TAUG: Empire, Fall 2015

TAUG To An Unknown God: A Journal of Christian Thought at Berkeley

EM P I R E

Volume 8 | Issue 2 | Fall 2015

CONTENTS 2 To An Unknown God | Fall 2015

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Micaela Walker

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FEATURED ARTICLES WHERE POWER AND FEAR COLLIDE Jonathan Chen 6

AN EMPIRE OF DOUBT Ramsey Delano 10

CHRISTIANITY, CONQUISTADORS, & IDENTITY Zelina Gaytan 12

19

ARTICLES GIVING WHAT IS RIGHT Pachia Xiong 13

REIMAGINING THE "CHRISTIAN IMAGINATION" Dominick Wong 14

THE PRIMACY OF RELATIONSHIPS John Knox 16

THE HUMAN IDIOT AND THE SUPERHUMAN GIANT Amanda Gee 18

HAVING SELF WORTH IN LIFE AND LOVE Tatiana Su 20

WHAT WILL YOUR LEGACY BE? Lydia Linna 23

UNTHEMED ARTICLES

24 CONTINUED MIND THE GAP Joshua Joo 24

IT PASSES AND WE STAY NATURE AND THE DIVINE IN THE POETRY OF EMILY DICKINSON AND CHRISTINA ROSSETTI MIicaela Walker 26

GOING BACK TO THE BEGINNING Micah Lyle 28

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POETRY BATTLE Josephine Kao 30

FORTUNATE FALL Tatiana Su 31

DREAMINGS Amanda Gee 32

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ARTWORK/ PHOTO CREDITS

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Letter from the Editor Dear Reader, The poet Phyllis Wheatley wrote: Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understand That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too: Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.

Though Wheatley calls it “mercy” that brought her from her “Pagan” land and to a place where she could receive the news that she was loved by God, the circumstances of her arrival in the United States are problematic. Wheatley was born in West Africa and sold into slavery at the age of seven to a family who educated her and, after seeing her talent, allowed her to freely write. Her poem continues: Some view our sable race with scornful eye, "Their colour is a diabolic die."

Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain, May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

Wheatley is simultaneously giving thanks for the gospel that she has received as a result of being brought to the United States while subverting the very Biblical interpretation that her owners would have used to justify their ownership of her. While Wheatley’s owners might have justified their subjugation of Africans with the idea that they were inferior due to their suppposed descent from Cain, Wheatley reminds her readers that every person, Christians too—no matter whether they are “black as Cain” in skin color, are “black as Cain” in sin. Wheatley makes it clear that, in fact, Christ’s assertion that every person is a sinner, is the greatest of all levelers. The “angelic train” does not discriminate based on whether one is a Jew or a Greek, black or white.

As we approached the topic of empire, for this semester’s issue of TAUG, we faced a similar tension. First, what role has Christianity played in the establishment of human empires, and how do we make sense of that problematic history? Zelina Gaytan writes along the lines of Wheatley’s poem, answering how and why someone would ever affirm the religion of their oppressors. Ramsey Delano addresses the issue of whether the complex history of the New Testament reveals that it was used as a mechanism to gain political influence.

Secondly, we asked whether Christianity could survive in an empire that opposed it. We find such a case in the People’s Republic of China, a country that is growing increasingly hostile to Christianity within its borders. Jonathan Chen covers the fascinating story of how the teachings of a Jewish rabbi from 2,000 years ago could be gaining traction in this rapidly industrializing and populous country and generating so many millions of converts.

As we pursue these questions and more, we invite you to hear us out and to contribute your voice to the discussion by visiting unknowngodjournal.com.

In Christ,

Micaela Walker

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Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you - Acts 17:23

Editor-in-Chief Micaela Walker

Publisher Laura Clark

Executive Editor Irene Hwang

Staff Jonathan Chen, Caitlyn Lim, Viktor Palenyy, Grace Gao, Dominick Wong, Pachia Xiong, Joanne Chen, Joshua Joo, Evan Keum

Poetry Editor Amanda Gee Managing Editor Stephanie Yom Business Manager Lisa Ann Yu

Editors Emeriti Chris Han, Sarah Cho, Stephanie Chiao, Laura Ferris, John Montague, Whitney Moret, Wesleigh Anderson, Natalie Cha

Advisory Board Steven Fish Department of Political Science Tsu Jae King Liu Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Jan de Vries Department of History Jeffrey Reimer Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

To An Unknown God is not affiliated with any church or any religious group. Opinions expressed in articles do not necessarily represent those of the editors. We are completely student-run and funded by the student body as an ASUC-sponsored student publication. Funding is also provided through individual donations. Distribution is free while supplies last.

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Where Power and Fear Collide Jonathan Chen, STAFF WRITER hina has fast become a powerful economic and militaristic force, and the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party know it. The government seems confident, perhaps even brazen, in jostling for global influence and challenging the current political order. From the pervasive cyber attacks on American government entities and corporations, to the pouring of billions of dollars of foreign aid to Africa in order to gain clout and economic resources, and their desire to establish sovereignty over

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disputed territories in the East and South China Seas in spite of escalating geopolitical tensions, China demonstrates a willingness to assert its supremacy and fight off any opposition it sees.

A similar narrative is taking place internally, within China’s borders, as the government swiftly counters or suppresses whatever they deem a threat or risk to its rule. Among these perceived threats are Christianity and the local church.

When the People’s Republic of China was first established in 1949, there were fewer than a million baptized Protestant Christians out of an estimated population of 450 million.1 Foreign missionaries were prevented from staying as the atheistic Marxist ideology was directly at odds with religion, but Christianity sustained as Y.T. Wu, a Chinese Christian leader opposed to capitalism, brought together Protestant sects through the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM). Under the banner of self-government, self-support, and self-propagation, the TSPM accommodated the Party’s demands and alleviated fears of foreign imperialism.

The toughest wave of persecution took place during the Cultural Revolution, when all forms of religious expression, including the TSPM, were strictly banned. Christians were forced

to worship in secret to avoid arrest, imprisonment, and sometimes torture, resulting in the expansion of the Chinese underground house church movement. In 1979, three years after the end of the Cultural Revolution, China loosened its restrictions on religion and reinstated the TSPM in response to Deng Xiaoping’s reformations and also to discourage unregistered church meetings.

Since then, four decades of Christian revival have resulted in an estimated 60 to 90 million Evangelicals today, who comprise the largest single civil society group in China.2 Still, the relationship between Christianity and the Party remains tense, and persecution of Christians has been on the rise in recent years. Unregistered house churches and their members have typically been the focus of government harassment, but in 2014 even sanctioned and registered church buildings have been targeted and TSPM leaders put under arrest. That year, officials arrested sentenced Zhang Shaojie, the leader of Nanle County Church in Henan province, to 12 years for “gathering crowds to disrupt public order” and demolished the ten-story Xiaying Holy Love Church in Ningbo as well as the equally monumental Sanjiang Church in Wenzhou, a city known for its sizable Christian presence.345 All three were officially sanctioned churches. More than 1,300 crosses were removed from the roofs of churches in Zhejiang province under the pretense of “safety concerns.”6 In all, the 2014 Annual Report published by the Christian NGO China Aid identified 572 cases of religious persecution, in which more than 2,994 were detained and another 1,274 sentenced.7 Christianity’s unrelenting presence appears both troubling and unwanted for a country that is regarded as one of the most powerful and economically successful in the world. For a religion that originated two thousand years ago by a Jewish prophet from an obscure town whose teachings did not advocate brutality or pose a conventional threat to power, it’s interesting to consider why China might react to Christianity in this way.

There’s no straightforward answer to this question, but one possibility is that the Christian life prescribed and described in the Bible runs against cultural and guiding principles the Party sees as critical for its economic rise. Zhao Yukong, author of the book “The Chinese Secrets for Success,” identifies strong Confucian and Chinese values as the reasons behind its citizens’ strong emphasis on education, ambition (“zhixiang”), and thriftiness, with a remarkably high personal savings rate of nearly 30%.8 These attitudes are consistent with a 2013 survey that named China the most materialistic country in the world: more respondents from China measured their success on the basis of material possessions and felt under a lot of pressure to be successful and make money than those from any other country.9 Coupled with Deng’s reformative policies, such values and sentiments, Zhao argues, are what have driven much of the recent economic achievement in China.

If that is the case, then from an economic standpoint, the Party has much to be concerned about regarding Biblical teachings that the Chinese, in rapidly increasing numbers, are choosing instead to adhere to. Whereas the values of Chinese society might cause someone to be preoccupied with achieving wealth, success, and power, Scripture warns the believer that “one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15) and to not serve money as a “master” in place of serving God (Matthew 6:21, 24). The believer is exhorted to redirect his ambitious desires not to please man but Christ and his greater mission (Galatians 1:10, cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:4). It follows that the government has been quick to rout out the church, lest Biblical teachings take root in devout followers and potentially adversely affect the nation’s economic progress and financial prosperity.

Another view is that the Christian faith creates a form of solidarity, a type of unity among people, rooted in something apart from their common nationalistic identity as countrymen.

Though estimates vary, the number of Christians in China is comparable to or potentially greater than the number of members in the Communist Party (87 million). China’s history of religiously inspired movements resulting in violence, most prominently seen in the Taiping Rebellion, is a concern, so the sheer size alone is enough to draw attention from the Party. Perhaps just as the government sought to eliminate Falun Gong, whose Chinese practitioners numbered 70 million at its peak in 1999, it is doing the same, this time with another religion.

But the threat is not in numbers alone. The kind of community and solidarity found in Christianity is uniquely far-reaching and close-knit. Believers do not come to church together because of their good moral deeds, or accomplishments, or common ethnic and cultural identities. Rather, they are brought together by their sin, guilt, and shame. In the three years of his ministry, Jesus chose to connect with the poor, the adulterous, the demonic, the leprous, the greedy – people shunned from and despised by society – and bring them together through physical and spiritual healing. Likewise, the body of believers today is a community of once-broken and once-ostracized people. It is composed of those who acknowledge that they are sinners before a holy God, who rightfully deserve God’s wrathful punishment, yet who humbly receive God’s mercy and forgiveness through the blood of Jesus as substitutionary atonement for their sins.

The implications of this kind of radical community are enormous. For one, Christianity is astoundingly inclusive. The Bible states that no one is without sin, yet all are offered this grace of forgiveness through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Any person from any background who confesses his sinfulness and faithfully acknowledges Jesus as his Savior and Lord would be considered a Christian and included as part of the body of the church. There really is no limit to the number of people that might be added to Fall 2015 | To An Unknown God 7

this community. Moreover, the nature of this community is not merely a group of people with shared beliefs. It is, quite literally, a spiritual family, born “not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13, cf. Matthew 12:46-50), with God as the Father and Jesus a brother of his fellow believers. For the Christian, while the biological family remains significant, the spiritual family transcends the biological family. This is a direct challenge to traditional Confucian and Chinese values and their view of family as the most important relationship a person has.

While the size and nature of Christian community is in and of itself a source of unease, a greater worry to the Party is what their faith in Jesus is causing believers to do. The earliest followers of Jesus were continually harassed, tortured, and sometimes even martyred for their faith and belief in Jesus’ resurrection, yet they did not cave in to outside pressure or deny Jesus as the Son of God. This pattern of following Jesus to the very end is being repeated among Chinese Christians today. In the past few years, countless worshippers were detained or beaten, churches demolished, leaders placed under house arrest or taken away, members forced to conduct worship service outdoors, Bibles and religious publications confiscated. Yet rather than move away from Christianity, as the government would like for them to, the believers remained strong and were even empowered in the faith, and the number of Christians in China continues to be added each year.

It is this fervent and unyielding faith of the believer that gives us a clue as to what might be the fundamental reason why China is opposed to the growth of Christianity within its borders. It is not an issue of how many Christians there are, or preserving traditional culture, or maintaining economic viability, though these all certainly play a role to some extent. It is ultimately a question of authority.

Who has the final say in a person’s decision-making process?

This is the question that concerns China the most, and of course the government would want its citizens to let the Party have the final say. But for the Chinese citizen who is also a Christian adherent, his highest authority is not the Party, but God. Now, Christianity does not seek to put itself as an opponent to civil government. Rather, the Bible commands believers to “be subject to the governing authorities” (Romans 13:1, cf.

1 Peter 2:13). When governing authorities are in conflict with the authority of God’s Word, God’s authority is supreme and believers “must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Still, even in their disobedience, submissiveness to the government is maintained. A biblical example can be seen in Daniel 3, in which Daniel’s three friends disobey the king’s command to bow before an idol yet still submit to the government by not overthrowing the king and by being willing to face the death penalty.

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China’s treatment of Christianity and the church, then, seems to reflect the government’s suspicion and fear of the church and a stubborn need to have the ultimate authority and remove any threat at any cost. One way the government has tried to increase the Party’s influence and authority is by working within the TSPM, the official state-recognized Christian church. According to a report from the inter-denominational Christian organization Voice of the Martyrs, believers of official TSPM churches must support the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and value socialism above their faith, cannot teach their children about Christ, cannot publicly evangelize, and cannot plant new churches unless authorized by the State.10 Another way the state has tried to limit the growth of Christianity is by capping the growth of trained clergymen. The thirteen TSPM seminaries have produced about 3,000 graduates since the 1980s, an obviously inadequate number when compared to the 20 million TSPM church members they’ve been sent to serve.11 Still, it is not enough. As the persecution of Christianity has expanded from unregistered house churches to even TSPM churches and pastors since 2014, the Party seems to be indicating that Christianity has grown so rapidly that it does not know how to control it. And ironically enough for a Party that is officially atheist, the government has turned to tacitly approving traditional Chinese folk religions and Confucianism in order to curb the spread of Christianity. For example, feng shui, once considered by the Communist Party to be a “feudal superstition” a decade ago, is now protected to support “intangible cultural heritage” and used to stop the development of church buildings in some areas.12 Such policies reflect the state’s nervousness in dealing with the rise of Christianity in China. For a country that is seemingly so powerful, it’s surprising that China fears and feels threatened by Christianity in this way.

Christianity offers a narrative counter to the conventional power narrative that the Chinese government displays. Through the person of Jesus Christ, we find that true power means having no fear. The Almighty God and Creator became at one point limited in time and space, descending into earth and embodying flesh, as Christ incarnate. Christ descending into earth is a reflection of his power. As C.S. Lewis puts it, “Everywhere the great enters the little – its power to do so is almost the test of its greatness.”

China’s notion of power is focused on size and centrality.

Any threat to its perceived power is another opportunity to expose its fear and insecurity. There is no descending involved, no willingness to take in the threats lest China exposes its weaknesses and pitfalls. There is certainly no space for humility or room to acknowledge the truth of the Gospel or the existence of God. Christ challenges this traditional notion of power with a

picture of power that is voluntarily self-limiting. Christ is able to descend into time and space because God, who is almighty in every way, can be fully vulnerable and still have nothing to fear. In this sense, true power belongs not to China but rather to Christ the King.

The pattern of Christian persecution in China does not seem to be subsiding, as the country continues to hold on to a flawed notion of power. For the believer, when trials get difficult and outside pressures unbearable, consider the example Christ revealed to us, Christ who himself was faced with many threats, yet not once caved into Satan’s temptations, or the Pharisees’ allegations, or the crowd’s insults, or the Roman soldiers’ beatings, or his own anxieties at Gethsemane, but kept on descending, enduring the shame and dying the lowliest of deaths on the cross.

All to show the world his perfect love.

4. Tom Phillips, “China Denies Declaring War on Christians After Mega-Church is Razed,” The Telegraph, 29 April 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/asia/china/10794749/China-denies-declaring-war-on-Christians-after-mega-church-is-razed.html 5. Tom Phillips, “Thousand Christians Forced From Church as Demolition Campaign Spreads,” The Telegraph, 19 May 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/asia/china/10841738/Thousand-Christians-forced-fromchurch-as-demolition-campaign-spreads.html 6. See endnote 2.

7. Rachel Ritchie, “China Aid 2014 Annual Report Indicates Rising Trend in Persecution Cases,” China Aid, 21 April 2015, http://www.chinaaid.org/2015/04/ china-aid-2014-annual-report-indicates.html 8. Yukong Zhao, “What Drives China’s Success?” Forbes, 2 Oct 2014, http:// www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/10/02/what-drives-chinas-success/ 9. Bree Feng, “Chinese Respondents Top Materialism Poll,” New York Times, 20 Dec 2013, http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/20/chinese-re-

“For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” – 2 Timothy 1:7

spondents-top-materialism-poll/ 10. “The Empty Cross: The False Doctrine of China’s Official Church,” The Voice of the Martyrs, 2008, http://www.persecution.com/uploads/media/

Endnotes:

downloads/144_TheEmptyCross.pdf

1. Fenggang Yang, Chinese Christians in America: Conversion, Assimilation,

11. Yalin Xin, The Future of Christianity in China: An Internal Reflection

and Adhesive Identities (Penn State Press, 2010), https://books.google.com/

(Asbury Theological Seminary, 2009), http://place.asburyseminary.edu/cgi/

books?id=Jw1TV4VvY8IC&pg=PA206&lpg=PA206.

viewcontent.cgi?article=1035&context=asburyjournal

2. Robert Marquand, “Xi Jinping State Visit: China’s Arrest of Southern Chris-

12. Ian Johnson, “Church-State Clash in China Coalesces Around a Toppled

tians Intensifies,” The Christian Science Monitor, 25 Sept 2015, http://www.

Spire,” New York Times, 29 May 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/

csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2015/0925/Xi-Jinping-state-visit-China-s-

world/asia/church-state-clash-in-china-coalesces-around-a-toppled-spire.htm

arrest-of-southern-Christians-intensifies 3. Didi Kirsten Tatlow, “Christian Pastor Sentenced to 12 Years in Chinese

Jonathan is a senior at UC Berkeley who is continually amazed at the story God

Prison,” New York Times, 8 July 2014, http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.

is unfolding in China and inspired by the faith of brothers and sisters who

com/2014/07/08/christian-pastor-sentenced-to-12-years-in-chinese-prison/

endure in spite of persecution and lack.

Fall 2015 | To An Unknown God 9

An Empire of Doubt Ramsey Delano, CONTRIBUTING WRITER hen I signed up for History 3: The Byzantine Empire, my last lower division class on the tail end of a long journey in the History Department, I expected to get in and out with relatively little intellectual strain. I didn’t really have a strong conception of what a Byzantine was, just that this class existed far outside my normal field of 20th century East Asia.

The Byzantine turned out to be the Roman Empire, Part II. Though I considered myself interested in every area of history, and despite my having become a Christian three years ago, I had yet to study early Christian history. In section, we discussed prominent Christian writers, turning the critical eyes of an academic upon the works of men like Eusebius, an influential polemic and the Bishop of Caesarea. Apart from early Christian thought, we also covered the spread of Christianity during the Byzantine. My professor offered the perspective that Christianity flourished because it became a protected and then “official” state religion of the empire with perks being afforded to those who converted. I also learned about the different rivaling doctrines of the time, the two main types being Nicene and Arian Christianity, and how politics in the Byzantine determined which views became supported or persecuted.

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Though I knew that the Bible required a lot of interpretation, I intentionally ignored how big of a role these bureaucrats and theologians played in deciding which interpretations of scripture would become widely held. As I sat through these lectures, I grew increasingly skeptical of these men who significantly influenced the belief system that I had come to accept as truth.

Soon this class had thrown me into a small crisis, and my mind was clouded with doubt. The perspective that the class took on Christianity, viewing it as a religion whose tenets resulted from a messy historical process, put pinpricks in what I thought was an unwavering faith in the veracity of scripture. If I held that the Bible was a divinely inspired text, a physical manifestation of God’s word and therefore ultimate truth, what did it mean for my faith that so many Byzantine men had shaped our interpretations of the Bible?

We talked about these theologians as politicians, men with their own agendas vying for power and influence. Our professor defined heretics as “the losers” and adherents to what we would consider orthodoxy as “the winners.” To think that these were the men who played a major role in determining the beliefs that I now orient my life around left me deeply unsettled.

I had been avoiding early Christian history for so long, and now that it was right in front of me, my fears about studying Christian history with an “objective” lens seemed to come to fruition. My beliefs were now seeming much more man-made than God-inspired.

However, because God is a God of mercy, he did not let me stew in my own doubt for too long. My GSI, a likable and quirky character who led us through our critical analysis of the texts, turned out to be a Christian himself. After I reattached my dropped jaw, I formed a series of desperate questions in office hours to air my doubts.

After a lengthy discussion (unperturbed by a Dwinelle fire alarm and a quick jaunt outdoors), God had repaired some of the pinpricks that had been deflating my faith. My GSI reminded me that everyone in history, whether a theologian, bishop, clergyman, or king, is human and complicated. While they may look towards heaven, as we try to do, they are also held back by an earthly agenda, as we also are. Though they may have sought to follow God’s will, it would be foolish to overlook the limiting influence of their own worldly desires. This suggested that, despite their failures, God could still have worked through them in order to deliver us his divinely inspired word.

In speaking of studying history through an “objective” lens, I need not conflate “objective” with “secular.” What I mean to say is, we don’t have to pretend we aren’t Christian when we look back in to history and therefore accept only naturalistic explanations for historical occurrences. Though our current academic environment seems to have scrubbed the influence of faith from academic inquiry, we don’t have to sacrifice our belief that history still contains the ongoing work of God’s redemptive plan.

The 21st century historian does not pretend to be free of bias, but instead approaches historical sources and problems with an honest admission of the perspectives they are bringing to the proverbial table. We understand their analysis in light of their bias. What my GSI called “the eyes of faith,” do not need to be blinded in order to analyze and write “good history.”When it comes to looking at the Bible, we should see it as what it is— both the divinely inspired word of God and a historical source that resulted from a historical process.

As I have studied the Byzantine, God has reminded me that He has always used those who are broken and flawed, and has always trusted imperfect beings with His perfect message of salvation. Where I put my faith as a believer is not in a perfect historical narrative that validates the superiority of my religion by having completely unproblematic persons put it together. No, there wouldn’t seem to be anyone in history who then could have put the Bible together.

I place my faith as a believer in God having ultimately been sovereign throughout time. I admit that this may seem to be an unsatisfactory answer, but ultimately I choose to believe that God cannot be thwarted by man, but by allowing us to choose Him or not, this granting of free will means believers and nonbelievers have an incredible amount of space to make mistakes.

Though shaken, God has ultimately strengthened my trust that the Bible is His Word. While debates over interpretations, translations and added or subtracted verses can rage on forever, I do believe that God has used imperfect people to deliver his perfect message. The words I read today are the exact words God intended for me to read, digest, ponder, and allow to transform my life. The Byzantine Empire certainly shaped a great deal of the beliefs I place my faith in, but understanding that history has ultimately increased my understanding of God’s word.

1. The Byzantine Empire lasted from 330 AD to 1453 AD and includes key moments in church history such as the Crusades in the 11th century.

2. Edict of Thessalonica 380 AD

Ramsey Delano is a 4th year History major and future high school teacher who enjoys long philosophical walks on the beach and listening to people's life stories.

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Christianity, Conquistadors, & Identity Zelina Gaytan, CONTRIBUTING WRITER he story of one empire conquering another is not a new one. Even so, the conquest of indigenous peoples in Latin America--the Aztecs, the Mayas, the Incas, and so on, by the Spanish empire in the early 16th century is a ghost to Latin American people. One of the most highly problematic aspects of this conquest was the treatment of indigenous peoples who were forced to convert to Christianity through violent and dehumanizing tactics.

In 1492, Columbus arrived in the Caribbean and began the expansion of the Spanish empire over most of North and South America which would span four centuries. For the Spaniards, colonization of the new world was a God-given task. In 1539, Jesuit missionary and naturalist, Jose de Acosta, wrote: There is no lack of affirmation that it’s prophesied in the Divine Letters...that this New Orbe [new world] would be converted to Christ and by the Spanish people...the prophet himself, speaks that those who are saved shall go very far to Tarsis, to remote islands...and without a doubt we can apply that to the conversion of the people of the indies.1 Acosta expressed the Spaniards’ belief that they were the people through whom God would spread his message of salvation. Yet, the reality was quite contrary. Another missionary, Bartolome de las Casas, recounts what would happen to those who would not convert: ...in honor and reverence to our Redeemer and the twelve disciples, laying wood and fire they burned them alive … I am a witness to all of these things and many more forms of cruelty never seen or heard before.2 This genocide was not only of human lives but of culture, too.

The colonization of indigenous people by Spaniards also brought about a new ethnicity-mestizaje-which is the best word I can use to describe myself. Mestizaje or mixed, is a description for people who are not fully indigenous, nor European.

It is curious to many and frustrating to others that I would also identify myself as Christian and come to accept what is called “the gospel,” the message of salvation that the Spaniards were purportedly bringing to the Americas. I willfully converted to Christianity, and believe that I receive salvation and atonement for my sins through Jesus’s death. Yet I have not simply forgotten

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or denied this history. It’s clear that it was Christians who dehumanized my ancestors. I decided, though, that I would judge the Christian God by what He himself said and how he behaved.

Thus, I took up reading the New Testament accounts of Jesus’s life.

What I found in the New Testament accounts was perplexing.

Jesus, though a man, claimed multiple times to also be God, the Creator of all. If that were true, one would imagine that Jesus could wield his power to do as he pleased, maybe doing the same things that the Conquistadors did. Yet the life of Christ testifies to something different.

He was born of peasant parents in an animal barn, and his life was characterized by humility and descent even unto his death by crucifixion. Why would a God-man limit his power in such a way?

Philippians 2:7 gives this insight: Though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

The narrative of the conquistadors is so contrary to this narrative of self-sacrificing love seen in Christ. Their actions towards indigenous people are the opposite of God’s heart as expressed in the Bible. Sometimes I wonder, then, why God let the gospel be introduced to my Indigenous ancestors through colonization, and why the gospel was manipulated so much.

Though I do not know exactly why God didn’t intervene, I have good reasons to trust in Him despite that. What I see in the Christian conquistadors was not Christ-like, not the gospel. Yet, I do see the truth of the gospel in it: for the gospel first claims that humans are morally bankrupt and constantly trying to decide for ourselves what is good and what is evil, causing destruction to ourselves and others.

Christ offers a counter-narrative to that of the conquistadors.

A narrative of love. One Bible commentator put it this way, “Human love will go far in self-abnegation and self-surrender. But divine love will make the infinite descent from the very heights of glory to the very depths of shame.”3 It was this divine love that moved me to become a follower of Christ.

1. José de Acosta - Jane E.Mangan - Walter Mignolo - Frances M.López-Morillas Duke University Press - 2002 2. Bartolomé de las Casas - Nigel Griffin - Penguin Books - 1992 3. "God's Self-Limitations, Christ in Creation and Ethical Monism, Augustus Hopkins Strong, Christian Classics Books at BibleStudyTools.com." Bible Study Tools. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2015.

Zelina Gaytan is a fourth-year Spanish major who loves the X-Men and Christian ska.

Giving What is Right Pachia Xiong, STAFF WRITER oming to Berkeley has been the toughest part of my young life. I say this, not because the rent is expensive, not because the academics are rigorous, and not because I am away from family, but because my biggest fight in Berkeley has been inward. Everyday is a to-do list. It becomes so easy to get caught up in my academics, extracurricular activities, and the like that I forget to call family, check up on friends, and more importantly, make time for God. Last semester, I found myself campaigning for a friend who was running for senate. It was a hot day, and I had been sprouling for 4 hours straight. For anyone who has sprouled or campaigned, you know that it’s not an easy feat: chasing after folks who quicken their pace to purposely avoid you; walking folks to their class all the way to Evans Hall; pitching platforms to people in thirty seconds because after twenty seconds, they stop listening to you. It’s tough. By my fourth hour, I was tired, out of breath, sweaty, and hopeless. The last person I had talked to politely turned me down, and suggested that I drink some water. My hoarse voice was obviously giving away my exhaustion.

I embarrassingly thanked her and walked back toward Sproul Plaza, where I would be reminded of God’s love. A group of high school students approached me and told me that they were from a Christian high school and were conducting surveys with Cal students. They asked me a few questions, said a prayer for me, and then proceeded to offer me a water bottle. The label read, "but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst” (John 4:14 NIV). With that one gesture, I broke. I had been so caught up in the last week with campaigning, that I hadn’t made time for Him. Yet here He was, delivering sustenance, hope, and reassurance of His love for me. That night, I laid in bed and talked to Him. Openly and truthfully.

“Give God what is right, not what is left.” Too often do I forget this simple quote. I’m guilty of rushing a prayer under my breath before I eat, because I don’t have much time to do either.

I’m guilty of not asking for His help when I’m stressed because I think I can handle it on my own. I’m guilty of not giving thanks

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when I receive a blessing. I’m guilty of not seeing blessings when I feel burdened. And despite all of that, He gives me His best all of the time.

The truth is, I still find myself getting busy and caught up in my obligations, but my first obligation is giving Him all of me: my thanks, my time, my insecurities, my fears, my love, my devotion, all of it. This is not to say that praying to God is some burden that I have to remind myself about daily. He does not only take care of me upon receiving my prayer and worship. His love is unconditional, and giving my time to Him in prayer is a powerful way that I can give Him what is right. Prayer works in many ways. I pray to give Him thanks in times of blessings, because He takes care of me even when I don’t ask. Prayer also enables me to grow closer to God. When I pray to Him openly, I relinquish all fear and apprehension. I don’t have to worry about saying the right thing or feeling ashamed of anything. He knows everything about me before I even approach Him, and He loves me despite my errors. Praying to God also gives me strength in times of hardship. I am imperfect and incapable of handling everything, and when I fall short, He extends His arm to me.

Before I even fall, He is there to be my strength.

I no longer want to rush a prayer under my breath in between to-do’s or as I’m falling asleep at 2 AM. He gives me what is right always. Now I want to give Him what is right.

Pachia is a third year English major from Fresno, CA. She loves God, hot tea and fuzzy socks, and pugs. -

Fall 2015 | To An Unknown God 13

Reimagining the "Christian Imagination" Dominick Wong, STAFF WRITER f, by chance, you happen to have had a childhood like mine, you are likely no stranger to the dizzying heights of the Imagination. For children like us who had yet to solidify that strict, adult delineation between the Possible and the Impossible, it was all too easy to find ourselves overwhelmingly lost in the fantastic worlds of television, books, and our own creation. In our make-believe, play-pretend days, we had only to say it was so and, for us, it would be. Sticks became swords, floors turned to lava, toys came alive, and for those few passing moments nothing could rival that sheer sense of wonder. Because when we Imagined, we viewed and grasped that which was unseen; we entertained worlds other than our own. By the Imagination, dreams became reality. This was by no means a trivial ability.

But then we grew up, and between school, work, and all those other important responsibilities, there was little time to Imagine save for class-time daydreams that we knew to be more fantasy than reality; and really, that was the most important thing: being realistic. To some degree or another, we had already begun to tell ourselves that it was “childish” to let our Imaginations get the best of us. Because we knew that being a grown-up is realizing what is and what isn’t. It is knowing the difference between fact and fiction, and it is preferring the former. For we know that the things of the Imagination are false, and that, ultimately, the only useful, beneficial things are those that we can consider “Real”.

To us, this may seem rather obvious, but it is only obvious because we have already oriented so much of our behavior and mindset around this notion that something is valuable only to the degree that it serves our ends. All our decisions, goals, and values are based on preconceived ideas of what is and will be beneficial to us. When we become accustomed to looking at the world through this lens, self-benefit quickly becomes our only concern and, soon thereafter, the only thing we see. And so it is that when we speak of reality, we are, in actuality, referring to a “Reality” of our own creation, formed and featured around self-serving utility. In the margins of our collective myopia,

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there is little room for the Imagination or anything else that might contradict our “Reality’s” aims.

The totality of this social project is most clearly reflected in how we, as a society, deal with those who refuse to play the game. We tell the dreamers to get their “heads out of the clouds” and do something “productive”. Those who cannot be taught to distinguish between “Reality” and their own Imaginations we consider “Insane”. We allow the Innovator and the Visionary to Imagine only on the condition that their Imaginations promise to improve “Reality”. In other words, society considers the Imagination to be worthless when it removes us from “Reality”, and valuable only to the degree that it is enslaved to “Reality”.

And yet, despite all of this, people still Imagine in unacceptable ways.

During our spare time and our off-hours, people like me and you still engage in a counterproductive, countercultural rejection of “Reality.” In the books we read and the television we watch, in our happy hour fantasies and our lunchtime daydreams, it is not the productive, socially-sanctioned world of “Reality” that captures our attention, but the worlds of our Imaginations.

Many a frustrated housewife or unemployed youth has found comfort in the pages of a tabloid or the levels of a video game.

Many a stressed worker or student has found relief and comfort in the safety of their minds. It is in escapist tendencies such as these that we discover something significant: to a certain extent, those who Imagine desire the worlds of their Imagination over “Reality”. For those of us who choose to Imagine, it is often because this “Reality” is not preferable.

I find it, thus, very, very interesting that, seven years ago, at the outset of this publication, To An Unknown God published an article entitled “The Christian Imagination.” In it, our founding editor, John Montague, lamented what he conceived to be a crippling lack of Imagination in the Church and then went on to detail how and where Christians like us might apply our Imaginations. From politics, to business, to literature, to art, Montague believed that we as Christians should not “assimilate” to “Reality’s” standards, but rather, that we should find in the Imagination a means of improving “Reality” on the basis of Christian principles.

I believe that in a society so oriented around what we perceive to be “Real”, John Montague’s call to the Imagination is truly admirable and I agree wholeheartedly with his sentiment.

Yet, I hold to the notion that when we speak of the “Christian Imagination”, we call forth something much more significant than what he envisions. In remarkably similar manner to that of society, John’s article values the Imagination for its capacity to better our “Reality”. I believe that the Christian Imagination is capable of much more than mere improvement. The Christian Imagination is a complete rejection of what we call “Reality”

that seeks not to improve, but to restore. And so, before we as Christians can even begin to Imagine, we must first understand our reason for doing so; we must first understand what we hope to restore.

Up until now we have spoken of the Imagination’s antithesis as “Reality”, chiefly because that is the term with which it refers to itself, but I assure you, what is commonly called “Reality” is anything but real. Christ referred to it as the “World”, the “kosmos”, which meant more than just planet Earth, but rather “the current order of things”; a corruption of the original order. How did this order break? What turned “Reality” into something unreal?

The first chapters of the Genesis account detail the original order; Reality without quotation marks; the World as it should have been. It describes this World as perfect, created and sustained by God for His glory with mankind placed in a Garden; just two lovers. Everything was good. Everything was real.

And then we Imagined.

We Imagined a World without God; a World apart from God. In that first temptation in the Garden, Satan invited us to doubt God’s Word. “...Did he actually say…?”1 In our minds, God’s Word became lies. “...You will surely not die.”2 In that fateful moment when we chose lies over truth, our eyes became blinded to the truth itself, and as punishment for Imagining a “Reality” apart from God, our Imagination became our “Reality”. In this false “Reality”, it is not God that sustains us, but ourselves. We make food and the food gives us life. We work hard and the work gives us strength. We earn money and the money gives us worth. Here, value lies not in what glorifies the Creator, but in what benefits us, the creation. We have constructed a self-serving “Reality” that worships self-gain. Our Worldview, our cosmology, has become broken. Our “Reality” is no longer real.

Ironically, it was only in this broken “Reality” that the Imagination could take on new meaning. When everything was real and everything was true, the Imagination could only be lies. But now, in this fabricated World of falsehood, the Imagination points to truth. For Jesus is himself, “...the way, and the truth, and the life…”3, and in His life, death, and resurrection, he proclaims a restoration of this broken World to the original Reality, created and sustained by God for his glory. It is the need for this restoration that the Imagination makes so clear. Because, at its root, all Imagination reflects the truth that this “Reality” is broken. Even those without Christ know this.

From jaded office workers to heads of state, most everyone becomes aware that something in this World has gone terribly wrong. Some respond to this realization with hopelessness and despair. Many choose to ignore the brokenness and pretend it’s not there. Still others try to think of ways to fix our broken World in ways that all ultimately fail.

And so it is that when we, the Church, speak of hope and joy among a hopeless people; when we refuse to ignore brokenness in a jaded World; and when we hold to an eternal solution that will succeed where all else failed -- when we do all these things -- it is little wonder that this Christian Imagination of ours will appear childish, escapist, or even crazy to those who are not with us. Indeed, the Christian Imagination has been called “wish fulfillment” by Freud, an “opiate of the masses” by Marx, a “God delusion” by Dawkins. “Reality” has consistently sought to stamp us out, seeing in us the worst kind of Imagination. And this should come as no surprise.

For, “the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God”4.

The Christian Imagination would be just as false and self-deluding as any other Imagination if it were not for the fact that we are being saved. In our lives and the lives of our brothers and sisters, Christ is constantly saving us, healing us, and restoring us. The Reality that He is bringing about has already been established among us and is now our Imagination’s greatest hope.

In this lies the true power of the “Christian Imagination”. If, as we’ve said, to Imagine is to see “that which is unseen”, then the Christian Imagination is, “... the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”.5 The Christian Imagination is Faith.

Because we are sure that what Christ has promised will come to pass. We are certain that what we Imagine will become Reality. Christ has taken the same Imagination that first removed us from Reality to now bring us back to it. By our Faith we have been healed.

And so now, knowing this, we must no longer be beholden to the things this World considers “Real”; no longer illusioned by the grades, the jobs, and the endless parade of things this “Reality” Imagines. We must Imagine a Reality built on Christ, the only foundation that lasts. We must place our Faith in a Reality with God, not man, at its center. For by Faith we, “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one”6. And though we do not see it now, we are, “...looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” 7.

Let this be the hope that we inspire in those perishing.

Let this be the Christian Imagination.

1. Gen 3:1 ESV

5. Hebrews 11:1 NASB

2. Gen 3:4 ESV

6. Hebrews 11:16 ESV

3. John 14:6 ESV

7. Hebrews 11:10 ESV

4. 1 Corinthians 1:18 NASB

Dominick is a recent Cal grad who spends most of his time eating high schoolers and teaching food.

Fall 2015 | To An Unknown God 15

The Primacy of Relationships John Knox, CONTRIBUTING WRITER raduating from Cal in 2013, I fell headfirst into the nonprofit consulting world like Alice tumbled down the rabbit hole. Thankfully, I felt confirmation that God was the one who gave me the gentle push in the first place.

Yet as a newly minted business professional and a Christian young adult, my spirit longed to find business mindsets congruent with the truths of the Gospel. And, like a well-trained Berkeley student, my criticism of the ‘powers that be’ revealed the opposite. Simply put: there are a lot of business mindsets that do not fit nicely into my conceptions of Christianity. Especially disconcerting are those mindsets that do not honor one’s God-given potential or full-personhood.

One such problematic mindset that plays out in both company hiring practice and subsequent employee treatment is the belief that “form follows function.” In essence, the individual’s value is seen as the sum total of his/her evaluated skills and titles, while value for that person’s identity and relationship hinges on these skills and titles. Firstly, this means that when looking at a resume, confirming a person can perform the right ‘function’ means they are a suitable candidate for the offer. Once the employee is hired, their work “function” largely dictates the “form” of identity they can be appreciated for and the type of relationship they get to have with others around them. Can you be the right cog in the machine?

Internally, companies set up organizational charts with clearly delineated roles: neatly distinguishing the C-suite executives from management and the frontline staff. Each level has clear boundaries in relationship and responsibility based upon skillset, personal investment, and vision. And that makes sense in a lot of ways for division of labor1. But at the end of the day there is still a significant problem that lies in pigeonholing people into set roles and categories. You may resort to interacting with them based largely on their company “function.”2 Adhering to strict social hierarchy usually involves learning an array of professional etiquette and procedure that rarely encourages professional development outright. While it may seem easier or more convenient to describe someone and relate to them based on their role, that approach doesn’t uncover the depth of their work potential. Even more troublesome--it doesn’t honor their God-given personhood!

At my own firm I’ve experienced coworkers who chose not to relate to me as a person outside a work context. Some colleagues I’ve known for months but found it difficult to ever really know what makes them tick. Unfortunately I’ve also seen this particular pitfall show up time and again for my clients’ employees--many

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of them still scratching their heads at how to achieve greater connection, transparency, and partnership with their management.

Harvard Business Review (HBR) has published studies on company relationships, and found that employees who are not holistically connected to their coworkers and superiors struggle staying motivated and become relationally deprived. Furthermore it has found that “community solidarity comes from allowing the whole person to surface, which means going beyond superficial conformity to know what else people care about.” HBR encourages employers to allow their employees to “bring outside interests to work” and to “give them frequent opportunities to meet people across the organization to help them get to know one another more deeply.”3 Ultimately when close ties form between coworkers it “boosts employee satisfaction by 50% and people with a best friend at work are seven times more likely to engage fully in their work.”4 Through the lens of Scripture in both the Old and New Testaments we see a God who cares deeply about relationship in the holy work of building the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

In the Gospels we see that Jesus chose a tax collector, fishermen, and a religious insurrectionist to be His disciples.

He broke bread with them.

He laughed with them.

He cried with them.

He conversed with them about their hopes, dreams, fears, and faith—embracing their full personhood. He looked at their hearts and saw their potential to rise to the occasion of kingdom building.

Wasn’t Jesus revolutionary in this? It truly is as Paul tells the Corinthians: “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”5 Before proving their worthiness, Jesus drew near to His disciples. He prayed with them, fellowshipped with them, and shared life with them. They came to see what He was about, and out of their relationship cultivated trust, confidence, and interdependence. Ultimately over the course of three years they banded together to call forth the Kingdom of Heaven.

Thank God that He sees who we really are though and still chooses to use us. He doesn’t always call the most qualified people to offices of great power and responsibility. Joseph, Moses, and King David’s origin stories showcase this reality. Their calls to leadership are reflective of the primacy of their relationship with and faith in God rather than a reward they received by amassing great personal influence or achievement. King David is a perfect test case. Even though he committed numerous high-profile sins

in his lifetime, God consistently called him a “man after his own heart” because of his repentance and desire to turn back to God’s righteous standard of living.6 Truly “the Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”7 As Christians we can’t forget to prophetically see and believe more for people than they might be able to currently see or believe is possible for themselves.8 We do this because we have a great God who saw our value and demonstrated His love for us in that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”9 and brought us out from darkness into His marvelous light. So in the same vein “we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ too merely from a human point of view, [but] how differently we know him now!”10 God’s kingdom highlights the primacy of relationship.

Whereas a corporate empire can dehumanize and deprive people of true relationship by subscribing to “form following function,” God’s Kingdom practices “function following form.” It knits sons and daughters into families where they gain heaven’s eyes for one another—learning to recognize each other’s “form” from their co-belovedness in Christ before regarding one another as employees fulfilling certain “functions.”

I advocate that you start practicing this truth today by loving your fellow students well. You can begin by honoring others’ God-given potential and personhood through appreciating their character, dreams, and passion. Buy each other coffee and listen to each other’s stories. Exhort one another to creatively express yourselves and ask the Lord to reveal how the person in front of you is fearfully and wonderfully made. If you let the Spirit empower you on this track it could translate into you influencing the company culture you inhabit after graduation by bringing in Kingdom principles. People will notice the difference and be drawn to it. Because deep down inside, something inside them knows they were created to experience a love like that.

1) Division of labor is a necessary part of professional role distinction. I’m not advocating an employer should always choose a job applicant for an investment-banking analyst position who doesn’t have proficiency in Excel. But I’ve heard plenty of success stories of companies choosing an unlikely candidate who showed promise and raw talent over someone who could “check all the boxes” for necessary skillsets. Without a business background I got into business consulting thanks to the raw potential my boss saw in me during the interview process.

2) I readily acknowledge that startups regularly break the “form follows function” rule all the time. Good for them! But not everyone can join a startup so I’m speaking specifically about established business careers in fields like consulting, banking, private equity, big tech, and whatever others I’m missing etc.

3) Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. “Three Things that Actually Motivate Employees,” ees,” Harvard Business Review, October 23, 2013, https://hbr.org/2013/10/ three-things-that-actually-motivate-employees/.

4) Riordan, Christine M. “We all Need Friends at Work,” Harvard Business Review, July 3, 2013, https://hbr.org/2013/07/we-all-need-friends-at-work/.

5) 1 Cor. 1:27 NIV 6) 1 Sam. 13:14 NIV 7) 1 Sam. 16:17 NIV 8) Seeing more for people than they can see for themselves can look really practical. For instance, instead of firing an employee who is becoming depressed while at work because his “form” isn’t following his “function,” reaching out to help support the employee get help can set an important precedent for the culture of the company. Personally supporting the one who can improve morale for the many, providing them with the security to know they are not just expendable cogs that must always perform to standards for fear of being fired. Faith builds culture. LinkedIn and Google are great at this.

8) 1 Sam. 13:14 NIV 9) Rom. 5:8 NIV 10) 2 Cor. 5:16 NLT John Knox studied Psychology at Berkeley and since graduation has both served as the advisor for Unity in Christ (UiC) and worked in consulting. He loves reading, philosophizing, and calling out the potential in all God’s kids over Sliver pizza and Reed’s ginger beer.

Fall 2015 | To An Unknown God 17

The Human Idiot and the Superhuman Giant Amanda Gee, STAFF WRITER kepticism nags me whenever I watch a movie about a superhero protecting the city or read a novel about the life of generously unselfish person. On one hand, I love that these stories show forces of good combating and triumphing over the forces of evil. And yet, upon closing a book or leaving the movie theater, I wonder if any good was actually gained in the end. What if the hero failed in the end? Even if he or she does succeed, what will prevent a later disruption of the hard-earned peace? No hero, no matter how powerful, can last forever.

The heroes of such pieces exemplify the power of selflessness, or the concern for others’ needs over their own. The power of this selflessness to actually save the subject of the hero’s concern, however, is limited. Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel The Idiot and Warner Brother’s animated film The Iron Giant both present characters that act selflessly. Although intended for different audiences and presented in different media forms, the protagonist in both stories display the capacity and desire to be a good person but elicits hostility, even fear, from the very people he wants to relate with.

The Idiot focuses on Prince Myshkin following his return to Russia after being treated for epilepsy in a Swiss sanatorium. His ingenuous disregard for social norms cause his acquaintances to categorize him as an “idiot.” Myshkin’s unworldliness and compassion, however, intrigues and unsettles many of his contemporaries. Myshkin responds to insults with courtesy and engages in philosophical conversations with great insight. His pitying love for Natasya, the former mistress of a nobleman, compels him to propose marriage to her in an attempt to rescue her from her self-destructiveness.

Despite the sincere purity of his protagonist, Dostoyevsky emphasizes the fact that Myshkin remains completely human to his detriment. When Rogozhin, Natasya’s mentally unstable suitor, attempts to murder Myshkin, his plan is only foiled when Myshkin suffers from an epileptic seizure. His epilepsy often incapacitates him, making Myshkin physically weak and vulnerable. In addition, his extreme sensitivity to human suffering renders Myshkin emotionally frail. Natasya, while touched by Myshkin’s kindness, considers herself permanently damaged by her experiences of sexual trauma. Her obsession with her own self-destruction destabilizes her, catalyzing her murder by Rogozhin. The sight of Natasya’s dead body mentally breaks Myshkin that he must be

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readmitted to the sanatorium. Although genuine in his concern, Myshkin cannot alter people’s hardened mindsets. The novel ends with Myshkin not only unable to protect Natasya but also destroyed by the horrors he has witnessed.

If The Idiot presents the limitation of human selflessness through Myshkin’s failure, The Iron Giant poses the opposite scenario of the stigmatism against non-human selflessness through the Giant’s success. Set in the Cold War during the height of McCarthyism, the animated film shows the relationship between nine-year-old Hogarth and a gigantic robot who crashlands by his hometown of Rockwell. Initially terrified by the robot, Hogarth quickly realizes that the Giant is “like a little kid” in his curiosity about his new surroundings and his unawareness of where he came from. The Giant’s friendship with Hogarth slowly allows the Giant to understand the fundamentals of what makes someone “human.” Even more, the Giant rejects the idea of being a metal monster, declaring that he will instead be “Superman,” the hero who uses his superhuman powers for good.

The Giant’s longing to be good ennobles him. The Giant clearly nonhuman appearance, however, prevents him from being accepted into human society. Kent Mansley, the government official investigating reports of “giant metal man,” sees the Giant an alien invader that “we have to destroy before it destroys us.”

Mansley’s paranoia ultimately impels him to launch an atomic missile at the Giant, not realizing that the missile is trained on the Giant’s location: Rockwell. Here, however, the Giant demonstrates his selflessness. Understanding that the inhabitants of Rockwell will die, the Giant chooses to fly into missile so that the missile detonates while still airborne. The Giant’s sacrifice saves the very people who feared him, proving himself to be both a “Superman” in capability and in heroism.

Prince Myshkin and the Iron Giant are both selfless characters whose ability to actually demonstrate their good intentions are limited. Prince Myshkin’s empathy for human suffering enables his compassion but ultimately destroys Myshkin. He cannot cure human pain while he himself is human. On the flip side, the Giant’s superhuman capabilities enable him to fly into the missile to save Rockwell, the sacrifice would not have been necessary if the military had not first attacked him for his nonhuman appearance. From these imperfections, one can obtains oxymoronic requirements for a hero to be capable of saving:

intimate acquaintance with human suffering and superhuman strength to endure suffering for others.

We find the fulfillment of these impossible requirements, however, in the person of Jesus Christ. Similar to Myshkin, Jesus was wholly human while abstaining from human corruption.

Having been born into the world “in the likeness of sinful flesh”1, Jesus matched the depth of his understanding of human sin and brokenness with the depth of his compassionate love for us: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect was tempted as we are, yet was without sin.”2 Simultaneously, like the Iron Giant, Jesus was more than human with powers to heal and perform miracles.

“What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”3 wondered his disciples, amazed by his ability to calm stormtossed waters. Later, afterwitnessing Jesus feed the four thousand, his disciple Peter declares, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”4, thereby declaring Jesus as more than a teacher but God himself.

Furthermore, Jesus exceeds these requirements in two main ways. First, unlike Myshkin and the Giant, who demonstrate selfless love after being thrust into a situation, Jesus had the clear intention to “seek and save the lost”5 and knows the price that will be required of him. Throughout the gospels, he repeatedly tells his disciples that he will be scorned and ultimately crucified.

Second, God’s plan for saving man through Jesus is complete. Sin, the broken relationship between God and man that can never be healed by human efforts, is the root of human suffering; this is what Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection saves us from.

“For by single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”6 Myshkin poured himself out in an attempt to save one woman; the Iron Giant sacrificed himself to save a single town. Jesus died on the cross to extend salvation not only to the people in his immediate timeframe and location, but also to the present day. In Jesus, my skepticism of heroes is assuaged. Jesus’s act of salvation is potent today as it was in A.D. 33. Perhaps the continued motif of the selfless hero in culture perhaps alludes to a continued desire for that perfect hero who will save us completely, who has never failed us and will never fail us. No hero in a film or piece of literature can satisfy this desire that Christ has forever fulfilled 1. Romans 8:3

4. Matthew 11:16

2. Hebrews 4:15

5. Luke 19:10

3. Matthew 8:27

6. Hebrews 10:12-14

Amanda is a junior who loves reading stories, writing stories, and belonging to God’s story.

Fall 2015 | To An Unknown God 19

Having Self Worth in Life and Love

20  To An Unknown God | Fall 2015

Tatiana Su, CONTRIBUTING WRITER et’s face it--modest is not hottest. Google “hot” and all the images that pop up on your computer screen will immediately prompt you to look around and see if anyone is watching your cyber whereabouts. After all, pictures of slender women in lingerie are not something that an eighteen year old girl in pink socks and a messy bun is expected to peruse through at your run-of-the-mill local coffee shop. But despite the risk of inviting judgment upon myself, I had to see visible proof of my speculation--that googling the word “hot” would not yield pictures of a brightly glaring sun or arid desert, but of attractive women writhing in their underwear.

Based on my quick experiment, as well as a lifetime of accumulated knowledge and experience, I concluded that society’s definition of “hot” is not exactly synonymous with the Christian definition of “modest.” Essentially, you can only be one or the other-- at least, in the eyes of the world. Now let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who owned a closet so tiny and tight that she could fit the clothes in a matchbox. Okay, maybe not. The point is, she liked showing off her body. And why not? It was quite pleasing to the male eye, or so she was told. She took pride in how she looked in figure-hugging attire, and since crop tops were all the rage, she wore those too. You’d think that such a girl would be entirely confident about her body, but sadly that was not the case. Though she claimed to not care what people thought of her clothing choices, she did care what people thought of her figure. Every crop top was accompanied with subtle sucking-in of the stomach and constant concern for possible bloating or an appearance of the dreaded “belly pooch.”

Every tight skirt came with a worry of whether or not her butt looked good. Essentially, by seeking gratification from what people thought of her body, she opened herself up to insecurities stemming from the same source.

If you haven’t figured out yet, that girl is me. Sad, right?

But what’s even sadder is that my story isn’t unique--countless other girls live out their lives in this fashion without pausing to consider the implications of how they act and dress. Christians are supposed to be representatives of God’s kingdom on earth, yet I was strutting around in belly-baring shirts and pretending that the Bible’s call for modesty didn’t exist. To be honest, I made excuses. “There’s only an inch of my stomach showing” or “but my clothes are so cute” were some common ones. I mean, an inch isn’t so bad, right? Compared to girls wearing shirts that can best be described as glorified bandeaus, I was practically a nun.

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However, God calls us not to compare ourselves to the standards of this world, but to live by His standards. It doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing--take murder, for example. If one of my peers committed a murder, that doesn’t mean I am allowed to beat up someone just because it is relatively “less sinful.” I am not called to be “less sinful” than others; I am called to resist sin entirely. As a girl who has gone to church all her life, I knew this stuff. So why didn’t I listen? Looking back, I realize that I acted this way because I didn’t have enough self worth.

Take a moment and think about this. Luke 12:6-7 tells us, “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

Even a tiny and seemingly insignificant bird is valued by our Lord, who in turn values and loves us beyond our comprehension. He “knitted me together in my mother’s womb” and tells me that “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:13-15). From the moment of my conception, God was carefully crafting me into a masterpiece--an exquisite demonstration of His creativity. And top it all off, He sent His son to die for my transgressions so that I might be made new and faultless, free from the chains of sin and eternal death. As human beings, we’re pretty costly. We must be exceptionally precious to God for Him to pay such a high price for us and essentially live within us in the form of the Holy Spirit. Time and time again I am completely blown away by the idea that the Creator of the universe has chosen my heart as His home. In 1 Corinthians 6:18-20, the apostle Paul tells us, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” Some may find offense in the thought of their bodies not being their own, but I can assure you that God values our bodies more than we do. In giving our bodies to God, we cease to sell ourselves short. Essentially, if I had valued myself the way God values me, I wouldn’t have acted and dressed in such a manner. Modest may not be hottest, but it’s best. Not only does dressing modestly bring attention to the beauty of my heart and personality, but it also allows me to respect myself more. I now know that I am God’s little princess, and that a guy doesn’t deserve the privilege of seeing certain parts of my body until he has fully committed himself to me in marriage. God doesn’t want his daughters to be the object of men’s lust and fantasies, and neither should we--do we really think so little of ourselves that we wouldn’t mind becoming the object of someone’s sinful desires? God has something better in store for us.

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So what became of the girl in the story? Well, first off she decided that flaunting her body was ultimately insufficient in bringing her happiness. In fact, it had increased her sense of insecurity. Over time, this girl completely revamped her style and, in my humble opinion, is more stylish than ever. She was freed from the constant worries of whether or not her stomach looked flat, et cetera, and thus her sense of insecurity was significantly diminished. She also learned to value herself more and developed a new sense of self worth and dignity in knowing that she was loved and valued beyond her understanding. Instead of seeking the empty gratification found in dressing immodestly, she could experience the fullness and satisfaction of God’s love and acceptance.

So the story’s over, right? Not quite. I actually skipped over some pretty important events in my life that shaped me into someone who desired and pursued modesty. That being said, let’s talk about those events. Let’s talk about dating.

Remember that time when the girl in the story lacked self worth and dressed accordingly? During that time, she dated and “talked” to various guys from all types of backgrounds. I’m sure you can already sense the impending disasters in her life, but at the time she was pretty naive. In short, because she didn’t value herself, neither did those aforementioned guys. Her lack of self worth eventually caused her to endure unhealthy and even abusive relationships before cutting them out of her life, but by that time it was too late. Her sense of dignity and self worth had all but disappeared.

I once read an article about dating in which the author was told, “Don’t act like a woman with no options.” It’s pretty solid advice, I’d say, because God is always an option. Why settle for inadequacy when you can experience the completeness of God’s love? And that’s not to say that we are not allowed to find romantic love here on earth. I’m just saying that we need to find someone who will embody God’s love and show a Christ-centered type of love to us. Christ-centered relationships are essentially the only way to go because a love that imitates God’s love is the best love we can have next to His divine love. However, dating a Christian doesn’t automatically guarantee us a healthy relationship. In fact, the unhealthy and abusive relationships I mentioned before were with whom I thought were relatively solid Christian guys. The thing is, we have to make sure that the people we date are mature in faith and willing to set boundaries and rules to honor God in the relationship. I cannot emphasize how important it is to remain sexually pure--and even if I know that my significant other desires to have sexual relations, I have to remember that this person is a precious child of God. It is equally crucial that my significant other feels the same way about me. I may have desires of the flesh, but I know that I am a masterpiece created by a God greater than my desires, and that must be understood 22 To An Unknown God | Fall 2015

by anyone I date. There is actually a biological reason why sexual relations are meant for marriage only. During any kind of sexual activity, the hormone oxytocin is released. Oxytocin creates a bond, or sense of emotional attachment, between two people.

This happens every time sexual relations occur, so that the more sex you have with someone, the greater your bond is. (This is also why sex during marriage is biologically supposed to get better over time.) However, if two people break up and thus break their bond, the breakage inhibits their ability to form strong bonds with new people. If someone creates and destroys this oxytocin bond over and over, the potential of this person to have a strong and lasting bond with someone special will be diminished. This is especially important for women because women produce far more oxytocin than men do and become conditioned to produce oxytocin even at the sight of their significant other. The chemical attachment can make it extremely difficult for a female to break things off with someone who is abusive or generally not good for her--even if she knows she should. This situation can occur in abusive yet sexually consensual relationships, as well as sexually abusive relationships. In the latter, the victim is essentially forming oxytocin bonds without consent. A study by Northwestern University showed that while oxytocin is commonly known as the “love hormone,” it can also cause emotional pain. Because oxytocin strengthens social memory in the brain, it therefore strengthens bad memories and can increase fear and anxiety.

When oxytocin production is associated with the trauma of sexual abuse, victims find themselves trapped by the so-called “love hormone” that they did not desire to produce.

In my case, I realized these things too late. As a result, I was made to feel fearful, ashamed, damaged, and worthless. However, these feelings are not from God; they’re from the enemy. God tells me that I need not fear, and that He has taken away my shame. He tells me that He can make me whole, and He tells me that I am infinitely valuable to Him. From time to time, I have to remind myself that the value of a creation is determined by the Creator. Whenever I accuse myself of not being valuable, I am actually insulting God’s beloved artwork. No matter how damaged and broken I am, I am endlessly and unfathomably loved by a God who heals and brings peace to shattered spirits. At times I believe the lies that the enemy tells me, but then I am reminded of a scene from “The Lion King” in which Simba speaks with the spirit of his father, who appears as an apparition in the sky.

Mufasa’s thunderous voice echoes across the plains as he scolds, “Simba, you have forgotten me. You have forgotten who you are and so forgotten me.” If your story is anything like mine, think of Mufasa’s last words to his son before he disappears: “Remember who you are.”

Tatiana Su is a first year intended English major, compulsive thrifter, and Disney enthusiast.

What Will Your Legacy Be? Lydia Linna, CONTRIBUTING WRITER ur appreciation of art creates the illusion that aesthetic creations are admirably concrete and reassuringly permanent. We visit museums to see tangible proof that the actions of people who lived centuries ago are remembered.

We are awestruck by Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, marvel at Michelangelo's David, wonder about Chinese terracotta soldiers, and worship in enormous cathedrals with ceilings that are unbelievably high. Why do we appreciate these objects of art?

It's because it seems that these are examples of lasting legacies.

But they're not. In August, the terrorist group ISIS destroyed a 2000 year old Syrian temple included on a UNESCO World Heritage list, which features important cultural sites. A few years ago, the Taliban blew up ancient Buddhist statues in Afghanistan.

Ceramics in museums are broken, paintings are damaged, and statues are stolen. Despite the protection and reverence surrounding these art objects, they are easily destroyed. Like people, they are impermanent and their futures are uncertain.

I've been thinking about the future. More specifically, I've been contemplating "legacy." What will I leave behind when I leave this earth? What will people remember about me? Will they remember my GPA? My kindness? My selfishness? My chocolate chip banana bread? My career accomplishments? My smile? 100 years from now, will anybody remember me at all? Will I have made a difference? And while I've raised a lot of questions, the real answer to all of them is the same: I don't know. Of course, I'd like to think that people will remember me fondly, that they'll remember my qualities instead of my faults. But my big question is, what will I leave behind? What will my indelible imprint on the world be? Will I have kids? And if so, will I succeed in raising them to be adults who love God and contribute positively to society?

We're constantly surrounded by grand uncertainties regarding our futures, as well as immediate, everyday concerns. At Berkeley, we often have a difficult time confronting these uncertainties. We like knowing when our Telebears appointment is and exactly what we need to study in order to do well on exams. We try to gain security and peace of mind by controlling these little things. We

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don't know what's coming tomorrow - that's something that only God knows. But that's okay. God tells us in Jeremiah 29:11 that He "knows the plans [He] has for us," and they are plans for us to "prosper," and not to harm us, plans that give us both "hope and a future." And it's not a future behind glass in a museum - it's a future with Him, forever.

Can you imagine that? Living forever, with God, who loves each and every one of us? Living forever without worries and uncertainties?

I challenge you to think about how you'll build your legacy.

Will it be built on impermanent earthly uncertainties? Or will you build your legacy with Christ the solid Rock as your foundation (Luke 6:48)? Think long term; in fact, think in terms of forever.

What can you do that will last forever? Acts 16:31 says to "believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." Believe, and your uncertainties vanish because you have confidence in spending forever with God. I urge you to trust in the certainty that God will take care of you. We still might be unsure as to what we want our earthly legacies to be, and what we'll do with our futures. But trusting in God is the first step to building a forever legacy with Him. As my younger (and wiser, as she likes to remind me) sister says, God's got your back. I'd like to add that He's got your front as well. We just need to trust in Him. Lydia is a third-year majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology and minoring in History of Art, and has worked in a museum where she designed an exhibition on German ceramics. She spent last summer in France, where she fell in love with incredible art and awe-inspiring cathedrals!

Fall 2015 | To An Unknown God  23

Mind the Gap Joshua Joo, STAFF WRITER umans are weird. Weird is a term that’s thrown around a lot nowadays. Sometimes it’s used to describe a person who’s quirky or deviates from the social norm.

Sometimes it describes a situation that just isn’t right. It seems that weird is just one of those words that have become disassociated with its dictionary definition over the years – one way Webster’s defines weird is “of, relating to, or caused by witchcraft or the supernatural”1. The witchcraft part is a bit misleading but what I really mean is weird in the supernatural sense – “a : departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature”2. And in this sense, humans are very weird.

What is the supernatural? Usually the word evokes imagery of spirits and ghosts, superstition and miracles – things that some are prone to disregard or even scoff at. But the supernatural is merely anything that is beyond or unexplainable by nature. What defines the natural? The popular definition may be something that is physical and exists in nature. This is true, but I think another element must be added to the definition of natural – it must be governed by a series of laws. Nature is governed by natural law or the laws of nature; these laws are dogmatic and defined by their regularity, rationality, and consistency. Without such laws governing nature, there would be no guarantee of anything whether it is as grand as the possibilities of tomorrow or as mundane as the sun rising the next morning or even the things we take for granted such as the concept itself. These laws ensure that what we experience one day are consistent with what

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we experience the next – that the sun should rise each morning or that there is a floor underneath my bed each day; without such laws, the floor could disappear without warning and we could have no basis to object because no law would be violated. Nature has an ideal – the natural law – and everything in nature conforms to this.

But humans are not like this – humans are not natural. Humans are not subject to the regular, rational, and consistent laws of nature because humans are not inherently regular, rational, or consistent. Humans may have rationality, but humans are not governed by dogmatic rationalism – humans are free to ignore and act contrary to the rational and empirical and anecdotal evidence would support this. Humans seldom, if ever, conform to the ideal.

Humans are weird because they are very different from everything else in the world they live in. It’s almost maddening when one sees the duality and contradictions in humanity. For instance, I presume that most would agree that some fundamental human needs (outside of physical necessities such as air, water, food, and shelter) are love, affection, and acceptance. These are needs that drive humanity. However, what I find so perplexing, is that in my experience with people similar to me (insofar as we are all Cal students and all the associations that follow) is that they are so adamant in settling for something that may be less but is definitely different. Speaking from personal experience, it seems that young men and women while professing openly or secretly the need for love, affection, and acceptance, are utterly

focused on developing careers, bank accounts, and advanced degrees. These things are not inherently bad themselves, but I find it very strange to see people admit and acknowledge the need for the intangible and drive themselves towards material goods.

The reasoning is often that these things will bring the love and affection and acceptance that are so desired, but how often does that ring true? And even if it is true, one cannot help but ask, is there a better way?

The gap between human ambition and human conduct rings true in another area of life – morality. Humans are unique in that humans can recognize what is morally good and desirable, but we frequently don’t do it. Animals are not capable of this recognition and only act in one way. And what’s interesting is that we don’t just act contrary to what we recognize as morally good, but we have a hard time doing so. There is a prominent and almost daunting gap between moral ambition and moral conduct. I may not be able to speak for others, but I can speak for myself and from my own experience of living in reality, there is a gap between my own moral ambition and moral conduct. If humans were really natural, I do not think this gap would exist. I can recognize the moral good or ideal and I do have the moral knowledge, but my moral conduct does not always line up.

Nature has no inherent contradictions, yet as residents of nature, we are walking contradictions. For those who can recognize this gap, I would imagine it would be perplexing at least and troubling for most. I want to challenge everyone who reads this article – mind the gap. Examine your own life and see

whether or not this gap exists and why. The existence of the gap is one of the biggest questions we must answer.

I would like to suggest that maybe the gap – specifically the ability to recognize the moral good and have the moral ambition for the good – may be a memory of a time when we were able to not only recognize the good but also live it out. Maybe we’re homesick. Maybe we’re longing for that time when our moral ambition and moral conduct aligned.

Everyone has a worldview and each worldview grapples with the gap, but I would like to suggest that the Bible has a clear answer for the gap. The Bible says that humans are supernatural – that humans are not of the natural world. Humans were meant to live in a relationship with God. But at one point, each individual human lost or broke his or her relationship with God. And now we long for what we were meant for, recognizing the ideals – our moral ambitions, love, affection, and acceptance – which we so desperately try to fulfill with what limited resources our world has to offer – like money or careers. In the end, “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”3 1. Webster's dictionary 2. Ibid.

3. Blaise Pascal Josh Joo is a perfectly normal 4th year political science major.

Fall 2015 | To An Unknown God 25

It Passes and We Stay Nature and the Divine in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson and Christina Rossetti Micaela Walker, STAFF WRITER hen you come upon a distinctly beautiful scene, whether you’re at Yosemite marveling at the blunt, smooth face of El Capitan or you’ve lost your balance by gazing up at the heights of coastal redwoods in Muir Woods, there are a few different ways to respond. You might stand in silent awe of the scene, wonder at how physics and chance could result in such beauty, lift up a hymn of praise to God the Creator, or even compose a few lines of poetry.

Emily Dickinson, had she ever visited the likes of Yosemite or Muir Woods, would have done the last. Dickinson’s encounters with the natural world, though, were limited in her early life to New England, and later became increasingly narrowed to include only that slice of nature that was present in her backyard.

Though she is often remembered solely for the poems she wrote about death, Dickinson’s nature poetry makes up a large part of her body of work and her use of Christian religious imagery in these poems makes them useful for examining the poet’s complicated relationship with Christianity.

At age eighteen, Dickinson wrote to a friend that, while she deeply regretted not becoming a Christian, she would remain an unbeliever because it was hard for her to “give up the world.” I’d suggest that this “world” Dickinson refers to is not so much what we might immediately think of as worldly desires or fleshly impulses. Rather, it’s in Dickinson’s nature poetry that we are offered a glimpse into the “world” which she was so hesitant to give up. For a nature-lover like Dickinson, it seemed that Christ’s call to take up her cross and follow included a rejection of beauty which Dickinson was unwilling to concede.

Yet, she wasn’t able to completely write God off.

Rather, the existence of Christian imagery in her nature poetry is evidence of the tension she felt between her simultaneous desire to remain “in the world” and her longing for something divine, permanent and transcendent, namely, something more worthy of worship than nature.

In 1858 she penned a short, sardonic, and somewhat heretical poem that parodies the Trinitarian formula and

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replaces it with her own trinity of nature:

In the name of the Bee—

And of the Butterfly—

And of the Breeze— Amen!

The poem’s triumphant tone seems to express the sufficiency of nature to fill the place where religion might reside, or even to argue that Christianity is merely a faint imitation of what already exists in nature. She uses a similarly playful and teasing tone when she writes:

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –

I keep it, staying at Home –

With a Bobolink for a Chorister –

And an Orchard, for a Dome— Rather than implying a peaceful coexistence between the natural world and Christian religion, Dickinson’s intertwining of religious language with descriptions of nature in fact sets up a dichotomy. Church vs. the Backyard temple, Trinity vs. the bee, butterfly and breeze seems to be at the core of the poetic dialogue, and in both poems, nature wins.

This confidence and playfulness is lacking, though, in Dickinson’s later poem, “A light exists in spring” written in 1865. In this poem, the speaker attempts to describe the beauty of a particular scene in nature which is as “a sacrament.” She describes the scene as light that, “stands abroad/On solitary hills/That silence cannot overtake,/But human nature feels.”

The beauty of this stretches the poet’s verse to the point of collapse—the beauty is not to be articulated, but rather to be felt. Though she is compelled to compare the beauty of the scene to a sacrament, the poem ends in neither peace nor ecstasy, but loss. As the horizon disappears and the light fades, “It passes, and we stay.”

The speaker is left alone in the wake of the hasty departure of this transient beauty. The passing of the light is contrasted with the stasis of the human observer, who remains even after the scene is over. The beauty of the scene leaves the poet alienated and alone. Here, it is clear, Nature has awakened a longing in the poet for something sacred and yet nature itself cannot fulfill that longing because of its transience. This suggests that nature is not a proper object for human worship, for when we worship it, we actually become increasingly alienated from it. When we hope that nature can fulfill us and answer our longings, we will only be frustrated and disappointed.

Interestingly, a contemporary of Dickinson’s, the poet Christina Rosetti, wrote a poem dealing with the same unanswered longing. Though they were contemporaries (Rossetti is a mere five days older than Dickinson) their work isn’t often brought into conversation because of its clear stylistic and thematic differences. The poets were born, raised and

wrote on different sides of the Atlantic without ever crossing paths, and while Rossetti wrote earnest devotional lyrics that expressed her Christian faith, Dickinson’s poems about religion, as we’ve seen, are often playful or mocking. Despite these differences, though, both of them come to meditate on a similar issue.

Rossetti’s 1862 poem, “Spring” expresses a sense of loss that arrives with springtime which echoes the loss which Dickinson’s poem describes. Rossetti’s speaker first rejoices in the beauty of spring:

Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits,

Swollen with sap put forth their shoots;

Curled-headed ferns sprout in the lane;

Birds sing and pair again.

Suddenly, though, the tone shifts, “There is no time like Spring, Like Spring that passes by: There is no life like Spring-life born to die,—”. In the midst of reveling in the beauty and energy of springtime, the poem is stalled by the speaker’s simultaneous revelation that spring will ultimately pass and end in the death of nature that is autumn. Once again, the beauty of nature is impermanent and frustrates the human’s longing for beauty that will last.

Rossetti, having a poet’s eyes to see the beauty all around her, also struggled with the same dilemma that Dickinson faced. Did Christianity inherently require a rejection of the beauty of nature? This is a major preoccupation of Rossetti’s and during the same year that she wrote “Spring” she also wrote a long narrative poem that may offer a resolution to the dilemma that both she and Dickinson faced. In, “From House to Home,” the speaker is placed in a beautiful garden, fragrant and teeming with life: Wood-pigeons cooed there, stock-doves nestled there; My trees were full of songs and flowers and fruit, Their branches spread a city to the air, And mice lodged in their root.

This is one of Rossetti’s most poetically rich descriptions of nature and she lingers on this scene, giving the reader a full view of the beauty that surrounds the speaker. As the speaker walks through this paradisal garden, she is aware of the presence of, “one like an angel,” who walks beside her but she is hardly aware of his significance to the scene. The verse lingers over descriptions of the beauty and opulence of the garden, while the speaker’s departure from the “one” happens quickly and with little notice. As she continues to occupy herself with exaltation of the garden, suddenly the garden transforms—“No bird, no lamb, no living breathing thing;” is left with the speaker.

Rossetti identifies the loss of beauty in the garden as having a relational dimension, while her ability to properly

perceive it is reconciled through her being connected back to the One. The One wasn’t merely a fellow traveler or friend, but he was the source of the beauty in the first place.

C.S. Lewis describes the sense of loss and frustration that one may feel due to this unanswered longing we experience when we try to worship nature apart from its source, “This love” he writes, “when it sets up as a religion, is beginning to be a god—therefore to be a demon . . .

Nature ‘dies’ on those who try to live for a love of nature.”

He observes, “Say your prayers in a garden early, ignoring steadfastly the dew, the birds and the flowers, and you will come away overwhelmed by its freshness and joy; go there in order to be overwhelmed and, after a certain age, nine times out of ten, nothing will happen to you.”

Is this to say that people who are not Christian will not be able to appreciate beauty? No, not at all. It is to say, though, that the Christian occupies a unique position in relation to nature. We can appreciate its beauty, care for it and love it, while at the same time knowing that nature, like us, is a created thing, made by a Heavenly Father. This leads us to a balanced delight in nature that neither deifies it nor treats it as something lowly which we can disrespect or destroy. Nature can teach us about the glory of God and show us that he is a God who loves beauty. Most of all, though, nature can and should inspire in us a desire to get to know the Creator behind the beauty.

For Dickinson, the natural world she experienced in her backyard was a holy of holies, without need of the formal structures of religion or the presence of God. One wonders how her poem, “A light exists in spring” may have ended, though, if she had trusted in the source of the beauty.

Whereas the disappearance of light leaves Dickinson alienated and alone, the Psalmist cries out:

He made the moon to mark the seasons;

the sun knows its time for setting.

You make darkness, and it is night, […]

O Lord, how manifold are your works!

In wisdom have you made them all. (Psalm104:19-20) 1. Dickinson, Emily, and Mabel Loomis Todd. Letters of Emily Dickinson.

Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2003. Print.

2. Dickinson, Emily, and R. W. Franklin. The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

3. Rossetti, Christina Georgina, R. W. Crump, and Betty S. Flowers. Christina Rossetti: The Complete Poems. London: Penguin, 2001. Print.

4. Lewis, C. S. The Four Loves. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1960. Print.

Micaela is the Editor-in-Chief of TAUG and will be graduating with a degree in English this spring.

Fall 2015 | To Fall An2015 Unknown | To An God Unknown 27 God 27

Going Back to the Beginning Micah Lyle, CONTRIBUTING WRITER od desires to make manifest ancient realities in the lives of people today. After all, it was said of Jesus, “I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old.” God gives a very particular command to His people in Jeremiah 6: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.’”1 Well, ancient is something that’s very old, and that points back to the beginning, to the Garden in Eden, where God walked with man. My proposal is that the ancient paths are the paths God reveals to his people to take them back to the beginning, to the Garden of Eden, to the place of unhindered and daily fellowship and communion with God. What I want to show you is that, in a world where people are constantly looking for new technology, new innovations, and new ways of doing things and living life, the best kind of life is not found in something that is new or innovative, but rather found in something ancient, found in walking an ancient path that is available to anyone.

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Passage of Time:

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Before we start looking at what the ancient paths are, let’s get some historical background of how the ancient world viewed time and reality. For the Hebrew culture (the culture the Old Testament of the Bible was written to), time was not linear (like most Americans would think of it), but was rather circular.

Hence the beginning would match the end. Therefore what is ancient is also what is going to be in the future, and I believe that’s what Solomon was touching upon.2 What is it in the beginning, in the ancient way that holds the key to the best kind of life? Well, it was in the beginning that the Lord walked with Adam, and Adam got to live every moment in complete joy, peace, and love. Adam was created and then put into the “Garden in Eden.” Eden means delight or pleasure.

Adam is not just the name for a man, but also the proper name in Hebrew for mankind. There’s an incredible yet profound design to be gleaned from this: God created man to live in pleasure, in delight!

Consider Psalm 16:11, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”3 Fullness of joy, pleasures forevermore, might sound more like a fantasy than real life to most people, sometimes even especially Christians who have been taught that the Christian life is mostly about suffering, self-denial, crucifixion, and perseverance. While it’s true those are all large components

of the Christian life, they’re actually all gateways back to the beginning, to these simple words: Pleasure, love, and delight.

Suffering may be part of the path, but the destination is Eden.

So, how do we begin to walk this path? We must begin with how we got off the path in the first place. It was only after Adam rejected God’s rule over his life out of a desire to become “wise” and “like God” by his own actions, that he fell into corruption.

However, God already had a plan for redemption, for restoration of humanity, through His son, Jesus. Jesus was “life, and that life was the light of men.”4 Jesus came to give us “eternal life,” and the Bible says that eternal life is to intimately know God, and his Son Jesus.

So when we go back to the beginning, we’re going back to eternal life. Jesus is “The alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.”5 So the beginning is encoded not in a time frame, but in a person, whose name is Christ, the expressed image of the invisible God. In order to go back to the beginning, you must go through the Person who IS the beginning. Through receiving salvation through Jesus, being co-crucified with him, we die to this world, and the other world, the world from the beginning, the world we lost because of sin and corruption, is the world we get to enter back into through Jesus, to the reality and simplicity of fellowship with the Father. Jesus is the way to the Father. He’s the way back to Eden, back to bliss, back to pleasure and living life

day by day out of relationship with God and constant fellowship and connection with the Father.

There are stumbling blocks and pitfalls that keep us from walking the ancient paths, though. Revisiting Jeremiah 6:16 with the end of the verse included: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’’”6 Why did they refuse? Reading a few verses before, we find that the people were greedy and full of deceit and wickedness. They were offered the “good way,” but they refused, because in their minds they already had their pleasure. They had their sexual immorality, they had their bellies full of food, they had plenty of possessions, and they wanted even more of what they already had (greed). They didn’t listen to the words of God and rejected God’s law, they took offense at the word of the Lord.

However, God’s laws were not given to the people just because God is God and wanted to throw in a whole bunch of rules so that people could please him. God gave the law to show his people how to live the best kind of life, and that by living the best kind of life, living a life that reflected the glory and nature of the creator, the other nations would see that and turn from their idols and Gods and serve the Living God. It’s pride that refuses to even listen to another voice that points to a better way. The people wanted to rule and govern their own lives, and do what they wanted, and reach out to any worldly pleasure or gain they could get, when God was offering them a far greater pleasure, at the expense of their lordship of their own lives. They weren’t willing to walk the ancient paths, because they weren’t willing to leave the inferior and fleeting pleasures of sin.

The question is then, are we willing to leave the inferior and fleeting pleasures of sin and being lord of our own lives, and walk down the path of righteousness, holy and happy, to find the ultimate pleasure, that is God himself ?

1 . Holy Bible (ESV) Jeremiah 6:16 2. A helpful link: http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/articles_time.html 3. Holy Bible (ESV) Psalm 16:11 4. Holy Bible (ESV) John 1:4 5. Holy Bible (ESV) Revelation 22:13 6. Holy Bible (ESV) Jeremiah 6:16

Micah likes to describe himself as a little kid in a grown up body that is in love with his Heavenly Papa! He's a third year applied Mathematics and Computer Science major, also getting a certificate in entrepreneurial technology!

Throughout different points in the last few years, Micah has been actively involved with NAOS House of Prayer, Campus Awakening, and Unity in Christ.

Fall 2015 | To An Unknown God 29

Fortunate Fall Tatiana Su

But somehow your words Reached through a bloodstained past Into the barren confines Of my moth eaten soul

And, caressing its blistered insides, Pulled out a silver thread From the infestation I call A heart--

Because you [Understood] The delicate way words balance On droplets of salty water

From the thick fibers of obsession Emerged a tearstained beauty

Smiled at me with a hue of sky I have yet to see Again, swept aside my [Broken] Brushstrokes, so that I slept on The curve of a Salt Washed Moon.

Wrapped in the warmth Of nebulae, I look yet To the Cosmos, seeking The tender violence In which you tore into My decrepit Flesh, Permeated every fickle convolution Of my girlish Mind, And infused into my feeble veins The true [Strength] Of [Weakness.]

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Battle Josephine Kao

Flesh asked Spirit “Do you know if we are friends or not?

Ye in or out, I here below Some Union I have sought”

My weakness or my willingness Which is the truer one?

I cannot keep on killing this Or halt the surging sun

But when I wander back to truth I find a word pierce clear Paling the passions of my youth When I surrender steer

Spirit whispered back to Flesh: “The more we battle thus, We’ll find our very selves enmeshed to grow the Glorious”

Anguish, I wish there was no murk The questions sting and pang Yet quiet hope descends to work Before we rise again

Fall 2015 | To An Unknown God 31

I. i wish i could reimagine those first years into yesterday’s dream that rocked me turbulent in the womb let us deconstruct “september” into “january,” let us construct “day one” as “before” before air burned the throat bitter before silence chilled the nights moonless before i started running from phantom dreamings before, before, before the word twists on the tongue like a baby’s hand, jolted awake I. “Hello dreamer, hello liar, hello schemer, go stand by the fire.”

II. five years ago i dreamed a pretty poem of dead men walking i have tried to sleep those lines away since then but the off beat cadence haunts—we have unfinished business, me and my dead man walking II. “Your dreamings will soon come undone, within a phase of the moon, a cycle of the sun.”

III. close your eyes and dream a better dream remember rubbing hands along new york’s silhouette those pinpricked windows seemed stars to be gathered in a jar as you toed the skyline to see if it would catch just strange dreamings, just strange dreamings so when were you awake when did mist rub from your eyes when did dreaming turn into seeing

32 To An Unknown God | Fall 2015

III. “What strange parables fill your head, dreamings that twist you until you are dead.”

IV. shall we call it day? we wish we could sleep rather than stay for what if we wake and our thoughts run away? we knew we were in the dark after the candle flickered IV. “Save yourself while you still can, time to admit that you are only a man.”

V. what shall i do, what shall be done? sleep’s delirium comes faster than words can run what can i say that hasn’t already been sung i am falling again into yesterday’s dream yesterday’s nightmare yesterday’s dawn V. “You vile dreamer, you schemer, you liar, a snare for the weak, a dangerous fire.

We want no more of your tales to spin.

Death to Him! Crucify Him!” VI. then comes the whisper to all who will hear but tonight i feel it speaks only to my ear The greatest has already been told Daughter, write it forever till the days turn cold Stranger than anything you ever conceived My most careful handiwork for all to perceive A dream of visionary dimension A fairytale at its finest conception

Amanda Gee

Fall 2015 | To An Unknown God 33

a r t wo r k cr ed i t Cover : Krsiten Fantozzi, Shannon Kim, Chloe Ng, McBadshoes; Credits: Anna Kang; 6: Public Domain; 9: Public Domain; 10: Rachel Lee; 12: Public Domain; 13: Alyssa Walker 14: Shondra Walker; 16: Rachel Lee; 19: Public Domain; 20: "Redhill Watercolour - Nov 2014 - The Angel of the South-East (flic.kr/p/qdoCd5)" by Gareth Williams ( https://www.flickr.com/photos/gareth1953/) is licensed under CC BY 2.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/); 23: Bon Jin Koo 24: "Sydney Harbour Bridge (flic.kr/p/cFPeE)" by Erica (https://www.flickr.com/photos/gramarye/) is licensed under CC BY 2.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/); 26: Anna Kang; 28: Public Domain; 30: Rachel Lee; 31: Skyler Roh; 34: Rachel Lee; 35: Laundry Love; Back Cover: Kristen Fantozzi, Shannon Kim, Chloe Ng, McBadshoes;

34  To An Unknown God | Fall 2015

Laundry Love is all about sharing the Love of Christ in a tangible way with the community of Berkeley. We believe that every man and woman in this city is on God’s heart, so let us spread the good news!

On the last Tuesday of each month we host Laundry Love at Bing Wong Wash Center at 2602 Telegraph Ave. from 6pm - 8pm and provide for anyone who comes with quarters and detergent to do their laundry. But more than just that, we want to build relationships with the people here in Berkeley, forming friendships that will last for a lifetime! Everyone who comes to Laundry Love not only walks out with clean clothes, but gets a chance to just share life with one of our volunteers. If you are interested in volunteering, join us the last Tuesday of each month as we gather together to hang out and fellowship.with Jesus Christ at the center of it all.

If you have any questions or would like to donate, email us at laundryloveberkeley@ gmail.com or visit laundryloveprojectberkeley.wordpress.com Fall 2015 | To An Unknown God  35

Every semester, To An Unknown God relies heavily on private donations to fund its printing costs. Please prayerfully consider donating to make our next issue possible! Checks should be made out to ASUC/ To an Unknown God and mailed to ASUC/To An Unknown God University of California 112 Hearst Gym, MC 4520 Berkeley, CA 94720-4520 Any amount is highly appreciated. Thank you for your generosity!