Ichthus Fall 2014 by The Harvard Ichthus

volume 10, number 2 fall 2014 a student journal of Christian thought at Harvard College

volume 10, number 2

fall 2014

the harvard ichthus features

Kyrios Christos: The Lordship of Jesus Christ Today Michael F. Bird

Confessions of an Economics Concentrator Peter Hickman

The Gift of Confession James K. A. Smith

Our Collective History: What is History? Where is God in History? Henry Li

A Catholic Confesses. Jane Thomas

Does God Play Dice? Or, Towards a Theology of Chance Stephen Mackereth

A Catholic Perspective: Why do I need to confess my sins to a priest? Fr. Mark Murphy

Squirming in the Pew: A Confession Brynn Elliot

fiction

In Other Words: The Tale of Cupid and Psyche Shaun Lim

poetry

On Glory David Fulton

cover

On the Cover Chantine Akiyama

last things

Last Things Nathan Otey

opinions

the harvard ichthus a student journal of christian thought at harvard college

editor-in-chief: managing editor: features editor: design editor: business manager: webmaster: faculty adviser:

Will Sack ’17 Karl Krehbiel ’15 Nathan Otey ’15 Minjeong Kim ’15 Andrew Pardue ’16 Brooke Nowakowski ’16 Prof. Jonathan L. Walton

Editor’s Note • First Words Confession | Bruce Lansky I have a brief confession that I would like to make. If I don’t get it off my chest I’m sure my heart will break. I didn’t do my reading. I watched TV instead— while munching cookies, cakes, and chips and cinnamon raisin bread. I didn’t wash the dishes. I didn’t clean the mess. Now there are roaches eating crumbs— a million, more or less.

design team: Brionna Atkins ’16

I didn’t turn the TV off. I didn’t shut the light. Just think of all the energy I wasted through the night.

staff: Peter Hickman ’16, David Fulton ’16, Brynn Elliot ’18, David Paiva ’16, Brandon Wright ’18, Christian Schatz ’18, Brooke Dickens ’16, Siobhan McDonough ’17

I feel so very guilty. I did a lousy job. I hope my students don’t find out that I am such a slob.

editors: Jane Thomas ’15, Henry Li ’16, Shaun Lim ’15, Stephen Mackereth ’15

the harvard ichthus is made possible in part by contributions from the Cecil B. Day Foundation, the Collegiate Network, Christian Union, the Undergraduate Council, and generous alumni please direct all inquiries to: the harvard ichthus c/o Stephen Mackereth 340 mather mail center cambridge, ma 02138

or by e-mail at: harvardichthus@gmail.com

What is a confession? The Merriam-Webster gives us the following possible definitions: “1: to tell or make known (as something wrong or damaging to oneself): admit 2: to acknowledge (sin) to God or to a priest 3: to declare faith in or adherence to: to profess”. I would submit that confession means all these things, but also something more, something more accurately represented in this poem above than in the definitions. Confession recognizes, like the teacher who is no better than his or her students, our failings and our equality. Moreover, as the poem notes in the beginning, to not confess is only to hurt yourself. I’m particularly happy to use a poem here, because I believe that a confession, like a poem, is an expression of the heart. And that is what our writers have written. With that in mind, I give you this edition of the Ichthus, and in it, our confessions. Yours in Christ, yours always,

Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae William C. Sack

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O R ,

T O W A R D S

T H E O L O G Y

O F

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D oes G od Play Dice ? C H A N C E

Stephen Mackereth

The one really excellent book I have read on this topic, to which the present article is heavily indebted, is David J. Bartholomew’s God, Chance, and Purpose: Can God Have it Both Ways?. Bartholomew is an Emeritus Professor of Statistics at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and was the President of the Royal Statistical Society from 1993 to 1995. His writing is extremely clear and accessible. The late Revd. Canon Arthur Peacocke MBE has produced further theological reflections, especially in Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming – Natural, Divine, and Human, pp.115-121.

od, Einstein quipped, does not play dice. Or so it seemed. Now, however, our current scientific picture of the world seems to involve a significant element of chance, in such diverse areas as the origins of life, evolution by natural selection, and mainstream interpretations of quantum mechanics. This observation prompts some of the most difficult questions at the intersection of theology and science. What

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does it mean to uphold the traditional creedal claims of God’s goodness, omniscience, sovereignty (i.e. omnipotence), and purpose for the natural world He created if that world seems to have chance built into it? When we say that a possible event E is due to chance, what we mean is that there is nothing in the world that would allow us to predict whether E

actually occurs at time t. Now there is an ambiguity here: is the occurrence of E unpredictable because we simply don’t (or couldn’t) know all the relevant information, or is it in some sense intrinsically unpredictable – the product of a truly random process? The latter possibility is the theologically troubling one. For a truly random process would be unknowable even by God. And does the theist really want to say

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The relationship between chance and order is in fact exceedingly complicated, and depends also upon the scale at which you look at things. What is chaotic at one level may well be orderly at a higher level, and vice versa.

that not even God knows whether (say) this uranium-238 atom will decay in the next ten seconds? Is such a God still “in control” of His creation? Certain theologians (typically in the Reformed tradition) have argued against construing chance as evidence of actual randomness in the world.1 These Reformed theologians prefer a totally deterministic doctrine of divine sovereignty, in which God controls the outcomes of even the “chance events” of the physical universe. Under this view, chance is not an agent or entity; there are no random processes; 1 Bartholomew (p.2) cites the example of the prominent Calvinist theologian R. C. Sproul’s Not a Chance: The Myth of Chance in Modern Science and Cosmology (1994), whose thesis is “to show that it is logically impossible to ascribe any power to chance whatever.”

But, as David J. Bartholomew argues in God, Chance, and Purpose, the Reformed position may be unsatisfactory in light of the empirical fact of chance. In the quantum arena, Bell’s theorem shows that all deterministic, non-probabilistic interpretations of quantum mechanics (e.g., “hidden variables” theories) must give up the principle of locality, which is a rather unappealing move (cf. Bartholomew, p.199, fn.3). This strongly suggests that the deterministic route is not the way to go.

look as though they were. This in itself is theologically significant: “something indistinguishable from pure chance is being used” by God in the structure of His creation (Bartholomew p.204). If God’s character and intentions are supposed to be reflected in the structure of His creation, then it would seem a little odd fOR God to be causally micro-managing the universe “somewhat furtively under cover of randomness,” as Bartholomew puts it; one might wonder whether that is “a God-like thing to do” (p.130). If this is what God were doing, it would be very impressive, but also rather misleading, to say the least. So what are we to do?

Furthermore, and less technically: even if chance events aren’t actually caused by random processes, they still

It seems that, especially in light of the quantum revolution, we are stuck with chance in a way that former genera-

and chance events are unpredictable only from a human point of view.

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Bartholomew regards statistical laws as part of God’s providential and orderly design for physical phenomena. Perhaps God wanted His creation to satisfy some or other of those laws, and decided to use random processes as a way of bringing this about.

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havior of physical things.2 Thus could Isaac Newton say, “This most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets, and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.”3 As an aside, I should emphasize that in the classical picture, God is not thought of as a “God of the gaps” whose miraculous intervention is to be invoked as an explanation of the extraordinary, irregular, or mysterious. Rather, He is the God of the ordinary, regular, and therefore entirely suspicious lawfulness and intelligibility of the universe. The theist tends to look at the world in a kind of perpetual wonderment that it should be essentially orderly at all, and, what’s more, that it should admit of (relatively) simple description by a few elegant physical laws knowable by humans. The authors of Scripture saw the personality and character of the Judeo-Christian God in that very orderliness. Thus the psalmist could write, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Ps 19:1, ESV). The psalmist goes on to draw a close parallel between the perfection of God’s natural order and that of His moral order. Similarly, in Jer 31:35-37, the regularity of the “fixed order” of the heavens is likened to the divine faithfulness in human affairs, that is, God’s faithfulness in keeping his covenantal promises to Israel. Returning to our main topic, chance does not seem to offer any such pros2 This discussion was inspired by pp.18-19 of Vern Poythress, Redeeming S c i e n c e : A God-Centered Approach. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2006. 3 General Scholium to the Principia. Andrew Motte’s English translation (1729) is available on the page “Newton’s General Scholium.” Newton Project Canada. http://isaacnewton. ca/newtons-general-scholium/.

pect of being understood as the purposeful handiwork or craftsmanship of a good, wise, powerful Creator. Not at face value, anyway. What, then, are we to do with the current probabilistic interpretations of quantum mechanics, which posit that certain subatomic phenomena are in fact random processes? What about the randomness of genetic mutation that underpins all of evolutionary biology? What do these physical processes tell us about God’s orderly design and authority over His creation? Bartholomew makes several helpful points. In the first place, the relationship between chance and order is in fact exceedingly complicated, and depends also upon the scale at which you look at things. What is chaotic at one level may well be orderly at a higher level, and vice versa. The emergence of order from chaos is seen in something as simple as the eventual conformity of the number of heads out of ten fair coin tosses to a binomial distribution B(10, 0.5). Or, for a slightly more sophisticated example, the ideal gas laws (along with all the other thermodynamic laws) are fundamentally statistical: they are derived by starting from the assumption that particles move about at random, and then deducing facts about the aggregate of all the particles. Conversely, chaos theory studies how even a system governed by a few simple and deterministic rules can exhibit chaotic, unpredictable behavior in the long-term and at the grand scale. For instance, even deterministic mathematical models of weather systems exhibit the same eventually chaotic (turbulent) behavior that we find in real-life weather systems. Such systems are so sensitive that longterm predictability, in the deterministic sense, is impossible. (See Bartholomew ch. 3-4.)

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tions were not. In the classical, Newtonian scientific picture of the world, it was much easier to find a place for God. The Christian God has always been understood to be the transcendent Creator and sustainer of the universe. The universe is his handiwork, his craftsmanship. The order and beauty of the natural world is understood to reflect that craftsmanship. Classical Newtonian laws like the law of universal gravitation seemed a fitting expression of that providential order and beauty: elegant, simple, unchanging, universally true throughout all spacetime, immaterial, transcendent, yet actually governing the be-

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Is God supposed to tell the coin, “Come up heads or tails. I don’t really care. Your pick”? Bartholomew suggests that God might use the mechanisms of pseudo-randomness, the sort that we use in pseudo-random number generators; but this response is not entirely satisfying.

Two ideas emerge from this discussion. On the one hand, it might turn out that chaos at some scales is an inevitable consequence of order at other scales: chaos emerges from order. (This is admittedly a highly speculative and tendentious way of putting it.) On the other hand, chance is not without laws of its own: order emerges from chaos. There are precise and orderly laws that arise from the operation of random processes; we may call them statistical laws. The laws of thermodynamics are an example already mentioned. It seems that these statistical laws help to explain the world in a way not reducible to laws of the merely classical type. The statistical laws are in a sense complementary to the classical kind of

investigation.4 Whether the relevant laws are classical or statistical depends, in part, upon the level you are considering within the system. If this is correct, then chance would feature as an integral part of the scientific explanation of the world. If you try to leave statistical laws out of the picture, you will be neglecting to describe some of the orderliness and intelligibility that exists in the world. Bartholomew regards statistical laws as part of God’s providential and orderly design for physical phenomena. Perhaps God wanted His creation to 4 This discussion is influenced by Bernard J. F. Lonergan’s Insight: a Study of Human Understanding. New York: Philosophical Library, 1970.

satisfy some or other of those laws, and decided to use random processes as a way of bringing this about. In fact this is not such a far-fetched idea, since we ourselves do the very same thing. Humans, as Bartholomew notes, use chance in a variety of soberly practical applications (e.g., Monte Carlo simulation, genetic algorithms, and so forth; see his ch.10). The Reformed theologian may object (as Bartholomew notes, pp.216-20) that, whilst humans can take advantage of random or pseudo-random processes that already exist in the world and co-opt them for human purposes, it is quite another matter for God to create and sustain truly random processes. Is it even coherent for God to create and

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Bartholomew is willing to bite the bullet and propose the rather radical thesis that God is a risk-taker: that He does in fact play dice with the universe, and the unfolding possibilities are in fact genuinely open possibilities.

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Finally, to all these points, Bartholomew adds an aesthetic consideration. In addition to soberly practical applications, humans also use chance just for fun. Whether it be a game of pitch-and-toss, or throwing paint at a blank canvas, chance introduces a pleasant kind of variety and novelty into the world. You might think that this would be a desirable thing. This is eloquently expressed by Bartholomew, p.34: “what could be more elegant than to conceive and get going such a simple and beautiful system? A universe which makes itself. A universe burgeoning with potential. Surely God could have done no other.” Or, as Peacocke puts it, “God the Creator explores in creation” (Peacocke p.121). The real worry in all this is, what are theological implications of considering random processes to be part of the divine design? Bartholomew is willing to bite the bullet and propose the rather radical thesis that God is a risk-taker: that He does in fact play dice with the universe, and the unfolding possibilities are in fact genuinely open possibilities. If God is a risk-taker, then He takes actions where “the outcome was intrinsically uncertain and which might turn out contrary to His intentions” (p.225). This thesis, Bartholomew is well aware, requires a somewhat radical reinterpretation of traditional Christian teaching on God’s sovereignty and omniscience. Of particular worry for Bartholomew (pp. 228-9) is the doctrine of the Incarnation. The eternal second person of the Trinity entered into time as Jesus Christ, fully man and fully God, so that His perfect human life and innocent death might rescue the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve from our exile. Under Bartholomew’s

proposal, entering into time means entering the domain of chance, and outside the domain of God’s total control. Choosing Incarnation as the means of bringing about our salvation therefore seems like a tremendous risk. Is it impious to ask whether things could have gone wrong with Jesus, such that God might have had to try again a second time? Then again, our Jesus was the second attempt, or perhaps the umpteenth attempt, at God’s first and riskiest venture. It is a venture familiar to every parent, in a way: the venture of raising free, responsible, intelligent children to love what is good and avoid what is evil, children who are able to make choices and take risks of their own. Things did go wrong in that first and riskiest venture, and they have been going wrong ever since; and God has not yet grown weary of us. One might be wary of too hastily reinterpreting traditional doctrines to fit God to the science of the present age. Yet, equally, it would be naïve to suppose that the traditional Christian doctrines were not themselves influenced by the science of their days. (The Newtonian picture of the world has always flirted with theological determinism, which no doubt informed the Reformed tradition in its theological reflection.) Each age will have to reinterpret the depositum fidei for itself, as responsibly as it is able. Should we therefore accept Bartholomew’s proposal? Perhaps we should at least give it a sporting chance. •

•

Stephen Mackereth ’15 is a Mathematics and Philosophy concentrator living in Mather House and is a staff editor for the Ichthus.

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sustain a random process? How could He (knowingly, deliberately) create a process that brings about outcomes that He Himself does not know and cannot predict? If God doesn’t make the tossed coin come up heads, then what does? Is God supposed to tell the coin, “Come up heads or tails. I don’t really care. Your pick.”? Bartholomew suggests (p.220) that God might use the mechanisms of pseudo-randomness, the sort that we use in pseudo-random number generators; but this response is not entirely satisfying. It is difficult to know what to say. I imagine that all efforts (whether theistic or non-theistic) to account for why an event due to chance actually occurs or does not occur will run into similar philosophical trouble.

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Ky r i o s C h r i s to s : THE LORDSHIP OF JESUS CHRIST TODAY Michael F. Bird

o profess that Jesus is Lord is to make no empty claim. It is the singular most important confession that a person can make about who Jesus is and about their relationship to Jesus. To identify Jesus as Lord is to state that God the Father has appointed the crucified and risen man, Jesus of Nazareth, as the master and commander of the cosmos. To acknowledge that Jesus is Lord with one’s lips, by surrendering one’s heart, and by bowing (metaphorically or literally) one’s knees, means that one recognizes that Jesus is the ultimate authority over all things. The sun at the center of the theological universe of the New Testament is this: Jesus reigns. Truth be told, the Greek word Kyrios for “Lord” is not a technical title for a deity, but simply denotes a person who has authority over someone or something. In the ancient world slaves referred to their masters as Kyrios (Greek) or Dominus (Latin). In the

Have a brief glance through the Book of Acts and you’ll notice as clear as day that baptism, thanksgiving, prayers, hymns, praise, and celebratory meals all take place in the context of devotion to the Jesus Christ as the Lord.

Gospels, when Jesus is addressed as “Lord,” it often means no more than “Sir” or “Master.”1 However, there are other occasions when designation of Jesus as “Lord” is clearly intended to convey Jesus’ divine identity. The resurrection and exaltation of Jesus drove the early church to refer to Jesus as “Lord” in ways identical to how the Old Testament referred to God as YHWH. We need to remember that the Hebrew names for God, the tetragrammaton YHWH and the more general Adonai, were usually translated in the Septuagint (i.e. the Greek version of the Old Testament) with Kyrios for “Lord.” So when Paul says that Jesus is the “one Lord” through whom all things come (1 Cor 8:6, Dt 6:4) and that “every tongue will acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil 2:11 = Isa 45:23) he was using YHWH-language to describe Jesus as the “Lord.” The purpose of this blend 1 The exception perhaps is Mt 7:22 where Jesus describes himself as the eschatological “Lord” of the end of history.

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In several other instances the lordship of Jesus constitutes the rubric for the New Testament witness to Jesus. For example, Psalm 110 opens with, “The Lord said to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” This was the favorite text for Christian interpreters and preachers. Flip through any New Testament concordance and you’ll find citations, allusions, and echoes of Ps 110 literally and literarily everywhere. A christological reading of Ps 110 gave strong impetus to the view that Jesus was the singular highest authority in heaven and earth. Second, Paul tells us that when the Judean leaders and Roman authorities killed Jesus, they did not put a mere man to death, rather, “They crucified the Lord of Glory” (1 Cor 2:8). N.B.: Paul brazenly applies an attribute associated with God — the “God of glory” (see Acts 7:2; Rom 3:23; 5:2; 1 Cor 10:31; 11:7; 2 Cor 1:20; Rev 21:23) — to Jesus. N.T. Wright puts it well: “The ‘rulers and authorities’ of Rome and of Israel … the best government and the highest religion the world at that time had ever known — conspired to put Jesus on the cross.” These rulers did not recognize Jesus as the bearer of the regal and radiant splendor of God Almighty.2 Third, the place where Jesus’ glory will be supremely manifested is, of course, his second coming. Aramaic-speakers in the early church regarded the return of the “Lord,” Mara in Aramaic, as the coming of Jesus to judge the world (1 Cor 16:22; Rev 22:20; Didache 10.6). This is why Paul urged Titus to look ahead to “the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Tt 2:13). The revelation of the Lord Jesus at the end of history would be the revelation of the glory of Israel’s God. The final and climactic manifestation of Jesus as Lord will take place at his second coming when he rescues believers from the coming wrath (1

Paul tells us that when the Judean leaders and Roman authorities killed Jesus, they did not put a mere man to death, rather, “They crucified the Lord of Glory” (1 Cor 2:8).

Thess 1:10), gathers them to himself (2 Thess 2:1), and overthrows lawless authorities (2 Thess 2:8). This is the moment when Jesus will be by might what he is by right: the cosmocrator, the divine master and commander over everything and everyone! So whether it was expositing Scriptures like Ps. 110, contemplating the glory of God in Christ, or waiting for Jesus’ return, all of this was saturated with the imagery of Jesus as Lord. The lordship of Jesus Christ was not merely a doctrinal formula, but something that pervaded the witness, work, and worship of the early church.

2 N.T. Wright, Climax of the Covenant (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 116 .

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of scriptural allusion and devotion to Jesus is to underscore the unequaled status given to Jesus by God the Father.

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To acknowledge that Jesus is Lord with one’s lips, by surrendering one’s heart, and by bowing (metaphorically or literally) one’s knees, means that one recognizes that Jesus is the ultimate authority over all things. Have a brief glance through the Book of Acts and you’ll notice as clear as day that baptism, thanksgiving, prayers, hymns, praise, and celebratory meals all take place in the context of devotion to the Jesus Christ as the Lord. In the early church, the word and example of the Lord Jesus carried pre-eminent authority (1 Thess 4:15; 1 Cor 7:10; 11:1; 1 Pet 2:21). The preaching of the gospel was the proclamation of Jesus as Lord (see Acts 2:36; 5:14; 8:16; 9:5 10:36; 28:31; 2 Cor 4:5; 2 Thess 1:8). Knowing God meant knowing the lordship of Jesus Christ (Eph 1:17; 2 Thess 1:8). In fact, the most basic definition of what it means to be a Christian is one who confesses Jesus as Lord, because it is by such a confession that one is saved (Rom 10:9-10), and such a confession can only be made with the help of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:3). On a more chilling note, Paul declares that if anyone does not love the Lord, then he or she is cursed (1 Cor 16:22). Evidently loving the Lord Jesus is identical to the type of covenant loyalty that was expected of Israelites in the love for YHWH (see

Dt 6:4; 10:12-13).3 We should also add there is a very sharp and subversive claim implied with the profession that Jesus is Lord. In the Roman world of the first century, Caesar was venerated as “Lord” over the realms he ruled, not just politically, but also religiously. Worship of the emperor all over the empire, while localized in form and varied in intensity, was aimed at ensuring the devotion of his subjects. In ancient media like coins, pottery, and poetry one can find celebration of the emperor as both a “god” and a mediator before the “gods.” In some inscriptions one reads statements such as, “Emperor [Augustus] Caesar, god and lord” and “Nero, the lord of the whole world.”

governor had been installed as King of kings and Lord of lords! To some it might sound disgusting, while to others it would mark you as a political dissident or simply a lunatic. Wright rightly observes: “To come to Rome with the gospel of Jesus, to announce someone else’s accession to the world’s throne, therefore, was to put on a red coat and walk into a field with a potentially angry bull.”4

Picture what it would be like to confess that Jesus is Lord in such a context. Visualize yourself standing on a street in downtown Rome announcing that a Jewish man put to death by a Roman

The best analogy I can provide is this: imagine you are in an extravagant hotel in Berlin during the 1930s for a dinner party attended by a mix of lawyers, doctors, businessmen, and military officers. While the evening is mostly polite and cordial, with small talk on everything from the stock market to the latest operas, a military officer suddenly taps his glass and proposes a toast to the Führer, Adolf Hitler. Then, as everyone stands, and raises their glasses, you, being the committed Christian you are, interrupt and propose an alternative

3 D. E. Garland, 1 Corinthians (BECNT; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2003), 774.

4 N.T. Wright, “Romans,” New Interpreters Bible, 10:423.

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Nero did not have Christians thrown to the lions because they said, “Jesus is Lord of my heart.” toast. Everyone is startled and looks at you as you proudly utter in your best German, “Jesus der Jude aus Nazaret ist der wahre Führer” (Jesus the Jew from Nazareth is the true Leader). You probably won’t have long before the Gestapo comes and takes you away to a very nasty place for making such a subversive claim. Lest I seem to be overstating the political dimensions of Jesus’ lordship, keep in mind that Nero did not have Christians thrown to the lions because they said, “Jesus is Lord of my heart.” The Romans were not interested in the internal dispositions of people’s lives. Confession of Jesus as Lord was always a scandalous and subversive claim. Profession of a “lord” is not merely religious language for adoration on some spiritual plane; it is also a matter of social and political protest. When it came to who was running the show, the Christians knew that there were only two options: the Son of Augustus or the Son of David. By singing and preaching about Jesus as Lord, they were opting for the latter, a claim regarded by political authorities as seditious. As N.T. Wright suggests: “At every point, therefore, we should expect what we in fact find: that for Paul, Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not.”5 It is worthwhile to think about what proclaiming Jesus as Lord means for us 5 N.T. Wright, Paul in Fresh Perspective (Minneapolis: MN: Fortress, 2009), 69.

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6 H.A.A. Kennedy St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, 439 cited in C.F.H. Henry, God, Revelation, and authority. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1999), 2:239.

‘Mine!’”7 If that is the case, then true discipleship is about dutifully and faithfully living out the lordship of Jesus Christ. Discipleship means ordering our lives according to his story, symbols, teaching, and authority. Evangelism is not about asking people to try Jesus the way they might try a new decaf moccacino latte from Starbucks. It is more like declaring the victory of the Lord Jesus over sin and death, warning of the judgment 7 Cited in James D. Bratt, Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 461

To confess that Jesus is “Lord” is to announce that he is Lord of all. At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, every Christian, every Jew, every Muslim, every Hindu, and every atheist, and they will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. I don’t know whether you’ve thought about it, but this is deeply offensive and disturbing stuff to postmodern sensibilities.

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...keep in mind that

today. Some time ago H.A.A. Kennedy opined that “the term ‘Lord’ has become one of the most lifeless words in the Christian vocabulary.” When the title “Lord” lost its reverence, it also lost its relevance and the title was reduced to something like “a spiritually meaningful religious leader.” That is a travesty because acclamation of Jesus as Lord is no empty confession or a vague religious platitude. More likely, as Kennedy himself adds, “To enter into its meaning and to give it practical effect would be to re-create, in great measure, the atmosphere of the Apostolic Age.”6 I concur with Kennedy, because when we discover what it means to live with respect to the lordship of Jesus, then we can get closer to the pattern of devotion that the New Testament calls us to emulate. To confess that Jesus is “Lord” is to announce that he is Lord of all. At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow; every Christian, every Jew, every Muslim, every Hindu, and every atheist, and they will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. This is deeply offensive and disturbing stuff to postmodern sensibilities. Confession of Jesus as Lord implies that all religions are not equal. Jesus is not a leader who has his authority curtailed by politicians or sociologists telling him which areas of life he’s allowed to give people advice on. Jesus is the boss of everyone’s religion, politics, economics, ethics, and everything. Jesus is not interested in trying to capture a big chunk of the religious market; to the contrary, he’s in the business of completely monopolizing it with the glory, justice, and power of heaven. And he has every right to do so, being as he the firstborn of all creation, and the cosmos is both his handiwork and his inheritance! Consequently Abraham Kuyper was right to declare that “there is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence which Christ who is Sovereign over all, does not cry:

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Evangelism is not about asking people to try Jesus the way they might try a new decaf moccacino latte from Starbucks. It is more like declaring the victory of the Lord Jesus over sin and death, warning of the judgment to be made by the Lord Jesus over all rebellion, and inviting people to find joy and satisfaction in the life and love that come from the Lord Jesus Christ.

to be made by the Lord Jesus over all rebellion, and inviting people to find joy and satisfaction in the life and love that come from the Lord Jesus Christ. In my visits to the United States I have observed a strong historically conditioned aversion to monarchs, masters, and lords in American culture. There is no American royal family — though if we get another Clinton or Bush in the White House it might be a de facto royal dynasty if you ask me — and such a family would not be welcomed in most quarters. Apparently America has no plans to recant its declaration of independence and to come under the gentle yoke of the English monarch any time soon either! Most American churches would probably loathe the prospect of having Prince Charles installed as the “Supreme Governor” of their respective denominations (and I confess that I share the aversion too). In a curious anecdote, R.C. Sproul observes: Sometimes it is difficult for people in the United States to grasp the full significance of the title Lord. An Englishman came to this country in the decade of the sixties, and upon arrival spent his first week in Philadelphia becoming acquainted with historic landmarks, such as Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. In order to familiarize himself with American culture, he visited several antique stores that

specialized in colonial and revolutionary memorabilia. In one such shop he saw several posters and signboards that contained the slogans of the revolution, such as No Taxation Without Representation, and Don’t Tread on Me. One signboard attracted his attention more than the rest. In bold letters the sign proclaimed: we serve no sovereign here. As he mused on this sign, he wondered how people steeped in such an antimonarchical culture could come to grips with the notion of the kingdom of God and the sovereignty that belongs to the Lord. The concept of lordship invested in one individual is repugnant to the American tradition, yet this is the boldness of the claim of the New Testament for Jesus, that absolute sovereign authority and imperial power are vested in Christ.8 I understand the patriotic dislike of foreign lords who might potentially attack and then tax Americans. Yet such an aversion to a “lord” might be taken too far in some contexts. Strange parts of American evangelicalism — the so-called “no lordship” advocates — have even contended that one should not even preach Jesus as Lord in evangelism, but only as Saviour. Apparently making Jesus lord of one’s life is something that is not meant to happen until much later in one’s 8 R.C. Sproul, Following Christ (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1996), 31

Christian walk. Such a view, quite frankly, merits the mother of all theological facepalms. Profession of Jesus as Lord is not asking for assent to the mere fact of his deity, but calling people to faithfulness, obedience, and allegiance towards him. Jesus wants followers, not fans!9 If I may gently plead with my American friends, with your aversion to “Kings” and “Lords:” before you throw all the christological tea over side of the theological boat, reflect on the words of Paul: “Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love” (Eph 6:24). To love Jesus as Lord is to love Jesus’ lordship. We do this knowing that Jesus is neither a tyrant nor a despot. While Jesus is Lord of all, he is also Lord for all. The goodness, kindness, love, and compassion of Jesus as our Savior is also reflected in Jesus as our Lord. If we were to make a Christian psalm book, the most common refrain should be, “The Lord Jesus is good, his love endures forever” (cf. Ps 100:5; 106:1; 107:1; 118:1, 29; 136:1)! To know Jesus as Lord is to know and taste that God is good.

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Michael F. Bird is a professor of Theology at Ridley Melbourne College of Mission and Ministry and a contributor to the Ichthus. 9 Cf. further Darrell, L. Bock, “Jesus as Lord in Acts and in the Gospel Message,” BSac 143 (1986): 146-54; Millard Erickson, “Lordship Theology: The Current Controversy,” SWJT 33 (1991): 5-15; Michael S. Horton, Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1992).

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FICTION

In Other Words:

T h e Ta l e o f C u p i d and Psyche S I N , S A N C T I F I C AT I O N A N D G LO R I F I C AT I O N I N T H E A N C I E N T GREEK MY TH

Shaun Lim

n a certain village, there lived a princess named Psyche who was so beautiful that she received worship from her people as a goddess. Angered, the goddess of love Venus commanded her son, Cupid (also Eros, or “Desire”), to punish her by making her fall in love with a hideous creature. However, Cupid himself fell in love with her and took her as his wife, with the condition that Psyche was forbidden to look on his face until they had their first child, when their marriage would be finally realized. Seized with jealousy at her fortuitous betrothal to the god, Psyche’s sisters tempted her to disobedience, provoking her to attempt to kill her unknown husband, out of fear. When night fell, Psyche, trembling, having forgotten her husband’s warnings and acquiesced to her sisters’ instructions, steeled herself for her

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crime. Yet as she stared at her husband in bed, light shone clear and her eyes were opened. She realized how naked she was (Gen 3:7) — for she was in the presence of a god. What no eye had seen, what no ear had heard, what no mind had imagined (1 Cor 2:9) lay before her. No wonder her desires were stilled in his presence; she was in the presence of Desire himself! The wisdom of her wise sisters suddenly became as utter foolishness to Psyche (1 Cor 1:20). Inflamed with desire for Desire, she reached eagerly for her husband, but knocked over a lamp and roused him with a drop of hot oil. Scalded, Cupid arose. Realizing his secret had been betrayed, he flew swiftly from his wife’s embrace. “Foolish Psyche,” he cried, “as Venus had commanded me, the wages of

your misguided indulgence in praise from humans were to be death as a mortal (Rom 6:23). Instead, I loved you, yet you would seek to disobey and sever my head! You shall be cast from my presence, and my spirit taken away from you (Ps 51:11). As for your sisters, those false teachers, it would be better for them to have a great millstone fastened around their neck and be hurled into the sea (Mt 18:6).” With this, Cupid flew off, leaving Psyche helpless and heartbroken at the loss of her husband. Soon after, in punishment for tempting Psyche, Cupid misled Psyche’s sisters into believing he was seeking to marry them, in Psyche’s place. Led to a cliff, they took their turn at hurling themselves off, expecting to be caught by Cupid – only to find not the God waiting at a palace but a rather grisly

FICTION death upon sharp rocks. Soon after, Venus discovered that Psyche was not punished as she had intended. Incensed at Psyche’s betrayal

She realized how naked she was (Gen 3:7) – for she was in the presence of a god. What no eye had seen, what no ear had heard, what no mind had imagined (1Cor 2:9) lay before her.

of her son, she searched throughout the land for Psyche, that Cupid’s illegitimate wife might face the punishment prepared for her. Meanwhile, Psyche wandered the land, seeking Cupid, who lay in his mother’s chamber, groaning about his scorched shoulder. Having tasted the joys of Desire, Psyche yearned to take refuge in him once more (Ps 34:8), but Desire was nowhere to be found. Her soul yearned, even fainted, for the courts of Desire; her heart and flesh cried out for him (Ps 84:2) but to no avail. Despairing of ever finding her true Love on her own, and being refused sanctuary wherever she sought it, Psyche took counsel of her thoughts. Where could she run from Venus? What else could she try by her own strength? She feared the punishment that awaited, but she could no

longer do what she needed to do on her own. The great unknown was her only alternative; surely, it was the only way. And so Psyche turned herself in, coming into her Accuser’s presence, abandoning all notions of finding peace and hope elsewhere. The moment Venus laid eyes on Psyche, she flew into a terrible rage: “So, deign to call on your mother-in-law at last, do you? Trying to stir my sympathies with that swollen belly of yours? No, since your ‘marriage’ of mortal and god took place in some country villa, with nary a witness, without the father’s consent, it was not done within the law, and your child is illegitimate! Dogs will not eat from the children’s table (Mk 7:27). You and your illegitimate child have no place in our family of gods!” After flogging and torturing Psyche,

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Venus bestowed upon her a series of impossible tasks, by which she should attempt to work out her salvation and sanctification with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12). Through task after task that was hurled at her, each of increasing difficulty and danger, Psyche survived through the unmerited grace shown to her on Cupid’s behalf. She worked, though it was not her, but the grace through her husband that was with her (1Cor 15:10). When she was charged with separating a pile of wheat, millet, barley, poppy seeds, chickpeas, lentils, and beans, a squadron of ants came to her aid because she was the wife of Love himself. When she was sent to steal some golden fleece from a flock of savage sheep, she was saved from suicide by a reed, which showed her how to pick stray threads of wool caught in bent branches. When she was commanded to collect the freezing waters of the River Styx from amidst the serpents inhabiting it, she was assisted by Jupiter’s eagle who, remembering his allegiance to Cupid, took pity on Psyche and gathered the water on her behalf. In all of these trials, it was on Cupid’s

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and, at his right hand, rose to intercede for Psyche (Rom 8:34). Eventually persuaded, Jupiter agreed to unite Cupid and Psyche together in matrimony, and called an assembly of all the heavenly beings to celebrate and rejoice in the restoration of Psyche to Cupid (Lk 15:10). And he turned to Venus, saying: “Behold, I am making all things new (Rev 21:5). Now my daughter, do not be despondent at Cupid marrying a mortal; do not call unclean what I have made clean (Acts 11:9). I will graft her in among the other immortals as a wild branch, so she can be part of the same olive tree we are in (Rom 11:17).” And he had Mercury bring Psyche to heaven at once. Once there, he handed her a cup of ambrosia as a blessing, saying: “Drink this as participation in our body as a mark of your marriage, because we are all one body through

But, just as she succumbed to temptation once, doing what she did not desire and not doing what she did desire (Rom 7:15), she succumbed once again to her human weakness.

FICTION

She worked, though it was not her, but the grace through her husband that was with her (1 Cor 15:10).

account that Psyche was sent a helper to assist her in carrying out Venus’ commandments (Jn 14:15-16). Indeed, this was apparent; Venus, in her indignant rage, declared, “This is not your doing, you wretch, but Cupid’s, who fell in love with you — to both your misfortunes — and now works in you (Gal 2:20).” In time Psyche discovered that even with help, she was still unable to accomplish all she was charged to do. By her works alone, without grace, it was impossible to please Venus (Heb 11:6). In her final trial, she was sent to Hades itself — where mortals went but did not return — to retrieve a box of Persephone’s beauty for Venus. With the help of a speaking turret, she nearly succeeded — just as she nearly succeeded in obeying her husband Cupid. But, just as she succumbed to temptation once, doing what she did not desire and not doing what she did desire (Rom 7:15), she succumbed once again to her human weakness. Tempted by vanity into unsealing the jar of beauty at the very edge of Hades, she was thrown into a deep slumber. In this way, Venus triumphed over Psyche, for though Psyche succeeded in all the tasks, she failed in one point and so became accountable for all of it (Jas 2:10). By this time, Cupid, in his love, could no longer bear separation from his wife, and yearned to reconcile her and draw her to himself (Col 1:20). Motivated by the love which he had inflicted on himself, he flew to the throne of his grandfather, the Almighty Jupiter,

FICTION

By this time, Cupid, in his love, could no longer bear separation from his wife, and yearned to reconcile her and draw her to himself (Col 1:20). our partaking of this food and cup.” (1Cor 10:16-17). And with that, Psyche became as one of them, part of their communion. A rich feast soon commenced, greater than any feast Psyche had ever known. In a grove planted with great, tall trees, together yielding twelve kinds of fruit, beside a river which flowed from a fount as clear as crystal (Rev 22:1-2), Psyche took in well-aged wine and rich food full of marrow (Isa 25:6). She realized the joy she once shared with Cupid, now brought to its fullness. And the heavenly beings were glad and rejoiced, giving honor to Cupid and Psyche — for the marriage of Cupid had come, and his wife was finally made ready (Rev 19:7-9) to be with him. The dwelling place of a god had come to be with Psyche, and she was his, and he was hers (Rev 21:3). Notes: I rewrote this myth from Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (c. 2nd century CE),

seeking to rewrite and re-interpret the ancient tale in biblical language in order to present the Christian messages and undertones that I see in it. I have attempted to be as faithful as I could both to the Bible and to Apuleius’ tale; the vast majority of the text above, including and especially where biblical references are present, is a sentence-by-sentence paraphrasing of the 2013 translation by A.S. Kline. For example, I have reworded the following: original Then he turned to Venus saying: “Now my daughter, don’t be despondent. Don’t fear for your lineage or status, because of his wedding a mortal. I’ll make it a marriage of equals, legitimate, in accord with civil law.” retelling And he turned to Venus, saying: “Behold, I am making all things new (Rev 21:5). Now my daughter, don’t be despondent at Cupid marrying a mortal; do not call unclean what I have made clean (Acts 11:9). I’ll graft her in among the other immortals as a wild branch among the rest of us, so that she can be part of the same olive tree that we are in (Rom 11:17).” There are clear Christian parallels in both narratives: between Psyche and humankind, between Cupid and the Christian Savior (i.e. Christ), between Venus and the Accuser (i.e. Satan), between Jupiter and God the Father, etc. Indeed, we see in her life a retelling of the Christian story of the Fall and Redemption. After tasting the beauty of God, Psyche is misled and tempt-

ed to disobedience, whereupon she loses her communion with the only God who can provide her fulfillment. She strives to find reconciliation again through her own efforts, supported and empowered by the Savior whom she had spurned, but through whose strength she is still striving. Eventually, however, she finds herself inadequate, and appears to be doomed. She is then saved only by an act of grace by the Almighty, mediated through the intercession and petition of her Savior. Nevertheless, because this is less an allegory (where each character consistently is a type of a Christian figure) than an analogy (where each character presents different aspects of Christianity at different times), these parallels are not static and consistent, nor are they perfect representations of Christian doctrine. Notwithstanding, the message arising is clearly one of desire properly focused, and redemption through grace — concepts that are central to Christianity and the Bible. While it does not accurately present theological nuances of atonement, sin, and punishment, nor explicate how divine intervention in reconciliation functions, it is fascinating that such a consistent Christian message can be found interwoven in the fabric of this classical Greek tale that was published shortly after Christ’s life and death on earth.

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Shaun Lim ’16 is a Molecular and Cellular Biology concentrator living in Winthrop House and is a staff writer for the Ichthus.

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OF AN

E C O N O M I C S C O N C E N T R ATO R Peter Hickman

echnically, I am not an economics concentrator — I am an applied mathematics concentrator with an area of application in economics — but for the most part I live in the same academic world as most of the 750 or so economics concentrators at Harvard.1 I am also a junior, and recruiting for internships with financial firms is on my radar, along with thinking about a senior thesis, graduate school, and frankly, the career that I have to be embarking upon in frighteningly soon. Since high school, I have wanted to be an academic economist and have had an economics Ph.D. in my sights. Though many people think Christianity and capitalism are in conflict,2 these warnings do not discourage me from studying. In fact, if economic systems are so critical and have such power, 1 The economics concentration had “roughly 750 students” as of 2012. See page 7 of Undergraduate Economics: A Guide for Concentrators, available at http://economics.harvard. edu/files/economics/files/undergradguide_12. pdf 2 The ways in which they are and are not in conflict is a piece I hope to write another day. To find criticism of Christianity and capitalism, one need look no further than right here at Harvard, where in April 2014 the Divinity School (HDS) hosted a conference on “Christianity and Capitalism,” rooted in the spirit of organizer and HDS professor Charles Stang’s sentiment that Christianity has “cozied up” to capitalism, an economic system that has “used and abused” many people. See http://news. harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/04/faith-andfree-markets/

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FEATURE

CONFESSIONS

FEATURE

According to microeconomic theory, people purchase things that bring them welfare. If I follow this logic to the end, I must conclude that the more money I earn, the more welfare I generate for people. God wants me to generate welfare for people, so if finance pays the most, that is what I should do.

they deserve careful study by Christian thinkers all the more! However, such warnings do caution against another career path common for people with my interests, a path thoroughly saturated with the ethos of profit-maximizing ultra-capitalism: the path of a Wall Street financial analyst. The lure of finance has caused me to re-think the academic career path that I have been envisioning. I find myself occupied with questions such as “Do the smiling faces on Goldman Sachs publicity materials truly reveal a legion of overjoyed 20-somethings living the entry-level analyst’s dream?” and “Is the financial world actually the next big step for me — the goal I should strive for?” At the same time, I have been re-thinking my career for quite a different reason: I am wrestling with the question of whether I should pursue work as a full-time Christian pastor. Now, this is not something that I have been considering all my life. Though I grew up going to church, I never once contemplated becoming a pastor. More than that, by the time I came to college, I was convinced that if I called myself

a Christian, I was supposed to put following Jesus at the center of my life, but I was also convinced that I was not putting Jesus at the center of my life. I had serious doubts, and I was not sure whether I was able to believe in God. Upon starting freshman year, I quickly lost my old identity as the smart kid from a small town. Meanwhile, I was embraced by a wonderful Christian community, I began to openly seek God in prayer and in the Bible, and I began to accept the reasonableness of the Christian truth claims. Through this, I was convicted of my fundamental selfishness and need to follow Jesus Christ as Lord. My heart, desires, and view of the world started to be transformed accordingly. Still, I did not think about becoming a pastor until midway through sophomore year — through what I can honestly describe as the strong sense during prayer that this is what I should do, that I should work to share the Christian message and God’s transformative power with others as a job. I may have the abilities and passions for the sort of work a pastor does, the work of preaching, teaching, counseling, and leading a Christian community, among other things. The way that concentrating in economics and being a pastor fit together is not altogether clear, of course, and I am still figuring out if being a pastor is really what I should do. Thus, like many of my peers, I find myself playing a game of mental pinball, bouncing among career ideas that light up and make noise before I ricochet off to the next one. Amidst career confusion, I have found finance tempting. Surrounded by friends in my classes who are seeking careers in the financial world, I have been told things like, “You should consider finance; you’ve got

the skills.” Journalist Kevin Roose, in Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street’s Post-Crash Recruits, writes, “Wall Street banks had made themselves the obvious destinations for students at top-tier colleges who are confused about their careers … and are looking to put off the big decisions for two years while they figure things out.”3 Though Roose’s description does not fit many of my finance-inclined classmates, I can identify with it. Beyond the fact that I may have the skills and interests for it, I can make a market-based argument for going into finance. In introductory economics, we learned that wages are equal to marginal productivity of labor — that is, my firm pays me based on how much value I generate. Generating value for my firm, in the private sector at least, means that people will purchase my firm’s products. According to microeconomic theory, people purchase things that bring them welfare. If I follow this logic to the end, I must conclude that the more money I earn, the more welfare I generate for peo3 Roose, Kevin. Young Money. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2014. Print. Quotation on p. 20.

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ple. God wants me to generate welfare for people, so if finance pays the most, that is what I should do.

tually what God wants for them. The market can simply become a vehicle for human sin.

Ultimately, this argument does not satisfy me, since market prices are only reflective of what people in the market want to buy – not necessarily what is morally good in an ultimate way, nor what is most pleasing to God. As an illustration, consider the massive pornography industry. Even if I had skills that would earn me money in that industry, I would not think for an instant that following the money would be the same as following God – and this is because I do not think that the pornography people want is ac-

I must confess another reason I consider going into finance. This is not something I would soberly discuss with an adviser or peer, but rather one that pops into my head in moments when my faith is fading, or when being a Christian seems too hard, or when I stop caring about God and only want what feels good to me. It is the temptation to enjoy my life and run away from God.

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From what I have heard, and from what I have read in Young Money, there is a

FEATURE

I find myself occupied with questions such as, “Do the smiling faces on Goldman Sachs publicity materials truly reveal a legion of overjoyed 20-somethings living the entry-level analyst’s dream?”

lot to be tempted by in finance. Making money, of course, is part of it, but that is only the beginning. There is the self-confidence of having obtained a culturally respected and desirable position, and the promise of an exciting metropolitan life with luxuries, excitement, power (or at least the proximity to it), partying, and sex. I do not know that is what life working in finance has to be like, but it is an image I have constructed nonetheless. And I know the power of images, of what Christians might call idols — things we construct ourselves and worship through our single-minded pursuit of them. As a Christian, I be-

FEATURE

Working as a pastor might pay less, but that does not mean it is wrong in God’s eyes! Neither, however, is having a more overtly Christian job necessarily right in God’s eyes. I can please and serve God in finance, in academia, or as a pastor.

lieve that idolizing and pursuing this image of finance life is a sin. When this happens, I tell myself to remember Paul’s exhortation: “Flee the evil desires of youth” (2 Tim 2:22, NIV). One of Jesus’ early followers, Paul, writes in his letter to the Romans, “Don’t let yourselves be squeezed into the shape dictated by the present age. Instead, be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you can work out and approve what God’s will is, what is good, acceptable and complete” (Rom 12:2).4 Deviating from common pathways — and the road to seminary and ministry is certainly not a common pathway leading out of at Harvard Yard — is not comfortable. Fortunately, if the message in Romans 12:2 is true, I can take joy and confidence in doing something different, and trust that as I seek Him, God will guide me. Working as a pastor might pay less, 4 This is N.T. Wright’s translation, which I particularly like. I took it from Wright, N.T. After You Believe. New York: HarperOne, 2010.

but that does not mean it is wrong in God’s eyes! Neither, however, is having a more overtly Christian job necessarily right in God’s eyes. I can please and serve God in finance, in academia, or as a pastor. Whatever train of reason I come up with, I ultimately do not know what is best for me — but my Creator God does. As I pray and think, I hope to remain near to Him, doing what is right and paying attention to little things I think He wants me to do, and if I believe he calls me somewhere, the best way to follow him is to take up the call — no matter where it leads. So, I confess that I study economics, and that I sometimes think about becoming a Wall Street financier. I also confess that I am a Christian, and that I often think about becoming a pastor. I confess that I am weak, that I easily stray from the path I believe is right, and I am quick to do what I believe will grant me the most approval and applause from the people around me. I confess that I am tempted by money, power, and other people’s admiration.

I confess that on my own, I cannot do what is right. Yet I also confess Jesus Christ. I confess my faith in the God who created this world, has special purposes for humanity, and desires to draw His people to Himself. I confess my faith that Jesus is this God incarnate and that he lived the life of ultimate obedience — obedience that cost him his life in the world that people have messed up, but that was the means by which all of us can return to our God. I confess Jesus crucified and risen from the dead and reigning now as Lord and that through faith and obedience we can live in right relationship with God, and have true life. I pray that He guides me to be most pleasing and useful to Him, regardless of the shape of my career after graduation.

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Peter Hickman ’16 is an applied mathematics concentrator living in Leverett House, a staff writer for the Ichthus, and the proud roommate of Henry Li.

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PERSPECTIVE

Why do I need to confess my sins to a priest? Fr. Mark Murphy

ne of the questions that many people often ask Catholics is, “Who do you need to confess your sins to a priest to receive forgiveness? Can’t I go directly to God for absolution?” The short answer to this is the Catholic belief that God in His wisdom has directed us to confess our sins to Him through the ministry of the priest. Catholics believe that the Sacrament of Confession was instituted by Jesus Christ. This truth is essential in order to understand the Catholic perspective on the importance and necessity of this sacrament in the life of the Church. A primary Scriptural passage Catholics use to show Jesus’ institution of Confession as a sacrament is when Jesus told his Apostles after the Resurrection, “‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I send you.’ And when he said this he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the

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Holy Spirit, If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’” (Jn 20:21-23). This mandate was not meant just for the Twelve Apostles, but also for their successors down through the ages in the Church that Jesus instituted. No power was given to them except what had been given by Christ Himself. Our Catholic belief in the necessity of confessing our sins to a priest connects to what we believe about the sacraments in general. The sacraments are outward signs that are instituted by Christ which confer grace on the recipient. They are outward signs of an interior reality, namely the configuring of the recipient to be more like Jesus. The Church’s steadfast teaching is that the sacraments act ex opere operato which literally means “from the

work having been worked.” In other words, the sacraments work “by virtue of the saving work of Christ, accomplished once for all.”1 The truth of this teaching has been expressed since the earliest years of the Church, when the heresy of Donatism claimed that the validity of the sacraments depended on the personal worthiness or sanctity of the minister. The Church (and most notably St. Cyprian) refuted this heresy by declaring that the enactment of a sacrament is brought about through the power of God and not through the righteousness of the minister. This distinction is very important, for it highlights the fact that a human action can never trump a divine action. The sinfulness of a priest (even if he is in a state of mortal sin) cannot trump the power of God who works in and through the sacraments. 1 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1128.

OPINION

A C AT H O L I C

OPINION

Therefore, “from the moment that a sacrament is celebrated in accordance with the intention of the Church, the power of Christ and his Spirit acts in and through it, independently of the personal holiness of the minister.”2 The historical implications that resulted from the re-baptism controversies, with St. Cyprian and the Donatists at the fore, gave the Church an opportunity to speak correctly about the sacramentum et res or “the abiding sacrament.” The sacramentum et res is a kind of “interior sacrament” whereby a sacrament is always bestowed, except in rare cases when the minister maliciously and consciously refuses the proper intention. In the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders, for example, once the sacramentum tantum (sacramental sign) is enacted an indelible character is forever imprinted on one’s soul. They are called abiding sacraments because they impart an indelible character upon the recipient that can never be removed. But even the other four sacraments that do not impart an indelible character are abiding sacraments. For example, in Confession “the abiding sacrament and its ecclesial significance are rooted in personal decisions of the participants, the immediate intervention of Christ is not always indicated.”3 The abiding sacrament is still present in Confession because “[s]orrow for sin may be given by the Spirit outside the sacrament of penance; when it is sacramentalized, as its dependence on Christ and the economy of salvation require, the intervention of Christ cannot be made the subject of a generalization.”4 In other words, the Spirit moves a person to have contrition for his sins and the next movement that follows should 2 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1128. 3 Colman O’Neill, O.P. (Princeton, NJ: Scepter Publishers, 1998), 211. 4 O’Neill, 211.

be to have his contrition actualized in sacramental Confession. The concept of character is very important here, for a sacred character is constituted by “[m]embership in the Body of Christ and participation in the worship of the Church: Preaching, Eucharist, Service.” For St. Thomas Aquinas, this notion of participation is crucial, for sacramental character is a participation in the sacred priesthood of Jesus Christ. As Aquinas writes, “[S]acramental characters…are nothing else than certain kind of participations in the priesthood of Christ deriving from Christ himself.”5 Jesus receives his priesthood from the Father and His priesthood reascends to the Father. Through Christ’s humanity the baptized are able to participate in this priesthood in a very real way by offering true worship to God. The character imparted to the baptized, confirmed, and ordained can also be called an “ontological change” because it expresses the permanence of the divine creative act. Because character is a sign and spiritual power of the Risen Christ still working in the Church, everything the Christian does is sacramentalized for the worship of God. All human persons inherit the effects of Original Sin, and as a result man’s freedom needs to be shaped and formed. This shows the need for and necessity of the sacrament of Confession! Human freedom is not enough to help man achieve his end (eternal union with God Himself), and therefore freedom for the Christian must be sacramentalized. St. Therese de Lisieux once said, “A humble recognition of our own sinfulness and an acceptance of God’s mercy is the beginning of all growth in holiness.” Sacramentalized 5 Aquinas, St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, trans. by Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Edition: Christian Classics, 1948) III q 63 aa. 5.

All human persons inherit the effects of Original Sin, and as a result man’s freedom needs to be shaped and formed. This shows the need for and necessity of the sacrament of Confession! freedom therefore strengthens the believer’s participation in the worship of the Church. The role of the Catholic priest in effecting this sacramentalized freedom for the Body of Christ cannot be understated, for it is through the ministry of the priest that the human person is able to receive sacramentalized freedom. Inherent to sacramentalized freedom is the human person’s indelible configuration and conformity to Christ and to His Church. Thus, “just as Christ has the full power of a spiritual priesthood so his faithful are brought into configuration to him in that they share in a certain spiritual power relating to the sacraments and the things pertaining to divine worship.”6 Confession is the definitive moment of conversion for a Christian whereby she is made holy and brought into more perfect communion and beatitude with God. Without this definitive moment of imparted forgiveness from God, His forgiveness would remain nebulous, ethereal, and not actualized in one’s soul. The sacraments are outward signs that cause something. In the sacrament of Confession the outward sign of absolution reflects the interior reality of the received forgiveness of the penitent, a causal moment of divine reconciliation. 6 Aquinas, III q 63 a. 5.

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The Catholic priest shares in the configuration to Christ in a particular way in his reception of the sacrament of Holy Orders, for he is configured to act in persona Christi capitis – in the person of Christ the head. With this conformity to Christ the priest is able to be an agent of God’s power in bringing others to be configured to Christ and in turn experience sacramentalized freedom. Inherent to this discussion is the fact that all the sacraments can serve as remedies

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for sin. They are remedies for sin because man is reduced in his access to God precisely because of sin. Man is in need of his image being perfected and restored through God’s grace, and this image perfection and image restoration is what conforms the human person to Christ. Sacramentalized freedom involves man’s image perfection and image restoration wherein he is united to God, who is man’s end. Thus, the sacraments unite one with God and heaven. While Baptism is

Aquinas also writes about how the instrumentality of the minister works in the sacramental life of the Church, and he points out that “an instrument acts not by reason of its own form, but by the power of the one who moves it.”7 It is God who enacts the power of the sacrament through the priest! God is able to bring this power to bear through the priest since the priest has received the indelible configuration to Christ in his reception of the sacrament of Holy Orders. If the sacraments were dependent on the personal worthiness (or lack thereof) of the minister, that would completely wipe out the abiding sacrament of Holy Orders, for the sacrament would only be “abiding” provided the priest is in a state of grace. Just as a one’s Baptism and Confirmation cannot be wiped away even if one is in mortal sin, so too the sacrament of Holy Orders cannot be wiped away or even “lifted” for a time if a priest is in the state of mortal sin. Also, if the sacraments were dependent on the personal worthiness of the minister then it could logically follow that some sacraments are more valid than others depending on the level of holiness of the minister who administers the sacraments. This would add a subjective element to the efficacy of the sacraments, instead of the objective efficacy of the sacraments that are available to the faithful regardless of the worthiness of the minister. Therefore, as Aquinas writes so succinctly, “the ministers of the Church can confer the sacraments, 7 Aquinas, III q 64 a. 5.

OPINION

God entered time, live and in person. The Son of God became the Son of Man.

the sacrament that enacts this divine image restoration and perfection par excellence by removing original sin, so too Confession imparts divine image restoration and perfection by absolving the penitent of his personal sins that have wounded his soul and the human community.

OPINION

Confession is that sacrament whereby our human freedom is shaped and formed by divine grace to choose what is One, True, Good and Beautiful or, in other words, to choose what is of God.

though they be wicked.”8 The words of absolution the priest prays in the Sacrament of Confession are, “God the Father of mercies, through the death and Resurrection of His Son, has reconciled the world to Himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins. Through the ministry of the Church, may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” This is a prayer of hope whereby the penitent receives healing grace from Christ through the priest. Our Catholic belief is that it is God’s will that the Church has been given this sacrament, the definitive moment whereby we receive and hear those words we all long to hear from God: you are forgiven. Jesus in His wisdom is the divine psychologist and 8 Aquinas, III q 64 a. 5.

knows we need this moment of actualized grace, so there is great logic to God’s desire that this sacrament be an important part of the process of our divine image restoration and divine image perfection. Sin is a reality in our world and in our lives and God has given us a remedy for our proclivity to sin. Confession is that sacrament whereby our human freedom is shaped and formed by divine grace to choose what is One, True, Good and Beautiful or, in other words, to choose what is of God. St. Margaret of Cortona once said, “Hide nothing from your Confessor. A sick man can be cured only by revealing his wounds.” The telos of Christian discipleship means to become holy, and this can only happen through God’s grace. In the midst of a Church and a world with sinners and priest sinners the faithful are still called to believe in

the objective efficacy of the sacraments, i.e. that the sacraments actually do something. It is God who works in and through the sacraments and gives all the sacraments their power. Acceptance of this fact is essential if the human person is to acquire true growth in holiness and attain authentic freedom, not relying on their own gifts and native abilities, but relying on God for everything. This is a freedom that must be sacramentalized. Catholics believe this is how God intends to impart His grace to us, and it is by accepting the totality of this truth that humanity will be sustained in reaching his end, which is eternal union with God Himself.

•

Fr. Mark Murphy is the Undergraduate Chaplain of the Harvard Catholic Center and a contributor to the Ichthus.

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FEATURE

The Gift of Confession James K.A. Smith

n the 1980s, North American evangelicalism experienced an almost revolutionary innovation: what later came to be known as the “megachurch.” What defined this new dialect of evangelical Christianity wasn’t really size but strategy. The philosophy of ministry and evangelism behind the megachurch movement was often described as “seeker-sensitive.” Sunday gatherings would be less focused on building up those who are already Christians; instead, gatherings would focus on being hospitable to “seekers,” those who were not yet Christians but were curious enough to consider attending an “event” that was accessible, welcoming, entertaining, and informative. But in order for the church to be that sort of place, it was going to have to feel less, well, churchy. If it was going to be “sensitive” to seekers, the church would have to remove those aspects of its practice and tradition that were alleged to be obstacles to the “unchurched.” If the church was going to feel welcoming, it needed to feel familiar, accessible, and “cool,” characterized by the sorts of professional experience people associated with consumer transactions or the thrilling enjoyment of a concert. The seeker-sensitive church would feel like the mall, the concert, and

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FEATURE

...[A] seeker-sensitive congregation would have to de-emphasize certain aspects of Christian proclamation and worship in order to front-load those aspects of the gospel that feel more affirming. Less wrath, more happiness; less judgment, more encouragement; less confession, more forgiveness.

Starbucks all rolled up into one — because those are places that people like, where they feel comfortable.

happiness; less judgment, more encouragement; less confession, more forgiveness.

Not only would this change the architecture and décor of North American evangelical congregations, it also significantly changed the way we worship. “Traditional” liturgies were seen as dated, dusty and — worst of all — boring. Other aspects of historic Christian worship, like the Lord’s Supper, were thought to be just plain weird from the perspective of seekers. Instead, a seeker-sensitive congregation would have to de-emphasize certain aspects of Christian proclamation and worship in order to front-load those aspects of the gospel that feel more affirming. Less wrath, more

One common aspect of traditional Christian worship that was excised from seeker-sensitive congregations was the practice of corporate confession of sin. Historic worship always included a communal, public confession of our sin. Week-in and week-out, gathered before a holy God, the people of God would confess their failures and faults, their sins of omission and commission, saying sorry “for the things we have done and the things we have left undone.” And that regular confession of our sins would always be answered by “absolution” and the assurance of pardon — the an-

nouncement of the good news that, in Christ, we are forgiven. This regular, stark, uncomfortable confession of sin doesn’t feel like something that would be “enjoyed” by seekers. It raises difficult questions and brings us face-to-face with disquieting truths about ourselves. It feels like the very opposite of being “sensitive” to those who are seeking. But what if the opportunity to confess is precisely what we long for? What if an invitation to confess our sins is actually the answer to our seeking? What if we want to confess our sins and didn’t even realize it until we were given the opportunity? In other words, what if con-

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uncomfortable confession of sin doesn’t feel like something that would be “enjoyed” by seekers....[b]ut what if the opportunity to confess is precisely what we long for? fession is, unwittingly, the desire of every heart? In that case, extending an invitation to confession would be the most “sensitive” thing we could do, a gift to seeking souls. Oddly enough, contemporary television seems to appreciate this truth. I can think of two stark examples that illustrate just this point. The first is HBO’s dark, disturbing, but stellar mini-series, True Detective, starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as Louisiana detectives Rust Cohle and Marty Hart. The details of the narrative arc need not detain here. I simply point to an episode in which Rust is seen as the go-to interrogator for the department. He is able to elicit confessions from almost anyone. When asked how he does it, his method is rooted in a philosophy about human nature:

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“Look — everybody knows there’s something wrong with them. They just don’t know what it is. Everybody wants confession, everybody wants some cathartic narrative for it. The guilty especially. And everybody’s guilty.” Here is a truth the “seeker-sensitive” movement couldn’t have imagined: people want to confess. One can even find this in a BBC melodrama like The Last Tango in Halifax. Set in the charming environs of Yorkshire, the story intertwines two families, each with their own secrets and dark pasts. Late in season 2 (I’d say “spoiler alert” here, but can’t imagine Harvard Ichthus readers adding this show to their Netflix queue), a wayward daughter named Gillian makes a shocking, disturbing confession to Caroline, her new stepsister. The confession burbles up from some primordial need; indeed, the confession is veritably vomited out of Gillian — a point the director makes a little more obvious by then showing Gillian vomiting into the sink. While not subtle, the image gets at the visceral, bodily impulsion to confess. When Caroline, still in shock, asks Gillian why she told her, Gillian can only say that she needed to do so, even wanted to do so. This desire to confess may seem counter-intuitive. Obviously the seeker-sensitive movement assumed this was the last thing non-Christians wanted to do. The assumption seemed to be that the last thing sinners want to be confronted with is their sin. But I won-

This is poignantly captured in the last lines of Graham Greene’s novel, The Quiet American. After implicating himself in fatal dealings involving a young man named Pyle, the narrator, Fowler, issues an apology: “I’m sorry, Phuong.” “What are you sorry for? It is a wonderful telegram. My sister —” “Yes, go and tell your sister. Kiss me first.” Her excited mouth skated over my face, and she was gone. I thought of the first day and Pyle sitting beside me at the Continental, with his eye on the soda fountain across the way. Everything had gone right with me since he had died, but how I wished there existed someone to whom I could say that I was sorry. The good news, of course, is that there is. • James K.A. Smith is professor of philosophy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI where he holds the Gary & Henrietta Byker Chair in Applied Reformed Theology and Worldview, the editor of Comment magazine, and a contributing author to the Ichthus.

FEATURE

This regular, stark,

der if these artifacts of popular culture actually suggest the opposite is true: that deep down we already know what’s true about our faults and brokenness. If that’s the case, rituals that invite us to confess our sins are actually gifts. The rites of confession have their own evangelistic power.

FEATURE

L E T T E R

F R O M

C H I N A

Our Collective History: What is History? Where is God in History? Henry Li For Christian audiences, I hope this essay encourages you to reflect on your faith in the context of history’s tragedies. For secular audiences, I hope this essay encourages you to reflect on the possibility of a God of love who can supersede history’s tragedies. For both audiences, I hope this essay broadens your perspective of both history and China, and inspires you to serve and promote international understanding.

he students I taught one weekend were in seventh grade. They were from Yi Village in Anhui Province, had taken one year of English, and were so poor that even their Standard Mandarin was lacking. Outside, chickens roamed free. Some of them were arrayed for sale on

cloth in the street. Freshly killed and stripped, they glistened, organic like giant white spiders. The Yi Village school had received some benefits from China’s economic growth; plasma touch screen computers graced the blackboards of each classroom. But the principal clanged a rusted cowbell to signal the beginning and end of

classes. The weather was unbearable. The students busied themselves by fanning their shining faces and necks rather than listening to my presentation on American cities. Trickles of sweat ran down my face, and the students gave me the faintest of expressions. Their

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complete silence bothered me. No matter how broadly I smiled or loudly I talked, they gave no reaction of any kind. I abruptly ended the lecture and announced a game of Hangman. Dividing a class between boys and girls should have gotten the students energized — at least it had in the city schools. In the countryside, however, this gimmick did not work. The word we played was “political,” a word I had just taught them, yet as the letters fell into place they could only point and make gestures. In spite of my earnest explanations and deliberately glacial pace, the worst had happened — my students had failed to understand a word I said. When I remember those bright-eyed children sweating profusely in their wooden chairs, something inside me collapses with pain, understanding, and humility. I say this not with the air of an Ivy League humanities student returning after a simple summer in China. I believe I am part of the problem; I am part of this system that enslaves humanity. The vast, vast majority of people in the history of the human race never had a chance to attend any institution of higher education, much less Harvard. They tended the fields, suffered the plagues, fought the wars, sweated it out, grueling their lives away, were disfigured, scarred, stamped out, beat-

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en, lived lives teetering precariously, lives that oppressed their intellect, emotions, potential, and happiness. No matter the future brings, there is no escaping this legacy. I remember seeing a student ride to school in the back of a pick-up truck. He sat sternly in a low plastic chair like the emperor of some minuscule domain, a corner of Yi Village, a monarch, but with a kingdom the size of a courtyard. To me, he represented the precarious hope of these students and the beautiful simplicity of their lives. Modernity and all our pretensions might seem to fall away, shriveled and meaningless and too late, in the face of all who have lived and died uncelebrated, unhappy, and unloved. For many people, it is precisely our dark history that is a hindrance to accepting the existence of a loving God. Later, when I discuss the nature of history and the power of larger, contextual narratives, I will try to reconcile this problem. For now, I hope both Christian and secular audiences understand deeply and without a doubt that the vast majority of humanity lived nowhere near the types of lives we may regard as basic or normal today. Indeed, clouded by our norms, we may see Harvard University as a difficult place to become and remain a

Christian; the environment is secular, skeptical, worldly. Yet this is a fundamental fallacy. Christians who attend Harvard probably have every reason to declare that God is good and loving. Harvard friends, we live in the House of Privilege itself. It would be no surprise if Harvard University turned out to be the easiest place in the world to become and remain a Christian. Our needs are met. Our life trajectories seem satisfactory. There is peace, tolerance, and hope. Being Christian at Harvard is no impressive achievement. How do we proclaim the Gospel to other Americans, much less the world’s poor, when we stand on such an unequal playing field in the grace that has been shown to us? The answer, of course, is that our proclamations will not ring hollow from our positions of privilege if we visibly transcend the world, if we give as God gives, if we serve as God serves, and if we love as God loves. Our actions and behavior must supersede our words to the point that words are no longer necessary. For those interested in China, seeing rural poverty and understanding its oppression have long been a rite of passage. The rural peasants have been the back that bore Chinese civilization since the Neolithic, China being an agrarian state from its beginning to the 20th century. Entire traditions

FEATURE

Modernity and all our pretensions might seem to fall away, shriveled and meaningless and too late, in the face of all who have lived and died uncelebrated, unhappy, and unloved.

FEATURES

They tended the fields, suffered the plagues, fought the wars, sweated it out, grueling their lives away, were disfigured, scarred, stamped out, beaten, lived lives teetering precariously, lived lives that oppressed their intellect, emotions, potential, and happiness.

of Chinese literature are built on the question of what to make of the masses that have come and gone in the countryside. Contemporary Chinese leaders usually experience a few years of rural life and governance before they are given higher leadership posts. The concerns and questions I have raised are nothing new, and I am a naïve amateur with little experience and qualifications to answer these questions. I can only offer what witness and testimony I have. Tragedy exists in Chinese history on colossal scales. The poverty I witnessed last summer is a picnic in the park compared to the human suffering that enveloped China time and time again. A comparatively recent and little known example is the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864). Started by a peasant claiming to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ, the Taiping Rebellion killed an estimated 20 million people.1 And in world history, 1 Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Taiping Rebellion.” http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/

there are the wars, the famines, the plagues, the genocides. But on a cynical level, one might ask: does it matter? Life is an endeavor with an unavoidable one hundred percent casualty rate. Also, who am I to discern the dark nature of human history? After all, the people of the past lived with dignity and happiness; they need none of my arrogant “first world” concern. Many were smarter than I, kinder than I, wiser than I. Most importantly, what does all this mean for Christianity? We can call suffering in the world a product of sin, but this is not altogether comforting. Dr. William Cronon, Professor of History at Yale University and past president of the American Historical Association, has this to say about history: All historians . . . configure the topic/580815/Taiping-Rebellion

events of the past into causal sequences — stories — that order and simplify those events to give them new meanings. We do so because narrative is the chief literary form that tries to find meaning in an overwhelmingly crowded and disordered chronological reality.2 Indeed, much of human understanding is based on narrative. We live in a world of competing narratives for everything. Is the United States a beacon of freedom for the world or has it strayed from its supposedly founding principles? There are competing stories for both sides. Is modern Western civilization an enlightened utopia or an environment-destroying industrial machine? There are competing narratives for both sides. Who are you as an individual, where have you been, and where are you going? There are competing autobiographical narratives in2 Cronon, William. “A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative.” The Journal of American History. 1992.

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manity today and past is in our hands.

The Bible itself is one big story about God and humanity. Jesus Christ taught mainly in stories. Our understanding of the world is made of competing stories. Christianity is a story, and people become Christian when the Christian story becomes more compelling on all levels than other stories.

Even though 99.9 percent of humanity may have lived and died in the fields, illiterate, uncelebrated, many unloved and unhappy — even though we may never escape that legacy — the meaning of that legacy will change if one day world poverty is ended and all who live are loved. The meaning of our legacy is up for grabs. We can shape the meaning of the boy who rode to school in the back of a pick-up truck. We can shape the meaning of those Yi Village schoolchildren.

Crucially, the human story has not ended. We are still here. And because the meaning of stories depends largely on how they end, the meaning of us is still up for grabs. We are continuously reinterpreting the past in light of what happens in the present. And, my friends, who gets to decide what happens in the world today? We do. We bear not just the history of China, but the history of the United States, Europe, Africa, Asia, on our shoulders. It is a staggering responsibility. When we make our individual and collective choices, we bear not just the pressings of the present, but the enormous legacy and imprint of all our ancestors. The meaning of all hu-

All suffering, personal

There remains one point about the narrative of history that is worth rejoicing over, and that is the power of larger, contextual narratives. In this case, it is the larger story of God and humanity that supersedes human suffering and human history. All suffering, personal and collective, is alleviated when put into the story of a larger context, with meaning and purpose behind it. God will judge all humanity, and God has saved all humanity. We do not know what happens to those who die without hearing the Gospel, but we can point to the character of God as proved by the loving, gentle,

humble, meek, servant Jesus Christ, and trust in God. Christians cannot prove God exists, because that is what faith is for; faith does not mean certainty. Christians only give witness and testify to the God of love and make our actions compellingly support our testimony. But that is a discussion for another time. For now, I hope secular audiences consider the narrative of Christianity and how it offers a solution for the problems of our collective narrative. For Christian audiences, I hope you continue to love and serve the Lord, and strive to further the Christian story. For both audiences, I hope you understand better the burden on those today to serve and make our part of the human story a worthy response to history. The dignity of the people past depends on it.

• Henry Li ’16 is a History and Literature & East Asian Studies concentrator living in Leverett House, the Fiction & Poetry editor for the Ichthus, and the very proud roommate of Peter Hickman.

and collective, is alleviated when put into the story of a larger context, with meaning and purpose behind it. God will judge all humanity, and God has saved all humanity.

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FEATURE

side your head for that as well.

FEATURE

A Catholic Confesses.

Jane Thomas

met Matt1 during the first week of my junior year at Harvard. Although I was raised Catholic and had even been the president of the Christian Fellowship at my high school, by the time he and I met, God had fallen way off my radar. I had been quite involved in prayer the previous semester, but had turned my back on the church over the summer, deciding that white, male priests were nothing short of the inventors of the concept of sin and a culture of judgement, self-righteous1 This is a pseudonym.

ness, and shaming. The idea that sins are intrinsically damaging to oneself and others had never occurred to me, or if it had, I had forgotten. Nonetheless, even in my godless haze of self-justifying anger, I remember praying (only half jokingly), “God, you know the fastest way to my heart is a cute boy, don’t you?” Matt was different than the men who had caught my eye before him; he asked lots of questions, had lots of

opinions, biked faster than I could, and shortly after we met he invited me to church. I declined the first invitation (it conflicted with yoga class, my latest spiritual solution), but the next week he invited me again and I said yes. I do not remember what the preacher said. I do remember that we sat on the right side of the congregation and that Matt’s knees stuck out from his chair several inches past mine. Around that time, I commented to one of my female friends, “I like him a lot but he’s so Christian.” The

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word had a sour taste in my mouth. In spite of this, I kept going back to that church, mostly hoping I would bump into him. I even started volunteering to help set up before the service and clean up afterward, a job that involved arriving at 7 AM on Sunday morning and staying until nearly 2 PM, just because that was his job, and I hoped we might happen to have a shift on the same Sunday. (We never did.) Soon, I found myself spending time with a crowd of college students who dropped Scripture passages into everyday conversation from memory.2 As the months passed and Christmas approached, the preacher’s messages started to soak in. Little by little, I began to get interested in this Jesus fellow people kept mentioning. Being essentially lazy, I found an audio recording of the Bible online. Starting with the Gospel of Matthew, I put on the audio recording every night while I was brushing my teeth and putting on my pajamas. Over the next couple 2 Appallingly, I have since become one of those people.

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months, a living, breathing human being named Jesus emerged from my cloud of assumptions and stereotypes about Christianity. By the time I got through the last of the synoptic gospels in late January, I found myself thinking: “I don’t know if it’s really true that this man, Jesus, is the God of the universe, but I sure as hell hope it is.” Yes, God did know that a cute boy is the fastest way to my heart. As a new semester began, I decided to take things a step further. Growing up, I had attended a Catholic church with my mother. With little comprehension of the significance, I had undergone all the rites of initiation into the church, including first Confession, first Holy Communion, and Confirmation. Now, enamored as I was of Jesus, I wanted to get closer to him. I began attending Mass at St. Paul’s Parish in Harvard Square. On February 15th, I made my general Confession to a Catholic Priest. We sat in his office in the Catholic Student Center for five hours and fifteen minutes as I brought each of the dark corners of my heart

FEATURE

Soon, I found myself spending time with a crowd of college students who drop Scripture passages into everyday conversation from memory.

into the light and let God dust off the fear, resentment, self-loathing, and self-alienation. When I finished I felt like I had become a real and honest member of the human race for the first time in my life. Another human being had heard every last fault and error of my ways and had neither fainted nor gasped in horror. Instead, he listened patiently, and before reciting the rites of absolution, he reminded me, “God does not just forgive your sins; he absolves them. Even though of course we will remember them, to Him it is as though they never happened.” Then the priest said, “God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to Himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” As the priest made the sign of the cross over me, I felt as though the Holy Spirit was lifting a weight off my chest.

FEATURE

Just as the compulson to smoke a pack of cigarettes can hardly be termed freedom, so too can it hardly be termed freedom to feel the compulsion to sin repeatedly, for both are forms of self-harm: Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.”

I had walked into the office dragging a ball and chain; now the shackles fell from my ankles. I walked back outside into the sunshine of the crisp winter day, a free woman at last. Just as the compulson to smoke a pack of cigarettes can hardly be termed freedom, so too can it hardly be termed freedom to feel the compulsion to sin repeatedly, for both are forms of self-harm: Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (Jn 8: 34-36, ESV). The Sacrament of Confession is the way Jesus gave us to approach him and ask him directly to set us free from the bondage of sin. Unlike the illusion of freedom that comes from getting to do whatever I want — right, wrong, or otherwise — the spiritual freedom that comes from being absolved of my sins is a

feeling I can seek time and again without fear of causing damage to myself or others. When I feel angry, discontented, depressive, or easily annoyed, my solution is to go to Confession. The experience of urgently needing to go to Confession is surprisingly similar to that of urgently needing to pee, and the relief afterward is equally palpable. Confession is the truest way I’ve ever encountered to immediately turn a bad week into a good week. It completely transforms my perspective on life and the world around me, shifting my interest from myself to others. Does this mean that I’m always in the mood to detail the specific ways in which I have harmed others, fallen short of Christian ideals, and stumbled in my faith? Of course not. But it’s always worth swallowing my pride. Confession works even when I don’t expect or believe it will.

dence), Pope Francis happened to make a plea to his Wednesday audience just four days after my grand, return-to-the-church general Confession: “Everyone say to himself: ‘When was the last time I went to confession?’ And if it has been a long time, don’t lose another day! Go, the priest will be good. And Jesus, (will be) there, and Jesus is better than the priests — Jesus receives you. He will receive you with so much love! Be courageous, and go to confession.”3 All I can add to this appeal is a hearty “Amen!”

By coincidence (in the way that nothing of this sort is actually a coinci-

3 Lenartowick, K. Pope Francis: Be courageous, go to confession. Vatican City: Catholic News Agency, Feb 19, 2014 at 04:57 am.

My experience is that the Sacrament of Confession is the most fertile stomping-ground I’ve encountered for coming to know intuitively what it looks and, moreover, feels like to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Mt 22:37) and to “love your

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neighbor as yourself ” (Mt 22:39). The Sacrament of Confession is also the most reliable, reproducible, and regularly accessible means of receiving the grace necessary to make a serious attempt at implementing this ideal of love. Why can’t God forgive my sins without my going through a priest? Well, He can. He’s God. But I won’t know that He has, so I won’t be able to have the peace of mind that comes from knowing with certainty that my heart is clean and my God is close. Besides, Sacramental Confession with a Priest is about more than just starting clean with God because, while sin obviously damages my relationship with God, it also damages my relationships with other human beings. In the words of Pope Francis: Yes, you can say to God, ‘forgive me,’ and say your sins. But our sins are also against our brothers, against the Church. This is why it is necessary to ask forgiveness of the Church and of our brothers, in the person of

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Alone in my room with the door closed, I am not capable of mustering up the healthy dose of honesty and humility that wholly loving and obeying God requires. I need the help of another person, who in that moment is given the grace to represent Christ to me. Humility is not the same as humiliation. Humility is about seeing myself honestly. With God’s help that means seeing myself as teeny-tiny compared to God. But that also means seeing myself as smart, kind, thoughtful, beautiful, lovable, strong, sexual, capable—capable of inspiring the people I encounter and also capable of crushing their spirits and leaving them broken and bruised. When I made my five-hour-long general Confession, I had no idea what was about to happen. Did I plan to make some changes in my life? Sure. But I was not at all planning to have my life completely turned over, dumped out, and filled back up again with new and better stuff. It is not an overstatement to say that everything in my life has changed since then, including my motives, my dreams, my attitude, my source of hope, and my solution to discouragement. I cannot explain to you the mechanics of how God so radically transformed my heart. In fact, much of my change of heart happened quite to my horror. But I can tell you that I began going to Confession about once every week, and that Confession has 4 Ibid.

the primary vehicle by which I came to see that “Christian morality is not … a catalogue of sins and faults” but rather that “[a]ll the virtues are at the service of [a] response of love” to the God who loves us, no matter what.5 I have always wanted to contribute to the advancement of a just society. Previously the only vision I had of how to accomplish this was through the advancement of secular, progressive, socially liberal worldviews. For me to want to obey God absolutely, I had to come to trust that God’s vision of a just society is better than mine. I was given the grace of this trust in God’s character and vision through the repeated experience of confessing sins that seemed harmless, then shortly thereafter repeating the sin, only this time experiencing its corrosive reality. Going to Confession gave me eyes to see that when my vision of the good life is different than God’s vision of the good life, either I don’t understand what God is saying or else I am the one who is wrong. P.S. Yes, some sins seem to be sticky, such that every time I let God take them away from me, they wind up stuck on my hands — and soul — yet again. Being human, I keep repeating these ones — some obvious like gossip, others subtle and insidious, like unvoiced jealousy — but every time I realize I’ve repeated my mistake, I go to Confession and begin again. After all, the one thing all the “Saints” are better at than the rest of us is starting over.6

• Jane Thomas ’15 is a Human Evolutionary Biology concentrator with a secondary in Computer Science, Pforzheimer House affiliate, and a staff editor for the Ichthus. 5 Pope Francis. The Joy of the Gospel. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013. 6 My confessor.

FEATURE

...the feeling of total spiritual freedom that comes from being absolved of my sins is a feeling I can seek time and again without fear of causing damage to myself or others.

the priest…. Forgiveness is not something we can give ourselves. One asks forgiveness, one asks it of another person, and in confession, we ask forgiveness from Jesus… Forgiveness is not a result of our efforts, but is a gift. It is a gift of the Holy Spirit who showers us with mercy and grace that pours forth unceasingly from the open heart of Christ crucified and risen.4

POETRY

On Glory David Fulton Awake, sleeper, and Christ will shine on you. I stand breathing in thick and hanging morning light, as though the airy motes this morning had been honeyed. I have heard this time called ‘the golden hour.’ It suits it, with all its complexes of meaning. Perhaps my head has been turned by too much or too little philosophy, but I think meaning is what this time is all about. There is an excess of Being here. I want to go to where the trees suspend the morning light between their glowing leaves, put out my hands, all cupped and mortal, and take, and taste, and drink. Stand there all heady with the taste of glory, the nectar that is the Word. This is where I go when I read those lines: ‘Awake, O Sleeper, and Christ will shine on you”; or even: ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good!’ I drink the honeyed sunlight and feel its warmth work down into my gut, feel it in my limbs. I am here and I am alive and I am human and I mean. Here no thinker or philosophy can nihil me away. The old Psalmist, clever and wise, the voice of God, once compared the voice of God, the Law, to honey and the mighty sun. I think I begin to understand why.

And yet Sweeter is the Word than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb an excess to excede this morning’s depths. Day to day may pour out speech and night to night may pour forth knowledge: but when these are filled and overflow, where will the fulness of God be pleased to dwell? In human hands like the ones I cup, in skin and ligament and bone. In blood and flesh and weight of death. I stop a moment and drain my cup, and move my hands once more into the light, and this time look. If I could see with Father’s eyes, I would see the nail holes there, the bloody sign of the most extravagant adopotion there ever was. The deed to an inheritance of Glory. Were this tree to come to life, would it sway its trunk, its breath all deep and green, its leaves all cupped and mortal, and beg of me a blessing? O Lord! My rock and my redeemer! Search my golden breath and know me, Let me not betray this gifted glory! The words of my mouth, the meditation of my heart may they be acceptable to your searching sight!

• David Fulton ’16 is a Social Studies concentrator living in Adams House and is a staff editor for the Ichthus.

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OPINION

Squirming in the Pew:

A Confessio n Brynn Elliot

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hen it is silent, we get really uncomfortable.” These are the words of one teenage girl addressing the worship leader of a summer Christian youth camp, according to a story told by John Stonestreet of Summit Ministries. After a time of worship, this girl went up to the worship leader concerned that he was not strumming his guitar in between worship songs. If you have ever attended an evangelical service, it is likely you have experienced this worship practice. During worship, the pastor or worship leaders have a moment of prayer, and all the while there is usually some sort of emotive piano part playing in the background. The deep tones theoretically make the “transition” into the next worship song easier. The never-ending music makes the prayer a little less “uncomfortable.” In other words, it means we don’t have to deal with silence. We can ride our emotional high from the very first song through the whole service, thus coasting through what might

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otherwise be uncomfortable moments of reflection and introspection. I believe this story is reflective of a larger issue in our modern view of worship, (regardless of denomination). The issue is that we, as post-Emergent Church Worshipers, seem to view corporate worship as dependent upon our emotional response to it. Furthermore, I think worship in the evangelical church has become far too self-absorbed. We never see anything but a polished show and we are never left in silence. We leave little room for our God, instead crowding our stage and our hearts with smoke machines, slide projectors, and the smooth riffs of the flannel clad. It might seem that I am about to launch into a diatribe about everything that I feel is wrong with modern worship. And, yeah, don’t get me wrong — I certainly could offer suggestions on what we should do to change the format of worship in order to properly present ourselves as we gather corporately before God.

However, doesn’t everyone have ideas about ways worship could change for the better? Everyone wants to refocus worship around what they think is important, around the parts of worship with which they are more comfortable. Take, for instance, the following two suggestions: “Hey, worship leaders, make your worship practice engaging and modern, add some guitar (or a mandolin!)” or “The true service is always done in Latin (or better yet, in Syriac!).” Such points I may or may not agree with, and for certain churches, they may very well be true and proper. That said, I believe that a list of “do’s and don’ts” is not what is needed to renew our worship or our hearts. Maybe strumming between songs is acceptable, and maybe it’s not. Serious, prayerful consideration of these questions though, is always necessary. We cannot know God absolutely or sufficiently solely through our intellects. Yet, Jesus beckons His followers to worship God in spirit and in truth. Therefore, we must strive to know the

OPINION

I think worship in the evangelical church has become far too self-absorbed. We never see anything but a polished show and we are never left in silence. We leave little room for our God, instead crowding our stage and our hearts with smoke machines, slide projectors, and the smooth riffs of the flannel clad.

truth of the Unknowable God by the Holy Spirit. Thus, practically speaking, we must attempt to structure our worship around this concept of not being able to know God fully, that we might be able to draw near in spirit and in truth. I believe that the only way to do this is to accept our inability to comprehend God, to confess that He is beyond our intellectual grasp. By meditating on Scripture, consulting with others in the body of Christ, and prayerfully meditating on those things, then and only then may we begin to do justice to this sacred thing called worship.

Also, there remains another thing. There is something I must confess. I am the girl who was uncomfortable in the silence. In point of fact, I am not the actual person from our original example. But like her, I have spoken with worship pastors. I have demanded that the worship of God conform to my expectations. I confess that I have been that girl. I confess I must reevaluate my approach to worship. Also, I pray that others who worship the King of the Universe can learn from my reexamination of how I praise God. While I certainly would not forbid strumming in the house of God, I would nonethe-

less like to suggest that we have nothing to fear from silence. We are communally welcomed into the house of God to be still and to know. It is my hope that as we turn in repentance, confession, and adoration towards the marvelous God we claim to worship, we will see ourselves taking up less space in worship, so that the presence of the One who made our very souls may arrive and fill the discomfort, fill the brokenness.

â&#x20AC;˘

Brynn Elliot â&#x20AC;&#x2122;18 is a Philosophy concentrator living in Wigglesworth and is a staff writer for the Ichthus.

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On the Cover Chantine Akiyama

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The doodle on the back cover came from my subconscious meditation on

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In realizing these truths about my relationship to God, I train my heart to align with His in confession, in humble agreement with and confident hope in Him.

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you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.”

this passage of Psalm 8. In the image, the world around the little man towers over him, and he seems to be a minuscule afterthought, his body not an integral part of the landscape surrounding him. Yet, he is the fulcrum, with the earth bending beneath his feet, creation serving as the context for man to be the focal point.

• Chantine Akiyama ’15 is a Mechanical Engineering and Product Design major from MIT and a guest artist for the Ichthus.

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onfession to me is throwing away my personal opinions and agenda and agreeing with God, trusting Him to have my best interests in mind. In order for me to do that, I need to realize that I am so small compared to him, that He indeed is sovereign over my life, but also that He cares for me, having confident faith in His great purposes for my life. In Psalm 8:4-6 the psalmist walks through these two observations about humankind’s relationship to God: “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet

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Last Things Nathan Otey

f you’ve read through any substantive portion of this journal (which I hope you have; it’s been well worth my time at least), you may have found yourself somewhat confused about what exactly confession is, or what it means to Christians, or, perhaps, about what it means to you. “Confessing” could

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apply to anything from proclaiming that Jesus Christ is Lord (which he is), to asserting that propositions like the Apostles’ Creed are true (which they are), to admitting your failures and flaws to a member of the Body of Christ (which you should). Despite this perplexing panoply of meanings,

I think that all confessions share two key elements: 1. Speaking 2. The truth I think that these two elements are important because I am (we are) spiritually insane. Deeply so.

ON THE COVER | LAST THINGS

The cover for this issue of the Ichthus was specially designed by a guest artist and student from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Below is the artist’s description for the cover, including an explanation of what confession personally means to her.

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This two-fold condition of Truthforgetting and rationalization (a form of spiritual sickness, I daresay) is why I think that talking only to God, even in earnest prayer, or merely thinking about something, e.g. my own sin, *doesn’t count* as confession. The problem is in my mind, in my thinking. And I can’t fix my broken brain with my broken brain! Nor can I reliably hear from God through the all the self-centered, confused static of my own brainwaves, much less interpret anything that He might be saying to me. In Eph. 4:17-25 Paul not only describes the problem of futility of mind, but also provides an antidote: “Therefore, putting away falsehood, speak the truth,” he says. To

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So you see, between my built-in Truthforgetter and my endlessly creative self-deception mechanism, I can justify anything. (And at one time or another human beings have justified anything!) If you think that this two-fold condition of spiritual amnesia and self-deception might also apply to you, I hope you see the need for speaking the truth out

My experience is that taking the actions suggested by others as means of encountering God has always paid off; there are good ideas out there that I neither came up with nor understand intuitively. At any rate, I’ve been learning — slowly, slowly! — from painful personal experience that, left to my own devices, I am super screwed, that I am always as sick as my secrets. I can’t have both secrets and fullness of life. (All the best to you if you can!) I’ve really tried my darned-est. I don’t even get the privilege of ignorance, for it never turns out blissful.

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For another thing, I can rationalize anything. My obsession with my personal ambitions and my enslaving terror of failing them fly under the flag of diligence and “serving God with my mind.” Gluttony flies under the banner of “I deserve or need this because I worked out.” Cowardice masquerades as not wanting to hurt other people’s feelings, or as just wanting to be kind and thoughtful to them. Dishonesty promises that it will just curl up in a little ball in the corner and never hurt anybody. Narcissism and laziness call themselves “self-care.” When selfishly ignoring the pains and needs of others, I insist that I am really busy and I just don’t have time for this. And don’t even get me started on the self-indulgent crap I can call “relaxing.”

LAST THINGS

loud. If you think it does not apply to you, I beg you to consider speaking the truth out loud anyway, even if you see no reason and no benefit. I would suggest that, logically, those who are the most enslaved are those who don’t even know that they’re slaves. Hopefully you can at least agree that, hypothetically, if this condition did apply to you, then: a.) you would, by definition, be the last person to know it (you would deny it!); and b.) (as a result) you would be super screwed.

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whom shall I speak the truth? “Each one to his neighbor, for we are members one of another.” In other words, my only hope is to confess to another believer, who can hear what is actually true, and who can tell me the truth. For example, the truth that my sins are forgiven in Christ. (I have never once been able to hear this truth from myself; I never believe me!) Confession is not, cannot be, an isolated experience. Fortunately, Jesus (the Great Psychologist; see Father Murphy’s article!) has given us, along with the sacrament of confession, brothers and sisters: in order that we may confess our sins to one another and pray for one another, that we may be healed. (Jas. 5:16) The best part is that, in confessing to my brother, I am actually building him up! (Eph 4:25) Anybody who’s been on the receiving end of a confession will attest to this. I leave you with the words of our Lord, in which are contained my prayer for you, for me, and for this campus: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:31-36).

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Nathan Otey ’15 is a Philosophy and Math concentrator living in Pforzheimer House and Features Editor for the Ichthus.

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For one thing, I am (we are) preposterously, offensively, indefensibly forgetful about who God is and what He has done for me, and about how that changes me, the world, and everything. I forget that Jesus Christ is Lord and that I am not. I forget that He is my father and that I am his child (Jn 1:12). I forget that I did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but that I have received the Spirit of adoption as a son, by whom I cry, “Abba! Father!” (Rom 8:15). I forget that God gave me a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. (2 Tim 1:7). I even sometimes forget that God exists, or that He only wants what’s best for me, or that my actions have consequences.

( C O N T I N U E D )

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