [her] ears: ‘The place is too narrow for me; make room for me to dwell in.’ Then [she] will say in [her] heart: ‘Who has borne me these? I was bereaved and barren, exiled and put away, but who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; From where have these come?’” (49:20-21) God’s strongest characteristic in Isaiah is nothing if not Faithful. He promises that her children will “gather together, [to] come to you,” that “your sons shall come from afar, / and your daughters shall be carried on the hip” (60:4). He pledges that “the reproach of your widowhood” (think of how vulnerable a woman would be at the death of her male protector in ancient times) “you shall remember no more” (54:4).
“For the ludicrous truth is that He is actually going to make—“has made” (60:9)—us beautiful. He is not content to merely save us.” The fate of war-torn women is so endemically troubling that even God seems to dwell on it to afford it the more dignity: “who will console you?— devastation and destruction, famine and sword; who will comfort you?” (51:19) But even their fate will recoil against their “tormentors.” Where they have been ever harrowed by the “killing machine” which “has a gender, and it is male”15—raped and beaten and bought and sold as a cipher on the balance sheets of man’s business of war—they are now commanded to “loose the bonds from your neck, O captive daughter of Zion” (52:1)! Finally, and best of all, God does not forget to manage women’s inherent (and socially enforced) burden for beauty. For the ludicrous truth is that He is actually going to make—“has made” (60:9)—us beautiful. He is not content to merely save us16. He is no Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin17 to make us grovel at his
15 Susan Sontag’s summing up of Virginia Woolf ’s correspondence with a London lawyer (from her essay “Looking at War”) 16 Charlie Drew, A Journey Worth Taking 17 That slimeball fiancée of Dunya’s in Crime and Punish-
feet for rescue, dour-faced and penitent for the rest of our earthly lives. No; God is rather a Mr. Rochester, from Jane Eyre, who insists on Jane’s wedding finery, itching to show her off as a great beauty. He vows to bring us to a place where He can acclaim us publicly: “The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory” (62:2)—Like Raskolnikov with Sonya18, He is set on reversing our disgrace, on restoring our status: “You shall no more be called Forsaken, and your name shall no more be called Desolate…But you shall be called ‘My delight is in her,’ and your land, ‘Married’” (62:4). And our beauty? “O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires. I will make your pinnacles of ruby, your gates of crystal.” (54:11-12) God actually grants us that elusive power American Apparel and all human nature-savvy merchandisers attribute to their products: the unquestionable, eternal ability to retain somebody’s investment. This kind of heady belovedness—of being “entirely safe, and entirely known”19—leads us to dance20; to display our real beauty in healthy and not degrading ways; to employ the gifts He has given us, and to never, ever question our objective worth, independent of our mood or emotions, for we know that He desires us in spite of, not because of, our conduct towards Him21. Sarah Durham (CC’16) is majoring in EconomicsPhilosophy and History. Important things in her life include yoga, Vermont, The New York Times, and John Calvin. Unlikely career aspirations include becoming the next David Foster Wallace.
ment. RAZUMIKHIN FTW 18 I am thinking of when Rodya introduces Sonya to his mother and sister, a potentially scandalous action since Sonya is a prostitute and thus could seriously damage the reputation of any associated with her. 19 Charlie Drew 20 See Jeremiah 31:4. 21 “God by his gifts anticipates all our merit, that he may thereby manifest his own merit, and give what is absolutely free, because he sees nothing in us that can be a ground of salvation.” –John Calvin
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Escaping the Prison of Guilt Marcos Martinez All people bear the weight of sin on their shoulders.
The story of Creation tells us of an all-loving God who made a man and a woman in His image. The story of the Fall tells us of a serpent and an act of disobedience. Because of Adam, the entire world was cursed and all people were born into sin. Being able to distinguish evil from good led humanity to feel guilt, which when strong enough becomes shame. No one is a stranger to these feelings. And for those of us who have embraced the mission of following Jesus, it is particularly easy to identify instances in which our actions (or even thoughts) don’t match His example. Christians are called to repent of their sins. As a matter of fact, this was Jesus’ very first message; “repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 4:17). However, repentance goes beyond mere guilt. The New Testament Greek word translated as “repentance” literally means “change of mind.” Even though guilt is the first step towards a genuine change of mind, there is no guarantee that it will actually lead us there. We need to be careful in dealing with guilt because it might endanger repentance rather than facilitate it. In order to make sure guilt leads us to repentance, it is helpful to reflect on the nature of guilt and its practical implications. Paul discusses guilt in 2 Corinthians 7:10-11: “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no
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regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.” These contrasting ideas of godly and worldly sorrow, and the fact that only one of them brings repentance tempt us to label our feelings as either one or the other. But the lines between godly and worldly guilt are not always clear. John Piper provides some insight on this issue in “The Good End of Godly Regret”. According to him, the difference between the two kinds of guilt lies in their source. Godly guilt stems from the realization of having disrespected God and the consequences of this offense in one’s relationship with Him. On the other hand, worldly guilt might result from fear of making a fool of oneself or of having jeopardized one’s safety. Giving too much importance to the way other people would react to one’s sin is particularly dangerous, since it implies putting man’s word before God’s. In Piper’s words, “Godly regret is the regret of a God-saturated heart, not a world-saturated heart.” Recently, I had an experience in which I struggled to overcome feelings of guilt. I was severely disappointed with myself because I hadn’t been loyal to two significant commitments I had made to people I cared deeply about: one of them to a close friend, and the other one to a colleague in a project. I
had prioritized my own comfort and interests before theirs, despite promising them I would not do so. Betraying their trust filled me with shame. After avoiding the situation for many weeks because of how uncomfortable it made me, I acknowledged my faults to them and apologized. However, the relief I so longed for did not come even after I had received their forgiveness. Self-reproaching thoughts lingered on although there was nothing else I could do at the time to mend those relationships.
sinners, yet made in the image of God. Our feelings will hardly ever be fully godly or worldly; they will most likely fall between the two. Therefore, trying to evaluate our experiences based on strict categories of guilt can be dangerous. If we always compare ourselves to Christ, we will never think we’re godly enough. We will end up condemning ourselves as worldly, which would lead us down a spiral of shame. Such frustration diminishes our motivation to imitate Christ.
“If we always compare ourselves to Christ, we will never think we’re godly enough.”
In order to avoid falling into these traps, we need to accept that our capacity for godly feelings is limited because we’re far from being godly creatures. I don’t mean that we should be content with our sinful instincts and embrace them. Rather, we can redirect our focus from striving to only feel godly guilt towards making sure that these feelings, no matter how complex, lead us to the right path: that of repentance. Piper has this in mind when he claims repentance is the “test of godly guilt.” He argues that one can determine if one’s guilt is godly by analyzing whether it leads to change or not. Here we can see some of the elements Paul uses to describe godly sorrow such as “eagerness to clean oneself ” and “readiness to see justice done.” We should keep our dual nature and the purpose of guilt in mind as we read the 2 Corinthians 7 passage. Meditating on the nature of our guilt is only valuable so far as it allows us to find the path towards genuine repentance.
I was constantly evaluating why my guilt remained. At the time, I was determined to change my attitude, which according to 2 Corinthians 7, means that my guilt wasn’t completely worldly. On the other hand, it wasn’t entirely godly either because it had strong components of pride and selfishness. I was concerned with the fact that I had sinned but also with losing a right standing in my friends’ eyes and failing to live up to my own standards. My guilt wasn’t exclusively worldly or godly, but rather had elements of both. I found myself striving to have it be entirely godly but I was failing terribly, which made me feel unworthy of forgiveness. My guilt seemed to have degenerated into a consuming shame that kept me focused on the gravity of my wrongdoings rather than on the will to improve my behavior, preventing a change of mind from fully taking place. It is no surprise that any of us would be unable to only feel godly guilt if we consider our dual nature;
The danger of getting caught up in one’s guilt lies in forgetting to prioritize repentance. It is important to acknowledge the harm that our sins cause, but the depth of one’s guilt should not be a standard for one’s moral worth. Reaching a certain level of guilt is not
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how one is freed from sin in Christian doctrine. The Christian response to the problem of sin is found in a third story that follows those of the Creation and the Fall: the story of Redemption. A story in which I am so flawed that I don’t deserve God’s forgiveness, but He is so full of grace and loves me in such a way that He sent His Son to die and pay for my sins. One in which all I need to do to receive this gift is to wholeheartedly accept it and give myself to Him. And one of the main things that giving ourselves to Jesus requires of us is to repent of our sins. It is because of how outrageous the Gospel is that it is so easy to miss its point, which is what I was doing by wallowing in shame instead of pursuing a change of mind. Perhaps this approach of prioritizing repentance with the sweeping power of the forgiveness given to us through Christ’s atonement will cleanse our hearts from worldly guilt.
“Therefore, we need to let repentance be the culmination of our guilt process. To continue to feel shame past the point of repentance is to deny the power of Christ’s atonement.” But, despite the forgiveness that Christ’s sacrifice provides for us, shame is not completely out of place in our lives. C.S. Lewis offers an enlightening perspective to this apparent contradiction in The Problem of Pain by reflecting on episodes of shame: “At such a moment we really do know that our character, as revealed in this action, is, and ought to be, hateful to all good men, and, if there are powers above man, to them. A God who did not regard this with unappeasable distaste would not be a good being.” We feel guilt and shame because we’re made in the image of God and sin is supposed to disgust us as it disgusts him. These feelings are a sign that there is more to the world than what the damage the Fall caused; there is also goodness, which is what we strive for and why we feel bad when we fall short of it. We cannot, then, outright reject the importance of guilt and try to suppress it, even when it has a heavy worldly component. It is only outside the context of repentance that guilt has no value. Therefore, we need to let repentance be the culmination of our guilt process. To continue to feel shame past the point of repentance is to deny the power of Christ’s atonement. We cannot refuse to forgive ourselves when God sacrificed His Son in order to forgive us. Lewis, this time in Letters to an American Lady, addresses what is behind
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shame beyond repentance: “If there is a particular sin on your conscience, repent and confess it. If there isn’t, tell the despondent devil not to be silly. You can’t help hearing his voice (the odious inner radio) but you must treat it merely like a buzzing in your ears or any other irrational nuisance.” Lewis agrees that repentance and confession is where selfcondemnation should stop and that if it doesn’t, we’re falling into a trap set by the devil. Piper has a similar take on Satan’s role in this process when he says: “If he cannot keep you from regretting your sin, then he will do his best to keep you from enjoying your forgiveness.” Moreover, Lewis reinforces the value of Christ’s sacrifice by saying: “Remember what St. John says, ‘If our heart condemns us, God is stronger than our heart.’ The feeling of being, or not being, forgiven and loved, is not what matters.” In the midst of my shame, I needed to remember that I was forgiven, even if I thought I was too terrible to deserve it. Accepting this forgiveness is crucial since only through the freedom it provides can one let go of guilt and begin a change of heart. A change that involves confessing one’s sins explicitly and without excuses, thinking of concrete steps towards changing one’s attitude, and praying so that the remnants of guilt would go away. Prayer is crucial—it also helps us determine whether we are actually experiencing a change of mind or only fooling ourselves into believing so. Of course, it is not easy to put these precepts into practice. But it is important that we at least have the steps of how to deal with sin clearly set in our minds so that we don’t get stuck along the way. Let us acknowledge and repent of our sins, yes, but once this is done, let us forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead, as Paul called us to do (Philippians 3:13). Let us not have the past weigh us down so heavily. For God has so much in store for our future if we are willing to accept His forgiveness, given to us not because we could have possibly earned it, but due to sheer grace. Marcos Martinez (CC’16) hails from the warm nation of Paraguay and is currently studying EconomicsMathematics. Through CC&C he hopes to engage people with different exposure levels to Christianity and learn from their feedback.
Siqi Cao SEAS’15
Our Place in God’s World
Jesse Peterson Who wrote the first commentary on Genesis’s
opening chapter? Not St. Augustine, not even the Apostle Paul. An ancient Hebrew poet, clearly steeped in Genesis 1:26-28, penned the following reflection (known to us moderns as the eighth psalm) as a singular celebration of humanity’s place within God’s world: Psalm 8:1 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. 3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. 9 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (ESV)
Notice a few things in this psalm.
First, the book ended refrain of v. 1 and v. 9: “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” This is where the psalmist begins and ends—the majestic Creator God who reigns over all the earth and evokes joyful praise from His creatures. God’s glory is the Alpha and Omega of human existence. “For from him, and through him, and to him are all things…” (Romans 11:36) Second, what falls between the bookends of God’s glory? In vv. 3-4 the psalmist is overcome with an inquisitive astonishment, not only at God’s creative power in constructing by his mere “fingers” the heavenly panoply which so dutifully fills our evening skies, but, even more so, that such a seemingly unapproachable Potentate could be bothered with thoughts of us puny little humans. He would care about us? Third, contrary to all a priori metaphysical obligation, God’s “care” for humanity comes not merely as an off-handed glance in our direction, but as a bonafide coronation ceremony. “Crowned with glory and honor”—the psalmist’s vivid paraphrase of Genesis 1:26-28—humanity has been divinely bestowed with the royal right to rule creation, to cultivate and steward the earth’s resources for the sake of blessing others. Of course, this investiture does in no way usurp God’s own heavenly throne.
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Humanity has therefore been placed in a specific mediatory position in the universe. We are “below” God, but “above” the rest of his creation. We have been called as God’s vice-regents to rule the world on his behalf.
“Third, contrary to all a priori metaphysical obligation, God’s “care” for humanity comes not merely as an offhanded glance in our direction, but as a bonafide coronation ceremony. ” The writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews employs this eighth psalm in order to retell the story of humanity around the story of Jesus (Hebrews 2:59). After citing the middle verses of the psalm and concluding that God had originally “given all things to mankind” and “left nothing outside his control,” he raises a problem: “But we do not see everything in subjection to him [man/humankind].” The writer of Hebrews is not naïve. We may indeed read Psalm 8 and marvel at the dignity and privilege of humanity’s original vocation in the world. But when we look outside our window, we simply “do not see” such an idyllic reality. Instead, “we see” a tsunami-desolated Japanese coast, a sub-Saharan AIDS epidemic, or a family member in the final stages of Alzheimer’s. We see creation taking the reins, sardonically mocking its supposed overlords. And yet. We do see something more. “But we see him
who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death…” (2:9) The crown that fell from humanity’s head has been placed on Adam’s understudy, the true and faithful Vice-Regent. And through Christ’s trailblazing, God is “leading many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10), thus restoring us to our original “glory and honor” prerogative. In the story of Jesus, however, the crown becomes a crown of thorns. Jesus did reclaim for humanity the royal right to rule creation, yet not by forcefully seizing the throne, but by humbly bearing the cross. What, then, does our vice-regency look like as followers of Christ? The reclamation of our original vocation means we must take up the call to be culture-makers, cultivating the earth’s resources to bless others in thousands of creative ways. Yet the remaining brokenness and futility of the world gives a specific shape to our vice-regency, one never delineated in texts like Genesis 1 or Psalm 8, one of cruciformity. Which is to say that, for us too, restoration does not take place apart from brokenness, nor growth apart from decay, nor leadership apart from service. Following Jesus in the overlap of the ages, the place of “glory and honor” turns out to be one of costly responsibility as much as gifted privilege. Jesse Peterson is a Ministry Fellow who works for Christian Union.
Yoo-Nah Park (BC’15) was born and raised in the Hudson Valley. She has a really big crush on a guy named Jesus and 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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