Stanford Vox Clara | Winter 2010

Vox Clara

at Stanford

Vol. III, Issue 2 | Winter 2010

The Goodness Of God Christianity and Capitalism Christian and Objectivist Perspectives

How Crazy is That?

A Francis Chan Book Review

Evolution and Theism Deconstructing Atheistic Misconceptions

‘‘For how great is His goodness, and how great His beauty!’’

-Zechariah 9:17

President C.E. Caruthers ‘11 Editor-in-Chief Allen Huang ‘10 Designer-in-Chief Steven Puente ‘10 Events Coordinator Tara Guarino ‘12 Finance Cameron Mullen ‘11 Public Relations Christina Littler ‘10 Section editors Caroline Chen ‘12 Madison Kawakami ‘11 Rachel Kelley ‘12 Nic Reiner ‘10 Heidi Thorsen ‘12 Staff writers Maria Dogero ‘13 Samantha McGirr ‘11 Production Madison Kawakami ‘11 Heidi Thorsen ‘12 Board of Advisors D.G. Elmore Steve Stenstrom Andrea Swaney

FEATURE ARTICLES

Contents

10

Sex, Order, and Disorder

12

A Christian Defense of Freedom

20

Back to the Beginning

22

For Goodness’s Sake

Charlie Capps

Elizabeth Lake

GUEST ARTICLES

Goodness Worth Singing Of Steamer Lee

Jose Armando Perez-Gea

Samantha McGirr

6

Harry Potter and the Place of The Skulls

16

Kevin Kambo

REFLECTIONS 8

9

Sunday

Reflections on International Justice Mission and Community Renewal International

POETRY

Rachel Kelley

NEW FEATURES 19

Book Review: How Crazy is That?

REGULAR FEATURES Our Vision Letter from the Editor Fruit of the Spirit: Goodness

14

Get Involved

25

Letter from the President

26

Closing Thoughts

27

Maria Dogero

4 5

Kelly McKitterick

Our Purpose Vox Clara seeks to provide a platform for believers and nonbelievers at Stanford to engage in dialogue that inspires a lasting response to the Gospel message. We espouse the importance of addressing issues of faith in the University community. As Jane Stanford’s words on the wall of Memorial Church warn: There is no narrowing so deadly as the narrowing of man’s horizon of spiritual things. No worse evil could befall him in his course on earth than to lose sight of Heaven. And it is not civilization that can prevent this; it is not civilization that can compensate for it. No widening of science, no possession of abstract truth, can indemnify for an enfeebled hold on the highest and central truths of humanity. ‘What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?’

which we live. Vox Clara seeks to express to the Stanford community that religion is not a set of rules that threatens our freedom or creativity but rather is the hope that pervades our entire lives.

Simply put, we are trying to provide an account of the hope we cherish within us. We wish not to impose our belief but to propose our views to everyone at Stanford who is searching just as we are—searching for purpose, for truth, and for Love. As we seek collectively, we will strive to speak with a clear voice and voyage together, elevating each other’s lives in the process. From different Christian traditions and each with our own experience, we at Vox Clara have come together to explore how faith illuminates life and how life enriches faith. We invite all to join us in this important conversation.

We find spiritual truth in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, who became man, died, and rose again for the salvation of all. Through Him we interpret and understand the world in

Vox Nostra A note on our name In the words of C.S. Lewis speaking on Christianity, “it is We at Vox Clara celebrate this voice of Jesus Christ and at her centre, where her truest children dwell, that each believe that His is the true voice. It forms the foundation communion is really closest to every other in spirit, if not in of our hope and strength. For this reason, we have chosen doctrine. And this suggests that at the centre of each there “Vox Clara,” a Latin phrase meaning “clear voice,” as the is something, or a Someone, who against all divergences name for this organization. of belief, all differences of temperament, all memories of 4 Vox Clara, Vol. III, Issue 2 mutual persecution, speaks with the same voice.”

Letter from the Editor You’ve probably heard too many times that universities have as their goal the pursuit of knowledge, and that this is a fulfilling pursuit. Augustine, though, once affirmed the relation between “scientia” and “tristitia” – knowledge and sadness. He thought that simply knowing things leads to sadness. Observing and comprehending everything around us makes us sad, because there’s so much tragedy and suffering. We realize that something’s wrong, that a lot is broken, and all needs to be repaired.

Many religions, philosophies, political systems, and solutions have been proposed to solve all the things that are wrong in this world. Usually smart and caring people offer these solutions in the form of ideas or products. Many of them have been really useful and have led to much improvement in the world. Other ideas have not turned out that well, and some have even worsened the conditions of suffering.

2,000 years in the past is a really long time, but something new happened then. God had a solution. Except it wasn’t really an idea or a product. It was a Person - Himself. God sent Jesus Christ the Son as God Incarnate into the world to be the solution to the suffering of the world.

Sadness and suffering don’t just happen. They are caused by people making bad choices. In Christian tradition we call these wrong decisions “sin.” God loved us despite our sins and wished to saved us. His Son offered Himself on the cross for our sins, and so redeemed us. Afterwards He rose again in fulfillment of God’s loving plan.

The people who first wrote about this true story called it “euangelion,” which means “good message” in Greek. The rough English equivalent has come to be “Gospel,” and in modern English that means the good news. The Gospels are the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Our theme for this issue is Goodness. We hope that you’ll see some of the goodness of the person of Jesus in our pieces. Perhaps you may even want to pick up the original Gospels to read about Jesus and what He did. Even though they were written long ago, these historical accounts are Good News precisely because they are eternal. The message of Christ is ever eternal yet ever new. The message is for all times and all peoples, including for you.

Maybe the truth of your life is sad right now. It doesn’t have to be. The truth can be good. The truth is good. Jesus is good, and He called Himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life. That’s a pretty big claim. We invite you to look into it.

Allen Huang Editor-in-Chief, 2009-10

Vox Clara at Stanford P.O. Box 12109 Stanford, CA 94309 www.voxstanford.org | info@voxstanford.org

Cover Photo: David Carreon

Forum of Christian Thought and Action at Stanford

5

Goodness Worth Singing Of Steamer Lee

Photo: Steven Puente

If God is good and just, then why does He allow so much pain and suffering in the world?

This is the popular question surrounding the existence of God. It is often an atheist’s fundamental question, and a powerful reason why people choose to deny the existence of God. Beyond the logical leaps and the disbelief, I believe anguish is buried in the heart of the person asking the question. This is the question that sets up the idea for a denial of the existence of God. If God is really good…then why did He allow this to happen to me?

I think these questions are a huge reason why many people walk away from the faith.

This article is directed towards the person who is asking the same question of God’s goodness, but is still struggling to hold on to the faith. This article is about those of us who, in our deepest of hearts, long to please God and still ask the tough questions.

I’m not here to answer all the questions because if there were answers all the time, then the story of Job would have ended differently. Instead, I’m here to challenge you to try something different.

Even absurd. I want to encourage you to sing of God’s goodness in the midst of the hurt.

Jon Foreman, lead singer of the Christian band Switchfoot, wrote an article about creating for the Huffington Post titled, “What’s in a Word.” Toward the end, he shared a bit on songwriting that stood out to me: I don’t write songs when I’m happy.

When I’m content, I take my wife out to dinner, I go surfing. I hang out with my friends and play ridiculous cover tunes when I’m happy. But when

6

I’m depressed, I turn to look for something beyond this life. When I’m lonely and nothing makes sense and the world has lost it’s flavor I search for notes and words that usher in a transcendence that soars high above the tragedy.

When I first read that, I thought to myself, “This just makes sense.” We don’t start asking the tough questions or personally demanding a face-to-face discussion with God until injustice surrounds us and wounds us. When I’m happy I’ll go out and enjoy the beautiful day with friends and family, but when I’m depressed, I’m drawn into seclusion and prayer, looking for answers outside of this world.

Is it escape? Is it a coping mechanism?

Maybe a bit, but I feel that it is much more than that. The song becomes a hopeful defiance, a declaration that the injustices and absurdities of our postmodern existence are not the final downbeat. Music becomes a confession of disbelief in the world that surrounds me. A refusal to believe that these tragedies and horrors are the ultimate end. A refusal to accept the oppression of the Dalits as anything other than tragic. A refusal to understand that the starving six-year-old is anything other than tragic.

I think there’s something powerful about this aspect of songwriting, about finding solace through singing. The song becomes a hopeful defiance for something so much more: a way to look beyond the tragedy, beyond the hurt. A way to stop running away.

I want to share with you two songs I’ve been singing.

Vox Clara, Vol. III, Issue 2

The first is “Desert Song,” sung by Brooke Fraser and Jill McCloghry.

McCloghry’s story is simply incredible.

In an interview, McCloghry shared the struggle to sing. With only a week and a half left until recording, she lost her first little boy, Max. She went into labor at barely six months, and Max was just twenty-three weeks and five days old.

And I actually remember sitting in a hospital right after everything happened and knowing that I needed to sing, that I needed to still do what I know I’m supposed to be doing and that I felt like that was just a victory for us.

She continues, Sometimes I don’t feel like singing to God, but I know that my circumstances in the season doesn’t change and that God is still God. It doesn’t change what God’s called me to be or what He’s called me to do.

He’s still on the throne in Heaven, you know, and He still rules, and He’s still bigger than everything that I’m facing.

But, we still hurt…despite knowing this about God, The cut was so deep and it was so fresh that I didn’t feel like I felt it before but I knew I just need to keep singing and that it was going to be okay.

Yet I admire her persistence to sing.

This necessity to sing. …I think that you look at God and say, ‘I know this is who You are… and…He does get bigger in your life.

It takes over things in you that feel so, you know, shattered. And it makes Him the focus, and it begins to put those things back together.

I think that’s how we need to approach God sometimes: by changing our posture first, to physically kneel down before our hearts can finally crumble in sweet submission to God. The second song I want to share with you is “How He Loves.” You might know this song because David Crowder and his band covered it in their newest album Church Music — but the actual writer is John Mark McMillan, from an album titled The Song Inside the Sounds of Breaking Down.

And it’s McMillan’s story that David Crowder wants you to hear.

McMillan’s very close friend and youth pastor, Stephen, just died from a car wreck. Earlier Stephen was fervently praying to God, offering his life even, to shake the youth he was leading.

The song’s content is already wrapped in its title: a dire focus on how much God loves us. The poetry is stunning: He is jealous for me Loves like a hurricane I am a tree Bending beneath The weight of his wind and mercy I like how the following verse describes the mystery of disappearing into the grandeur of the goodness of God: When all of a sudden I am unaware of these Afflictions eclipsed by glory And I realize just how beautiful you are And how great your affections are for me At the closing of this eight-minute psalm, McMillan lets us eavesdrop in on his heart’s prayer to God:

I thought about you The day Stephen died And you met me between my breaking I know that I still love you God Despite the agony Then, See people they want to tell me you’re cruel But if Stephen could sing He’d say it’s not true Cause you’re good.

And what about the story of Paul and Silas singing in prison? You should reread the story right now in Acts 16:16.

Paul and Silas were unfairly imprisoned on false accusations.

Before the authorities, without trial or hearing, the crowd immediately stripped them and flogged them, and then set a jailer to watch over them and fasten their feet to stocks.

Yet Paul and Silas found the strength to pray and sing hymns to God that we, observing with the other prisoners, find ourselves drawn to listen in on this supernatural reality. Their singing affected everyone around them!

Everybody’s chains came loose, and the jailer’s heart was shaken just as much as the foundations of the buildings.

The jailer thirsted for that supernatural touch of heaven. I hope you now do as well.

Worshipping an eternal God, we live in a different dimension. People don’t understand — they can’t comprehend!

— how the buried Haitians can still sing and hope to be found, how the surrounding families still choose to sing hymns and songs to Jesus during chilly nights. It just doesn’t make sense.

It’s absurd! But we have to sing.

It’s hard, I know, but that’s why we have Him who intercedes for us. In Ephesians 5:18-20, we’re exhorted

to be filled with the Spirit, instead of alcohol. Then immediately Paul talks about brewing with songs and melodies in our hearts to the Lord, as if singing becomes a natural flow of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Just like how goodness is a fruit of the Spirit. Sing about the goodness of God today (Isaiah 12).

Think of this article as my personal letter, my personal exhortation to you: I’m trying to make you believe there’s so much more beyond the pain, the tragedy, the heartaches, the hurt, the bleeding; I’m trying to make you understand God is still good no matter what, I’m trying to make you hope again, I’m trying to make you believe again, I’m trying to get you to look up, and just like David Crowder, “I’m just trying to make you sing.”

Works Cited

Foreman, Jon. “Jon Foreman: What’s in a Word?” Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post. The Huffington Post, n.d. Web. 8 Feb. 2010. <http://www. huffingtonpost.com/jon-foreman/whats-in-aword_b_423969.html>.

Hillsong. “ YouTube - Hillsong Live - Desert Song (This Is Our God).” Hillsong Live Desert Song (This Is Our God). Integrity Music, n.d. Web. 8 Feb. 2010. <http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=ZE33ejdgWIY>.

Davis, Kevin. “#72 - “How He Loves” by David Crowder Band | BEHIND THE SONG WITH KEVIN DAVIS | NewReleaseTuesday. com.” New Release Tuesday - New Christian Music - Reviews, News And Artist Information. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Feb. 2010. <http://www.newreleasetuesday.com/article. php?article_id=290>.

Ethan Kung is a Bioengineering graduate Steamer Lee is a senior at UCI studying Comstudent. He is often doing useless things like parative Literature. He looks forward to coming climbing onto rooftops or catching wildlife. back to the States after studying abroad in Spain. steamerl@uci.edu

Forum of Christian Thought and Action at Stanford

7

Reflections on International Justice Mission and Community Renewal International On February 22, Jim Martin, the Director of Church Mobilization for International Justice Mission, and Mack McCarter, the founder of Community Renewal International, spoke to members of the Stanford community. IJM is “a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression.” CRI “works to restore the foundation of safe and caring communities by rebuilding the system of caring relationships.”

“When Mack began to comment on ‘the two most important days of your life,’ I almost tuned out.

Expecting a trite rendition, I was surprised to hear him say, ‘The day you are born... and the day you find out why.’ What a beautiful statement. Life is a gift, but it becomes a gift that is shared with others when we discover our purpose. It made me think of how all individuals’ purposes are both the same and different.

We all were created to bring glory to God but the expression of that glory giving might look different according to our talents. I was challenged to use my talents authentically and responsibly when Jim spoke about not ‘balancing’ our faith and work, but integrating them - to seek out actively ways to blend the Good News of Jesus Christ into our daily work and to apply our work in living out the Gospel we profess.”

-Brittany Riner “On Monday, February 22nd, I trudged off to Tresidder Oak East to hear about IJM and CRI and how Christians pursue social justice. I say ‘trudged’ because I attended primarily out of social obligation: I had a couple of friends who put tremendous work into organizing this event and I wanted to support them. Walking away from the event, I was uplifted and inspired, most particularly by Mack McCarter and his work with Community Renewal International. Through this model, there are communities that are changing and becoming genuinely healthy and good places to live. Neighborhoods are transforming such that children are born to families and communities where they are loved and cherished. That which was unstable and ugly is becoming stable and beautiful. It is inspiring on so many levels: it shows me that relationships are the base of social justice, it shows me that knowing my neighbors and caring for my family and friends are deeply good pursuits, it shows me that living out Biblical principles are both possible and powerful.”

-Anne Cherniss “I appreciated hearing how smart, motivated, and creative people are working for God by reforming communities and pursuing justice worldwide. The moving stories of the children and adults that IJM saves showed me that there really is a fight for good occurring everyday in our world. I admire the goals of Community Renewal International and how they are working in their neighborhoods to create better societies.”

-Reagan Thompson “I walked away from the IJM/CRI talk feeling a great deal of hope for the victims of the many injustices that exist in our world, but at the same time, felt that I was missing out on some tangible way to help. Here in the Stanford area, we have been inundated with information over the last year or so with information on many social justice issues. The talks, videos, and e-mails cite raising awareness as one of the main goals, and of course the organizations will gladly accept donations. But each time I hear such a talk, or see this type of video, I am left feeling useless. I want to be involved somehow, but I’m not convinced that I’m supposed to change career paths and dive fully into this. Yes, I can donate money. Of course I can pray.

I can help spread the word about various organizations and the injustices they fight. But while awareness is growing, tangible ways to help seem much harder to grasp. That, to me, is the next step…being able to end a presentation on a given social justice issue with ways to get involved. Avenues beyond the basic ones I’ve mentioned, avenues for the average person to feel that they are actively helping to fight social injustices in a tangible way. All of that said, I found both the presentations to be very encouraging, and was especially struck by how just one person can make a tremendous difference…now I just need to find where I fit into the picture!”

-Anonymous

8

Vox Clara, Vol. III, Issue 2

Sunday

Rachel Kelley

Light strolling in from summer afternoon through veiled curtains radiates a peace unknown Music tumbling over itself rippling as a river joyous as he who plays it Grin the irresistible affection for all these, the family sparkling in her eyes Laughter they canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t contain it any longer itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dancing on their faces undaunted by the hush of church on Sunday

Photo: Steven Puente

Rachel Kelley is a sophomore from Denver, CO studying Human Biology. She enjoys outdoorsy adventures, traveling, whistling, and talking to strangers. Contact her at rkel9 Forum of Christian Thought and ley7@stanford.edu.

Action at Stanford

Sex,

Vox Clara encourages engagement with a variety of topics. The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent the views of Vox Clara and our staff.

Sex is good; in fact, sex is very good.

While Christian tradition considers sex to be one of the greatest expressions of love, today’s culture often depicts sex as nothing more than a form of entertainment. However, rather than serve as an expression of physical power, conferring of status, or reaching adulthood, sex—in Christian doctrine— is done because of love. Love in a Christian understanding is absolute giving without any form of taking. A person in love does something for the

“

the other. During sex, one’s mind should be centered on the other, not on oneself. The lovers should affirm to one another that they are ready to fully give themselves to the other in order to form a deep and lasting relationship.

This of course does not mean that one will not be fulfilled or that one should not feel pleasure. On the contrary, feeling pleasure during sex is good, but one’s own pleasure (if one truly loves the other) is not the primary reason for having sex. If each person is fully giving oneself to the other in the act of sex, then sex is the expression of mutual love that it should be. This love, this total giving to another, transforms the persons while having sex so

Order,

in one body. When meeting conjoined twins, most people will quickly notice two things; first, that in fact there is one body, and second that the two people who share the body are distinct individuals. While the common relation between person and body is one-toone, this does not exclude the reality that the ratio can at times be different.

Just as the conjoined twins’ body is the combination of the bodies of the twins such that there are indeed two different sets of DNA, so is the unified person of the lovers composed of the distinct persons who were involved in the sexual act.

This most beautiful unity that is achieved during sex does create a problem. First, we hold that love must

”

Ultimately, it is most important to remember that God is a part of humans’ procreation.

good of the other without regard for the benefits to the self. If a loved person is being harmed by something, a true lover’s mind immediately focuses on the loved person. This immediate reaction in which the loved one (instead of the lover) is at the center of attention and care is a true expression of love, which is selfless. This is not a claim that selflessness is easily achieved, but that striving for selflessness is something that love calls for.

Christian sexual ethics holds that each person involved in the act of sex must strive to give fully of oneself to

10

that they become one person, without losing their individuality. This constitutes the unitive aspect of sex.

The idea of distinct persons who possess physically separate bodies reaching such a degree of harmony to be considered one person seems to be a metaphor rather than a reality. Yet our minds should be able to understand the reality that humans are not merely their bodies. Inversing two words in the previous idea helps illustrate this: instead of one person in distinct bodies, let’s think of distinct persons

Vox Clara, Vol. III, Issue 2

be constantly present in the act of sex, then we describe love as the giving of oneself to another, and finally we hold that when the people having sex are fully giving themselves to the other they become one person. However, if this mutual love transforms the people involved into one person, then doesn’t love cease because there is no other person to give oneself fully to? On the surface, it seems that this great act of love self-destructs since in the end there is no other person to love. Here is where a biological fact solves the problem: sex

and Disorder Jose Armando Perez-Gea

Photo: Steven Puente

is the process in which a new human being is created. When lovers become one person, they can love their potential child. They can realize the joy, suffering, pain, and outright happiness that will come by fully dedicating themselves to the child, if a child is conceived.

And during the act of sex, they say as one: “yes, we are ready to fully give ourselves together for the good of a child.” Therefore, during sex the people involved will love each other to the point of unity, and as one they will direct the love to the potential child. This is called the procreative aspect of sex— being open to the conception of a child.

Sex based in love (that is, self-giving) is what Christian ethics calls ordered; all other sexual acts are disordered.

When trying to understand the Christian stance on the order or disorder of single or multiple-partner sex, heterosexual sex, homosexual sex, premarital sex, marital sex, contraception, and other sexual issues, the first question to ask is if the unitive aspect of sex is present (if the participants of the sexual act

are becoming one), and the second question to ask is if the procreative aspect of sex is present (if the participants of the sexual act are open to the conception of a new life). For example, we can analyze masturbation to see if it is ordered or disordered. Not only is the procreative aspect absent in this case, but the unitive aspect of sex is absent as well. More specifically, since the person is not becoming one, but is already one, the sexual act is not creating union, and because there is no other person to fully give oneself to, the individual is not sharing, but solely receiving.

Ultimately, it is most important to remember that God is a part of humans’ procreation. God’s creation has an inherent order, often called God’s plan. Each step towards disorder is a step away from God. What if you don’t believe in God? There is a second group of people affected by disorder: the other people involved in the disordered sexual act. When a person commits a disordered act, others are

affected. Taking a disordered sexual act as an example, when a person has sex without love, the person uses the other person as a sex object. This means that if every person involved in the sexual act ignores love, then it is a mutual using of people as sexual objects. People are sexual objects when they become the means to another end. Treating a person as a sexual object is in fact a form of denying the person’s human dignity.

What if you don’t care about others?

Well, there is a third person affected by disorder: you. A disordered action might give you a thrill or an intense pleasure, but it is a fleeting happiness that is not truly fulfilling. The bliss of a disordered act is quickly replaced by a sense of emptiness, an abysmal craving that we can try to fulfill by doing disordered acts repeatedly. What we soon realize is how the disordered actions never lastingly fulfill us. The only thing that can fulfill us is the lasting happiness that comes from ordered actions.

Jose Armando Perez-Gea is studying Political Theory and Economics. He has lived in Mexico City, Los Angeles, San Antonio, and London.

Contact him at perezgea@stanford.edu.

Forum of Christian Thought and Action at Stanford

11

A Christian Defense of Freedom Charlie Capps

Photo: Steven Puente

My father often warns me that it is easy for members of our generation to take the freedoms we enjoy in this nation for granted. When he was young, he reminds me, the triumph of Western liberty over Communist oppression was uncertain, even at times doubtful.

The integral role played by the Church—and Pope John Paul II in particular—in this victory has been documented by countless historians.

Robert Owen and Friedrich Engels, two of the founding fathers of Marxism,

“

condemn altruistic love as immoral and in its place set up “egoism” as a normative code of conduct.

Freedom for Objectivists—freedom to advance one’s own life without duties towards others—is the highest (indeed, the only) ideal of social organization. If Marxism repudiated freedom, Randian Objectivism worships it.

Perhaps more dangerously, in its advocacy for freedom it claims a monopoly on valuing the individual.

Every ideology—including Christianity—that

doctrine.

This assault is not to be taken lightly: the Church cannot allow Objectivism to hijack freedom for its promotion of selfishness any more than she could allow Marxism to eliminate freedom.

In response Christians must rally around the flag of the incomparable and incalculable dignity of the human person as proclaimed in Genesis 1:26.

This critical text, which teaches that man is created in the image and likeness of God, provides the Christian basis

”

For Christians, freedom is the highest expression of the divine image in man because freedom means the capacity to love. were right to identify the Church as one of the three great obstacles to a Communist utopia (the others being private property and the family). The Marxist prioritization of society at the expense of the individual, who becomes merely a cell in the social body, a cog in the service of the collective machine, is irreconcilable with the Christian view of the human being as unique in creation for bearing the stamp of God’s image and likeness (Gen 1:27).

Recent trends have brought the Church’s timeless teaching about the truth of the human being under attack from a different angle. Since the financial crisis enthusiasm has surged for novelist Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism. Proponents of laissez faire capitalism, Objectivists flip conventional ethics on its head: they

12

espouses altruism is condemned as “collectivist” because of the constraint of responsibility to others that it places on the individual and his or her right to pursue selfish objectives.

The branding of Christianity as antagonistic towards freedom supplied the material for a recent event on campus: a debate, cosponsored by the Catholic Community and the Objectivists of Stanford, between Jennifer Roback Morse, a Catholic economist, and Yaron Brook, an Objectivist, over the question, “Is Christianity Compatible with Capitalism?” The jam-packed lecture hall and sizzling campus dialogue that followed the debate attest to the timelessness of such questions, as well as, on a darker note, to the might of the Objectivist assault on Christian social

Vox Clara, Vol. III, Issue 2

for liberty. As the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church teaches, “Freedom is the highest sign in man of his being made in the divine image and, consequently, is a sign of the sublime dignity of every human person.” The Compendium continues: The value of freedom…is respected when every member of society is permitted to fulfill his personal vocation; to seek the truth and profess his religious, cultural and political ideas; to express his opinions; to choose his state of life and, as far as possible, his line of work; to pursue initiatives of an economic, social or political nature (199-200).

For Christians, freedom is the highest expression of the divine image in man because freedom means the capacity to love. The State must never impinge upon

the capacity of the individual to respond freely to the unique vocation given him or her by God which is nothing other than a call to love fully. This vocation is carried out in the workplace, the arena of economic exchange, among other places.

This does not imply that Christianity demands a sort of laissez faire social arrangement. In its teaching that man is made in the image of a God Who is at once a Unity and a Community, the

“

humanity, and no social mechanism or collective subject can substitute for it. (13) Therefore, in order truly to promote human flourishing, the State should respect the principle of subsidiarity; that is, it should limit intervention to tasks that cannot be accomplished by individuals or smaller units of social organization. The ambiguity surrounding what interventions this principle justifies generates the

by any conventional definition, is compatible with Christianity.

Christians would do well to remind themselves of the Biblical basis for freedom and have the courage to defend it. If we are silent, the enemies of the Gospel will succeed in establishing their proposition: that the only freedom is freedom from responsibility towards others, that freedom as such is incompatible with Christianity, and that to remain a true Christian one must

”

Nonetheless, the principle itself is clear: the priority of the State must be to safeguard the exercise of personal freedom, not to restrain it.

Bible has provided an explanation for what Aristotle recognized independent of revelation: man is a social animal. In pursuit of the good, he creates institutions, beginning with the family and including everything from chess clubs to labor unions to corporations to governments.

Institutions facilitate human flourishing; they afford conditions conducive to man’s attainment of the good that a society of atomistic individuals cannot.

For instance, only the State is competent to provide what economists call “public goods” (such as a military or a juridical rule of law).

Although the State and other institutions can facilitate human attainment of the good, it remains true that ultimately the attainment itself is realized only through the freely given response to God offered by the individual. As Pope John Paul II writes in Centesimus Annus, It is by responding to the call of God contained in the being of things that man becomes aware of his transcendent dignity. Every individual must give this response, which constitutes the apex of his

legitimate diversity of political opinion among Christians. Nonetheless, the principle itself is clear: the priority of the State must be to safeguard the exercise of personal freedom, not to restrain it.

This is why the Compendium can state that the “fundamental task of the State in economic matters is… to safeguard ‘the prerequisites of a free economy…’” (352). This is also why Pope John Paul II argued that a free economic system is not only compatible with Christianity, but a logical extension of it: [Should capitalism] be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? …If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative….” (42).

This quotation should eliminate any doubt over whether or not capitalism,

embrace an economic system that is not only sterile but oppressive. Capitalism does not create space only for the freedom of Objectivists—freedom from responsibility for the other—it allows also the freedom of Christians— freedom to love. This is the foundation of a Christian defense of political and economic liberty.

Recommended Reading: (a) Centesimus Annus (Pope John Paul II), http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_ paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-i i_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus_ en.html (b) The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, h t t p : / / w w w. va t i c a n . va / r o m a n _ c u r i a / pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc _pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendiodott-soc_en.html (c) The Victory of Reason (Rodney Stark) (d) The Birth of Freedom (The Acton Institute)

onathan than K Scrafford isis aa Bioengineering a senior graduate from CJEharlie Cung apps seniorismajoring in economics student.

Wichita, He Kansas, is often studying doing useless Biological things Scilike from St. Louis, MO. He enjoys playing frisbee, climbing ences and onto Spanish. rooftops He or will catching get married wildlife. to writing music, and eating toasted ravioli. Contact Diane Santos in June and will enter medical him at ccapps@stanford.edu. school next fall.

Forum of Christian Thought and Action at Stanford

13

What are the “fruits of the Spirit?”

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.

Against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, we must also follow the Spirit. Galatians 5:22-25 The characteristics listed in Paul’s letter to the Galatians as “fruits of the Spirit” are characteristics that almost all humans desire. Inevitably, however, the reality of our humanness keeps us from perfectly reflecting these char-

acteristics all the time. The key difference in someone aspiring for these attributes and a follower of Christ is the latter’s realization that it can’t be done on his or her own.

Christ, embodied as the Holy Spirit in an individual, is the agent of change. In the end, as the Spirit works to transform a Christian’s desires and attitudes, these attributes are not something Christians decide to do but become a part of who they are. Anyone can display these characteristics; the distinction for the Christian is that these attributes represent a natural outpouring of the transformed heart.

Goodness Through the Bible As Christians, we are called to recognize God as the ultimate source of goodness and to attempt to live out that goodness every day, for His glory. But, as members of the modern world, we are often told that goodness is relative and that any attempt to make a claim about goodness is presumptuous and intolerant. As Pope Benedict XVI puts it, “We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.”

We are tempted to judge goodness by whatever makes us personally feel good. How dare we consider certain acts as devoid of goodness, or evil?

If we do, we are sure to hear cries of “It’s my choice!” or “Don’t push your views on me!” as if the goodness of a choice or a view depended completely on the person who possessed it. This confusion is the first obstacle for us when we try to bear the fruit of goodness. Isaiah warns us, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter”(Isaiah 5:20). Instead of falling into the trap of thinking we have the power to decide what is good and what is not good by labeling it so, we must have the courage to stand for an objective good. Of course, we will always make mistakes in our attempts at goodness. As sinners we can fail to recognize goodness and fail to incorporate it into ourselves. But even acknowledging that we can make a mistake implies that there is a standard of goodness outside of ourselves for which to strive.

Our standard of goodness is God, for God is infinitely good. All goodness flows from Him and all goodness points to Him. The Psalms repeatedly praise God’s overflowing goodness and help us to both acknowledge God as the source of goodness and respond in thanksgiving. In Psalm 16 we read, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing” (Ps 16:2). If we would only walk through every day keeping this in mind, we would walk with much greater humility and gratitude. Instead of patting ourselves on the back for our own good deeds, we would realize that we are channels of God’s goodness. Every good thing we encounter, from the beauty of a flower, to the kindness of a friend, to the accomplishment of a goal, stems from Divine goodness and shows us God’s loving generosity. We should be thankful, like the psalmists who sing, “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever” (Ps 106:1) and “I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me” (Ps 13:6). It is only by orienting ourselves in humility and thanksgiving that we can be in a position to share God’s goodness with the world.

But how could we ever go about being good? “Be good” is a simple command we have likely heard over Photo: Steven Puente and over again since childhood, but in light of God’s infinite goodness and our post-fall propensity to sin, “being good” seems rather daunting. We should not despair, however, for we were made for goodness. God made us in His image and called us “very good” (Gen 1:27, 31), and although our goodness has been broken by sin, we

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!”

Psalm 34:8

Psalm 23: 6

“No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.”

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”

Psalm 84: 11

Psalm 31: 19

“Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you...”

Love | Joy | Peace | Patience | Kindness | Goodness | Faithfulness | Gentleness | Self-control Photo: Caroline Chen

have Christ’s forgiveness and the help of the Spirit, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10). We are capable of goodness because God has made us capable.

Practically, what does being good entail? The rich young man from the Gospels asks a similar question of Christ when he says, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16) Christ’s immediate response emphasizes again that all goodness comes from God, for “There is only One who is good” (Matthew 19:17). He goes on to say that the young man must keep the commandments: “Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 19:18). Keeping the commandments entails a lot, particularly the last one listed.

There are many, many ways in which we can love our neigh-

Maria Dogero is a freshman from University Place, Washington. She enjoys frolicking through apple orchards, singing, and growing in her Catholic faith. Contact her at mdogero@stanford.edu.

bor as ourselves, and the Bible is full of them. We can feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the sick. Ultimately, Christ tells us, like the young rich man, “Come, follow me” (Matthew 19:21). To fully realize the goodness we were made for, we must leave behind our attachments to worldly things that we might think are good, but can never compare to the goodness of Christ.

As Christians we are called to follow Christ’s example of goodness with great humility, for it is not our own goodness but God’s goodness that flows through us. Our hearts should leap when we encounter goodness, for we are encountering a little spark of the Divine. We should be thankful when we are able to do good, for God has used us as a channel of His love. We should celebrate God’s goodness always, and share it with a world that, at times, does not want to admit that goodness exists.

Harry Potter

It is my intent in this paper to give a short defense of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.

There is much to engage in the work of Ms. Rowling, but we shall be limited to one question: is Harry Potter bad for you?

Interest in this was piqued by the fact that many of Ms. Rowling’s most vocal critics are Christians who claim that her work is morally corrupting. What is impressive about this constituency

“

extend the same courtesy to Rowling?

The point is made several times in her books that magic is a neutral thing, akin to technology; it does not confer special dignity. Morality is personal; it determines the worth of our actions.

As Dumbledore explains, “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

In Rowling’s universe there is a coherent moral law that applies equally

are not the house founder nor Lord Voldemort, but rather Regulus Black and Severus Snape. It is temperance that allows them to subordinate lesser goods to higher ones. Refusing themselves all comforts and consolations, they practice “self-less self-preservation,”i in pursuit of the goal of Voldemort’s defeat.

Still, the point may be pursued that Harry, the hero of the books, has what Dumbledore diagnoses as “a certain

”

In Rowling’s universe there is a coherent moral law that applies equally to the magical and non-magical.” is that they manage to marshal an array of authorities that can happily be described as encouragingly ecumenical: everything from personal conscience, to Holy Scripture, to the reigning pope.

What is curious is that their efforts are directed against a professed Christian – the author herself.

Magic and Rebellion Much heat and little light has been produced by complaints about the treatment of magic in the Potter universe.

It does not seem to be something that should detain us overlong; Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings make use of magic yet they are much less controversial. May we not

16

to the magical and non-magical.

This is evidenced by the fact that we dislike Draco and Dudley for the same reasons: they are both proud and cruelly selfish. That one is a wizard and the other a Muggle is irrelevant. In fact, the four houses of Hogwarts mirror the four classical human virtues. That Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and Hufflepuff are the houses of prudence, fortitude, and justice is obvious enough; that Slytherin is the house of temperance, perhaps not so. But this is one of many instances which Rowling’s moral genius shines. The author is not peddling moral relativism, offering Slytherin as the house for the ruthlessly ambitious. The archetypal Slytherins

Vox Clara, Vol. III, Issue 2

disregard for rules” and an unseemly ease with lying. With regard to the lying, maybe we are being overly sensitive.

No one seems to make too much of an issue about the cheating by which Bilbo Baggins came by his magic ring, nor that by which Robin Hood came by his golden ones. Nor are we terribly excited about the lies, for instance, of Abraham to Abimelech, Jacob to Isaac, or Rahab to the emissaries of the king of Jericho. This is not to say that lying and cheating are commendable, but merely understandable and forgivable given the harshness of the circumstances and the rightness of the cause. In Augustine’s words, “It cannot be denied that they have attained a very high standard of

and the Place of the Skulls Kevin Kambo

Photo: Heidi Thorsen

goodness who never lie except to save a man from injury; but in the case of men who have reached this standard, it is not the deceit, but their good intention, that is justly praised, and sometimes even rewarded. It is quite enough that the deception should be pardoned, without its being made an object of laudation.”ii With regard to the charge that breaking rules at school makes Harry a bad person, one must question the legalistic conflation of the civil and moral laws.

The moral law is prior to the civil and has higher authority. Harry generally does not break school rules for selfish reasons (and Minerva McGonagall readily deals with these) but for good ones, and often with the sanction of the headmaster. The issue here is authority, a theme that Rowling devotes herself to with remarkable insight in The Order of the Phoenix. Throughout the book Harry is in the middle of conflicting forces that would claim his obedience: his personal feelings and instincts, Dumbledore, the Order of the Phoenix, Dolores Umbridge, the Ministry of Magic, Sirius Black, etc.

Unfortunately, he also happens to be in his most rebellious E than K ung is athis Bioengineering graduate mood.

Through Rowling shows that student.

He is often doing useless things like authority is a question of truth and trust, climbing onto rooftops or catching wildlife. not moods and feelings. The resistance to Umbridge’s tyranny rightly brings forth the student group, Dumbledore’s Army, while the immature distrust in

Dumbledore and Snape needlessly imperils Harry’s friends and brings about the death of his godfather. The need to trust in legitimate authority is the principal message of the book, a lesson too often missed or misunderstood.

Dealing with Death That said, we have not yet zeroed in on the main themes of the whole opus.

While Potter does not sit as comfortably within the genre of epic literature as Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, its orientation benefits from this tradition.

The main theme in Harry Potter is death. The two opposing forces are the Death Eaters, who would grasp life by devouring death, and the Order of the Phoenix, who would kindle life by braving death. Not for nothing is the main villain’s name Voldemort, which translates from French as ‘flight from death’. So how does Rowling propose that we make sense of death?

Voldemort’s way is wrong; he wishes to be “like God” at the cost of losing his humanity. As his disciple Quirell expresses in a Nietzschean tone, “There is no good or evil; only power and those too weak to seek it.” But the moral law is something that cannot be broken without consequence; evil acts come at a spiritual cost. As Firenze teaches after Voldemort kills a

unicorn, “[It] will keep you alive … but at a terrible price. You have slain … to save yourself and you will have but a half life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips.” This scene in the first book is a foreshadowing of the Horcruxes revealed in the sixth.

The fragmentation of the soul needed to create these Horcruxes is “an act of violation” and “against nature”, spiritually maiming despite the gain of physical preservation. This is a profound description of the nature of evil, showing it to be a perversion of the natural good in the world. As Tolkien’s Frodo knows, “The Shadow … can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own.”

The right way to master death is offered by the words engraved on the gravestones of James and Lily Potter.

The phrase, taken from the New Testament, reads, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” This does not literally mean preventing death, but rather, as Hermione explains, “living beyond death. Living after death.” In the natural order this is seen in the familial bonds across generations. On the one hand there is Voldemort who disowns his mother and murders his father, and who will consider no one his companion; on the other there is Harry who lives because his parents gave up their lives to preserve his,

Forum of Christian Thought and Action at Stanford

17

and whose deepest yearning, seen in the Mirror of Erised/Desire, is to have a family. (Understanding this is key to appreciating the fittingness of the wrongly-maligned epilogue.)

In the supernatural order, however, this aspect of filiation takes on a new dimension by engaging the virtue of hope. Consider the other quote from the New Testament that Rowling uses,

“

in the sixth book when he realizes that such was the path his parents took and resolves to follow it.

King’s Cross Now we come to the crux of the matter. In the final sequence that begins with the death of Harry, Rowling paints with dominantly Christian colours. In

Voldemort’s defeat. Essential to this is not Dumbledore’s cunning calculation, but his magnanimous compassion. Of the noble headmaster’s acts in his final year of life, his orchestrated death is far less significant than his mercy in trying to protect the life and innocence of Draco Malfoy. It is not the wisdom, but the pity of Dumbledore that ultimately rules the fate of many, in a manner that would

”

It is not the wisdom, but the pity of Dumbledore that ultimately rules the fate of many, in a manner that it would not be wrong to call providential.

found on the graves of Dumbledore’s mother and sister: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” This phrase completes the hermeneutic key to the story. Voldemort’s treasure is life in this world, and thus he sacrifices his heart and soul to remain in it. Harry must learn that his treasure is not of this world, that he is to follow his parents beyond this world. He must see beyond life in this world to keep his heart and soul. Voldemort’s hope is in the temporal; Harry’s in the eternal. And in this Harry shows himself to be a very Christian hero. It is clear that he lacks the power, knowledge, and skill with which to defeat Voldemort, but even in such hopelessness he realizes he must go on. As the Virgin Mary expresses to the hero of G. K. Chesterton’s epic poem, “The Ballad of the White Horse,” “I tell you naught for your comfort, Yea naught for your desire … Do you have joy without a cause, Yea, faith without a hope?” The Christian must fight the good battle, even if it is not to be the winning battle. Harry comes to maturity

the first place, there is the manner in which Harry approaches his death.

Unlike Dumbledore, the young wizard really has no strategy in accepting his death, except trust. He is “obedient even to death.” In this he imitates more his mother than the late headmaster of Hogwarts and reveals the true arc of the tale in vivid detail. The underlying current in the book is not a contest between Dumbledore and Voldemort, between Hallows and Horcruxes, but something more ancient. In the Bible, there are two figures in combat from Genesis until the Apocalypse. They are the mother of all the living and the serpent of death; the woman with child and the dragon who would devour her son. It is a battle between sacrificial love and sin, between Lily Potter and Lord Voldemort. Harry accepts death for the sake of his friends – for “greater love has no man than this” – by walking the path of his mother. Thus bruised, he crushes death. For Rowling, love is stronger than death.

Following Harry’s sacrifice comes

Kevin Kambo is a Muggle currently living in New York City. He was one of the two founding editors of Vox Clara. He much prefers the weather at Stanford. Contact him at kkambo@stanfordalumni.org.

18

Vox Clara, Vol. III, Issue 2

not be incorrect to call providential.

And when Harry finally comes to confront the Dark Lord, he offers him first salvation of his soul, asking him to repent. Voldemort’s pride seals his doom and shows that evil ultimately is not defeated by force; instead it exhausts itself when confronted by Love.

Considering these reflections, it seems difficult to accept that Harry Potter is an anti-Christian or corrupting work. While not confessional, Rowling is uncontroversially very Christian in her treatment of the themes of love, death, and sacrifice. As for the place the series will hold in world literature, I can only hope that we shall long be raising our glasses: “To Harry Potter – the boy who lived!”.

Josef Pieper, “Temperance,” The Four Cardinal Virtues ii Augustine of Hippo, Enchiridion, c.22 i

Additional Resources: The Harry Potter Series and The Secret Fire

by Stratford Caldecott.

How Crazy Is That?

Kelly McKitterick Jesus loves you! If you’ve ever been to church, you’ve no doubt heard this statement in some form or another. Personally, I have heard this my whole life and always just accepted it as true without giving it a second thought. Plus, there was a catchy song to go along with it. But what does it really mean to be loved by Jesus? What exactly is God’s love, and how should we respond to it? Francis Chan explores these themes with conviction in his book Crazy Love. The book consists of ten thought-provoking chapters, each accompanied by a short complementary video at crazylovebook.com introducing the topics. Chan integrates Scripture throughout each chapter and makes no statements without Biblical reasoning.

The part of the book that struck me the most was the chapter entitled “you may not finish this chapter.”

Chan asserts how most of us live as though we were immortal and invincible, when the reality is that we could die at any moment. There are no guarantees that we will live until tomorrow. We are not entitled to a long life, but rather we are put here to serve HIS purpose in whatever life capacity he has laid out for us specifically. Chan gives further perspective on the brevity of our lives by citing that about 125,000,000,000 people have lived on this earth throughout time. The reality that “fifty years from now… no one will care what job you had, what car you drove, what school you attended, or what clothes you wore” (46) is incredibly humbling. Huge food for thought.

Another especially convicting chapter was “The profile of the lukewarm,” in which Chan examines characteristics of lukewarm Christianity. This chapter demands selfreflection and reassessment of true values and whether or not those values are being reflected in one’s life. Crazy Love is packed with calls for self-examination, Scripture study, and most importantly, the humble acceptance of God’s greatness and His amazing love. I first read Francis Chan’s book Crazy Love during a time of reflection and faith exploration. I was thirsty to learn more about God and His kingdom, and I was reading the Bible, but I felt at a loss to comprehend how the all-powerful Creator loves me. Loves me. I found myself reading amazing words of Love and Truth, without any concrete idea of what it actually meant to be loved by God. My life did not look like one overcome by the zealous love of an all-powerful God. I had heard about Crazy Love from my church in Southern California, so I decided to pick it up and give it a shot. I had heard several of Francis Chan’s podcasts and figured that if Chan wrote anything like the way in which he spoke, his book would be a healthy, welcomed kick-in-the-butt to check myself and focus on God. In the process of reading Crazy Love, I found myself realizing how much I had misunderstood and underestimated Courtesy of bookschristian.com God’s love in the past. It’s safe to say I was lukewarm. Nothing in my life demonstrated that I truly believed God intimately loved me. Chan’s book exposed me to the reality of God’s love in ways I never thought possible and lit a fire within me to praise Him with all my heart.

Crazy Love drove me to read the Word more fervently and see it as a love-letter from God. Francis Chan’s Crazy Love is a must-read for believers who want to deeply explore God’s amazing love.

Crazy Love invigorated me and encouraged me to actively pursue God in my life, receive His love, and let Him change me from the inside out. Chan says, “There is an incalculable, faultless, eternal God who loves the frail beings He made with a crazy kind of love” (65). God loves and knows each one of us intimately, with a love so overwhelming, so passionate, so “crazy,” that it should change the way we live our daily lives. Are modern Christians really living lives representative of believers in this kind of love?

How can we as believers accept God’s amazing love?

Kelly McKitterick is a Junior from Corona del Mar, California studying International Relations and History. She can be contacted with questions or comments at kellym2@stanford.edu.

Forum of Christian Thought and Action at Stanford

19

Back to the Beginning:

Re-examining the Relationship Between Evolution and Theism Elizabeth Lake Photo: Heidi Thorsen

Vox Clara encourages engagement with a variety of topics. The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent the views of Vox Clara and our staff.

“It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent theist and an evolutionist.”

– Charles Darwin, Letter to John Fordyce, 7 May 18791 Charles Darwin may be one of the most recognizable names in the history of science. Known as the father of evolution, Darwin is most famous for postulating in The Origin of Species that life forms evolve over time through natural selection. In the century and a half following Origin’s publication, a mix of zealous acceptance and fervent rejection has characterized the response to Darwin’s theories. Today many atheists substitute the theory of evolution for a religious creation story to explain the beginning of life. But is this the correct response to Darwin’s scientific theory?

The assertion that “science and religion are incompatible” has taken on the characteristics of a roommate’s snoring: unrelenting, unpleasant, and something most people timidly try to ignore. But some Christians are breaking through the apparent dichotomy between theism, or the belief in God, and modern evolutionary theory. These Christians suggest that Biblically-based, orthodox Christianity and the latest scientific theories are not only compatible but perhaps even complementary. In truth, the perceived conflict between Christianity and science does not concern the empirical data itself; rather, it is how that data is interpreted. Thus, the debate is actually a conflict between

20

competing philosophies: Christian theism in opposition to atheistic naturalism.

Atheistic naturalism (also called materialism) is a worldview that assumes that there is no divine power of any kind and that all things should be understood only through purely material means. In other words, everything – from the science of the universe to thoughts and philosophy – can and should be understood exclusively as the products of physics and chemistry2. Since naturalism denies the existence of a deity’s role in creating and sustaining the universe, it is clearly incompatible with the entirely God-centered Christian worldview.

One of atheistic naturalism’s most avid supporters in recent years is Richard Dawkins. An esteemed biologist from Oxford, Dawkins believes that Darwin’s theory of evolution has not only disproven faiths like Christianity but also has eliminated the “need” for religion. Dawkins’ basic views can be summarized as follows: 1. If the Darwinian evolutionary account of biological development is correct, then atheistic naturalism is the only rational or plausible view of the world.

2. The Darwinian evolutionary account of biological development is correct.

3. Therefore, atheistic naturalism is the only rational or plausible view of the world.

Although some members of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement have raised concerns about the veracity of the second premise3 and the conclusion of this argument has come under attack

Vox Clara, Vol. III, Issue 2

in some philosophical circles4, the first premise has gone largely unchallenged by those who believe that God created the universe and the life forms within it.

Alister McGrath, a respected biologist and theologian at Oxford, is one who does confront this first premise in his book Dawkins’ God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life (Blackwell Publishing, 2005). As both a theologian and a PhD holder in molecular biophysics from Oxford, McGrath is uniquely equipped to answer Dawkins on the topic of Christian philosophy, as well as in Dawkins’ own field of science. McGrath asks the frequently overlooked question that ultimately led to his own abandonment of atheism: “is Darwinism, as…Dawkins insist[s], necessarily atheistic?”5 McGrath points out that Dawkins has given inadequate support for his belief that atheism and naturalism are inseparable from Darwinian evolution. McGrath argues that science can at best lead one to agnosticism. In the words of C.S. Lewis, “[Science] watches how things behave… but why anything comes to be there at all, and whether there is anything behind the things science observes… this is not a scientific question.”6 Without interpretation, science itself provides no absolute evidence for or against either atheism or theism. The data may be used compellingly for or against either view – but it will not lead to a conclusive answer independent of a corresponding worldview.

Instead of trying to explain why atheism best corresponds to the facts of science, Dawkins oversimplifies religion.

For example, Dawkins attacks outdated or less-common arguments for theism, such as William Paley’s “watchmaker”

argument. In this argument, Paley suggests that just as someone would not suspect that a wristwatch simply happened to appear in nature but rather was creatively designed, so the intricacies of nature point to an intelligent, even divine maker.7 More disputably, Paley assumes that God created nature in exactly the same form in which we see it today – a view clearly incompatible with evolution. By dismantling Paley’s argument with evidence for evolution, Dawkins seems to think he annihilated any reason for belief in God. But, as McGrath comments: Dawkins’ assessment of the theological implications of Darwinism is excessively dependent on the assumption that Paley (or Paleyesque) approaches to the biosphere are typical or normative for Christianity. He also seems to assume that the intellectual case for Christianity rests largely, if not totally, upon an “argument for design….” […] Dawkins makes a superb case for abandoning Paley. Sadly, he seems to think this also entails abandoning God.8 McGrath also highlights the way in which Dawkins continues to commit the straw-man fallacy by setting up a false definition of Christianity and then attacking the flawed image he created.

In his book The Selfish Gene, Dawkins defines faith as “a state of mind that leads people to believe something – it doesn’t matter what – in the total absence of supporting evidence.”9 No serious Christian theologian at any time has ever defined faith in such terms. The Bible itself defines faith as “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” based on thousands of years of interactions between people and the Word of God.10 When his presentation of the Christian religion is juxtaposed with the teachings of its holy book and the wisdom of its church fathers,

Dawkins’ portrayal of Christianity is evidently flawed.

McGrath not only undermines Dawkins’ own credibility on religious matters but also makes historically based arguments against the inseparability of naturalistic philosophy and Darwinism. First, Darwin himself was not compelled to atheism by his study of nature, but rather to agnosticism by his devastation over his young daughter’s death. Like countless others, Darwin struggled to understand how a good God could allow suffering. This question merits further discussion, but for the purposes of this article the point of the situation is that evolution itself did not compel Darwin to denounce Christianity; rather, the reader should note that the philosophical question of suffering was the largest factor in his abandonment of faith. Second, McGrath points out that many intelligent Christians (such as the British bishop of Bedford and the American theologian B.B. Warfield) supported Origin of the Species at the time of its publication. Even American fundamentalist James Orr stated that evolution “is coming to be recognized as but a new name for ‘creation,’ only that the creative power works from within, instead of, as in the old conception, in an external, plastic fashion.”11 The support of theologians worldwide disproves the claim that Christians have always opposed evolution and that they tried to strangle Darwinism in its early years.12 McGrath’s book does not aim to speak for or against evolutionary theory but rather to defend the Christian faith from an underutilized angle.

Instead of assuming that Christianity is incompatible with the most commonlyheld explanation of life, McGrath assumes that the Christian God created life through an evolutionary process and seeks to explain how this

view is compatible both with Biblical philosophy and scientific findings.

Last November I was handed a free copy of The Origin of Species in honor of the book’s sesquicentennial anniversary. This quarter, I attended a lecture on the compatibility of science and Christianity. Clearly, the discussion about the relationship between science and religion is alive and well on the Stanford campus. I challenge everyone at Stanford to break through the stereotypes surrounding both scientific and religious communities. What you find may surprise you.

Works Cited

Accessed through the Darwin Correspondence Project at Cambridge University, <www. darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-12041>, 1 January 2010.

2 Dr. R. Sloan Lee, professor of Apologetics at The Cambridge School of Dallas.

3 For example, Michael Behe’s book Darwin’s Black Box (Free Press, 2006).

4 See Victor Reppert’s version of C.S. Lewis’ argument from reason in C.S. Lewis’ Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason (InterVarsity Press, 2003).

5 McGrath, p. 49.

6 C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1980), 22-23.

7 See William Paley’s Natural Theology; or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature (1802).

8 McGrath p. 71.

9 Qtd. in McGrath p. 89.

10 Hebrews 11 (NIV).

11 James Orr, “Science and Christian Faith,” in The Fundamentals, vol. 1. Qtd. in Dawkins’ God p. 78.

12 See Dawkins’ God pp. 76-81.

1

Further Reading

(a) McGrath, Alister. Dawkins’ God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.) (b) http://www.biologos.org/ - “The BioLogos Foundation explores, promotes and celebrates the integration of science and Christian faith.”

Elizabeth Lake is a freshman from Dallas, Texas, who JEonathan than ung Scrafford is ahumanities-related.

Bioengineering is a senior graduate from she’s is majoring in K something When student.

Wichita, Kansas, oftenstudying doing Biological things Scilikebe outnot riding horsesHe orisfinding someuseless other excuse to climbing ences and onto Spanish. rooftops He or will catching get married wildlife. side, she is probably eating something with highto sugar Diane Santos and will enter medical content.

Contact her in at June elake@stanford.edu. school next fall.

Forum of Christian Thought and Action at Stanford

21

For Goodness’s Sake:

Finding God in the Benevolence of Others Samantha McGirr

While Jesus was preaching in Judea, a rich young man approached him and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to gain eternal life?”

Jesus responded, “Why callest thou me good? There is none good but One, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments” (Mt 19: 16-17).

If no one but God is good, why do humans even aspire to virtue? What is the point of following the commandments if we can never overcome our tendency to sin?

Jesus does not say that we cannot be good, but rather that goodness is only possible through God. When an individual repents of his sin and is saved by Jesus Christ, he is restored into a right relationship with God. Once restored, this individual is free to perform good deeds which God has prepared in advance for him or her to do (Ephesians 2:10).

The path to God requires that we cultivate goodness through our thoughts, words, and actions. To be good is to center one’s life entirely on Christ. George Muller, the 19th century Christian evangelist whose orphanages cared for almost 10,000 children during his lifetime, was once asked his spiritual secret.

He answered, “There was a day when I died, utterly died, to George Muller, his opinions, preferences, tastes, and will; died to the world, its approval or censure, died to the approval or blame even of my brethren and friends and, since then, I have studied only to show myself approved unto God.” Muller’s decision to “die to the world” did not cause him to ignore his social responsibilities. Instead, his devotion to God’s will enabled him to utilize his gifts where they were most needed, in order to please God rather than as a means of gaining wealth or prestige.

Goodness, then, is the happy marriage of action and intention—if one is to become a better individual, he must do the right thing for the right reason. Simon Peter, the rock on whom Jesus built His Church, continually strove to be a faithful servant of God, yet his resolve faltered at moments.

Abandoning his life as a fisherman, Peter stayed with the

Lord until His trial and capture, but then proceeded to deny Him three times in the courtyard.

When the resurrected Christ appeared to him, however, Peter reconciled his exterior and interior selves. He bravely accepted Christ’s command to “Feed my lambs” and preached the Gospel until his martyrdom in Rome in 64 A.D. Peter always had good intentions, but he was not immune to human cowardice. He only fully realized God’s plan for his life when his beliefs became action, when his faith became tangible. God might not ask all of us to be the Rock of the Church, but we are called to sow seeds of goodness through our daily actions. We can look to Peter to remind us to live a God-centered life.

A more contemporary exemplar of goodness comes to us in John Calabria, born in Verona in 1873. As a young man and first-year theology student, Calabria returned home one cold November night to find a boy cowering on his doorstep. The boy had run away from gypsies. Calabria took him in, cared for him, and shared his room with him. He spent the rest of his life caring for orphaned and abandoned children; as a priest, he founded a Charitable Institute for troubled youth, as well as two religious orders meant to minister “where there is nothing humanly promising.”

Calabria lived totally at the service of others; even on his deathbed, he did not consider his own suffering. He offered his life in prayer to the dying Pope Pius XII, who unexpectedly recovered and lived for another four years. John Calabria demonstrated that goodness is not an act but a habit, a choice we make from moment to moment.

The author George Eliot once said, “What do we live for if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?” Navigating college is an extremely challenging process, and things will only grow more complicated after graduation. God demands much of us, but He has not left us unaided. Look around. Good people abound at every step of your journey, bringing you closer to realizing God’s amazing plans for your life. With their help, and the example of righteous people throughout history, we may discern how to become God’s instruments of goodness in the world.

Samantha McGirr is a junior from Stockton, CA majoring in English. She enjoys running, writing poetry, and searching for the perfect chai latte.

Contact her at smcgirr@stanford.edu.

22

Vox Clara, Vol. III, Issue 2

Forum of Christian Thought and Action at Stanford

23

The Augustine Project Vox Clara was inspired by The Augustine Project, which is a growing movement to establish Christian journals at colleges across the country.

The Project’s goal is to be a “thoughtful witness to [Christian] faith in the modern university,” knowing that “Truth cannot be pursued in a vacuum.”

The Augustine Project was founded by Jordan Hylden, a graduate of Harvard University.

Other Member Journals Include: • • • • • • • • • • •

The Harvard Ichthus Revisions (Princeton) The Beacon (William and Mary) To An Unknown God (Berkeley) Closing Remarks (Brown) The Pub (Wheaton) Religio (Duke) Wide Awake (University of Virginia) The Fish (University of Chicago) The Logos (Yale) The Dartmouth Apologia

The Augustine Project: theaugustineproject.blogspot.com

Want to get involved? www.voxstanford.org info@voxstanford.org

www.voxstanford.org info@voxstanford.org

Interested in submitting an article or other content?

Vox Clara is currently accepting all types of student submissions, including research articles, opinion pieces, interviews, short stories, book reviews, poems, and photography & art (please take into consideration that journals are typically printed in black & white). We feature this content and archived material on the online version of our journal.

The deadline for articles for the Spring 2010 issue is April 26th, 2010. We will still accept submissions after this date but they may be postponed to a later issue. Please visit our website for submission guidelines.

We welcome any submissions, but works that fit with our spring journal theme - Faithfulness - will be given preference.

Please submit your work to submissions@voxstanford.org

Questions | Comments | Sponsor | Get Involved www.voxstanford.org | info@voxstanford.org

Letter from the President

In a few weeks the Pro-Fros for Stanford’s Class of 2014 will head to The Farm for Admit Weekend. When in their place three years ago, I was reading through college guidebooks galore, and in one I read about the so-called “Stanford Duck Syndrome.” Stanford students pretend like they have everything under control, said the book, but in reality, they’re paddling like crazy just to stay on top of the water. I’m not sure whether most students at Stanford would find the comparison ridiculous or laughingly agree with it. I think that for some of us, the “syndrome” is like the rain of Winter Quarter. Except for the days when we’re biking to class in it, we tell ourselves that we’re undoubtedly the school of eternal sunshine.

There have certainly been times at Stanford when I’ve felt as though I’m paddling away furiously to stay afloat in the busyness of papers, meetings, and exams. During situations like that, the only way that I can be at peace is by looking to God. Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 116:7 says, “Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.” If I take the time to actually “be still,” reminders of God’s unfathomable goodness will flood over me, replacing anxiety with peace.

Finding rest in the goodness of God does not just restore the soul; it provides the strength to go forth and share goodness with others. Paul wrote, “I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1: 4-6). This concept of partnership is an idea that Jim Martin and Mack McCarter emphasized when they spoke about International Justice Mission and Community Renewal International in February. Describing their work fighting oppression and rebuilding communities, these speakers exemplified the process of entering a “partnership in the gospel” to help bring about the goodness that God has in store.

I think that this inspiration, though, can sometimes be daunting. Especially if I am in the mindset of trying to do goodness by my own strength. Thankfully, it’s not supposed to be that way. Paul tells us that it is God “who began a good work in you,” and God is with us for the long run. Ultimately, we can find joy not only in our knowledge that God has been good in the past, but also in our faith that God always is and always will be good in the future.

C. E. Caruthers President, 2009-10

Thank you for reading Vox Clara. It is our sincere hope that you come away enlightened about aspects of Christianity. Whether you are a skeptic, seeker, or believer, we encourage you to continue exploring the faith. We leave you with these closing thoughts.

And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.

- John 1:46

He that does good for goodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sake seeks neither praise nor reward, though sure of both at last.

- William Penn

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

- William Shakespeare

Beauty endures only for as long as it can be seen; goodness, beautiful today, will remain so tomorrow.

- Sappho