To An Unknown God, Spring 2013 (extended version) by TAUG

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

LOVE Volume 6 | Issue 1 | Spring 2013

Love Table of Contents 5

Letter from the Editor Natalie Cha

Themed Articles

No Clearer Picture

No Fear in Love

Kristen Fu

The Love of a Christian, the Love of a Non-Christian

Solomon Kim

Daniel Yoo

Dear Future Wife

Why I Love the Cross

David Park

Jonathan Kuo

Themed Articles (cont.)

The Risk of Love Bon Jin Koo

How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Costs

Paper Romance

In the Name of Love

20 24

Christopher Kim Christy Kim

Keith Fong

What is Divine Love Desiree Macchia

The Definition of Love

A Different Kind of Angel

How Could a Loving God...?

Mr. Perfect

Love and Suffering

Alyssa Kim

Love and the Dread Judgment Seat of Christ

Receiving Love

To Egypt Chloe Ng

How Can the Gods Meet Us Face to Face?

My Will or His?

Divine Adesida Danielle Cha

Kristi Huynh

Jennifer Min

Jacob Grant Grace Gao

Unthemed Articles

Micaela Walker

Jennifer Park

Poetry

The Penitent, The Priest

Faith, Hope, & Love

A Different Kind of Love

Complete

Everything

47 48

Wesleigh Anderson Marissa Lee

Elsie Cheang

Rachael Shen Katherine Chung

Luminous in the Void James Won

This Kind of Love Grace Lee

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

Editor-in-Chief Natalie Cha

Advisory Board Steven Fish Department of Political Science

Executive Editor Jennifer Yim

Tsu Jae King Liu Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Associate Editors Divine Adesida, Danielle Cha, Elsie Cheang, Christine Choe, Katherine Chung, Kristen Fu, Grace Gao, Jacob Grant, Stephen Haw, Kristi Hyunh, Ryan Kang, Alyssa Kim, Solomon Kim, Bon Jin Koo, Grace Lee, Marissa Lee, Joyce Lim, Desiree Macchia, Jennifer Min, Chloe Ng, Jennifer Park, Kayla Quock, Micaela Walker, James Won

Jeffrey Reimer Managing Editors Joice Lee Jonathan Lim

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Jan de Vries Department of History

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

Artists Melanie Chan: Cover; Edwin Cho: Cover; Michelle Cho: Back Cover (graphic); Christine Choe: Table of Contents (2), 11; Hanna Choi: Cover; Ryan Kang: 14, 15; Bon Jin Koo: 5, 9, 12, 13, 45; Andrew Kuo: 8, 23, 34, 36, 37, 41, 44. 47, Back Cover (picture) ; Alyssa Kim: 38. 39; Joice Lee: Cover, Table of Contents (3), 5, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 28, 29, 31, 35, 40, 48 (top); David Lim: Table of Contents (4), 27, 30; Jonathan Lim:36 (graphic), 37 (graphic), 42, 43; Kayla Quock: Cover, (bottom), 46, 48 (bottom); Kai Ridenoure: 6, 7; Nancy Yan: 25

4â&#x20AC;&#x192; To An Unknown God | Spring 2013

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Dear Reader,

ove. Is it the flutter in your stomach, the rush of heat on your cheeks, the worn hands of a sacrificial parent, or the greatest act of redemption in all of human history? All of these represent this common word in some dimension. Still, at least once in our lives, we wonder ‘What is love?’ We admit there is something missing, a deep void in our hearts, empty and unfulfilled. But there must be – there has to be – an answer tucked away someplace, somewhere. Gripped by this burning question, we go out into the world in search of the answer. Some look for it in the pursuit of one’s passion at a university or in the zeal of one’s purpose at the work place. Others say it’s found in the arms of a childhood friend turned lover or in the fateful encounter with “the one”. We search and search in every crevice of our lives, sometimes truly believing we’ve finally found it. But, the longing still remains: the ever unquenchable desire to love and be loved. Therefore we return to our question ‘What is love?’ empty-handed and even more confused. So, this time, let us turn our eyes from the broken things of this world, and towards He who first loved, He who sent His one and only Son to die on the cross, so that whoever may believe will be brought from death and granted eternal life. Jesus Christ set the perfect example of what love is, for “greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). But even Christians struggle and turn away from this truth, looking for love in other places, and in other ways, as promised and defined by the world. It is here, where the journal’s discussion on “Love” begins. Not only is the first question addressed, but also those ones implied by it: Who should we love? Where is the love? Why do we love? How can we love? As we explore each inquiry, may the blindness that has veiled our eyes and the twisted lies we chose to fill our hearts with vanish. As we search for the truth in answer to the age old question ‘What is love?’ may we find it in the absolute truth of Jesus Christ. In the end, all earthly love points to Jesus being Lord and Savior. Through the example of his perfect life, He clearly showed how we are to fulfill the two greatest commandments: love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind and love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39). Then, through His sacrificial death and glorious resurrection, He revealed the extent of His love, that neither death nor life will ever separate us from His love (Romans 8:38). Let us allow this truth to sink into our hearts and fill the barren space until our souls burst with joy in the assurance that we are wholly, perfectly and infinitely loved by our most significant other – God.

Natalie Cha, Editor-in-Chief

Spring 2013 | To An Unknown God 5

The Bible offers the clearest, no-questions-asked, defintition of true love

Solomon Kim, STAFF WRITER here was once a single mother in her fifties caring for a daughter in her twenties. Mom didn’t expect the mental disability her daughter was born with. Mom didn’t expect the complications that left her alone raising a child in a woman’s body. One day, Mom became engaged. She would protest, claiming she was old and ugly, but he called her beautiful. The wrinkles on her face were as dimples in his eyes. At the wedding he produced a second ring. This one was for the daughter - a promise that she would be taken care of despite her needs, that she was loved when she seemed unlovable. Upon hearing this, the girl dropped the flowers in her arms while running and embraced him, exclaiming uncontrollably, “I love you!” In one simple ceremony the groom redeemed a radiant bride and adopted an orphaned child. “I don’t think you will ever see a more clear picture of this book than what you just saw here,” Pastor Francis Chan said, holding up the Bible after sharing that story. The core of the Gospel, of Jesus’ death and resurrection, is more than just freedom from sin and salvation for us. It is a clear picture, a glimpse, of the greatest example of the immense and unreasonable love God bears for us. I say

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unreasonable because He has no reason to love us. We have many needs and do things that make us unlovable, that make us ugly. We deserve nothing but the pains and hardships of a few short years on earth and an eternity without Him. Despite all this, we have a Father who loves us, who has made a commitment to take us in as His own. The wedding story is a picture of the Gospel and of God’s steadfast and eternal love for us. There is no one qualified to truly and completely explain that love except for God Himself. “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good! His love endures forever.”1 It is eternally steadfast. It is clear how He loves us, so it is appropriate to examine how that perfect love should direct and be an example for our imperfect and inconsistent love. Love is so much more than what the world makes it out to be. I would argue that the world has no idea what love is. Half of the marriages today end in divorce. The youth idolize the superficial relationships of Hollywood and engage in premarital sex. Our generation is perplexed about what love is. This is odd because the Bible explains to us what God’s love looks like and therefore what our love should look like.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”3 It seems to me that what the Bible says about love is a lot more straightforward than what the world says about love. Love is not butterflies in our stomachs. It is not an accelerated heartbeat or eyes covered by rose-colored glasses. What does Biblical love look like, then? Is it just being kind? Just being humble and slow to anger? In that case, love isn’t that hard. I can be kind to my friends, even to an acquaintance. I can swallow my pride for a moment if my small group leader rebukes me or teaches me a lesson. The problem with this is that it is a passive love that cannot even be called love. It is more appropriate to call it simple politeness or maybe political correctness. This approach implies that loving others is the same as hurting or offending them as little as possible. We are called to bear an active love for those around us. “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?”3 In context, James argues that claiming to have faith in Christ is meaningless if it’s not evidenced through obedience to Christ. In the same way, Christ-like love must be evidenced through active care for and from one another. What does active Biblical love look like, then? James gives two straightforward examples in verses 15 and 16: feed and clothe those without food and clothes. Quite simply, provide for the basic needs of those without them. “[L]ook after orphans and widows in their distress.”4 Care for children who cannot care for themselves, and care for individuals grieving over loved ones lost. There are homeless individuals whom I have blatantly ignored. I try to be polite and smile or nod every now and then, but God demands I do more than merely acknowledge their existence. He demands I do more than just toss them some change or a dollar as I go on with my charmed life. There are tangible ways to help those in need everywhere, especially in the Berkeley community. I have seen my peers show Christ-like love to people in need. I have had the privilege to witness truly sincere relationships between people who give and people who need. They don’t just give some food to a face and walk away, but instead they eat with them and get to know an individual. That is the quality of

care God demands we have for the needy. Amazingly enough, the love described in the Bible calls us to take our love even further. It’s not hard to show love when it is expected of you, when the thing you love is lovable. It takes a certain degree of sacrifice to help someone in need. However, Christ-like love is a lot harder than that. It is showing love when it is unexpected, when it doesn’t make sense. It is showing love to the people who hate and hurt you. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”5 There was a minister who lived in the heart of Hindu India. He and his wife lived in an area that harbored Hindu extremists. One day the unthinkable happened. As the minister’s wife was returning from the market, she was attacked, raped, and murdered by a group of extremists. The minister was devastated, but when people expected him to give up, he continued to minister. A number of months after his wife’s murder, the minister just finished a Sunday sermon when one man approached him from the congregation. The man had come to the minister’s sermons for the past three weeks. Head bowed, he identified himself as one of those who had killed the minister’s wife. The minister rejoiced and embraced him. He praised God at that very moment for the man who had murdered his wife. He thought not of revenge or even of justice. He only thought of God’s wonderful redeeming love. That doesn’t make sense! How could anyone be happy to see his wife’s murderer? Even if the murderer becomes a good person, it is insane to forgive them, let alone embrace them! Yet, this is what is asked of us. To borrow once again from Francis Chan, we are called to love like crazy. We are called to be extreme lovers, uncontrollably exclaiming, “I love you!” to God day in and day out, actively caring for one another, rejoicing in the fact that God loves us as well as our enemies. The love shown to us in the Bible is extreme, beyond worldly understanding. Love when it is least expected, a love that does not make sense. This is what makes Christ-like love distinct, what should make Christians distinct. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”6 1. Psalms 136:1 NIV 2. 1 Corinthians 13:4-6 NIV 3. James 2:15-16 NIV 4. James 1:27 NIV 5. Matthew 5:43-44 NIV 6. John 13:35 NIV Solomon Kim is a sophomore studying English who is thankful and humbled to still be learning what it means to love like crazy.

Spring 2013 | To An Unknown God 7

No fear in Love Kristen Fu, STAFF WRITER aybe it’s because the Chinese American church taught me to be humble and unassuming. Maybe it's because I was also taught to always put others before me, because God calls us to have a “servant heart.” Or maybe it's because my best friends in middle school one day decided to phase me out of the group (which in those days meant everything), placing in the back of my head a poisonous fear that everyone I knew or met from then on would one day get tired of me. Whatever it was, it haunted me. It told me that any sort of attention I brought to myself was prideful and sinful. It told me, You’re not that special. You're just another quiet, Asian American girl, and sure you're nice, but most people would rather be around others who are cooler, prettier, and more outgoing than you. But I dealt with it. Since God wants me to love others while being humble and denying myself, that means I should think of myself less. And whatever it was, it convinced me that thinking of myself less meant thinking less of myself. It made me believe that what I had to say was not as valuable as what others had to say, so I rarely spoke up. It made me assume that people had a negative impression of me before I even met them, and that I wasn't the type of person people were interested in getting to know or hang out with. It’s fine to not think you’re special. That's just being humble. But there exists another voice, a still small voice that can make itself known in pleasantly unexpected ways. The voice of God is something that I had heard pastors preach about on Sunday mornings growing up, claiming that it can be heard when one “quiets their heart” and “listens prayerfully.” However these phrases had such a vague meaning to me when I was younger that I assumed I would learn to hear His voice when I was older, making the other discouraging voice much louder to me. Therefore as I entered college and was meeting new people left and right, in every introduction there laid that fear of not making a good and lasting impression. However at the same time, I found a Christian fellowship community that was structurally so familiar to me, and yet was so mind-blowingly different. It was different because I encountered and was led by people who loved God and those around them so much more vocally than I was used to. I wasn’t used to receiving so much affirmation in not just my faith, but in myself as a person. Words like “I want to hang out with you more” seemed so elementary but meant so much, and I really do believe that

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God was speaking those words of love and affirmation to me through the people I was meeting. Leaders and friends in my fellowship also loved themselves, and not in an arrogant way; they loved themselves as a form of praising God for creating us in His good and perfect image. 1 John 4:18 says “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” So how could I profess to love others as a believer in God if I didn’t even love myself ? Without confidence in who I am as a daughter of God, fear and insecurity grow inside and hinder the love that God has mercifully blessed me with to give to others. So it is true that God blesses the humble, but humble does not mean self-deprecating. Above all I can find joy in the amazing and constant love He freely gives me, and that means loving the way He created me so that I can fully love others, without fear. Kristen is a second year intended Media Studies major who will never get enough of the joy she receives from God’s love, good food with good people, and Andrew Garfield’s existence (in that order).

the

Love of

a Christian

the

Love of a non-Christian

Daniel Yoo, CONTRIBUTING WRITER

n the current culture of live and let live, discussion of personal convictions as right or wrong has been discouraged for being politically incorrect, perhaps even offensive. However, the idea that the Son of God came to Earth incarnate, died bearing our sins, and rose again, defeating death cannot be at the same time true and untrue to even the staunchest relativist. As whether or not this is true has dire consequences to many lives, the most loving act a Christian can do is to convince his nonChristian friend of his need for Christ, and the most loving act a non-Christian friend can do is to convince his Christian friend to drop his untrue faith. If Christianity is true, then sin is real, and the whole world is guilty. It would mean that the only way to be made innocent would be by putting faith and hope in Christ. It would also mean that those who have not been saved will receive their due justice. Considering that of the world’s population, 33.39%1 are considered Christian, the 66.61% remaining will miss out on a freely available salvation to gift them eternal life. Alternatively, if Christianity was false, over one third of the entire world is devoted to a lie, pouring out their lives for a nonexistent god. The time spent in worship and praise, the time spent on praying and interceding for others, and especially time spent on evangelism would all be rendered absolutely meaningless. In 1 Corinthians 15:14-19, Apostle Paul states that if the resurrection of Christ is not real, “our preaching is useless, and so is your faith,” and that Christians “are to be pitied more than all men.” 2 In light of these dire consequences, let us discuss its implications in our relationships with those we cherish. First is to establish a definition of love. In this piece, I will define love as wanting the best for someone else. Hopefully this can serve as a satisfying definition to both Christians and non-Christians. Now given this definition, it should be reasonable to assume

that for a Christian to love a non-Christian, he would do his utmost to bring that person to Christ. As stated before, if Christianity is true, then a life in Christ provides not only eternal life, but also a life on earth in communion with an almighty God. To be in a relationship with the creator of the universe is the best thing man can ever have, and for Christians to not share this gift because they are scared of committing some social faux pas would be absolutely unloving of them. Similarly, should Christianity be false, the most loving thing a non-Christian friend can do for a Christian friend is to try and talk him out of wasting his life on a non-existent god. If even Apostle Paul states that the members of this church are to be pitied more than all men should this faith be false, then the consequences of making this mistake must be serious. The best thing for a man in false faith is to be taken out of it. This means that for non-Christians, the most loving service they can render to Christians is to convince them to leave their worthless time sink of a faith. To not do so would be also absolutely unloving of them. Of course, much dialogue done between the two sides is not done out of love. This current trend of no one being confrontational may have come from a history of damaged friendships and bruised egos. However, this should not stop us from trying to show love to each other the best way we know how. Go on. Tell your friend he’s wrong. If he accepts this, he’ll thank you for it. 1. Numbers taken from CIA’s World Factbook last updated 2/20/2013. https:// www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html, accessed 3/10/2013 2. 1 Corinthians 15:14-19 NIV84 Seong Min (Daniel) Yoo is a sophomore studying Economics and MCB, and is the leader (in name anyways) of the ASPI ministry group.

Spring 2013 | To An Unknown God 9

Dear Future Wi f e,

David J Park, CONTRIBUTING WRITER You may be wondering why I am writing to you in this journal. Well, it’s just that the theme is love, and I couldn’t resist. I don’t know who you are and where you are yet. I trust in God’s will and timing, though I long to meet you so much. I cannot talk to you yet, but this shall suffice. My Sister in Christ, know that I love you and I am praying for you. I cannot wait for the day when I will be able to woo you off your feet. There are so many things I would like to do with you. I can already envision birthdays, Valentine’s Days, Christmases, spontaneous excursions, and the mundane moments of life that become special because I’m with you. Even more than that, I want to worship my God and my Savior, Jesus Christ, with you. I want to pray with you, study God’s Word with you, do ministry with you, counsel other couples with you, raise kids with you, and simply be together. I want to give you the very best. I desire to obey Jesus and be a “one-woman man” like 1 Timothy 3 describes. I desire to live in purity -- physically, emotionally, relationally, and sexually for Jesus and you. At times, it is so hard to wait for you, but I know you’re worth the wait. I don’t want to simply desire purity but live in it. I know He desires for me to walk in purity until our wedding day and onward together. His ways are for our best and our good. Satan may tempt me and I may waver, but I will wait for you. I am only 20 years old, barely finishing my sophomore year at Berkeley, but maybe you are here too. Maybe you will be coming here. Who knows? Only God. I don’t know how long it will be before I see you and meet you, but, by the power of the Holy Spirit, I will persevere. This is what the Father has in store for me, for you, and for our marriage. When I say that you are worth the wait, I don’t want you to feel like you have to prove it. You are worth it, my Bride and my Love. You alone are my standard of beauty. No other woman can compare. For you alone does my heart desire (save Jesus, of course). I can tell already that you are beautiful, that you are lovely, and that you are cute! Do not doubt my love for you; as I write, I long for you, and I catch a glimpse into the heart of Christ as He wants and longs for His bride, the Church. I can tell you now that your beauty is matchless. No woman that I have seen thus far and no woman in the future will compare. You have no comparison, no equal, and no competition! You may think to yourself that I cannot make such declarations because I have yet to see you. Love, you are the standard of beauty for me. I only see you. You are the definition of beauty for me. Even though you may not fit within the current cultural definitions of beauty, know that I consider you beautiful – and so does God! And, it’s not just external beauty that I talk about, of course. You are lovely in appearance, but your character shines brightest. It only makes you all the more attractive and disarming to the eyes. When I see you worship, when I see you pray, when I see your heart for the lost, when I see your compassion, when I see your obedience to the Lord, when I see you sacrifice for others, when I see your study of the Word – everything – I fall for you all the more. In my mind’s eye, I can see all those things happening, and I smile to myself. Daughter of God, how beautiful you are! You have been purchased with the precious blood of the Lamb; what is of more worth than Jesus? Your worth is infinite, daughter of the King. More than anything, I will endeavor to have our marriage magnify and glorify our Savior. My Love, let us leave a Christexalting legacy. My family history is tough; it’s riddled with broken, loveless marriages. My family is not full of Christians, and together we mark a new chapter in our family histories. In that way, I am a patriarch and you are a matriarch. What we do today will affect generations from now. By the grace of God, we can leave a legacy of Jesus-founded marriages to the glory of God. I pray that Jesus may fill us with His Holy Spirit and empower us to do such a wondrous work to His fame. It is reminiscent of the generations of Israel in the Old Testament. By God’s grace and sovereignty, He would raise up a generation of faithful men and women of God in the midst of a long line of idolatry and apostasy. We’re like those people – saved by grace through faith. It’s amazing that what we do for His glory is also what is best for us and brings us the most joy! Right now, I just want you to know that I am the luckiest guy in the world to have you. You are a tangible expression of Jesus’ grace in my life and I cannot wait to be your future husband. To be honest, I’m a hopeless romantic (not sure if you can tell!). I want to amaze you. I want to romance you. I want to have adventures with you. It can be adventures

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around the world or to the supermarket. No matter what the adventure, I know it will be special because I have you by my side. I don’t want to just sweet talk you – to tell you what you want to hear. I want to show you that my words carry weight. See what I mean by my actions. That is how you will know that I am truly your one-woman man. My soul yearns for you. I desire you, my Bride. I don’t know what you’re doing right now, but know that I’m thinking of you. I pray that you are well, my Sister in Christ. May you have sweet and frequent communion with the biggest man in your life, Jesus Christ. I hope to take you on adventures beyond your wildest dreams, yet Jesus will always be the center of it all. He will be our greatest affection – set apart from all other loves, including each other. Let us practice loving Jesus more than life itself and seeking Him above all while apart. But, when we come together, it’ll be glorious; we’ll be husband and wife worshiping the King of Glory together. It’s beautiful for a husband and wife to remember the broken body and the blood spilt by our Savior for our salvation as we take communion together – the same body and blood spilt to establish the church, the Bride of Christ. You know, writing to you is no easy task. It would be a much easier task if I knew who you were. But, you know what, that’s the fun of it. You see me as a single college guy writing to you. I’m sure my future self will laugh over this letter, but cut me some slack. This is not an easy task. Actually, this isn’t even a task, but a joy to write to my lovely wife. It’s all worth it to see you smile and to hear you laugh. Sure, your laughter is at my expense, but that’s what a husband is for, right? Lastly, know that I expect nothing in return from you. My love is not contingent on you writing me an awesome letter like this. Moreover, I am a virgin, and I will save myself for you. But, by the power of the Holy Spirit, I will love you like Christ loves the Church. I will love you with no expectation of anything in return and with no regard to your former sins or sins committed against you; because in Christ your sins have been forgiven and you have been clothed with His righteousness. Never think that you aren’t worthy of my affections. I’m more broken and messed up than you know (though it will become increasingly evident, I’m sure), and if you can receive the perfect love of Christ, you can receive my imperfect love from an imperfect me. Full disclosure, though, I’m going to knock your socks off.

Love, Your Future Husband

David J Park is a sophomore that likes long walks on the beach, keeping a wife journal, and attempting to write humorous author bios. He attends Reality SF, and prays to get married before 26.

Spring 2013 | To An Unknown God 11

(Why it’s good news that the good news doesn’t depend on us)

Jonathan Kuo, CONTRIBUTING WRITER love the cross. I love the cross because it’s good news. I love that it’s good news. Good news isn’t very common these days. Good news nowadays tends to be trite, naïve, and cute. Cute, but nothing solid to stand on. Nothing steadfast to hope in. Nothing to anchor our souls in. Cute news can make us smile, but it can’t bear us up. It can encourage us, however momentarily, but the emotional lift fades as soon as we shift our attention. Good news needs to be steadfast, solid, unshakeable. In other words, it needs to be good news precisely in that it’s not about us – about what we’ve done, what we can do, or what we should do. We won’t find good news in the human race – not in a race so nervous, so unsteadied, ever unsure of the certainty of tomorrow. God knows how we can be so finicky. So fickle. So anxious and terrorized just a moment after we thought we found peace. But that’s why I love the cross. It speaks a better word than anything about us. It tells the story of a God who came as a man named Jesus - nailed to a crucifix, buried, and resurrected to save. It tells of the Gospel: the good news. And that’s why I love the cross: it’s actually, really, good news. Good news precisely because its being good is not contingent upon me. Good news of Jesus’s power to redeem me from Satan, sin, and death which is not threatened by my all too often tendency to get myself into circumstances which require redeeming. And that’s why it’s good news. It’s effective despite me. Joy-inducing apart from me. Relief-bringing not because it calls attention to the good in me, but the bad in me only ever in light of a greater good outside of me. In other words, the cross is good news because it’s not just good advice. If it was just good advice – how to live, why we should do certain things and not others – its goodness would be contingent upon our ability to live up to the advice it offers. Good advice

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only delivers good results when it’s followed. Good news contains within itself all the ingredients for joy apart from our needing to respond by anything other than receiving it as already true. And that’s why faith receives rather than achieves. Faith is belief, receiving as achieved what Jesus accomplished when He breathed His last and said, “It is finished.”1 Jesus was declaring that conquering the damning effects of our sin was done. Unbelief tries to finish the job by looking for somebody or something else to save us. Good advice alone all too often leads us to try to believe in ourselves. The good news demands we believe in God over and despite ourselves. And that’s why I love the cross. It involves me, but it doesn’t revolve around me. It invites me to come, die to myself, and live for God, but it doesn’t invite me to start working to create my own hope and salvation. And once I realized this, I really started loving the cross. After trying for so many years of trying to find good news in myself, I finally stopped. I stopped trying to find something to hope in myself once I realized that the whole point of the gospel is that it points to a Hope and Rescuer outside of me. When I struggled with habitual sin, when I found myself apathetic to the death of Christ, when I thought myself potentially damned to Hell because I couldn’t see any hope within me – it was then that I realized: the gospel is good news because it never banked on me finding find hope in me. I learned that despite me, I can hope, because I found that my hope isn’t grounded in myself, my circumstances, or any other person other than Jesus alone. I realized that the formula for gospel joy didn’t have a variable for “But, my sins,” or “But, I.” In fact, it hit me that the gospel never started with “But you.” It starts with “But God.”2 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our

trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved.”3 I never factored into this glorious equation of good news, so nothing I do could alter it. So I realized that sometimes it’s when all you can see in yourself and the world is the guilt and wreckage of sin that you’re best able to stop saying the damning phrase of, “but I,” and realize that the gospel had nothing to do with our competency in the first place. It begins with, “But God,” continues there, and ends there, and that’s the only place sinners will be saved, struggling Christians will walk in victory over sins which once plagued them, and apathetic believers will be shaken out of their apathy. Only one can save, only one can give us the power to defeat sin, and only one can give a call clear enough to stir the sleeping soul. And the good news is that it’s not you. It’s Jesus. “But my sins are so great…” – “behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!”4 “But I have wronged my Heavenly Father too many times, how can I go back?” – “But God shows his love for us in that while were still sinners, Christ died for us.”5 “But my failings… how will I ever change?” -“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”6 “But I’ve gone too far. I’ve dug a pit too deep, and only I am to blame” -“For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”7 “There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” “and we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.”8 The cross always speaks the last word, even when it seems like our world is falling apart, our loved ones are suffering, and we, along with all of creation,

“groan inwardly as we await” “the redemption of our bodies”9. It’s a sure hope, but a hope not seen. But “hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience”10. And so we remember. In the past, Jesus won. In the present, Jesus redeems and saves us despite our stupidity, in spite of what others have done to us, and over our inability to help ourselves. And in the future, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, and the former things have passed away”11 . And this - this is why I love the cross. It’s truly good news. News worth living for. News worth dying for. Because whether we live or die well for it, it’s good. So I invite you. Join me. Let’s live together in awe of what God did at the cross together, For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

1. John 19:30 2. Ephesians 2:4 ESV 3. Ephesians 2:4-6 ESV 4. John 1:29 ESV 5. Romans 5:8 ESV 6. Romans 8:11 ESV 7. Romans 3:23-24 8. Romans 8:1,28 9. Romans 8:23 ESV 10. Romans 8:24-25 ESV 11. Revelations 21:4 ESV

Jonathan Kuo is a second year Rhetoric major who has a sure, but unseen, hope that the power of Christ will bring him into a marriage because of a Hope outside of him which overcomes the romantic naïveté within him.

Spring 2013 | To An Unknown God 13

risk of

love the

Bon Jin Koo, STAFF WRITER s I began to write another entry in my journal, my pencil greeted me with a sharp splintering sound followed by a satisfying snap. The snap quickly became unsatisfying. It was a good pencil. "How can I praise Bil'tiy Yadua Elhiym now?" I thought aloud. "Shut up, boy!" I flinched at the harsh voice. I waited for the familiar laughter to come and embrace silence as my comrade, but the swish of the tent flap announced otherwise. "What you muttering about now, boy?" said Crater Man. "My pencil broke," I said. "May I borrow your knife to sharpen it?" "So that you can slit my throat?" roared Crater Man. "Hasn't your pitiful deity demanded enough blood?" I saw his scars, dotted on his face like the craters of the moon, stretch and contort as he began to kick and spit at me. My skin eventually grew hard to his blows after many nights of abuse. "You shall love your enemies," Bil'tiy Yadua Elhiym told me in my dream the night I was captured. My hatred for my captors lingered, but I feared Bil'tiy Yadua Elhiym; he imbued a kind of power I never felt before. But tonight, not even he will stop me. "Forgive me, Bil'tiy Yadua Elhiym," I whispered. "What? I can't hear you boy!" yelled Crater Man. "Do you want me to beat you some more?" I brandished a knife I had stolen a couple weeks ago and prepared to drive it into Crater Man's heart. The fear I saw blossom on my enemy's face was sufficient for my revenge, but I could not stop there. I braced my mind for the collision of metal and bone, but I felt warmth instead. Blood? No...this felt familiar..! "Enough." An older man held his hand on my wrist, the knife inches away from Crater Man's chest. Fear quickly turned to embarrassment

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for Crater Man, anger to curiosity for me. This was a man I had never seen before, but how familiar his presence! Almost like Bil'tiy Yadua Elhiym... "Is that any way to treat our brother?" said the older man. "Brother?! I mean, General Adams, this scum threatened to kill me!" Crater Man cried. "It’s no surprise to me if the rumors about you are true," General Adams said. "What r-rumors, s-sir?" "Leave this place," General Adams said sternly. Crater Man’s face contorted with confusion and fury. He stormed out of the tent without questioning the general further. General Adams placed his hands on my shoulder and comforted me. "Have a seat, my brother," General Adams said. "We have much to discuss." The general and I exchanged words for hours. I learned that the political aspect of the war was much more complicated than I had ever imagined, though violence always became the main obstacle to negotiations. Adams became a commanding officer out of reluctance but sought to seek peace between warring factions through more diplomatic means rather than weapons and fear. He told me that after the war was over, someone needed to come back to restore the country and share God’s love to its people. “Who is God?” I asked. “The one who gives me the power to stand before an army,” General Adams whispered. “And to love little ones like yourself.” “What do you mean by loving ones like me?” “Let me show you.” The general brought out a bowl of water, kneeled, and reached for my feet as if to begin washing them. I withdrew my feet in shock. “That is a servant’s job! The lowest of tasks!” I exclaimed.

The general smiled and gently brought my feet into the water. His hands were rough; I could feel years of pain and labor. Yet that insight did not pinpoint for me the source of his power. Where did it come from? Who is this God? “Imagine a king…no, a king of kings!” General Adams said. “What if he came to wash your feet?” “Why would a king do such a thing?” I asked. “Ah, but my king is different,” General Adams chuckled. “He washed my feet out of love, so I try to do the same for you. But you must first accept it.” He finished washing my feet. The general brought out a new pair of shoes and tickled my feet before he put them on. I was not ticklish, but a giggle escaped from my mouth. This man knew love. Did his God give him power and love as well? “Who is God?” I asked again. “Is he a deity?” “What is the name of your deity?” General Adams answered. “Bil'tiy Yadua Elhiym.” “That’s Hebrew for ‘unknown god,’” General Adams explained. “My God… and your god… are one and the same.” “How do you know?” “There is a story about a man who loved God more than I did,” General Adams said. “His name was Paul. The people he tried to share God’s love with worshiped many gods. They had many altars dedicated to different kinds of gods, and one altar the people dedicated to an unknown god.” “Bil’tiy Yadua Elhiym?” “Yes! Paul said, ‘What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.’ He told them God is a personal God, one who is jealous for their souls and deeply in love.” “Who is God?” I asked once more. “God is love.” “But it is so dangerous to love,” I said. “My heart, my soul… my

mind is open to the other. What would he do with them?” “Brother, if you, a mere man, can sense the fragility of our hearts, also know how easily love can damage the heart, and yet, know how necessary a heart needs love,” General Adams explained. “How much more would a king who brings his people so close to his heart take all the more care to love them?” “That is a risk,” I concluded. “It is a risk to love,” General Adams said. “What if it doesn’t work out?” ---39 Years Later I stand before my nation, once broken and desolate, but now a name known throughout the world. I discovered its name was Israel, a name long forgotten in the decades of war. I remembered the love that the general demonstrated to me as a prisoner many years ago. For my entire life until our meeting, I worshiped Bil’tiy Yadua Elhiym, an unknown god, never realizing it was the same God that gave the general such strength and gentleness. “Chancellor! Sorry to disturb your meditation,” a worker reported. “A group of refugees wish to enter the country.” “But?” “They’re Americans, Chancellor.” “What of it, Peter?” I asked. “Do you not remember that an American saved me? You shall love them just the same.” “But it is such a risk!” Peter argued. “We just recovered from the war. What if they’re spies? Terrorists?” “It is a risk to love,” I said. “What if it doesn’t work out?” Peter shrugged as I placed my hand on his shoulder and comforted him. “Ah, but what if it does.” Bon Jin Koo is an English major who enjoys the company of the wise and a good cup of tea.

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How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Costs

Christopher Kim, CONTRIBUTING WRITER here’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Popularized by economist Milton Friedman, the phrase asserts that even when something appears to be free, there is always a cost, hidden or distributed, to an individual and/or society as a whole. There is always a cost to something, an opportunity cost if you will, to every action: the time spent, resources allocated, and the opportunity to do something else. This means our day-to-day, action-by-action activities and habits have a certain cost associated with them, with the implication that things can be quantitatively measured and compared to each other. Everyone has a clear sense of priorities. One weighs the significance and relative importance of each of his obligations and tasks at the specific moment wherefrom he bases the decisions that he makes. For instance, a student often chooses to play video games rather than study – implying that at the particular moment, the joy and pleasure gained from playing video games outweighed the benefits he may gain from his studies. His decision to play video games has an opportunity cost in the form of the time he loses to study for his classes. The greatest cost one can offer is his life. Opportunity cost incorporates all the potential gain that is lost as a consequence from a particular action. Choosing a life in nonprofit organizations has the opportunity cost of being a potential multimillionaire, living a lavished and comfortable lifestyle. There is no greater opportunity cost of devoting ones entire life exclusively to one cause – by doing so one loses any opportunity to exclusively seek wealth and prosperity, personal comfort, love, academic credentials, although these things can come as a byproduct of one’s pursuit of a particular goal. To dedicate oneself to a purpose requires him to have a fervent passion and love for the objective in question; otherwise, the lack of personal “value” of the goal would eventually cause a the individual to conscientiously, or unconscientiously, chose an action that deviates from the previously mentioned goal. Could an individual claim to wholeheartedly devote his life exclusively to the pursuit of one goal? Such task would be considered impossible, and unrealistic. An individual who claims to do such would be branded a liar and idealist. He would be shunned and mocked by society, criticized by his peers, and under constant scrutiny from those around him. People would look to find fault in his actions and purposefully try to sway him. But what if such a person existed who devoted his life exclusively to one cause, one mission; that despite the mockery and scrutiny previously described, and despite the public’s attempts to test him and cause him to stumble, he remained focused and steadfast on his goals; that on his pursuit to his goal, he was abandoned by all his friends and family and was left branded as a criminal?

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Who was this man? What was his goal? What was so important that it was worth sacrificing everything and forgoing a potential life of comfort and prosperity? This man was a king, but he lived humbly. He was dedicated to the outcasts of society, tending to the sick, and feeding the hungry. He was a shepherd protecting the people from tyranny, shielding them from their enemies. But his mission was so much greater than meeting temporal and physical needs. He saw the brokenness, he felt the pain. He knew the hopelessness that pervaded his people’s days. So he cast down all of his kingly splendor and glory to fix the wrongs that pervaded society, sacrificing all the comforts, recognition, accolades, and riches in his kingdom. There had to be an exchange – the king had to give up his life, so that his people would live as he did. But the people failed to recognize their beloved king. They failed see his love, dedication, and mission to bring them joy and peace. The same people who had once hailed their king in reverence and glory did not recognize his voice or his pleas. They continued in their debauchery and mutiny. The king saw his people condemned to death and his heart was filled with compassion. So he did the only thing he could and took their death sentence upon himself so that they would live. And in his willing exchange, the people were justified. The lost and forgotten, the outcasts, and the poor were given hope, security, and assurance. All that was required was for the people to go before the judge who held the record of their trespasses and to show that the sentence and fine had been covered in full by the death of their king. This king’s name was Jesus Christ, and he cast off all his heavenly splendor and glory to live a life of persecution and ridicule so that man would have a restored relationship with the God he betrayed. He suffered, was cast aside, and was crucified. And in his death he accomplished his goal – he freed man from the vices of sin and death and reconciled man’s broken relationship with God. Jesus accomplished the impossible and so that man would gain the unobtainable; that in Jesus’ suffering and sacrifice, his opportunity cost would be man’s reward. Man, through Christ, is showered with his perfect satisfaction, peace, joy, kindness, gentleness, humility, and patience. And in gaining these heavenly riches, earthly concerns and worries are dwarfed, status and recognition from others are unnecessary, and monetary wealth and prosperity become worthless. All man has to do is acknowledge and accept the sacrifice of their Savior. The beauty is that death did not stop Jesus; it could not hold him down. That in spite of Jesus’ substitution for man’s just punishment, he conquered the grave so he would be with the people that he loves. And those who believe in the resurrected and living king will live for eternity. Christopher loves his Dodgers and Lakers. He is worried about his fantasy baseball team.

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Groove Armada, "Paper Romance" Yeah you can write me a love letter but there’s nothing to say don’t want to take a chance on your paper romance anyway.

Paper Romance On which words can bridge the gap between people.

Christy Kim, CONTRIBUTING WRITER he wondered what she was playing at as she finished her letter to her pen pal. It was nice to have a pen pal, her acquaintances had said when she had mentioned it in passing, and her friends had agreed that it would be nice to exchange thoughts with someone not of this school, and a scholarship kid at that. Only her few closest friends knew her ex-crush in person, and none of them knew that she was writing to him with the quill-and-paper set they had gifted to her for Christmas. Everyone knew bits of the secret but only she possessed the whole picture. She skirted a dangerous line – confidences had to be divulged delicately and even more so on paper, because she did not know how much of the confidence was wanted; how insightful he’d find her inane rambling; what mood he’d be in when he received it. No wonder people stuck to social media, in which they did not have to worry about crafting words around an audience. Such little things compounded with the big things – did he think of her frankness as endearing or overbearing, her praise warm or sycophantic? In the first correspondence she had brushed their past history under the writing-table, scratching I have yet to meet someone on whom I can develop a silly crush, like I did with you. (She hoped that she sounded surer of her guardedness than she felt). She had not said “little” crush because he had thanked her for it, turning her embarrassment into a cause for gratitude. How much of her writing was not ingrained politeness or flippancy, it was hard to tell. She’d written many things for various persons, and sometimes the words sounded so hollow, so lavish in adulation that they ceased to carry meaning. The same for her grandparents every year – live long, thank you for raising my parents and being patient with them – and her parents – thank you for being patient with me, I know I’m a handful. The finishing touch an almost perfunctory, “I love you”, the routine made more meaningful by peppering details that she’d excruciatingly fished out of her confused mental aggregations of them, their actions

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and what neediness to be assuaged might be lurking behind those actions. She winced when people threw out “love” in trivial chitchat, but she was guilty of the same thing on paper, if she dared write it. As if writing it down would make it more sincere. (The idea’s the important thing, she’d argue, but it was tricky when they as Christians were advised to bear good fruit. If a letter was mere intention, then how was she to convey her “here for you”-ness? Sporadic likes on Facebook?) A letter was such an intimate thing, so easy to be misconstrued. She could not imagine writing to her high school friends, now in different states. Two were the types to draw, not write, and one tweeted letter-equivalents daily, and one didn’t speak English as a first language. It would be cruel to demand their care through media that did not suit them. Besides, she would feel taxed finding all of the sincere, right things to say, and it would show, and the letters would dribble to a halt. If she stooped so low to write the same thing for each person to save time, then she might as well type and print – why stop there, why not just email the letters? Write the same words for everyone? How generic – it’s like reading horoscopes or blood type personality tests, in which the same blanket statements apply to one-twelfth or one-fourth of the entire population. Yet, a love letter to many people is exactly what God wrote – and it achieved more than any individually addressed letter written by man. “The Bible is like, God’s love letter,” one of the girls in her small group had remarked with amazement. They had learned about God’s covenant in Genesis. He Himself was originator of the covenant, for He had promised and in promising had given words their true purpose as binding, contractual sounds. The vow did not bestow power on Him; He sanctified the vow to love you (and you, and you, and him, and her and that trans-person that you eye in class, aware of your prejudices jarring with your confused interpretation of His commands). To imagine that she could write a love letter, and have it read out loud, and discussed and debated over by billions; to hear her loved ones openly sneer and claim that her love was not real, that she was not real; to have it distributed, copies upon copies, and have it to resonate with every reader – her feeble human courage could not possibly cope. How intentional must every single word be, how crafted each sentence, how secure its truth to convey such an emotion? She couldn’t do it and no author in the history of penpal-ship attempted; only He succeeded. Only He could know each of us so well to write one letter that is so precise in its accuracy as to pierce all of our hearts with an arrow attached to a living, vibrating lifeline we call Jesus Christ. Did it not hurt for him, that he could bear being so open? We

know that it hurt, because in order to complete the covenant, to write the New Testament He had to send His only son, and He turned away His face when Jesus cried My God why have you forsaken me on the cross. Was His love so consuming, then, that it overpowered any fear of having His love dismissed as not good enough? Or did He see so much to love in us that His love left no room for fear? Sometimes she was cold to the love, and instead of asking for ears to hear and eyes to see and the wisdom to discern, she pleaded, please favor me. I know you love me, but you give the same love to everyone else. Please bless me more. But that He had crafted the words to be individually internalized and eloquent in their universality was a cause for hope, not for petty jealousy. That so many people could feel the love effused by the Bible told her, in itself, that they were all wired to be entranced by the same fire, and so this commonality could span the sometimes formidable distance between her and others. Like a child that sees fireflies dancing and wants to bottle them up, as if trapping them would make the vivacity his, it was her right to her sinful, broken self to demand to intake His burning love, and for it to consume the worldly things obstructing her heart and turn them into ashes. She was meant to rise from them anew as a creature of His grace and walk among the people of this world, addled by the gratitude and by the fire in her eyes illuminating how He saw them, so that her love may overflow and writing love letters would not be taxing. To love, and to be so whole in the loving that the rawness did not daunt, the rejection did not taunt - how wonderful was that? The constant conversations in her life were dilutions of the real thing. Little wonder He did not talk in person, for not only would His glory overwhelm her, she would also misunderstand His speech, all meaning and none of the tentative falling-flat awkwardness of people, signaling, Hi, can I reveal a bit of myself to you? Will you judge me weak and hurt me? Can I take that chance? I’ll just say nothing at all, but we’ll still part as if we shared something, because the world has given us plenty of templates for constant conversations. She was scared, but believed that the fear would fall away and that she would land on the safe harbor of his promised vow. She believed that every letter she wrote could approach the clarity of regard that her penpal seemed to crave and to need to return. For He first had taken a chance and had written the greatest love letter anyway, had so much to say that the story had never stopped throughout the ages, and was slowly teaching her how to take a chance with love, unafraid. Christy Kim is a sophomore intending to major in Molecular Environmental Biology with a minor in English, and hails from SoCal.

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In the Name of Love Keith Fong, CONTRIBUTING WRITER

od is love. This is perhaps the most universal statement of Christendom; it is a glorious, marvelous truth. It has encouraged and emboldened many hearts. Yet, in recent times Satan has mangled it into something revolting and blasphemous. Under the proud banner “God is Love,” both the heretics and the untaught are committing atrocious deeds. This must not be. It must not continue. The violent distortion of this truth is the result of an unbiblical definition of love. In the modern English language, love has manifold dictionary definitions: (1) strong affection for another, (2) attraction based on sexual desire, and (3) warm attachment or devotion.1 Colloquially, to love someone means you’re willing to die for her, you can’t imagine life without her, and you feel good with her. Love is something fallen into, an indescribable euphoria, an unconditional affection, the pursuit of a lifetime, the willingness to do anything to make the beloved happy, the acceptance of the beloved no matter who or what they are.2 Yet each of these definitions is woefully inadequate, erroneous, and unbiblical because they define love to be, at its core, a feeling or an emotion. At its best, this feeling may occasionally lead to action, but as is clear from above, “love” is primarily sentiment. But the Bible does not define love to be sentiment; biblical love (in Greek,3 agape) is the commitment to the good of the beloved demonstrated by self-sacrificial action. It is not merely affection or attraction. It is not merely emotion or experience. The Scriptures say that love is patient, is kind, rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.4 Patience, kindness, rejoicing, bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring are not mere emotions; they are attitudes of the heart demonstrated for the good of the beloved. To reduce love from such a glorious height to a loosely defined sentiment is to destroy the definition that God Himself has given.

God is Love The importance of a correct definition cannot be overstated. If love is defined incorrectly, then God is understood incorrectly, for 1 John 4:8 says, “God is love.” There are many opinions about what this verse means. Some say that it means God is defined solely by love, or that God’s dominant attribute is love. Others say that it’s like a mathematical equation, and means: “Whatever God is, love is. Whatever love is, God is. ‘God is love’ means ‘love is God.’” However, all of these are fallacies, and spring from a misunderstanding of basic grammar. To see this, think, “Love is patient.”5 What does this sentence mean? It cannot mean that love is defined solely by patience, for the verse continues and says, “love is kind.” Thus, “Love is patient,” must mean that patience is one attribute of love, not the sole attribute. It also cannot mean that patience is the dominant attribute of love, for the passage continues and lists seven other attributes that love is and nine attributes that love is not. Furthermore, it would be foolish to follow mathematical equality logic for these sentences and say, “‘Love is patient, love is kind’ means ‘patience is love and kindness is love.’ Thus patience is kindness.” Patience and kindness may be related, but they are not identical: patience is the capacity to forbear without distress and kindness is a disposition of friendliness and warmth. Both words are necessary to describe love. In the same way, “God is love” does not mean that God is solely love. It does not mean that God’s dominant attribute is love. And, it does not mean that love is God. Rather, when 1 John 4:8 says, “God is love [agape],” it means that love is an attribute of God. But love is one of God’s attributes. Love must not be elevated above all His other attributes to be dominant if, in fact, it is not. It is gloriously true that God is love. At the same time, God is gloriously solitary, eternal, holy, sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, immutable, good, patient, merciful, gracious, wrathful, just, righteous, true, perfect, and infinite.6

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Combining this understanding of “God is love” with a biblical definition of love leads to this conclusion: God Himself is committed to the good of His beloved and demonstrates this love by self-sacrificial action. God Demonstrates His Love in the Cross The cross of Jesus Christ is the perfect demonstration of God’s love. As the Scriptures say: We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; ...By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world… In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 7 This passage says “the love of God was manifested” by this: “God sent His only begotten Son into the world … to be the propitiation for our sins.” He did not love us because we loved Him; before the cross, we had no conception of love. Rather, He loved us first, and “demonstrates [presently, continually] His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”8 Through the cross, we can inherit unfathomable blessing: we can be forgiven of our trespasses and sins, established in a covenantlove relationship with God, saved by grace through faith, adopted as sons of God, called the righteous and holy ones, admitted into the God’s service for His kingdom and His glory, resurrected at the end of the age to eternal life, and given the blessings in the heavenly places in Christ for all eternity. How good is the Lord to His beloved! O, how blessed are those who know the love of God in Christ! The cross is the pinnacle of God’s love toward us, the vivid picture that gives color to “God is love.” How can we know what love is? The cross. How do we know that God is love? The cross. How do we know that God loves us? The cross. It is the objective reality, the triumphant declaration of God’s love, the epitome of God demonstrating by self-sacrifice (His Son’s death) His commitment to the good of the beloved (us). God Demonstrates His Wrath in the Cross The cross is also the perfect demonstration of God’s wrath. The above passage says that Jesus is “the propitiation for our sins.” Propitiation is a sacrifice that diverts divine wrath away from those that deserve it. On the cross, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, was a wrath-bearing, substitutionary sacrifice who diverted the wrath of God against our sins away from us and onto Himself. God chose the bloody cross — a brutal torture device designed to extract as much excruciating, screaming pain as possible —to give us a tiny glimpse into the agony that Christ bore spiritually when He drank the cup of the wrath of God to satisfy God’s righteous

wrath.9 “God displayed [Jesus Christ] publically as propitiation in His blood… to demonstrate His righteousness.”10 This death, this blood, was the only way for sinners to be forgiven and for God’s holy wrath against sin to be satisfied. Sin deserves a punishment, and someone had to take that punishment; Jesus took it for us, so that we who have faith in Jesus could be forgiven and justified by the Justifier.11 How terrifying is the wrath of God against sin! O, how we should fear the One who has the authority to kill and then cast into hell!12 The cross of Jesus is the pinnacle of God’s wrath, the blow that takes our breath and reminds us it is “a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”13 How do we know that God is wrathful? The cross. How do we know that God is just? The cross. How do we know that God hates sin and will punish it as it deserves? The cross. It is the objective reality, the resolute proclamation that God always has been and always will be the Just.14 Inseparable It is unpopular to clearly affirm both the soft and the hard truths of the Bible. “Christianity is about love!” some cry. “And love is about acceptance and tolerance of all people, no matter who they are. You are unloving if you disagree!” Yes, Christianity is about the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ. Yes, it is about acceptance and tolerance. But that is not the end of the story. The soft (love, mercy, graciousness) and the hard (wrath, righteousness, justice) truths of Christianity are inseparable. Here are two reasons: (1) God is inseparable and (2) the love and wrath of the cross are inseparable. The soft and hard truths of Christianity are inseparable because God is inseparable. God is righteous, just, loving, and merciful. It is not “either/or” but “both/and.” He is the God who displays His righteousness by punishing sin, and the God who displays His mercy by forgiving sinners.15 He is the God who demonstrates His love by welcoming those made righteous by the blood of Christ into heaven16 and the God who demonstrates His wrath by casting those guilty of their sins into the eternal, fiery hell.17 He is the God of both kindness and severity.18 We should worship Him as He is, for who He is, for to worship any other notion of God is to set up a false, unbiblical god and commit idolatry.19 Also, the soft and hard truths of Christianity are inseparable because the love and wrath in the cross are inseparable. The very sufferings that point to God’s great love for sinners simultaneously point to His wrath and just requirement for sin. As shown above, in one breath 1 John 4:10 speaks of both love and wrath in the cross. Furthermore, if God only wanted to demonstrate His love for us, why did it have to be through crucifixion? If God only

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wanted to demonstrate His love for us, why did Jesus have to be pierced by thorns in His head, lashed with a whip until unrecognizable, maligned, scorned, beaten, spit upon, and nailed? It is inexplicable save for the wrath of God against sin. God displayed Jesus as a propitiation to demonstrate both His own righteousness and His love for us. You cannot take only the soft; to do so is to preach a false cross and a false gospel. To be a Christian is to take God as He is. To trust in the cross of Jesus Christ as the only means of salvation is to take it as it is. Anything less is arrogance, blasphemy, and heresy. In the Name of Love and In the Name of God God is love. It is a solid, concrete, and defined truth. God loves His people, is committed to their good, and demonstrates this love chiefly in the sacrifice of the cross. As He loves, He upholds His wrath and justice. As those who trust in the Savior who died for the love of God and the wrath of God, we must imitate Him and uphold both love and justice. Thus, we cannot in the name of love or in the name of God affirm what He has clearly taught to be sin. We cannot in the name of love or in the name of God be devoted to something that He hates. We cannot be silent about what He has spoken loudly on. We cannot contort Scripture into a thing of our making. If we do, we make a mockery of the God who is love, and of the cross upon which the Savior died. Thus, we must, in the name of love and in the name of God, live in light with His full character. We must, in the name of love and in the name of God, preach the entire message of salvation: that sinners destined for an eternal hell can be saved only through the forgiveness purchased for them by Christ on the cross. We must preach this gospel as Jesus and His apostles preached it. We must declare “the whole purpose of God”20 from His inspired Word — even those things that make others and ourselves uncomfortable, and especially the things that we as sinners don’t tend to like. We must demonstrate our love for people by committing to their ultimate, eternal, good and sacrifice our time, money, and resources for them, in prayer, evangelism, and ministry. We must love. God is love. May you love as He does.

Keith Fong is a sinner saved by the grace and the love of God in Jesus Christ. He is blessed to be a member of Evangel Bible Church of Berkeley, and a soonto-be alum from UC Berkeley.

(Endnotes) 1 “Love,” Merriam-Webster, accessed March 5, 2013, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/love. 2 “Love,” Urban Dictionary, accessed March 5, 2013, http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=love 3 I am aware that English versions translate several different Greek words as “love.” Yet, here I am discussing only the most important type of “love,” for which the authors of Scriptures purposely used “agape.” This is the type of love I wish to discuss in this article. 4 1 Corinthians 13:4, 6-7 5 1 Corinthians 13:4-13 6 It would benefit all people to know of the attributes of the God as revealed in the Scriptures. Books that I’ve personally found profitable on this subject: The Attributes of God by A.W. Pink, Knowing God by J.I. Packer, The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer 7 1 John 3:16, 1 John 4:9–10 8 Romans 5:8 9 Luke 22:41-44 10 Romans 3:25 11 Romans 3:26 12 Luke 12:5 13 Hebrews 10:31 14 Romans 3:26 15 Exodus 34:6-7 16 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 17 Revelation 20:15-21:4, Mark 9:48 18 Romans 11:28 19 Exodus 20:3-6 20 Acts 20:17 21 Ephesians 4:15 22 I am indebted to Frank Gan, Derek Wong, and Abigail Shim, for they were instrumental the conception, writing, and editing of this article.

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What is Divine Love? Desiree Macchia, STAFF WRITER

ow can we define God’s love? Part of the difficulty that we face in answering this question is in the fact that, “love,” is such a slippery word. It has so many different meanings. We use this word to describe our devotion to chocolate ice cream, our pet, our best friends, our parents, and our favorite book. We sometimes use it to describe the butterflies that we feel when we fall for that special someone (or think we have fallen). Love is a term that has so many different uses: some shallow, some self-serving, and some possibly noble. So when we try to define divine “love” we immediately face a great challenge. What does this word mean when applied to God? I don’t think that our uses of the word will get us very far in answering this question. Any definition we come up with for love is bound to fall short of what that word means in reference to God. It thus seems better to seek where God defines this word, “love”, for us. I think we get such a divine definition for love in 1 John 4:10 (NIV): “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” Thus, love is not first defined by us, by our romantic feelings or numerous attractions and devotions. The basis of divine love is, “not that we loved God but that he loved us!” Divine love is not defined primarily by our religious devotion for God, because religion can be just as shallow and self-serving as anything else. Religion tends to lead to idolatry, which is an effort to conform God to our self-serving desires and goals. Even noble feelings and devotions cannot in their own power be adequate enough to reach God or prove us worthy of God’s love. The Protestant Reformer, Martin Luther, spent years in a German monastery seeking to reach God through acts of

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penance, following every command of scripture, only to discover at every turn how inadequate his own religious devotion was in capturing the depth and breadth of divine love. He discovered in a prayer tower that God justifies the repentant sinner by grace and not works. He realized that God has defined love in a way that goes way beyond anything that we can comprehend or produce. In fact, God’s definition of love shatters our limited conceptions of devotion and reveals their inadequacies. God defined love by becoming human, going to a cross to draw us in. Love is defined where God seeks to embrace us right at the time when we were rejecting him. He cried out: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34 NIV). He defines love by pouring out his life for us without conditions or limitations while we were in the act of torturing him. Christ allowed his body to be shattered and his blood to be spilled out for our salvation. There is nothing that we can do to deserve this love or in any way provide a basis for it. We are powerless to do so: “when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6 NIV). This is the love that redeems and transforms, providing the basis for our own loving responses to God. Then God would point us to the cross and say to us, “love like this.” Only in doing so can we learn what divine love is. Nowhere else.

Desiree Macchia is a freshman studying Molecular and Cell Biology who loves to laugh with her family and friends, and hopes to show love to others through her everyday words and actions.

The Definition of Love Divine Adesida. STAFF WRITER

e all have our variations of what we believe love to mean. You pick a person off the street and ask them what they think love is, and they might tell you it sucks because of the pain they’ve experienced. For others, it is the special feeling you get, you know, the goose bumps up your arm, the butterflies in your stomach that kind of thing. But is that really all there is to love? Now, I know, we classify love; the same love you show your mom or dad is not what you show your friends. So what is this love I am trying to convey? God’s love, agape love; a love of humans and our kind that goes beyond the physicality of tit for tat to a dimension so pure that nothing a person could ever do or say shakes His love for them. Here is another definition: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does no boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” 1 Corinthians 3:4-8 (NIV). When I see this list, God’s list of what true love for mankind is, I cannot help but feel my love is incompetent. How am I supposed to be patient and kind, when I’m late for class and the people walking in front of my car on the cross walk think they have all the time in the world? How can I not be envious when I see the people around me with the best clothes, cars, houses? Or on the flip side, if I have those things, how can I not be boastful or proud of them and the other things I do have, an elite education being at the top. How can I not be self-seeking nor dishonor others when this world esteems the corporate ladder mostly entrenched with backbites and those who will do anything to be first? Why should I not be easily angered nor keep a record of those who wronged me when I am unfairly blamed for cheating in class and the professor publicly criticizes me? Then when the student who actually cheated comes forward, the professor does not apologize. Why should I not be happy when something bad happens to a bad person or rejoice when the truth spoken could put the one I love in prison? How can this love I am supposed to possess always protect and trust, hope and persevere? At this point, I remember the cross, what God did to show his love; that despite all my inadequacies, my selfishness and greed; my pride and anger, He sent Jesus Christ his one and only Son to die for my sins. “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” 1 John 4:9-11 (NIV). I remember what He did to show His love, and realize that love, God’s love can NEVER fail. That despite my flaws and no matter what I do or say, He will always love me. Yet Christ’s show of love was not just for me, but for every person in history who believes and accepts His sacrifice. A person can never say they are too bad or have gone too far for God to love them. He still loves them, He still loves you.

Divine Adesida is a junior transfer just finishing her first semester at Berkeley.

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A Different Kind of Angel Danielle Cha, STAFF WRITER

have never failed to catch the Victoria Secret Fashion show since the year 2009. My friends and I deliberately set aside time on the day it airs to watch it. The performances are always fun and the costumes extravagant. But most of all, something about the perfection that all the models seem to possess is alluring. The models are dubbed Victoria Secret Angels, and angels they seem to be. Perfected in skin, hair and coveted of all, their body. This show puts a spotlight on body image, and unfortunately the world puts a spotlight on this show. While modeling lingerie is most likely not every girl’s dream, the magnitude of this fashion show exposes a great deal about the value we assign to beauty. As women we desire perfection and if we don’t have it, we strive to attain it. We watch it, attempt it, and buy it, molding ourselves into something that is not us, just to have it. The problem is, “perfection” is almost unattainable for most women. Studies have shown that the body type that is portrayed in advertising is possessed naturally by only 5% of American females. Because the majority of us don’t fit into this suffocating mold, we will diet, refrain from eating, and hide ourselves behind a mask of cosmetics and nice clothes. We knit our identity into what our bodies look like and not who we are. It seriously is not a big mystery why dieting is a concern for most of my female friends and myself. And this seemingly trivial problem does not remain in just young adults. The wave of insecurity has infected younger girls, even those ages 6 to 9, 42% of them wishing they were thinner. I am not pointing fingers at just the media and the world. As women, we’re naturally fashioned with insecurities and the desire to be “pretty”. When we think we’ve achieved the slightest bit of “perfection”, it whispers worth into our hearts. We feel confident and valuable. But just like the image that we’ve donned ourselves in, these feelings pass away quickly. What happens when we put our self worth in something that is truly worthy instead of our appearances? In someone who finds us truly worthy? Because of what Christ has done on the cross, I am breathtaking and flawless to God. He died for my sins so that they no longer stain me. He desires for me to have a heart that models Christ’s and not a body that models a Victoria Secret Angel. He loves me in all my disheveled hair, sweat-pants-wearing, pigging-out-in-my-room self. He loves me when I am immersed in my sins and downright awful. And to me, this is love perfected. 26 To An Unknown God | Spring 2013

The beams of our house are cedars; our rafters are firs. Song of Songs 1:17 (NIV)

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How Could Loving God Kristi Huynh, STAFF WRITER he scene: A bridge between heaven and hell. Tim, who has spent about three thousand years in heaven, has come to pay a visit to his brother Nathan, who has been burning in hell for an equivalent amount of time.

TIM: Hey Nathan! Bro, how have you been? Anything new with you these days? NATHAN: Oh man, it’s so good to see you, Tim! Hmm… nothing out of the ordinary, really– it’s been awfully toasty down here. But every six hundred years, we are allowed to turn over on the fiery coals to distribute the burns evenly. It helps because all the boils aren’t all centered on my back. TIM: I’m glad to hear that, Nathan. So how have Grandpa and Sis been? NATHAN: Oh, you know. Same old same old. After a while, Grandpa’s excruciating wails kind of drown out the pain of my own burning momentarily. And Sis has been the same as well; can’t you see her roasting and shrieking from your mansion up in heaven? TIM: Is that so? No, I haven’t. Truth be told, it’s really hard to see through all those fluffy clouds and rainbows up in heaven. Especially because my balcony is pretty high up as well. Well, I have to go now. A group of us are going to go swimming with dolphins and sing praise songs. Take care Nathan!

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“If God is so good, why would He burn you in hell forever?” many agnostic and atheist friends have inquired of me. It’s a valid question, indeed even one that should be asked. How can you praise God for His infinite loving character and in the same breath say that people will be damned for all eternity if they do not believe in Him? My response to this question is simply to explain that there is no eternal hell. In fact, it’s not even mentioned in the Bible. This may be hard to swallow because countless media outlets – and certainly many religious groups – have painted hell as this fire and brimstone ordeal in which sinners burn and burn, and well…burn some more. Such wrathful rhetoric depicts God as a resentful tyrant sitting on the edge of His throne somewhere up in the sky, just anxiously waiting for contemptible humans to mess up so He can punish them in hell. Thus, it’s no surprise why many people profess to resent God – they’ve been given a warped image of God’s character. Truth be told, I wouldn’t even want to believe in someone like that. I am in no way denying that the Bible speaks of a hell, for without a hell, there will be no eradication of sin and essentially no justice. However, I am contending that hell is not the eternal ordeal that many have painted it to be. The idea of eternal torment is not only illogical and heinous, but it is also contradictory to the Bible and God’s loving character. The hellfire will be extinguished. Though the above scenario has a comical (some may even argue, irreverent) take on hell, its central criticisms of eternal hell remain true. How can you be truly happy in heaven when you are aware that loved ones are frying in hell below? (We’ll address the case of a finite hell later). Hell is indeed a separation from God in the physical and spiritual sense. And yes, it is ultimately the person’s choice if they want to be separated from God or not. But if “God is love” as so many Christian billboards profess, could a loving God allow suffering – even sinners’ suffering – to exist for eternity? Even if one were to completely disregard the physical suffering of hell, wouldn’t spiritual separation be

a d...? suffering as well? Contrary to the popular opinion, Ezekiel 33:11 says that God “takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” Author Clifford Goldstein writes, “What does eternal torment say about God’s character? What kind of justice does it represent? After a few hundred billion eons burning in hell, even Hitler would have paid for his own sins.” Revelation 21:4 claims that when Jesus returns, He will “wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, or mourning, or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” God cannot claim to put a definite end to the problem of sin and suffering by merely quarantining sinners into a fiery corner of the universe. The notion of eternal hell also invalidates the claim that Jesus paid the wages of sin. If the penalty of sin was eternal torment, Jesus would have to be currently suffering eternal torment, but He suffered death. If eternal hell is true, then Jesus didn’t completely pay the wages of sin. Taken out of context, the Bible, (like many texts) can have countless distorted interpretations. On the surface level, Matthew 25:411 seems to suggest that there is eternal hellfire. However the same language is used in Jude 72 when describing Sodom and Gomorrah burning in “eternal fire.” As far we know, Sodom and Gomorrah is not burning today. The fire of Sodom and Gomorrah was eternal in the sense that its effects – not the burning – were everlasting; the fire put a complete end to everything. 2 Peter 2:6 explains that the final product of the eternal fire in Sodom and Gomorrah were “ashes.” God has a dilemma (yes, even God has problems): That which He loves most (i.e. us) is in love with that which He hates most (i.e. sin). He abhors sin because He knows how much it hurts people. God longs for everyone to be in heaven with Him – He did everything He possibly could to offer us this option– but what is even more important to God is our freedom of choice. He grants us this freedom despite knowing full well that we could reject Him and choose sin instead. When Jesus returns to deliver

justice and welcomes home those who choose Him, He will respect everyone’s decisions – even if we choose sin over Him. The Bible says that God is a “consuming fire.”3 Isaiah 33:14-15 states that those who walk righteously will be able to “dwell with the consuming fire” and “with everlasting burning.” Only those who have no sin in them will be able to dwell with the Consuming Fire. I guess that means the vehement preachers have got it half right when they preach that God will burn people forever. In a strange way, He wants people to burn forever – with Him. But there is a clear distinction between dwelling in and with fire and being consumed by fire. There are certain things, such as sin, that cannot exist in God’s holy presence without being consumed. If we choose to cling to sin instead of being separated from it, God cannot force us to do otherwise. When God makes manifest His glory, sinners will not be able to coexist in the presence of His holiness. How can you still be happy in heaven if your loved ones are in hell, even if it is for a finite amount of time? No doubt, it will be very painful to be separated from our loved ones (imagine that level of pain, multiply it by a million, and magnify it to the power of a billion and you’ve only begun to scratch a nanometer off the surface of the level of pain God must feel in losing that person). But we must come to the understanding that we cannot impose our will on other people; they must be able to decide their destinies for themselves. Yes, the pain will still be there but reconciliation will also come as God reveals how He has done everything in His power to offer them a life in heaven without imposing on their freedom of choice. There is a difference between a God who puts a complete end to suffering (i.e. a finite hell) and a God who permits suffering to persist (i.e. an eternal hell). On the topic of eternal hell, Richard Dawkins has stated, “Who will say with confidence that sexual abuse is more permanently damaging to children than threatening them with the eternal and unquenchable fires of hell?” Dawkins highlights a significant fault that all too many Christians commit: scaring people into believing in God through the threat of eternal torment. It’s time that Christians stop spewing fire and brimstone rhetoric and realize that God does not want coerced love, because coerced love is not even love at all. 1. “Then He will say to those on His left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” 2. Jude 7:7: 7 “In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.” 3.

Hebrews 12:29 : “for our ‘God is a consuming fire.’”

Kristi is a new staff writer at TAUG. For her, happiness is loud and obnoxious singing on long road trips to everywhere and anywhere with friends – with the windows fully rolled down, of course. She is on a journey to find herself.

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Mr. Perfect Jennifer Min, STAFF WRITER ’ll admit it, watching those sappy romantic comedy movies every once in a while is a guilty pleasure of mine. They’re cute! And the lengths to which the guy or girl will go to capture the attention of or to please the other individual are more or less ridiculous, yet endearing all the same. To be so enamored and so captivated by a person that you are willing to do the craziest things is at the same time, both senseless and admirable – senseless in that only a person who is so blinded by love would be literally rendered thoughtless and nonsensical, and admirable in that the actions of this lovelorn individual indicate a confident and unquestionable passion for that one person. This is the kind of love God wants to reveal to us. You know those movies where the heroine is this bumbling, clueless, tripping-over-her-own feet sort of dork who somehow ends up together with Mr. Perfect? When I think of the relationship God wants to have with each one of us, this comes to mind. I’m definitely by no means flawless – I lack self-control, I gossip without thought, I compare myself to others and become envious. I am a sinner. Yet, despite my glaring inadequacies, God continues to shower His love upon me. As it says in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He loves us immensely – more than I think we can ever fully comprehend. As human beings, we are all inherently born as sinners – before Jesus came and died for us as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, there was no way for us to be with God. This love is written out in the Bible – “for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, NIV). He loves us to the extent that He sent his own Son to die on the cross for us, so that we may be able to be with Him one day. If that’s not crazy love, I don’t know what is. But this love doesn’t end with that. Jesus instructed us in John 15:9-13 to “remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in His love I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” As sons and daughters of Christ, we are blessed recipients of His overwhelming and gracious love. Having experienced God’s persistent love, don’t you feel compelled to make it a mission to reflect it in your own life? Imagine you are that lucky individual who has caught the eye of the lovesick person – would you not want to share the details and events of each interaction with

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another? Simply stated, God wants to use us, as oblivious and clumsy as we are, to share His love with those around us; to love them with the same merciful and unconditional love. And I think this is where it becomes the most challenging. God – who is without flaw, who is Mr. Perfect – has this unintelligible love for us – sinners, imperfect, inadequate. And He expects us, as undeserving as we are, to carry His perfect love, to seek to have the same heart as His, and extend it to others who are just as imperfect as we are. It’s difficult. It’s hard to love those who hurt you, who reproach you, who hate you. It’s hard to love those who are apathetic, who are awkward, who are eccentric. Yet, God calls us to do so. And even if we fall short in our attempts to follow in His footsteps, God’s grace and mercy is more than enough. We may have to step out of our circles of comfort, respect, familiarity, and make fools of ourselves, and we may even fail. But in every situation and circumstance, God loves us no less. Just like a lovesick person must take that first step forth, can we step out in faith, trusting that God will be able to work in and through us as well? Jennifer is a freshman studying Integrative Biology who will eat and consume anything.

Love and Suffering

“F

Alyssa Kim, STAFF WRITER

or it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.” Hebrews 2:10 (ESV) Suffering. Everyone encounters it. We all harbor pain and sorrow in our hearts at some point. True suffering that causes us to fall to our knees and cry out for God’s help, or anyone’s help for that matter. It causes our tears to fall, fists to tremble, and hearts to fragment. It hurts to the extent that our hearts feel as if they are literally breaking to pieces, but in the end, God pulls us through with His grace. This is all God’s love. As a child, I held so much anger and bitterness in my heart, to the point where I said that I hated God. I grew up blaming Him for every single trouble in my life because I had no one else to blame. The disunity in my family, the trouble that my brothers caused, the drama that took place at school – I held God responsible for all of it because I wasn’t going to blame my family and I definitely wasn’t going to blame myself. I would look to the skies and scream at Him, asking why He would give me so much pain when he claims to be an all-loving God. My heart was covered with calluses of bitterness I couldn’t remove because they were so hardened. No words could comfort me, no friends could empathize with me, and no God could help me. But, as I grew older, came to college, and took time to actually see the glimpses of hope that God placed around me, I realized that He is in fact so merciful. There would be times when my family would laugh together and when my days flew by without a single struggle. So I finally asked, “Why doesn’t God hate me if I had kept saying that I hated Him for all He did to me?” God knows every thought that runs through my mind and it amazed me when I thought about how He wasn’t furious with me. Couldn’t He just strike me down

right now for putting all the blame on Him for my hardships and snap me back to my senses? Didn’t He think I was stupid and immature for thinking that He would do such things without a plan for me in the end? God told me that I wasn’t stupid and I wasn’t immature. He told me that He brought these struggles upon my life because His healing power is a representation of His love for me. I’m lucky that my suffering was inflicted upon me by God and not by myself, because when you twist suffering into a product of your own doing, a result of your own works, you twist God’s intentions into something wayward and destructive. And that is the suffering that is difficult to heal with God’s graceful hand. At times, it may feel as if God is destroying whatever lies inside of us, breaking down each and every inch of our hearts and ripping us apart. Suffering breaks us down, makes us cry, shatters us until we are ugly and broken, flawed and damaged. However, we are always healed by God’s grace. So it’s not just the suffering that we thank God for, but also God’s grace through suffering that we are grateful for. The sufferings that He bestows upon us are transformed into tests and gifts for us because they show that He loves us enough to pull us through in one piece. So thank you God for showing us that we are at our highest in your eyes when we are at our lowest. Thank you for what you do through suffering and for showing your love for us, one that is so unconventional and unfathomable.

Alyssa is a freshman who wants to study integrative biology, help save the world, and love the Lord with all her heart, soul, and mind.

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Love &

the Dread Judgment Seat of Christ Jacob Grant, STAFF WRITER ike many of my fellow Christians, I have friends and family who are very dear to me, but do not share my faith. As such, I have often struggled to reconcile my belief in a loving and merciful God with the concept of the final judgment. I do not know God’s plan for those who do not believe, and this troubles me—I cannot imagine eternal life without these people. As members of the faith, we are called to live like Christ, and I strive to follow His example. While I understand what is required of me, I do not pretend to be perfect. Like the young monk seeking the advice of the ascetic Abba Sisoes, I fall down over and over again. But each time I do, I must get up, and must do so “until [my] death.”1 This “getting up”—achieved through

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repentance, confession, and forgiveness—plays an important role in our lives, but there is more to Christianity than just what we do. As a Christian, I recognize that belief is an integral part of being saved. There are frequent references to the importance of faith in Christ found throughout the New Testament. From Paul’s letter to the Galatians, we know that man is “justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.”2 That is, we cannot be saved by merely following the letter of the law, but rather through our faith. Indeed, it is this faith that serves as the foundation for our good works—that is, such works are a consequence of our faith. And yet there are people in this world, many of whom are our

close friends and family members, people who are very important to us, who do not believe. What is to become of them? Can they even be saved? If there is no hope that we will be joined by our loved ones, eternal life does not seem itself to be a reward. I once wrote to a friend that the parable of the Sheep and the Goats both amazes and terrifies me. It demonstrates at once the power of God’s mercy and the dreadfulness of His judgment. For those unfamiliar with the story, it tells of the return of Christ and the judgment on the last day. The Lord separates the people “as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,” placing the sheep on His right and the goats on his left: “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’”3 The righteous respond to Christ by asking when it was that they ever did these things to him, and he replies “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”4 I think this is an incredibly powerful passage. It exemplifies the paramount role that love plays in our salvation. There is no shortage of passages from the Gospels and Epistles exhorting the importance of love; however, few of them, except perhaps the story of the Good Samaritan,5 show us how to practice love in our day-to-day lives. Here we see concrete examples: feeding and clothing the poor, caring for the sick, and visiting those in prison. Obviously these are not the only ways to show love in this world, but these examples serve as an excellent template for how we are to conduct ourselves even when we are outside the church—whether we are at school, home, or the office. However, there is more to the parable. It does not end with the blessing of the righteous. We are made to see what is meant when we speak of the “dread judgment seat of Christ.”6 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’”7 Just as the righteous ask when it was that they fed, clothed, and visited Christ, the condemned ask when it was that they failed to do so. And once again, the Lord replies “whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”8 This is what I find so terrifying. As before, there is no mention of faith or commandments. The only things that seem to matter are individual acts of charity—of Christian love—that each of us commit. We often wonder how we can show our love to God in

our daily lives. Here we see that we can demonstrate our love to God by showing love to our fellow man—our neighbor. In his first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul informs us that there remains “faith, hope and love.”9 We have faith that the Jesus Christ is our Lord and savior. And we have hope in His mercy, both for ourselves and those who do not profess our faith. But Paul tells us that “the greatest of these is love.”10 Love—God’s love for us—is what saves us. One only need to read the Passion Gospels, to imagine the pain and suffering Christ experienced at the crucifixion, to truly understand how much He loves us. But what does it really mean for us to love? It must be more than simply a mere feeling or sensation so often referred to as love. That extraordinary “very ordinary layman” C.S. Lewis, explains that love “is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.” This kind of love manifests itself in many forms, from small acts of kindness to a stranger, to a moment of patience with a sibling, to feelings of charity to our rivals and enemies. Indeed, as Christians, we are uniquely called to love not only our friends and neighbors, but even our enemies. The most widely known biblical verse begins “For God so loved the world,” and ends with the promise of eternal life.11 The first two commandments tell us to love the Lord our God and our neighbors, respectively; all other commandments follow from these two. God loves us. He wants to save us. Faith is essential. Works are important. But love is the instrument of our salvation. I do not know His plan, but I must believe that God desires to save all those who have love in their hearts and choose to show it, regardless of whether or not they proclaim themselves to be Christians.

1. Sayings of the Desert Fathers. 2. Galatians 2:16. NIV. 3. Matthew 25:34-36. NIV. 4. Matthew 25:40. NIV. 5. Luke 10:25-37. NIV. 6. Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. 7. Matthew 25:41-43. NIV. 8. Matthew 25:45. NIV. 9. 1 Corinthians 13:13. NIV. 10. Ibid. 11. John 3:16.

Jacob F. Grant is a second-year Economics major at UC Berkeley, where he writes about politics, economics, and religion. He is a member of the Antiochian Orthodox Church.

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Receiving Love Grace Gao. STAFF WRITER

t Berkeley, we are always focusing on getting to class and completing schoolwork. We rush from one organization’s meeting to the next. Our days are packed with classes, and in between we meet with our friends or partake of the luxury of sleep. We are so busy trying to fit and take control over every part of our lives that we forget to simply stop, relax, and be taken care of. We want to support the ones we care about. There are the close friends who we check up on and support during their happy and sad times. But we forget to simply let ourselves be loved as well. Not loved by other people, but simply being loved by God. Have you taken time for yourself not just to pray, but to bask in the love that God pours out? It is the greatest feeling in the world. When God’s love completely envelops you and protects you from the outside world, it is a time to open up our hearts and be told “I love you.” It is not a physical cloak that covers you, but a sense of peace and understanding that can only be supernatural. I too have forgotten this. It was only after spending time with God’s word and praying to him that I realized that I had not let myself become vulnerable to God for a while. I had believed that simply reading and praying was enough that I had done my part. But in every relationship there are two sides and I had ignored the fact that God actively works in my life. I sat down on my chair and simply asked for God to love me. I wanted to let Him see the worries of my life and take them away. And He did. His love washed over me like an ocean’s wave. It gave me a feeling of wonder, and of an inner peace that does not come from within me. It is a knowing that in this world there exists an Almighty God who protects and heals. In 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NIV) Paul details what love is. “4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.” This is the love that God gives to us. His love protects us and perseveres, but instead of always remembering His love, we constantly chase after the things of this world. We are always seeking for more and more. In the end, however, everything that we chase other than God will fall away. The only constant in our lives is God.

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Spring 2013 | To An Unknown Godâ&#x20AC;&#x192; 35

TO E Chloe Ng, STAFF WRITER

t’s 2:04 A.M. The sky has darkened long ago, leaving only the pale wash of moonlight. Yet, rather than climbing up to my bunk bed and settling down for a night’s rest, I’m sitting in front of a blank Word document, attempting to write an article for To an Unknown God. Vague ideas drift into my mind, flit half-formed through my nerves, sparking effervescently—flashes of brightness, of perhaps-brilliance, of potential that is never fulfilled. My fingers remain still on the keyboard. It’s 2:31 A.M. I want to write an article about Moses, one of my favorite Bible characters, but all I’ve written is a paragraph about how I’m not writing. With an impatient sigh, I flip to Exodus and reread the familiar words detailing how Moses came to be drawn out of the river by the Pharaoh’s daughter. It was truly God’s providence that allowed him to be saved from the Pharaoh’s decree that all Hebrew male infants be drowned. I recall the dramatic scene of the basket bearing Moses, buffeted by dangerous waves and snapping jaws, from Dreamworks’ The Prince of Egypt. While not wholly accurate, this movie encouraged me to read the Bible for myself as I eagerly poured over every word in Exodus at ten years old. How I came to Moses is, perhaps, God’s providence as well. Even as I’ve grown older, his story has been one that I go back to time and time again. After joining TAUG, I thought writing an article about what Moses’ story meant to me would be a good idea. I want to write about how he doubted God and was weak and unfaithful, yet he still became God’s instrument in leading the Israelites out of Egypt. Though the Lord commanded Moses, “’So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt’” (Exodus 3:10 NIV), Moses had replied in doubt: “‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’” (Exodus 3:11 NIV). Even after God has shown Moses His power, Moses still said, “‘Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant’” (Exodus 4:10 NIV). But how? I’m no great writer. The black bar on my word document blinking back at me agrees, taunting me at the end of every sentence as if saying, “Seriously? Did you just write that?” The only things I’ve written are essays, pedantic and

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GYPT uninspiring, read only by English teachers whose only comments were a letter scrawled in red at the top. Am I really supposed to expect that others might read my article and think that it’s actually meaningful? “The Lord said to him, ‘Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say” (Exodus 4:11-12 NIV). But why me? There are so many better writers out there—why am I even presumed to have the skill to write about something as important as God? My pointer hovers over the red “x” in the corner. Surely, someone else on this planet has already written a much more articulate article about Moses. The points I want to make are not particularly insightful or brilliant, after all. “Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses and he said, ‘What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you…” (Exodus 4:14 NIV). In fact, when I had told my sister about my ideas, seeking help, she had immediately pointed out something that I had not considered—that Moses was only able to become an instrument for God by ultimately being obedient. I had only thought about how God used Moses despite his insecurities. What my sister said, however, was true. Ultimately, God didn’t force Moses into his journey to free the Israelites. Somewhere along the way, Moses had to submit and learn to trust in God. “So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand” (Exodus 4:20 NIV). I finally put words to my tenuous thoughts, arranging them into sentences and paragraphs as I faced the blank desert of the Word document. But I can see it filling as I type, text following a no longer unanswered command. In spite of all my doubts, God has led me to Moses and TAUG, has called me to write for His glory, and has sent me help. So I will write. It’s 3:27AM, and the darkness is lit up by the steady glow of my laptop. My fingers fly across the keyboard. Chloe Ng is a 1st year English and Media Studies double major who loves stories of all sorts.

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HOW CAN THE GODS MEET US FACE TO FACE? Micaela Walker, STAFF WRITER t would be easy for someone to gauge how much I’ve enjoyed a book by examining its pages. My favorite books are filthy with brackets and underlines, cluttered with exclamation points and question marks jotted into the margins. I’ve drawn hearts next to bleak and beautiful passages of Hemingway, double underlined paragraphs of Tolstoy’s prose and in bursts of frenzied emotion, furiously scribbled commentary into the margins of the editorial section of The Daily Cal. When I began reading Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, I expected much of the same; a few moments of discovery, an “Aha!” here and there and, if it’s really good, something that might alter the way I see the world. But after finishing Book One of the two-book novel, I realized I hadn’t scribbled a single line. Passages of this story spoke such truth that I had squirmed, tried to turn away and ultimately forgot to breathe as my pen sat idly beside me. It felt as if Lewis had written the story solely for me and to underline those passages would be to acknowledge my union with the jealous and prideful narrator, to recognize the wicked nature that we share. The task of examining my life in such a way was more difficult than writing “No, you’re wrong!” on a copy of the newspaper before throwing it away. But obviously Lewis didn’t write it only for me and I think it will make you squirm a little too. The writer and Christian apologist G.K. Chesterson wrote, “Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity1” and Till We Have Faces is this sort of necessary fiction that doesn’t only alter our perspective but has the power to call into question who we are and what we live for. I had been familiar with Lewis’ uncanny ability to slice directly into what lies in the human heart

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from his works Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters, but I was unprepared for the richness of his story of one woman’s misplaced love couched within a retelling of the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche. Though it remains one of his lesser-known works, Lewis considered this complex and multi-layered novel his best. The story is told from the point-of-view of Orual, Psyche’s ugly older sister who is mounting her case against the gods for the misery they’ve caused in her life. Though its setting is primitive Europe and the characters royal, you should read this book because Orual’s story is our story. The first book ends with Orual questioning the gods, “Why silence?” she asks, but receives no response. While she attempts to cover the ugliness of her face with a veil and the ugliness of her failures with success, glory, and respect, inside she remains the same wretched Orual. She destroys the people she loves and causes the death of a man she believes herself to be in love with because of her selfishness and inability to see beyond herself and notice their more significant needs. Orual’s neglect of personal

relationships is poignant, especially in light of recent descriptions criticizing our society as suffering from a “Narcissism Epidemic”2. If we, like Orual, devote endless energy to cultivating images of ourselves as successful and respected individuals, we will quickly disregard the depth of pain those around us suffer. When Orual questions the gods about the purpose of her anguish and the seeming meaninglessness of life, the reader can’t help but support her in her resentment. Why would the gods make her suffer such loneliness? Why would they tempt her and lead her into destruction? Why would they refuse to give her an answer? But in reality, Orual’s questioning is born of stubbornness and a refusal to bow to anyone’s will but her own. She refuses to recognize the power of anyone above herself, especially a god’s, and her relentless interrogations only serve as weak justification so that she may avoid the truth—that in fact, she is responsible for the tragedies that plague her life and the heartbreak of the people around her. Orual is devastatingly relatable—that certain ugliness which resides within her resides within me too, and I think most have experienced this internal struggle. That’s what makes Lewis’ portrayal so convicting and why it was so difficult for me to acknowledge my union with her by underlining those passages. Lewis has made Orual into the perfect picture of sinful man and she is intimately relatable to each of us because we have all fallen short of righteousness and missed the mark. I would naturally like to ignore Orual, distance myself from this lustful, greedy and prideful character in an attempt to mask my own evil, but I don’t have to. I can recognize my unity with her because I’ve been given a way out. In Book One during a moment of tragedy, one of the king’s soldiers laments, “I wonder do the gods know what it feels like to be a man.” Though his question doesn’t receive an answer, Christians can say with confidence and joy that God does know what it feels like to be a man. He knows what it is to be born a lowly birth, live a perfect life and die the worst death (2 Corinthians 5:21). He knows how it is to feel forsaken and lonely (Matthew 27:46) and because of Him we need not hide behind our veils, we can remove them without fear of rejection or condemnation (Romans 8:1). He takes our dirty rotten insides—our lust, greed, pride and guilt and makes them pure as snow (Isaiah 1:18). For though all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, through faith in Christ Jesus we have been justified freely by His grace. And when we ask the Lord, “Why silence?” He need not give us an answer because, as Orual finally comes to understand, “Before your face questions die away.” 1 Chesterton, G. K. The Defendant. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1901. Print. 2 Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement. Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 2009. Print. Micaela is a first-year Comparative Literature major who is diligently completing her quest to visit each library on campus and every coffee shop in Berkeley

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my will or His? Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. Proverbs 19:21(NIV)

Jennifer Park, STAFF WRITER t is natural to feel torn and devastated when you realize that you’ve failed in something despite years of hard work and dedication. We all have that something that we chase after—a goal or a dream that motivates us and drives us in certain directions. We run a long and tiring race, but when we think we see the finish line right ahead, we realize that we’ve been running the wrong course. Then what? As Christians, are we expected to accept that it was just not in God’s will and move on? That’s what I was told when I found myself in a position where I was so close to the end only to find myself back at the start. Earlier this semester, I learned about prayer and God’s answers to those prayers while studying the book of James with sisters from my fellowship. God only answers our prayer when we ask with the right heart. There are certain things that we ask for with a self-centered heart; oftentimes they are worldly pursuits that we desire. These selfish prayers will not always be answered, but I was assured that if it was in His will, anything and everything would work out for the best. Although I acknowledged it at the time, the idea of “God’s plan is sovereign” was much harder for me to accept when something that I had planned and worked two hard years for slipped through the cracks. I felt like I had been thrown to the side of the curb and I lacked the faith to believe that things would work out. I started to question what He had in store for me, and in the back of my mind I even began to doubt his existence. If God was really there and He really loved me, why would He just watch as I wasted so much time and effort on something that He was never going to give me in the first place? Why couldn’t He give me a sign earlier on telling me that I was on the wrong track? And how could I possibly know that what I choose to pursue is or is not in His plans? Couldn’t anyone argue and justify that their desires align with His will? What if I don’t want what He has planned…what if I want out…? As the questions started to pile, I started to resent God as I sat there asking how this was

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possibly NOT in His plans for me. Where was I supposed to go from there? I didn’t realize it at the time, but the night of the incident was the first time I reached out to God in genuine prayer. Although it was out of anger and frustration, I had never longed for answers and reassurance from Him like I did that night. I was fighting a plethora of emotions and thoughts from anger to sadness to an overwhelming fear of what was to come. That was a Friday night. Monday morning, I received a call that was without a doubt an answer to my prayer and God’s sign of reassurance. And with tears of joy I prayed to God with a thankful heart and acknowledged for the first time that good things happened through God’s grace and glory. Until that day I had always turned to God and blamed him in times of trials, but proudly gave myself all the credit with an accomplishment or success. I may not have succeeded in getting what I desired, but I came to realize that what He had in store for me was beyond my own expectations and plans for myself. This short but life-changing trial not only strengthened my faith in Him, but also cleared a lot of the doubt that I had about submission in the Christian life. Although not many Christians have the audacity to say “my life is my own,” we oftentimes live our lives believing it. We make plans for our days, months, years, and mold our lives according to what we want. When things don’t work out as we planned, we get frustrated and even discouraged at times. I learned from this experience that what you think you lost is really nothing compared to what God actually has laid out for you. It is said that God answers our prayers one of three ways: ‘yes’, ‘not yet’, or ‘I have something better in mind’. I realized that God’s plans for us are not always crystal clear. We will all fall and struggle throughout our lives as we try and align our plans according to His. But if you get to the end of the race and realize you ran the wrong course, pray to God for strength and joyfully start over knowing that He will lead you to the end.

"Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you." (Acts 17:23)

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The Penitent, The Priest Wesleigh Anderson, STAFF WRITER

Sometimes she doubted, she confessed, the existence of God. Through the lattice and the shadows her voice was disembodied, and I struggled to respond with forgiveness or even comfort, but the words fled from me, perversely withholding the hope of reconciliation in favor of revelation, as if she were just a player in a tragedy. And sometimes she doubted, her voice continued, with hardly any breath left to support it, if there were any value in doubting at all. Then in that moment the silence was perfect, and I couldn’t break it, but I confess, I answered, let me try. Bless me Father, for I have sinned. Bless me Father, for I have read my poem as a parable or a fable or a fiction or I’ve lied.

At first I didn’t understand why I was crying, until I realized it was for the death at the end of the story, and then the tears wouldn’t stop coming and I couldn’t catch my breath long enough to explain myself to those asking the matter, and besides I couldn’t just say it was for some words in some book. Some suggested that it was a mental breakdown which was probably true because even grief is a disorder now, but it was just as true that because I had never truly understood pain before, when it finally found an opportunity to surface it incapacitated me mercilessly and unrelentingly. Everyone has some number of tears they must shed in the course of their lifetime, and though emotions can be delayed for a little while there always comes a point when they cannot be suspended any longer, because tears never simply evaporate and deaths never simply fade away. However much time had passed before I realized that it really was just a story, meaning that nothing had actually happened, meaning that there had never even been a death, it had always been too late because my tears had already fallen so dearly. Bless me Father, for I have feigned not understanding when not knowing what to say. Bless me Father, for I have mourned a murder less than a murder in a story.

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The painting was titled The Resurrection of the Christ and we two complete strangers had been sitting so long before it that on no fewer than three occasions did tourists and tour guides alike approach us to ensure that we were still okay, and of course we were, in every way possible save that of understanding the sight that transfixed us, merely a series of black vertical lines on a yellowing canvas. But perhaps it was less bafflement that we didn’t know what it meant than astonishment that we did, or hope that by our staring it would dissolve into nothing more than paint and paper, like a word that loses its meaning when repeated interminably. And though it is impossible to outstare an inanimate object, meaning finally we had to admit defeat, the first things we said to each other were: Can you believe that some would elevate so highly such an audacious work of fraud?, and simultaneously: Can you believe that we supposed for so long that this was comprehensible? We gaped for a long moment before both turning away, shamefaced in our lies and each much too afraid to ask what the other was really talking about. Bless me Father, for I have written homilies to say the words that I expound are meaningless. Bless me Father, for I have never and would never give them from the pulpit during Mass.

Whatever we believed in, I thought that at least we believed in the same manner, meaning scientifically, rationally, taking account of all the facts, and though we didn’t believe we could ever be absolutely certain of anything, we agreed to always believe according to the best evidence available. So I didn’t understand what had happened when, after finally encountering perfect and incontrovertible proof against our faith, only one of us stopped believing while the other, though acknowledging that yes, it was true that we had been wrong this whole time, said that being wrong didn’t mean we had to change our minds. Faith was so much more than a simple truth proposition in that it was the essential condition of being human, so it would always be worth cherishing, and however this sounded still it somehow was right. And this wasn’t some kind of mental doublethink or ironic post-

post-modern form of faith because both of us were just as sincere as before, and if one of us was just as misguided, there still was really no difference between us because whatever we believed in, at least we now both believed in our choosing, if not both in our being changed. Bless me Father, for I have longed for another church where I liked the music better. Bless me Father, for I have sought after another heaven to avoid a former lover.

The meaning of my poem concerned the speaker realizing he was merely the speaker of a written work, and thus his hopes, his aspirations, his hesitations, his insecurities were all created by some author in pursuit of whatever was the ultimate purpose of the text. Of course his author cared for him, as deeply as any author can care about any character, but there was no escaping the conclusion that if everything was made

out of someone else’s words, then the words he thought he had been given had actually never belonged to him, nor been true. When he asked his author if he would ever come to a resolution, he was offered two potential endings, one in which it didn’t matter because he decided to ignore all this and simply keep on living, and the other in which it didn’t matter because the author decided to edit these concerns out of his thoughts. And one of these was a comedy and one was a tragedy and it wasn’t clear which was which, nor was it clear that it made any difference either way, but regardless of whether it could be answered surely the question would always remain worth asking. Bless me Father, for I have tried in a poem to change a river’s course and I couldn’t bear to do it. Bless me Father, for I have changed God’s name, whom I then loved all the more for it.

Wesleigh Anderson dedicates this poem to you, who likewise, perhaps, are trying.

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faith, hope, & LOVE “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” -1 Corinthians 13:13 Marissa Lee, STAFF WRITER Sitting dejectedly on the hospital bed, Watching tubes of blood draining from my body, An IV in my arm, pumping pain killers My head in a fog. I looked in the mirror. There was a strange, unrecognizable face. Coming home, barely able to walk Too little blood in my body Fainting every time I stood up. No feeling in my face. For the first time, I could do nothing for myself Unable to eat Talk Smile. Despair came for a visit. “Give up faith. Throw away hope. Things will never change.” The darkest hours. But then I would wake up To my baby brother Climbing in next to me Solemnly trying to read me his little picture book Patting my hand with his little one Praying his little prayers when silent tears would fall down my face Trying to give me his love in the simple little ways he understood. My other brother, sitting with me to talk Even though I could not say anything back. Watching movies next to me at night Catching me when I would try to stand and faint.

My parents bringing water, medicine, clean towels Staying up all hours of the night Talking to me, patting my damp hair Bringing life and light And I could not do anything in return Not even smile Or say a simple, “Thank you.” All I could do was just receive love. Tears coursing down my cheeks, I truly understood Love Love in its highest form. Love that gives and gives When the other has nothing to give in return. Love that keeps steady and full To nothing but a broken mess. Unconditional love This love inspires hope. This love renews faith. This love gently draws out our brokenness. This love drives us to our knees This love overwhelms us with our unworthiness And this love overcomes us with thankfulness. This love is the story of God and us. Love bears all things Hopes all things Endures all things. Love never fails. Faith, Hope, and Love But the greatest of these is Love.1 1 Corinthians 13

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A different

kind of love Elsie Cheang, STAFF WRITER She is love. She sees herself from the eyes of others, carrying the words and stares that mold and pierce her heart She displays others’ love.

She is love. She follows the fads, living on the fleeting promises of the media praising a culture and system that defines her identity She lives in others’ love. It is love. This so-called love is the perfect fabrication The love she worships and empowers sees her as a mere testimony of its man-made power feeds from her longing for affirmation to build itself up But He is a greater, a different kind of love. He carries and praises her. He knows her heart in a greater, a different kind of love. He is love.

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COMPLETE Rachael Shen, CONTRIBUTING WRITER

I saw him from across the crowded room, And instantly I knew he would be special to me. It was obvious that he was a man of God, And he came to me. I had been mixed up with other lovers. I was known to cheaply give my love away. Unwaveringly, he looked at me. And he came to me. There was no way he could not have known. I was infamous and notorious. I gave myself away to whoever would have me. And he came to me. It was like he knew exactly where to find me. I knew neither where he came from nor what he did for a living. I was in the midst of my carousing, And he came to me. I could scarcely be called a lady, But he was the perfect gentleman. He got down on one knee with a box in hand, And he came to me. I was bewildered by his proposal. I never expected anyone to do such a thing for me. I did not feel deserving or worthy - nor was I. And he came to me. I accepted his surprising offer without much thinking. He slipped the flashing diamond on my finger. He whispered of marriage in my ear, And he came to me. He married me in a beautiful ceremony, From all around, people came to witness it. He smiled at me with his dazzling smile. And he came to me.

He took me away on our honeymoon. He spoiled me with an exotic and extravagant trip. He gave me everything I was scared to wish for. And he came to me. One morning, he was gone for some errand. I looked out and laid eyes on another man. I betrayed the one I married with this other man, And he came to me. I was ashamed and embarrassed of my mistake. I did not think he could forgive me or love me again. I ran away as far as I could from him, And he came to me. I could not meet his eyes or accept his embrace, There was no way he would take me back after what I did. I left him again and went back to my old life. And he came to me. I returned to my other lovers from before, I indulged myself and gave into gluttony. I tried to forget the mirage of marriage I had left behind. And he came to me. I tried to run away and hide from him, I tried to forget his goodness and kindness and gentleness, I tried to go back to being cheap and easy. And he came to me. I was in trouble with no way out and no one to turn to. Unexpectedly he rescued me from my troubles, He tenderly took me back and embraced me. And he came to me. Despite how far I ran away from him, And despite how despicably I had treated him, And despite how little I did to repay him, He came to me.

“Complete” is a translation of the Hebrew name Gomer, who was the wife of whoredom God commanded the prophet Hosea to marry as a picture of how God married himself to Israel and was faithful to Israel even through her disappointing infidelity. The same picture applies to us today as Christ died for his Bride, the Church. It is an encouragement and a caution to strive to maintain faithfulness to our Heavenly Lover. Inspired by Hosea’s story in his book of the Bible and this video series on Hosea’s Love Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyWWXSwtPP0.

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“Everything”

Katherine Chung, STAFF WRITER

Infinite and bottomless Enveloping me, consuming me Eternal and ageless Overwhelming me, humbling me. Nothing else in this world will ever be enough How could anything even compare To the great sacrifice You made on that cross I know I’m called to share I can’t keep quiet, keep it to myself For everyone deserves to hear And have a chance to experience This rare and unfailing love In your arms, there’s no need to be afraid I’m safe in your embrace A Savior, Friend, Protector Leading me to the Way For You are the Way The Truth and the Life You are all I need And You are all I want.

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LUMINOUS IN THE VOID James Won, STAFF WRITER

the darkness settles everything fades what matters anymore my accomplishments pale my thoughts speak the irony of life is how much we try only to fail why worth trying why is it worth giving an effort at all the meaninglessness of life encompasses us all My love showers you, Gives you purpose. Live for My glory— That is why you try. You think that’s failure? I see it as perfect. Part of My Plan for you, Open your eyes. what about the things I desire what about the things I crave humble myself that’s harder than it seems Release your desires. Submit to My Will. Don’t look elsewhere. My Love is enough.

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This Kind of Love Grace Lee, STAFF WRITER Love is patient, He calmly listens as my inner thoughts scream, Love is kind, Caresses me until my peace He does redeem. It does not envy, Lavishes me with love that I rarely reciprocate It does not boast, Nor does He present His ever-present love on a silver plate It is not proud, No reward He expects in return. But what He wants most is For us to be loved As He calls us His beloved And in return, He is ours. Because of this love, This unchanging, constant love, God sent His one and only Son Jesus Christ, To die on the cross For those who did not And some who still do not care… For those who Mocked Tortured And spit at Him. Jesus Christ shed His pure, precious blood. For us. To save the world from death’s grip. Spring 2013 | To An Unknown God 49

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