Stanford Vox Clara | FREEDOM | Winter 2019

Vox Clara

freedom

VOLUME 9 ISSUE 1 WINTER 2019

table of con ten ts 3 4 6 8

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Letter from the Editor Sarah Thomas Freedom from the Illusion of Self-Sufficiency Jiwon Lee Freedom From; Freedom to Glen Davis What is a Little Girl Worth: Justice, Forgiveness, & Sexual assault Aldis Petriceks

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Before He Lorena Orozco

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Belief, Faith, & Postmodernism Andi Wang

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Freedom from Condemnation Rinchu Mathew

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Taking Up the Cross Erika DePalatis

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Soft Rains Stephen Sills

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Lessons in Anxiety Katie Ferrick

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A Proposition on Prepositional Freedom Prescott Bliss

Living Unbounded: Reconciling Guilt & Shame Kailah Seymour

The Tyranny of Perfection Anne Hulsey About Vox Clara Next Steps

Letter from the Editor In 2019, we stand before a sea of change. Dynamic social movements dispute fundamental ideas about the givenness of nature. Markets continue to emerge and evolve, in the process sharing foreign value systems through the exchange of goods. Technology inches toward indefinite life extension, and China has now seen the world’s first gene-edited babies. These changes in the global landscape reflect individuals’ pursuits of the good, however they understand that to be. Increasingly, these pursuits come into conflict, fragmenting the common good.

In his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, Pope Benedict XVI offers a trenchant critique of challenges to the common good in our globalizing world. Focusing on the economy and finance, the environment, religious freedom, bioethics, and technology, these challenges cry out to us with renewed urgency. Social action in these areas may claim to be motivated by charity, but unmoored from truth, the transcendent good, they end up serving private interests and the will to power. Rather than setting human beings free, charity without truth enslaves them. By contrast, charity illuminated by truth forms a foundation for confronting the ever-changing events of history. It also opens up the space for “the logic of giving and forgiving”, exemplified by the life of Christ and His death and resurrection. Areas of life such as politics and the market are generally not open to gift, but if they were, the common good would be strengthened and humanity would be set free.

The problem of how we are set free discloses the defining theme of our age, the freedom from constraints. These constraints are moral and metaphysical. For those who cherish them, they are truths that constitute the way to human freedom: trust God, follow His law, and do all things for His glory. For those who reject them, they present an obstacle to human freedom: meaning and self-actualization can only be discovered once all limits are gone. Both of these approaches have appeal, but they exist in tension with one another.

This issue of Vox Clara addresses topics including the postmodern critique of reason and its relevance for Christian self-understanding, negative and positive liberties, the Christian calling to radical other-centeredness, and sexual assault. Taken together, these articles speak to the central theme of freedom for which Christ has set us free. Whether you’re a Christian or not, I invite you to join us as we explore this crucial topic.

Sarah Thomas Sarah Thomas

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Freedom from Self“Everything I need is … myself!”

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world in various ways. It was inspiring to believe that I can be the one to bring change. Believing in myself was necessary to Suddenly, Princess Clara reaches an epiphany. From the movie keep me going, to keep me busy and productive.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, this is the secret that the protagonist finds out from the special egg-shaped music box that Unlike the attractiveness of the thought, however, believing her mother left her with. At first, she is puzzled by the note at- in myself was actually often enslaving and isolating. The detached that read, “Everything you need is in here.” Although there sire to achieve goodness on my own resulted in kindness on was nothing special in the music box, flipping over the top she the outside but overwhelming self-condemnation inside. I was finds a small mirror, looks into it, and sees herself. Everything I self-conscious about every single thing I did, because I wasn’t needed was myself! This was the realization she needed to cou- sure if I was doing things right. I was so aware of people’s perrageously finish the mission of saving the magical kingdom in ception of me. I constantly assessed myself and worked very danger. hard, both in work and in social life, to become the person who would deserve love and admiration, but often felt like my efAlthough it is merely a scene from a fantasy movie, the ideal of forts were never satisfying. However, the self-driven pursuit of self-reliance runs deep in our society. The idea that a great life a righteous life also produced in me a sense of pride as much as is one in which you create your own destiny, working hard to it gave me a sense of inadequacy. The more I judged myself, the overcome all obstacles and realize your potential, is fundamen- more I judged others as well. Without even realizing it, I subtal to the old American ideal of the self-made man. Self-reliance consciously wanted to believe that I was morally superior and is a prevalent principle not only in pursuing success but also in more capable of living a meaningful life than others. Whether pursuing a moral life. You define goodness for yourself and are I felt confident or doubtful about myself, I was what I relied on responsible for living up to it. If you succeed in doing so, you can and put hope in. That was burdensome and did not leave room take comfort in having lived a fairly righteous life. If you fail, you for any sincere concern for others. persevere and try harder. If others disagree with your definition of goodness, that’s too bad—what matters is that you are trying your It was these thoughts that led me to realize the biggest danger best in your own way. In the world of self-reliance, you are the of self-reliance—it is antithetical to what love looks like. C. S. beginning and the end of the pursuit of goodness.

Lewis once wrote, “to love is to be vulnerable.”1 While self-reliance tells you to trust yourself more than others, love requires For many high-achievers on college campuses, the definition of a opening up and taking the risk of trusting another person first. successful and righteous life becomes tied to the goal of making While self-reliance values independence, love requires mutual an impact in the world. For a long time, this was true for myself dependence. While self-reliance teaches you to forgive yourself as well. In high school, I dreamed of becoming the next leader and not to bother with people you find annoying, love requires who brought meaningful changes to the world. Admiring influen- the willingness to admit your wrongs and forgive the wrongs tial activists and leaders in the U.N., I dreamed of becoming the of others. Self-reliance tells you not to let others judge you but person to do something meaningful for the world, something that be your own judge. But when you create your own standard of would warrant recognition and inspire others to also live a good goodness, it is so easy to cover up your own contradictions and life. In college, this ambition attracted me to all sorts of extracur- look down on others who don’t seem to take on moral burdens ricular activities that would allow me to reach that goal. From the the same way you do. When everyone is locked up in their own UNICEF club to journalism to international service trips, I tried tower of self-righteousness, it prevents them from being vulnerto fit into groups of enlightened individuals seeking to change the able to each other.

the Illusion of Sufficiency Jiwon Lee

For me, realizing the sickness of my self-reliance became the first step in coming to recognize my need for God. The kind of contradiction I saw in myself—that I ran farther and farther away from love by trying to be good on my own—was perplexing and paralyzing. Even if I was trying to do good, I found my motivations were from self-righteousness rather than a sincere desire to put others’ needs above mine. I was like the Pharisees, who lived admirable lives but lost the humility to recognize their spiritual poverty. Just as Jesus warns to “beware of the yeast of Pharisees,” I had been inflating my ego to tell myself and prove to others that I was capable of saving myself.2 I wanted to let go of my self-righteousness but was afraid that acknowledging my brokenness would mean giving up on myself, or somehow becoming inferior and weak. But I realized that what kept me from going to the place of surrender was my pride. The satisfaction I got from self-glorification had made me so stubborn to admit my helplessness.

When I finally started to see the reality of God, I started to realize that the only “right” response was to acknowledge my wrongness.

Before the ultimate Judge who knew the depths of my heart, I was neither righteous nor self-sufficient. Before the holy and loving God, I was corrupt and hypocritical, my heart sick with my own self-centeredness. I came to see truth in the Scripture that “no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight”.3 I came to see God not as a self-help manual to live a good life, but someone I needed to ask for forgiveness and healing.

But acknowledging my helplessness was not a self-deprecating or humiliating experience. In fact, it was the most liberating. I felt free from the constant need to prove my righteousness to myself, free from my incessant desire to idolize myself, and free from the vanity of putting the ultimate hope in myself. What made this possible was not my own epiphany or determination to get over myself, but the assurance of God’s love. Jesus’s death on the cross and His resurrection were a solid demonstration that God’s love was not subject to my goodness, or lack thereof. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”.4 Christ gave Himself up for me when I was still in the depths of my brokenness and self-centeredness. The Son of God became vulnerable for me. He chose to bear

all the burdens of my brokenness and the consequences of all of my corruption so that I may be called righteous and beloved before God. God’s love was something much bigger than myself—something that remained true even if I could never even fathom it or grasp it. That kind of love was the only reason I could truly acknowledge my brokenness without fearing insecurity or falling into despair. Believing in the eternal Love poured out for all also gave me a powerful reason and security to love others. It enabled me to love not out of self-righteousness but out of the abundance of love I received. It was both liberating and empowering to put my hope in the Love that was so much more secure than myself.

As Jesus Himself said that “the truth will set you free,” what ultimately gave me freedom was being able to see the truth about who I really was and who God really was.5 I was able to see myself as corrupt and lost on my own and apart from God, rather than putting a false hope in my own goodness and wisdom.

As I was free from the worship of self, I could finally worship who is truly worthy and truly good. Looking at Christ, the Son of God who emptied Himself to the point of a humiliating death to redeem me from the sin that was crushing my soul, I found love that could truly be called beautiful. If such Love and goodness was not just a fleeting beauty that died in history but the ultimate ruler who overcame the power of death, then there was hope in the world.

Looking into the mirror didn’t really give me a lot of hope.

What I needed was looking up.

1 C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves.

2 Matthew 16:6 NIV 3 Romans 3:20 4 Romans 5:8 5 John 8:32

Jiwon Lee is a third-year PhD student studying Political Science. She is from Seoul, South Korea, and likes traveling and meeting people from different backgrounds. She enjoys having conversations about faith and worldviews.

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Freedom From; Freedom To Glen Davis

“Why would I want to bind myself?”

I had no idea where this conversation was going, and it showed on my face.

The professor continued, “Religion. It comes from the Latin word to bind. To tie up. I enjoy my freedom now – if I became religious I would lose my freedom and be bound.”

Even after his explanation I was still stymied. It was one of the first times I remember encountering someone who genuinely thought that religion was a constraining, negative thing.

I have since met enough others to realize that this is a common perspective. From what I can tell, most people who view religion as restrictive believe that becoming religious involves adding burdensome rules to their lives. They think that upon conversion they will receive a set of moral strictures designed to kill their joy: do not do this, do not do that.

My experience has been very different. If religion binds me, it has been the binding that tethers a kite to the ground and allows it to soar. I remember realizing as a child that the only way a kite could fly was on a string. Whenever I let it go— thereby giving it maximal freedom— it simply fell to the ground. The constraint of the string unlocked a capacity in the kite.

We are more complex than kites, but the same principle applies: constraints can empower us.

If you want the freedom to excel on the Olympic stage, you must submit to the instructions of a coach and forgo many experiences that your friends indulge in, and if you want the freedom to sing beautifully and entrance a crowd you must rehearse.

Accept the right constraints upon your life and you will soar; seek the wrong freedom and you will crash like a kite.

Jesus famously said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”1 A yoke attaches two animals together and enables them to pull a cart or a plow more effectively. It is a constraint that empowers. Jesus’ easy yoke and light burden is made available to those who feel weary and burdened— those who have begun to realize what a friend of mine told me long ago: “Before I became a Christian I never had a sin problem. When I wanted to sin, I sinned. No problem! It wasn’t until I tried to stop that I realized I couldn’t. I had never been free at all. I had been a slave to my desires.”

My friend found freedom in Christ, as have I. But which kind of freedom? Isaiah Berlin famously discussed two conceptions of freedom: negative liberty and positive liberty. Think of negative liberty as “freedom from” and positive liberty as “freedom to.”

You can have one without the other: a bird has the capacity to fly (it has positive liberty) but may be trapped in a cage (it lacks negative liberty). I, on the other hand, am not in a cage (I have negative liberty) but I cannot fly (I lack positive liberty). Neither the bird nor I can fly, but for different reasons.

The professor from my opening story wanted negative liberty. He wanted to live free from

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the external constraints that religion would impose upon him. I want freedom from constraints, too. However, even if I were to gain all the negative liberty in the world— if I had no external constraints limiting my choices— I would still lack the ability to fly.

Negative liberty means I can make any choice from among my options. It does not give me new options to consider.

The rules that my interlocutor feared because they would encroach upon his negative liberty were rules meant to grant him positive liberty. If he had embraced them, he would have discovered that the rules became part of the experience of his freedom. The rules governing marriage in Christianity have made me a better husband and father. The rules about how we should treat others have made me a better friend and neighbor. The rules governing generosity have made me a better member of my community. Every constraint my faith has imposed upon me has wound up empowering me. In fact, there is an entire literature on the wide-ranging benefits of religion including a remarkable seven additional years of life for those who attend worship services weekly.2 It is true that when we have negative liberty we can do what we want, but that is a twoedged sword. Some of what we want is good and wonderful, but some of it is not. We too often want the sin that harms us and others.

Jesus warned us, “everyone who sins is a slave to sin”.3 In other words, our pursuit of freedom away from God results in enslavement. Fortunately, Jesus offers to set us free from this captivity. Paul told the Corinthians “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom,”4 and he reminded the Galatians “it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.”5 God is not into rules for the sake of rules. His rules always have a purpose. Understanding this (even if we don’t understand the purpose of the rules) makes following them an invitation to freedom. I am often struck by the fact “you are free” are God’s first words to Adam.6 Back in Eden there was only one rule. God had to multiply rules when we began acting in foolish ways that hurt us and others. The rules help us escape the harm that such sin brings.

When I was learning to swing a golf club I learned many rules. “Position my front foot slightly ahead of the ball; keep my arms straight but relaxed; keep my knees slightly bent” and so on. But the goal was never to follow the rules— the goal was to drive the ball where I wanted it to go. The rules served a purpose. And as I practiced I internalized the rules and began to experience the joy of seeing the ball sail down the fairway. When the rules became habits I experienced freedom on the golf course.

And so to my interlocutor who asked me, “Why would I want to bind myself?” I offer this response: the freedom you crave is not merely freedom from constraint, it is freedom to become. Jesus commands us to embrace constraints that will guide us into the freedom we long for, and I can gladly affirm alongside the apostle John that “his commands are not burdensome.”7 When you accept them, you will soar like a kite in this life, and then in the age to come you will, as the prophet said, “soar on wings like eagles.”8 1Matthew 11:28-30 NIV 2Robert A. Hummer, et al. “Religious Involvement and U.S. Adult Mortality.” Demography 36, no. 2 (1999): 273-85. http://www. jstor.org.stanford.idm.oclc.org/stable/2648114. More recently, Shanshan Li, et al. “Association of Religious Service Attendance With Mortality Among Women.” JAMA Internal Medicine 176, no. 6 (2016): 777. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.1615 found that women who attended worship services weekly were 33% less likely to die from any cause in the subsequent 16 year follow-up period of the study.

3 John 8:34 42 Corinthians 3:17 5Galatians 5:1 6Genesis 2:16

71 John 5:3

8Isaiah 40:31

Glen Davis, an ordained Assemblies of God minister, has been the advisor of Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship at Stanford since 2002. He blogs at theglendavis.com and is on Twitter @theglendavis.

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how much is a li

justice, forgivenes “How much is a little girl worth?”

The question was turned to, again and again, in a Michigan courtroom where tears and bravery had interwoven for days on end. It was directed to a judge, a packed room, a national audience—and one man.

Larry Nassar—once a respected, world-renowned physician for young gymnasts at Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics—was that man. The question shot towards him with a piercing velocity, a revealing blaze, after 155 women had told their stories at the sentencing hearing of a man convicted of seven counts of criminal sexual conduct. These 155 women were victims: former gymnasts and patients under the care of Dr. Nassar, a man who, for decades, had leveraged his status and position to molest young girls, some as young as six years old. The women came forward with courage, force, and a relentless energy which would not rest until they had been heard— until justice had won.

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From the Christian perspective—from any perspective, really— these are powerful and important words. Denhollander suffered multiple instances of sexual assault at the hands of a man with depraved pleasures and desires. But perplexingly, she prayed that the same man might receive forgiveness from God. She even extended her own forgiveness, not long after noting that the man “sought out and took pleasure” in violating her and so many others. And she did all of this through an empowering and galvanizing faith, which allowed her to call Nassar’s actions evil, “because I know what goodness is.”

For many Christians in America, this was a humbling demonstration of God’s love and mercy. It was a declaration of God’s moral truths (in the denunciation of Nassar’s acts) and God’s sacrificial love (in the forgiveness even of heinous sins). It was an inspiring example of world-healing faith.

But it all ended with a question, put forth by the 156th woman.

Standing before the courtroom, after days of testimony, Rachel Denhollander spoke with a stoic power. She was a victim, too: as a 15-year-old gymnast with chronic back injuries, she had been assaulted by Nassar, at times with her unknowing mother in the room. But in January of 2018, as a 33-year-old attorney and mother of three children, she was not running from her assailant; she was in steadfast pursuit. In pursuit of something which was, in her words, the very underpinning of our criminal justice system: “the pursuit of justice and the protection of the innocent.”

But that is not all it was. For all the attention paid to Denhollander’s faith and forgiveness, some forget why she was actually in the courtroom: to support “the maximum possible sentence” possible for Dr. Nassar. She was there to make a statement that evil cannot go unpunished. And she was there to join her voice with the countless individuals who suffered so long in silence, and still suffer, and will suffer, until our communities and systems can better protect against sexual assault. She was there as a lawyer, a woman, a mother. And she was there as a Christian, pulling together the enormous pillars of justice and forgiveness, truth and reconciliation, and ideals and action, calling for a lifetime sentence and eternal mercy.

One hardly knows where to begin with Denhollander. Casual news-watchers will recognize the lawyer’s face, as her testimony went viral for its sharpness and tremulous power. Followers of the #MeToo movement will know her as a heroine of sorts: the last victim to speak at Nassar’s sentencing, but also the first to publicly accuse him. Others will recognize her for an impressive and uncompromising intelligence, made clear through her testimony, interviews, and writing in outlets like the New York Times. Yet Christians, and those interested in Christian ideals of justice, have had a unique relationship to Denhollander and her truths.

Thinking of Denhollander’s narrative and testimony, some prefer to recognize her as a fearless leader—a “five-star general,” as the presiding judge put it—for an army of justice. Others prefer to see her as an icon of unconditional forgiveness, of undeserved mercy. But Denhollander is neither of these things. She is an amalgam of courage and mercy, but she is also a self-aware prophet: calling out broken love and incomplete justice, calling for a deeper understanding of what justice actually looks like.

Confronted with Denhollander’s complex pursuit, we recognize that justice is much more than a two-syllable word.

Denhollander is a devout Christian, and her pursuit of justice in that courtroom was tied deeply to her faith. “I pray you experience the soul-crushing weight of guilt,” she said to Nassar during her 36-minute testimony, “so that you may someday experience true repentance and true forgiveness from God.”

“I have found it very interesting,” Denhollander said in an interview with a Christian news organization, after her testimony catapulted her to national prominence, “that every single Christian publication or speaker that has mentioned my statement has only ever focused on the aspect of forgiveness.” As a mother and former victim, Denhollander never found it easy to discuss

ttle girl worth:

s, & sexual assault

Aldis Petriceks

sexual assault, let alone face the man who assaulted her. But as a Christian, this was the more confusing difficulty. This was her narrative appropriated, transformed, made to seem as if her call for justice was simply a cry for amnesty. Certainly, one realizes that amnesty is not necessarily evil (consider South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established in the wake of apartheid), but neither is it the central end of justice. Accountability and restitution are necessary, too.

Indeed, the Psalmist goes far in lamenting unrectified injustice, pleading that God might “break the arm of the wicked and evildoers,” and “seek out their wickedness until you find none” (Psalm 10:15, NRSV). And even as Christ preaches forgiveness and chastises certain forms of human judgement, he himself comes to bring justice: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17, NRSV).

cent—and how they could ever entwine with mercy and forgiveness. She will arrive with her wisdom, her experience, but also with her tensions. She, and all those listening, will wrestle with a crucial question for our modern moment: What does true justice look like, and is there room for mercy? Through the forum event, hosted by Veritas at Stanford, this campus will tap into that universal question. Views will be challenged; disagreements will arise; and hopefully, by the end, we will come a little closer to healing our scars—whether they be cultural, collective, or deeply and painfully personal.

But before we get there, we will return to Denhollander’s original question: “How much is a little girl worth?” To this courageous woman, this person of powerful faith, the answer is clear.

A little girl is made in the very image of God, and she is worth everything. That is why the difficult questions—the fuzzy definitions of justice, truth, mercy, forgiveness—deserve real and

“...she was there to join her voice with the countless individuals who suffered so long in silence...pulling together the enormous pillars of justice and forgiveness, truth and reconciliation, ideals and action, calling for a lifetime sentence and eternal mercy...”

In focusing solely on forgiveness, then, we paint a monolithic portrait of a just world. But at the same time, Denhollander’s testimony implies that true justice will somehow involve—or necessitate—true forgiveness. “I release bitterness and anger and desire for personal vengeance,” she said in the same interview with that Christian news outlet, “[but that] does not mean that I minimize or mitigate or excuse what he has done.”

Denhollander is doing something remarkable here. She is putting forth a vision of justice which is both nuanced and uncompromising. A vision which includes love for the offender, but an unflinching love; a love which will not, cannot, look the other way.

A love which extends justice, eternal forgiveness, while telling victims “that what was done to us matters, that we are known, we are worth everything.” That is a lofty vision—perhaps impossible in today’s imperfect world— but it is one worth pursuing.

In February of 2019, Denhollander will arrive at Stanford to discuss her dual pursuits— justice and protection of the inno-

continued attention. Because the victims are broken; the offenders are broken; and all these scars will continue to grow if we let them.

As Veritas at Stanford moves through this new year, we will look into old scars and ancient questions. We will look at our own brokenness, the brokenness of our justice systems, of our ideals, and wonder how we could piece it all together. We will struggle with our failings, our silences, our biases and indiscretions. Potentially, we will face frightening indictments of our collective shortcomings. But ours is a worthwhile endeavor; and like Denhollander’s question, we will return to it, again and again.

Aldis Petriceks is a research assistant at the School of Medicine. He writes a blog about illness and disability for the Palo Alto Online, and is a member of Veritas at Stanford.

He enjoys long runs through campus, and worships every Sunday at Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto.

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before He before He formed me in the womb, He knew me He set me apart, gave me wings, and gave me the freedom to fly i could fly high, i could fly low i could fly from paradise and no one would know i could fly right into the arms of sin and away from Him

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Kevin Khieu and i did as He becomes a speck of dust behind me, the lights grow dim, the winds grow stronger, and a storm brews within my wings grow frail but i lie to myself convince myself i can do this myself it is dark it is dark and i am blind i cannot see my wings are frail and i let myself

f

a

l

l

i was never free as i slip my wings rip, feather by feather, the end is near i close my eyes - but His voice i hear He catches me and within His arms i finally know what it means to be free free will

Lorena Orozco is a freshman planning on majoring in Human Biology and minoring in Creative Writing. Her hair is three feet long and gets stuck in doors and almost makes her fall.

Belief, Faith, & Postmodernism: a mathematician reflects on the nature of belief and Andi Wang the postmodern critique of reason What comes to mind when you hear the word “postmodernism”? Perhaps you think of slightly strange, unconventional, largely unintelligible art. Perhaps you think of the sorry state of the humanities in our universities. Or perhaps, if you’re a Christian, you think of postmodernism as the radical intellectual movement which seeks to deny all notions of “truth” and usher in an era of absolute relativism.

I have read several Christian authors in this latter category.

Aware of the detrimental impact of absolute relativism, they repudiate all postmodern thought with the simple catch-22 of “how can postmodernism be universally true if there are no universal truths?” This caricature does little justice to postmodern thought, and it ignores a surprising reality: many aspects of postmodern thought are deeply valuable for the Christian faith.

Postmodern thought offers a devastating critique of the hubris of the Enlightenment, science, and secular notions of "progress," which are very much in line with traditional Christian thought.

But more on that anon.

And thus, given all that I had heard, I wanted to formulate a concise, coherent set of logical arguments explaining why I held my Christian faith. I wanted to be able to start with my experience in the world and unquestionable axioms, and logically arrive at the conclusion that God was real, and that the Christian faith was true.

I eventually reached a point where I was reasonably happy with myself; I rested the brunt of my argument on the historicity of the resurrection – phenomena such as the empty tomb, post-Easter encounters with the risen Lord, and the fact that Christianity started in the first place (most messianic movements tend to fizzle out when their leader gets crucified).

And so, I thought, my desire to come up with a purely rational basis for my faith was successful; I was happy with it and got on with my life.

However, in hindsight, I now see that my previous desire— to construct a purely rational basis for my faith— was fundamentally In this essay I will highlight a few valuable postmodern insights, flawed. such as its scathing rebuke of the Enlightenment obsession with pure rationality and “mere facts.” Far from being antagonistic to I believe my previous approach was flawed for three main reasons: the life of faith, such insights are genuinely valuable and edifying First, this approach doesn’t work when trying to convince others for Christian self-understanding, thereby helping Christians to of the reasonableness of the Christian faith. Second, this approach live more integrated and holistic lives. I will then contend briefly isn’t actually how our minds work when it comes to our fundawith the postmodern critique of Christianity, which claims that mental beliefs. Lastly, the implicit underlying narrative— that raChristianity is yet another tool wielded to dominate and subju- tionality and reason are the final arbiters of Truth— is severely gate. undermined by the postmodern movement.

MY STORY

1. INEFFECTIVENESS IN DISCOURSE

I am a mathematician by training and have always had a logical Firstly, an account of Christianity based purely on reason is inefmind. Faced with an obstacle, my default modus operandi is to fective in discourse with those of other beliefs. think it through systematically, and then having weighed up the options, to proceed methodically and thoughtfully.

I wonder if you have ever tried to convince a friend that Christianity is "true" using historical evidence or philosophical arguments.

And so, when the time came as an adolescent for me to start If you have, you’ll know one thing for sure: it doesn’t work. For evquestioning my largely Christian upbringing, my natural incli- ery piece of historical evidence you give me for the resurrection of nation was to try and think it through logically.

Jesus, I can come up with an alternative explanation which is certainly more "plausible" than a man rising from the dead. For every I came across some apologetics resources and attended some philosophical argument "proving" God’s existence I can probably talks. I heard about the evidence for the resurrection of Christ find a logical fallacy in there somewhere. and the abundance of early Christian documents pointing to the reliability of the New Testament. I heard some philosophical ar- And even if you could win some such intellectual argument, and guments for God’s existence, some of which were terrible and gave your interlocutor reason to believe that Jesus rose from the some reasonably convincing. Overall, I felt reassured that the dead, they certainly would not be a Christian, which requires daifaith I held was reasonable. ly taking up one’s cross and not mere intellectual assent.

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Fundamentally, the reason these intellectual arguments for Christianity cannot prevail is because of the second point: reason and rationality are not how we reach our fundamental beliefs.

2. THE IRRATIONALITY OF THE HUMAN MIND The thought processes we utilize for our deepest-held beliefs are profoundly irrational. In reality, when we make decisions— which car to buy, which apartment to move into, which school to go to— we don’t stack up pros and cons and "objectively" weigh them up.

We have some instinctive, visceral preference towards one option, and we use our reasoning faculty to retrospectively justify our instinctive decision.

This is precisely the case with our worldview positions. When I was younger, set on finding a rational justification for my faith, I was in a position where I already wanted to believe, and merely wanted to find evidence to justify my a priori decision.

I recently heard of a helpful analogy from the American psychologist and professor Jonathan Haidt.

He argues that when it comes to beliefs, we are like men riding on elephants. The man atop the elephant represents our rational intellect, our thinking minds. The elephant he rides upon represents our deeper, irrational selves. Intellectual arguments about faith then, are like trying to reason with the elephant rider. No matter how much you argue with the rider, unless the elephant is coming your way, they aren’t going to move an inch towards you. On the other hand, if you appeal to the elephant, the more fundamental, non-rational part, and you find that the elephant is inclined towards you, even the gentlest encouragement to the rider is enough to bring man and beast coming your way.

Anyone who says they looked at the evidence for Christianity and found it overwhelming will already have decided in their heart they want to believe.

And so, given rationality isn’t why I actually believed in the first place, formulating a purely rational basis for my faith now seems disingenuous at best.

3. POSTMODERNISM AND THE INSUFFICIENCY OF PURE RATIONALITY Moreover, in addition to being ineffective in discourse as well as betraying how our minds actually work, a purely intellectual ba-

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sis for the Christian faith fails to take into account the postmodern critique of the Enlightenment, which is worthy of Christians’ attention. Here I note my intellectual debt to The Passionate Intellect by Klassen and Zimmerman.1 The Enlightenment movement of the 17th-century sought to elevate Reason and Rationality as the firm foundation on which to build human knowledge, and thus all of reality. Freed from the shackles of religion and mysticism, science and reason were allowed to flourish. And flourish they did: all of the wondrous technology, medicine and comforts we enjoy today are products of the Enlightenment project.

Elevating science and reason have produced buildings hundreds of meters tall and planes that fly faster than sound. Material poverty is decreasing at an astonishing rate globally and people are more connected than ever. The success of the Enlightenment project gave us a utopian Modernist vision for the future: because of advances of science and technology, we will one day achieve Heaven on Earth!

But at what cost?

The science and technology which brought cars and fridges also brought nuclear bombs and gas chambers. The industrialisation which brought us cheap phones and laptops has also given us the mass production of weapons and has exploited millions. The amazing connectedness of the internet has produced a generation addicted to social media and all of the insecurity, discontentment, and anxiety it brings.

The postmodern movement points out to us that this Modernist meta-narrative— that technology is the saviour of the human race— is a socially-constructed story which inevitably excludes other meta-narratives.

And thus, the desire of postmodernism isn’t a desire for complete relativism, but a firm commitment to recognize the other as fundamentally different than oneself.

The postmodern critique goes further than merely criticising the Enlightenment; it applies to all meta-narratives, including religious ones, and argues that they have all been used as tools of oppression. For the postmodernist, the ultimate vice is to try and apply one's meta-narrative to someone else – be that the Western Enlightenment meta-narrative, or the Christian meta-narrative – doing so is nothing more than a masked

attempt to dominate and subjugate someone else. You can see now the roots of the desire to be ‘tolerant’ and ‘inclusive’; the desire for equality among ethnicities, genders, identities...

So what about rationality and faith?

And so, what about my attempt to rationally justify my faith?

The postmodern movement reminds me that this obsession with ‘objective evidence’ and the belief that rationality and reason are ultimate notions of Truth are themselves social constructs.

For the modernist, because of the split of science and faith, either something occurred ‘naturally’ or there was some supernatural intervention. The notion of God’s immanence, of his presence in and working through all things, especially ‘natural’ ones, has been lost to the modernist.

For the modernist, a given story either happened historically, factually, as described, or it’s false, a mere fabrication. The idea that there are other ways for stories to be ‘true’ aside from historically or factually true has been lost to the modernist. Indeed, I believe that the study of history itself should not be about merely “ascertaining what happened in the past”, but rather about learning about the past so that we can improve our future.

For the modernist, mathematics, science and technology are the pillars of human society, but art, literature, music and creative expression are merely things one does on the side. Creating beautiful art, poetry, or creative performance are fine for the privileged few, but certainly have no place at the table among the “serious” disciplines of the sciences.

These issues are all side-effects when Enlightenment thought is applied to matters of life and faith.

So where do we go from here?

All of us are (grand)children of the Enlightenment. The very air we have breathed growing up and the values we have subconsciously imbibed have all been influenced by Modernist thought. But I want us to wake up to the limitations of Modernity. To appreciate how it has vastly improved human life, but not to accept its eschatology (we will ultimately be saved by science and technology). Historically, despite its later splitting of science and faith, modernity itself was birthed from the Christian worldview: it was the Christian insistence on one God who created and sustained all, and who created us in His image which gave man the confidence to pursue science in the first place. (Nietzsche then exactly predicted that after the success of science, the tools of empiricism and rationality would then be ironically turned on Christianity itself, and the very worldview that birthed it would be judged and found wanting.)

What would it look like in practice to take these considerations into account? I realize that the foundation of my belief is no longer some philosophical argument or pure historical evidence—

although those things are useful. I am no longer ashamed to say I am a follower of Jesus predominantly because I am drawn to him as described in the Gospels and the vision of humanity he envisaged (Matthew 5-7). I am a follower of Jesus because I have experienced his forgiveness and the peace that only he can give.

I am a follower of Jesus because I want to be part of the New Creation which is coming, and spend my life working to bring about God’s kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.

Pushing against my instinctively over-logical nature challenges me that being a Christian isn’t about merely professing the right things, but living them out.2 In Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov the pious Alyosha finds himself unable to defend his Christian beliefs against his brother Ivan’s savage intellectual assault. Having admitted intellectual defeat, Alyosha rises and kisses Ivan. Genuine faith is more about actions than about ideas. I have argued that the postmodern movement gives us reason to push against the distorted meta-narrative of Modernism. But can Christianity itself survive the postmodern critique? Postmodernism attacks meta-narratives because they are wielded to force conformity and suppress those who dissent.

Any given meta-narrative is merely a subjective, one-sided view of the world, thoroughly entrenched in a specific time and culture and therefore ultimately meaningless.

But what if there were a worldview which could counter those postmodern claims? A worldview that was fundamentally other-centered? What if there were a meta-narrative in which victory is not achieved by conquest but by self-sacrifice and service? What if there were a worldview in which the Mighty stoop down and wash the feet of those below? What if there were a worldview in which the ultimate transcendent Other interacted with and through culture? What if there were a worldview which repeatedly, doggedly insisted that the poor and oppressed are to be treated fairly? What if there were a worldview in which the blessed are not those with power, but those who are meek, mourning, and broken? A worldview when the first are last and the last are first.

Let me end with words of the Lord Jesus from Mark 10: “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”3 1 Normal Klassen & Jens Zimmermann, The Passionate Intellect (Ada, MI: Baker Academic), 2006.

2Matthew 7:15ff.

3 Mark 10:43-45 NIV.

Andi Wang is currently working towards his DPhil in Statistics at the University of Oxford, looking at the mathematical properties of certain modern statistical algorithms.

Andi was a visiting scholar in the Management Science & Engineering department at Stanford in Spring 2018. Outside of mathematics and church, Andi loves badminton, reading and board games.

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freedom from condemnation Rinchu Mathew

The Bible teaches that God saw that I could not solve the problem of being an imperfect, sinful being. So He sent His own son, Jesus, to this earth, that I could believe in Him and not perish but have eternal life.1 My access to God’s presence is not on my own merit, but because Jesus Christ chose to accept the penalty of my sin and died for me. This is a cornerstone of the Christian life – and hence it is a fact that is often under attack. As a Christian, I’ve noticed that I can let this reality subtly lose its place of importance. And the way I see it happen most often is when I am tempted to be condemned.

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When I fall short of God’s holiness, i.e. when I disobey a command of God, the way I react to it shows if I truly believe that God is the one who solves my problem of sin. For example, when I lose my temper and call a friend a fool, the Bible says I’ve committed a serious sin.2 How should I react to this? When I do fall into this sin, I could hear a voice telling me that I should be ashamed of myself. I couldn’t possibly go back to God to ask for His forgiveness. If I did, He would be mad at me. I should have known better. How long will I keep fighting this sin of anger? And so, I slump down and sit discouraged that I fell into sin. This is condemnation.

Is this the right way to react to sin in my life? Definitely not. Let’s break it down. Does God want to show me that I’ve sinned? Yes! The Bible teaches that it is a sign of God’s kindness that He shows me when I’ve fallen and that it is His kindness that leads me to repentance.3 I want to be a recipient of that kindness as often as possible. As students, we’re always looking for ways to grow, picking up new skills and seeking to become better than we were yesterday. Spiritually, it’s the same - God wants me to become more and more like Jesus, growing in victory over sin.4 The first step in moving in this direction is being convicted of my sins, repenting and turning back to God. So I do want to be convicted of my sins.

But what then? When I am convicted by God, condemnation comes in if I think of God as a grouchy old judge staring down at me, demanding an explanation for why I fell. I could think that He wants to know what gives me the gall to come to him and ask for forgiveness. For the umpteenth time. For the very same sin! So I keep myself distant from Him, which leads me to be both discouraged and condemned. The fact that I let myself react this way shows that I believe God is a grouchy old judge. But this would be an absolutely twisted view of God. Jesus told us a beautiful story to explain to us how God reacts when I come back to Him after falling into sin. In the renowned parable of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15, a rich young man takes his inheritance, leaves his family and blows his entire inheritance by being extravagantly wasteful. But when he hits rock bottom, he comes to his senses. He realizes the stupidity of what he has done, gets back up, and decides to go back home to beg for forgiveness.

On the way home, he thinks up an elaborate apology, which includes him working for his father as a servant, since he no longer feels worthy to be called a son. But before he gets home, his father sees him— and runs out to meet him! The Father embraces His son in a warm bear hug and does not even let the young man finish his apology. The Father dresses him in the best robes, adorns him with the finest rings and throws a magnificent party to celebrate that His son is back.

When I sin, I am like this rich young man. I chose to please myself in some way and disobey God. Thus, I show myself out of God’s presence, out of the home that I should be in. But in His kindness, when I see the stupidity of what I’ve done and come back to Him, He doesn’t scold me. He welcomes me back with the most loving embrace. He throws the most extravagant of parties for me. His voice is not one that condemns me, but one that lovingly welcomes me back. He might correct me later, but that is only after He has welcomed me back. In the story that Jesus tells right before this, He says that there is celebration in heaven when I choose to turn away from my sin and come back to God.5 God isn’t a grouchy old judge. He is a loving Father waiting for me to come back to my rightful place—in His home. And He pops the champagne when I get back!

The Bible teaches that if I confess my sins, He is faithful and just to forgive me.6 When I come back to God and repent of my sin, He reminds me of His faithfulness and tells me that He forgives me. Not because I deserve it, but because He has said He would.

He is faithful to keep His word. This verse also says that God is

just in forgiving me because the price for my sins has been paid for by the death of Jesus. God is not unjust to make me pay for something that has already been bought. If I continue living as though I am not forgiven, I am calling God a liar. I am saying that He is neither faithful nor just.

This is not a small accusation - it comes from my evil heart of unbelief.7 It sounds harsh, but this is how the Bible describes a heart that does not trust God for what He says He will do – an evil heart! It is evil for me to doubt the sufficiency of the ultimate sacrifice that was made for me – Jesus’ dying for me!

It is evil to assume that I need to add to that sacrifice so that I can come back into God’s presence. In light of the magnitude of His sacrifice, it is evil for me to think that giving myself a time out or beating myself up is going to help me get right with God. It is evil for me to doubt His word that He is faithful and just to forgive me if I confess my sins to Him. All I need to do is repent, turn to Him, and accept the unfathomable freedom that comes with His forgiveness. The Bible uses vivid images to help me appreciate how great this forgiveness is: He has removed my sins from me as far as the east is from the west.8 The God who knows everything in this universe, from the start to the end, says that He chooses not to remember.9 His forgiveness cleanses my scarlet, stained soul to be as white as snow.10 He crushes all my sins under His feet and casts them into the depths of the sea.11 He is abundant in His forgiveness.12 He is neither stingy nor reluctant to forgive me.

If I let condemnation keep me away from God, I’m doubling the effect of my sin. Not only am I letting my sin separate me from God, I’m also choosing to keep myself away from my loving Father. God does not give time outs. He wants me to come running right back to Him as soon as I realize that I’ve fallen away.

Sin is serious. God doesn’t wink at it. He wants us to deal with it ruthlessly. But when we do, He forgives us thoroughly. We ought not to insult the sacrifice that Jesus made for us by condemning ourselves for our forgiven past. Let us be fully assured that our past sins are wiped away, be free from condemnation, and walk forward in the assurance that God has great plans for us.13 May we live a life free from condemnation. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.14 1 John 3:16 4 Romans 8:29 7 Hebrews 3:12 10 Isaiah 1:18 13 Jeremiah 29:11

2 Matthew 5:22 5 Luke 15:10 8 Psalm 103:12 11 Micah 7:19 14 Romans 8:1

3 Romans 2:4 6 1 John 1:9 9 Hebrews 8:12 12 Isaiah 55:7

Rinchu is a Christian who does research on developing nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery and diagnostics as his form of tent making. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemical Engineering.

He does his best to spend each day in simple devotion to God and doing exactly what his heavenly Father asks him to do. He is a member of New Covenant Christian Fellowship (nccf.church) and seeks to do his part in building this local expression of the Body of Christ.

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Taking Up the Cross Perhaps the most terrifying verse in the Bible is Matthew 16:24. Jesus tells his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (ESV). The Lord of the universe looks at his followers, knowing that he is to suffer crucifixion, death, and rejection by both man and God—and he tells them to walk the same road.

Regardless of your beliefs, it’s clear that Jesus’s call here is costly. Yet even though I am a Christian, I rarely choose to submit myself to suffering. Instead, I plan most of my days to maximize my happiness. When I inevitably experience disappointment and pain, I feel angry or disillusioned. I know that Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us that God has “plans for [our] welfare and not for evil, to give [us] a future and a hope.” So why would our good God call us to suffering?

C.S. Lewis offers one explanation in The Problem of Pain: we’ve misdefined God’s love as simply kindness. God’s goodness, Lewis argues, is “something more stern and splendid than mere kindness.”[i] It is love. Love cares for the perfection of its object, not just its placid contentment.

Put another way: all Stanford students understand, to some extent, the importance of short-term suffering to accomplish a long-term goal. Every day I hear another story of sacrifice for the sake of academic and career success. Each student here has had to give up time, energy, sleep, money, attention, and more to make it this far—and the demands just keep coming.

Our problem isn’t our willingness to dedicate our resources to a long-term cause. Our problem is that we’ve chosen the wrong cause.

At Stanford, some of us are sacrificing on the altar of self-fulfillment, thinking that if we curate our Instagram accounts and attend guided meditations, we will finally feel whole. Some of us are worshipping at the temple of social achievement, suffering too many sleepless nights and hungover mornings in order to feel accepted. Most of us are slaves to success, pushing back time with friends and God to prep for exams and trawl LinkedIn for job opportunities, striving to find security.

Though they promise happiness, security, or fulfillment, all these things are ultimately transient. GPAs lose relevance, jobs end, and relationships falter. The only real hope we can have is in something eternal.

C.S. Lewis puts it this way in his essay, “The Weight of Glory”: “If we consider … the staggering nature of the rewards

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Erika DePalatis

promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”[ii] The promise of the Christian faith is, as Lewis observes, “staggering.” This God offers something that our misguided pursuit of happiness cannot—eternal union with Him. The sacrifice of His son pays our debts and welcomes us into a new life of “infinite joy.”

God’s promise is what our hearts have been longing for. But, as Lewis says, we are far, far too easily pleased. We deprioritize faith and pursue other, lesser forms of happiness instead, closing ourselves off from experiencing true joy. How often do we fail to take time daily to pray or read the Bible because we see homework, class, or sleep as more urgent? How many lonely, needy people do we breeze by on our way to class or brush off with excuses of busyness? How often do we actually expect Him to speak or work in and through us?

This is why Christians are called to sacrifice: because real faith is not something you just stumble into. Real faith doesn’t just happen without investment of effort or time: we must sacrifice. And the sacrifice Jesus asks of us is nothing less than sharing in his death on the cross by dying to self and living a radically other-centered life. Admittedly, this new life is full of suffering, but “this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”[iii] So consider the cross. Consider Jesus’s claim that following Him requires self-denial and sacrifice. Does your life reflect the same commitment to costly faith by living for others?

1C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: HarperCollins, 1977), 32.

2C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”, Theology 43, no. 257 (1941): 263.

32 Corinthians 4:17-18 ESV.

Erika DePalatis is a senior majoring in English and minoring in Italian. She is an active member of RUF and Christian Union, and attends Grace Presbyterian Church on Sundays. When she’s not reading with a cup of tea close at hand, you can find her enjoying runs around campus, having philosophical discussions with friends, or sketching.

Soft Rains The earth bears the faรงade of a warm mother; for a fruitless vineyard has no promise more enduring than death.

And yet your word never returns darkness for night.

First the trickle of a soft whisper followed by the flood of rushing waters toiling ceaselessly relentlessly softening the barren sands of a hardened heart.

A shattered kaleidoscope of fragmented life your loving tears raising the dead to life.

Moving earth and breaking mountains so that no thing can separate this seed from the sun.

Stephen Sills is a first-year undergraduate student (a.k.a. a wee freshman) studying Economics and Philosophy. He is from the El Sereno area of East Los Angeles, and in addition to all things chess and anime, he enjoys reading and writing creative science fiction, philosophy, and politics. Those who know him know where to look.

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Lessons in

Anxiety Katie Ferrick

For me, anxiety manifests itself subtly in the daily humdrum: emails, planning experiments, asking questions in class, etc.

Problematically, it emerges more prominently in times of acute stress, the most recent being the qualifying exam for my PhD program. All manner of family, friends, and the well-intentioned reassured me: “You’ll be fine, do your best, and don’t worry about it.”

If only I believed them. How do I overcome anxiety, especially when it seems ingrained into my personality? How do I speak truth to myself when my fears are so much louder? Counseling and other support structures inform the way we approach and cope with stress,1 but I think the Christian faith also has a lot to offer about anxiety and how we handle it.

A Christian perspective on anxiety The Bible asserts that anxiety “tends only to evil,” which I certainly observed in myself.2 Persistent worrying about the qualifying exam deteriorated into obsessive redrafting of my proposal and I felt like I couldn’t trust the reassurances of my friends and colleagues. I reasoned that if I worked harder, I would somehow overcome the stress and have everything under control. Obviously, this never happened.

Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples, has the shortest prayer of the Bible: “Lord, save me.”3 Peter had been with the other disciples on a boat when Jesus approaches them, walking on the water. Peter asks Jesus to prove his identity by calling Peter to walk on the water too. Several things happen in quick succession. Peter is walking to Jesus, but notices the wind, becomes afraid, and starts to sink. This is when Peter cries out. Jesus immediately reaches out to pull Peter back up.

Fear and anxiety tempt us to take our eyes off Jesus, so that we too forget that he is right next to us and instead look to the rising winds and waters. That’s when we begin to sink. Jesus pinpoints the root of Peter’s fear, saying, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”4 Anxiety, too, is a lack of faith as we doubt God or fear that His plans for us might include failure or sacrifice. Yet, there is comfort that. Even while sinking, we can call out to Jesus for

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immediate rescue. Jesus pulls us out of our failing attempts at keeping ourselves afloat.

Combating the shame spiral I recognize anxiety as illogical feelings that I should be able to manage by now. Yet, shame traps me in self-loathing and fear over continuing this vicious cycle of anxiety. I thought I had finally figured out stress management, but preparing for my qualifying exam unearthed many buried and festering doubts. Is my “best” good enough for Stanford? Do I have what it takes to pursue a career in academia? Am I pursuing research for the right reasons? Why can’t I cope with stress like a normal person? The questions kept going.

I realized that fears were guiding me, rather than God. After finishing my qualifying exam, I was consumed with shame over my anxiety rather than relief at passing. I felt like a fraud in my Christian identity and forever trapped in patterns of anxiety.

God has since provided much grace through the writings of the apostle Paul to the early Christians. I found that I was not unique in my struggle of faith and fear. Paul touches upon the utterly human dilemma of desiring God’s will yet having impulses that hinder our attempts to be fully obedient. Paul remarks, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing … I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin.”5 There is a frustrated tension between the desire to follow God faithfully and the reality of being on earth and surrounded by its idols (e.g., success, acceptance, and security). But, by grace, Jesus delivers us from condemnation into the love of God.6 As Paul states in another letter, we therefore put behind us the shame of the past and “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”7 Our eyes remain on Christ.

It is easy to trap ourselves in guilt over our emotional baggage, thinking that our submission to fear disqualifies us from a full and rich relationship with God. But in subscribing to this type of thought, we miss out on the beauty of God’s redemption of our

struggles and the maturation of our faith in Him. For our faith in God is not stagnant, but, like a precious metal, “is refined through fire.”8 As writer and theologian C. S. Lewis states, “After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again … we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven.”9 Moving forward in grace Anxiety is persistent and requires daily submission to God. For those who are also struggling with fear and doubt, I offer a few pieces of God’s grace to consider: 1) God is with us in our trials.

As a chronic worrier, I like to learn from fellow worriers in the Bible. The prophet Moses was born to enslaved Israelites yet raised

by Egyptian royalty and ostracized by both sets of people. When God calls Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery, he asks, “Who am I that I should...bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”10 The awesome response of God was: “But I will be with you.”11 The assurance comes not from Moses’ identity (living in pseudo-exile at the time) or his qualifications (not a confident speaker or leader), but from God’s presence and authority. Clearly, when God calls us to do something beyond our ability, it is not our own strengths or weaknesses that matter, but the fact that God is there with us.

Therefore, we needn’t live up to arbitrary standards of what accomplishments would make us worthy because God has already called us His own beloved children. God’s defining love for us has no prerequisites.

3) We can rest in God’s grace to grow through failure.

While I sometimes feel resurgences of shame in how I handled something as inconsequential as my qualifying exam, I am thankful for the reminder that I desperately need God. Not only has it led me to a closer dependence on Christ, but it has also helped me better support friends and family going through more serious forms of hardship. I am learning that anxiety is not an ailment to be cured, but something to surrender to God daily. I use the word surrender intentionally here because my reflex is to try and control my anxiety in my own strength. But the goal is not self-sufficiency, but sufficiency in Christ. The apostle Paul prays three times for God to take away a “thorn in his side,” which caused him great pain. However, Paul instead hears from God: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”14 God chooses to use us in all our imperfections and limitations to speak a message of redemption to those around us, some of whom may face similar struggles.

I am therefore filled with hope that God is at work in my own weaknesses, using them to increase my faith in Him and to share that God-given assurance with those around me.

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness

Furthermore, Jesus invites us to seek him in our trials, saying, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”12 We can therefore adopt a perspective which sees beyond the current trials to the God who provides comfort, mercy, and redemption. With this knowledge that God shines light on the darkness, we can bring our fears and anxieties to Him with confidence and peace.

2) Our identities are not in accomplishments, but in the love of Christ.

Anotber distortion in my pattern of thinking during exam preparations was that I based my identity as a function of my academic success. Laudatory feedback from my exam committee would validate that I was doing meaningful work, while failure or criticism would confirm that I didn’t deserve to be here. A consequence of this logic was that it grossly inflated my exam from one milestone in my education to an assessment of my value as a human. If I return to the Christian perspective, however, my identity is something far more precious. Through Christ, we do not “receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,” but are elevated, receiving the “Spirit of adoption” and become “fellow heirs with Christ.”13

2 Corinthians 12:9

Now, I look forward. I will face more challenges in my PhD and beyond, but I rest in the knowledge that God will always be with me. He knows my fears, struggles, and sins, and yet loves me wholly and unconditionally.

In light of such graciousness, who am I to withhold grace and forgiveness from myself?

1 “Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS),” Stanford Vaden Health Center, accessed December 2018, https://vaden.stanford.edu/caps-and-wellness/counseling-and-psychological-services-caps.

2 Psalm 37:8 ESV 3 Matthew 14:30 4 Matthew 14:31 5 Romans 7:19, 22-23 6 C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1952), 52.

7 Philippians 4:14 8 1 Peter 1:7 9 Psalm 23, 116; Isaiah 42:16, 43:1-6 10 Exodus 3:11 11 Exodus 3:12

12 Matthew 11:28-30 13 Romans 8:15, 17 14 2 Corinthians 12:9

Katie is a third-year PhD student in Chemical and Systems Biology and, no, she doesn’t really know what her department’s name means either. Katie is chronically late, so you can often find her running (with coffee in hand) across campus to Bible studies, bioscience seminars, and her research lab. Katie attends Peninsula Bible Church and is active in the InterVarsity Graduate Christian Fellowship.

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A Proposition on Prepositional Freedom I recently had a conversation with a friend whose first language is not English, and she commented on how complicated our prepositions are. I am inclined to agree with her— English is hard! Especially when it comes to prepositions. They’re such small words that are often used only as passing tones of prose and dialogue, yet they can change the entire meaning of what is being said. And in peculiar fashion, when thinking about freedom, it turns out that the preposition with which it is paired has a profound impact on the essence of the freedom being addressed. In fact, it may even offer an alternative understanding of true freedom that is different, even contrary, from how most would think about it. Allow me to explain: One form of freedom is the concept of “freedom to…” This idea is portrayed commonly in many establishments of human/civil rights.

For example, the United States Bill of Rights outlines citizens’ freedom to practice their desired religion, freedom to vote, and so on.

Simply put, it is the idea of being free to choose that which we desire – this can manifest itself in actions, ideologies, etc.

In a postmodern society that is increasingly individualistic yet pluralistic, this understanding of freedom is seemingly the most ubiquitous (stop me if you’ve never heard “I can do whatever I want, as long as it’s not hurting anybody else”). This creates a tension, however. Pluralism, for better or for worse, makes it harder for the individual to freely pursue his or her desires without impacting the pursuits of other individuals. This is why, for example, nations with many worldviews are less “efficient” in their politics compared to nations where one religion or ideology is prevalent. Governments having more homogeneous populations will have an easier time satisfying their constituents than those having relatively heterogeneous populations since they will tend to have more uniform sets of concerns. This dynamic can play out on an interpersonal level as well as on a societal level.

But setting aside the push for efficiency and optimization (which is all too tempting in Silicon Valley), is this freedom to choose whatever we desire the type of freedom we truly want? As a follow-up question, I might ask: have you ever made a choice that you knew would result in negative consequences? Most would say that they have. In this state then, are we exhibiting our freedom of choice, or are we “surrendering to our desires,” as C.S. Lewis describes in Mere Christianity?1 If it is the latter, then we are not free, for we are being oppressed by our autonomy.

David Foster Wallace eloquently outlines this conundrum in the context of our freedom to choose who or what we worship. Wallace (an atheist himself) claims that worshipping anything besides a “sort of God or spiritual-type thing— whether it is money, material goods, beauty, power, or intellect— will “eat you alive” because you will never be satisfied. If we are truly autonomous, and our default setting is to “yield extraordinary wealth and comfort and … [the] freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all

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Prescott Bliss

creation,” then we might find that our own dominion will never be good enough.2 You might find that when you’ve reached the pinnacle of that which you hold of utmost importance, having hoped on the way up to find a greater meaning at the top, there is nothing but the abyss and a steep slope that will lead you back down— or perhaps yet another peak to be climbed that surely will provide meaning. As Ravi Zacharias (a Christian) puts it, “meaninglessness comes not from weariness of pain, but from weariness of pleasure.”3

Even if the ability to choose what we worship isn’t oppressive in itself, Wallace and Zacharias demonstrate that this choice by definition leads to some form of submission. They also paint a rather grim picture that such a choice all too often exhibits itself in ways that are oppressive, and perhaps even self-destructive.

Hopefully we have seen that this autonomous understanding of freedom is incomplete, so let’s explore some more prepositions that may provide a deeper understanding.

Another way to understand freedom, rather than the ability to choose that which you desire, is the ability to not choose that which you don’t desire. Not “freedom to…” but “freedom from…” Returning to the Bill of Rights example, this is akin to the United States’ freedom from the rule of Great Britain. The advantage of this type of freedom is that it can be understood in an interpersonal and intrapersonal context. In either case though, there is necessarily something or someone that plays the role of an oppressor, but it need not be external.

While the relationship between United States and Great Britain in the late eighteenth century aptly exemplifies the external/interpersonal oppression, it can be seen on a smaller scale as well. This type of oppression is present in slavery as well as in physical or emotional abuse. A concrete example of the internal/intrapersonal oppression might be an addiction. In fact, the very definition of addiction is that addictive tendencies or desires have taken control over one’s ability to choose. But it doesn’t have to be a physical addiction— our internal oppressor can be as foundational as our sinful nature.

While the “freedom from…” type of freedom may not be as immediately recognizable in its deficiency as the “freedom to…,” it begins to be exposed when it is examined in relation to the “freedom to…”

Note that in the description of external oppression, all examples are cases of individuals (or societies) imposing their “freedom to…” upon another individuals – often in ways that are excessive and inappropriate. This takes the inefficiency of pluralistic individualism to a much darker place, suggesting that it can be malignant. (Disclaimer: I’m not condemning pluralism or individualism, only its misuse!) In other words, the legitimacy of one’s “freedom from…” is often largely dependent on the integrity of another’s use of “freedom to…”

To make this clearer, let’s bring to light a specific example. This tension becomes rather poignant in the context of religious liberties. As an individualistic society we have the freedom to practice our own religion.

As a pluralistic society, we have a wide spectrum of drastically different beliefs and practices spanning religion, morality, and culture. It is inevitable that these will come into conflict with one another. Many of these are relatively harmless, but others can directly lead to the oppression of others. For example, there was a significant case a few years ago that went to the Supreme Court in which a baker refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, citing his religious views on marriage as his reason for doing so. This is a very controversial, even polarizing issue, and my intent here is not to advocate for either party. But it doesn’t take a terrible amount of critical thinking to realize that the case is so contentious because of its connection to freedom and oppression. On the one hand, if the baker is allowed to refuse the service, his freedom to practice his religion is infringing upon the couple’s freedom to receive equal service. On the other hand, if he is forced to make the cake, the couple’s freedom is infringing upon the baker’s freedom. Because of the drastic difference in understanding between the two parties on marriage, it is impossible for the Supreme Court to create a scenario in which no one experiences oppression.

for the oppressor; it is an internal release of vindictiveness by the oppressed.5 In our own day-to-day context, when we forgive others, not only are we freeing ourselves from any indignation and providing ourselves the freedom to heal, but we also have the opportunity to release those who wrong us from guilt. Not to mention, our giving up the opportunity to vindicate the wrongdoing might free them from the consequences of the vindication. And hopefully others will extend such forgiveness and freedom toward us when we are the ones who commit the offense.

When it comes to justice and the restoration of his creation, God cannot simply ignore or downplay our sin. But through Jesus’ torturous death, he pays the consequences of our oppressions on our behalf – he has quite literally released his vindictiveness upon himself, thus forgiving us. This forgiveness has given us freedom from sin and from death (note that we still sin, and we still die), as well as freedom to have a deep relationship with our creator (note that Paul often refers to this relationship as being "a bondservant to God").6 He has released you from your own sins, as well as the brokenness that comes from the sins that others commit against you.

freedom IN Christ

Furthermore, there are many instances in which the “freedom from…” merely acts as a direct precedent to the “freedom to…” This concept can be looked at in two lights. Perhaps the most recognizable is the fact that, because “freedom from…” is just the first half of the picture, it is often an incomplete form of freedom, and therefore not true freedom. However, a more holistic view would be that “freedom from…” must happen before the “freedom to…” can be realized. A servant cannot be free to choose his own actions until he is free from his master; a victim of abuse cannot experience the freedom to heal until he or she is free from the abuse and/or the abuser.

We can begin to see a symbiotic symmetry between these two understandings that might give us a fuller picture of what freedom is. However, even if we are both free from everything and free to do everything, we arrive at a similar point described earlier in which we are subject to oppression by our autonomy.

So, if we have established that absolute autonomy (i.e., no oppression or restriction of any kind) is not quite the same as freedom, is it possible that there might actually be a type of oppression that leads to freedom?

On a basic level, one could argue that there is usually a coupling between freedom and oppression. Freedom from addiction necessarily pairs with an oppression of the addictive inclinations. This admittedly plays with the double-negative concept of freedom being the oppression of the oppressor, but what if there is an oppression that leads to true freedom?

Allow me to introduce a new type of prepositional freedom: “freedom in…” This changes the paradigm of freedom entirely. Rather than looking inward to describe freedom, we can shift our eyes to the source, or foundation, of freedom. As Christians, we believe that through his death on the cross and resurrection from the dead, Jesus the Son of God freed us from ultimate death and gave us the gift of eternal life. As Paul puts it, “the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”4 When we put our trust in Jesus, we find freedom; therefore, you might say we have freedom in Christ Jesus.

Let me further suggest the mechanism by which we have freedom in Christ: forgiveness. Forgiveness at its heart is not an external exemption

And finally, let me propose the “oppression” that gives us true freedom: LOVE. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”7 Love is what sparked God’s desire not only to free us from the eternal consequences of our sins, but also to bear the weight of the consequences himself. And it’s not a far stretch to say that Jesus was oppressed.8 Love by its very nature is “other-minded.” If you are intently focused on your own freedom, you will find it quite difficult to love your neighbor (let alone your enemy!). In that sense, it is indeed a form of oppression. The complexity and beauty are found in the irony that you are your own oppressor when you choose to love others first.

If freedom in Christ means that you freely choose to forgive and to love— become a servant to others— then following Jesus (the master) does not infringe on your freedom but actually allows freedom to flourish. One might say then that true freedom can be found in the giving of yourself the way Jesus gave of himself when he died on the cross.

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.

Galatians 5:13 1. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952): 100.

2. David Foster Wallace (2005). Commencement Speech at Kenyon College.

3. Ravi Zacharias (2013). Tolerance Under Fire. Speech at Dartmouth College.

4. Romans 8:2 NRSV. 5. Rachael Denhollander (2018). Can We Reconcile Justice and Forgiveness? Speech at Harvard University.

6. Romans 1:1, Philippians 1:1, Colossians 4:7&12, to name a few.

7. John 3:16.

8. See Isaiah 53:4-7, Philippians 2:5-8, Mark 14:43-15:32.

Prescott Bliss is a Masters student in Structural Engineering, set to (hopefully) graduate in March. Outside of academics, he is a part of the IVGrad community and also helps direct the Veritas Forum at Stanford. Since coming to Stanford, he has spent his Sunday mornings worshiping at Palo Alto Vineyard Church. He is passionate about baseball, classical music, and pumpkin spice.

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“If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will?

Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata — of creatures that worked like machines — would hardly be worth creating.

The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water.

And for that they must be free.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

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Living Unbounded: Reconciling Guilt and Shame Kailah Seymour

“God doesn’t give you more than you can handle” is a beautiful Hallmark card of faith until you experience a pain that feels completely debilitating. I began to really wrestle with what it meant to believe in a truly benevolent God. If God loved us as much as everyone claimed He did, why would He let me hurt so badly? I had never understood God’s plan, but for the first time, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a part of it at all.

I was sexually assaulted.

That is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to admit to myself, and one of the most difficult sentences I’ve ever had to write.

When I think about how many people might read this, part of me wants to pull this piece from publication altogether. I’m terrified of how this might change people’s perception of me.

People I might never even know. I have this fear that this thing will irrevocably alter my identity in the eyes of those around me, which is exactly why I think this is so critically important: believing the lie that you are just a culmination of the hurts in your past will keep you shackled there.

We have all fallen short of the person we strive to be. Or at least I know I do, daily. And therein lies the reason so many people feel defeated before they even start. The world will tell us that we are not enough. That our mistakes and transgressions have the last word. I believed them. My shame became this ceaseless burden that I didn’t feel strong enough to bear. I began living a shell of the life I knew I was capable of living. A life driven by fear and shame, not hope and love. I didn’t find joy in my old passions or hobbies. Some days, the best I could do was get out of bed in the morning, and, honestly, some days I couldn’t even do that.

I pushed people away. I couldn’t bring myself to confide in the people that love me. I knew, logically, that it wasn’t my fault, but I just couldn’t believe that in my heart. I felt unworthy. Unlovable. Dirty. I felt like I was completely alone. Like I had a secret I had to hide from everyone, including God. Even now, my mom remains the only person in my family to know. I think part of me is still ashamed.

This is what I’ve learned: the chains have been broken and all you have to do is get up and walk away. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, so don’t believe the lies. And if you’re thinking there’s too much in your past, know that Jesus’ blood is sufficient. God’s love is incomprehensible. He brings a peace that transcends understanding. It’s something you couldn’t even begin to fathom until He envelops you in it. He didn’t want this pain for you, but He won’t waste it if you give it to Him now. It was when I admitted I couldn’t do it alone that I truly started to heal. I’m still healing, but this feels like a liberation, not scar tissue. If you come to God with your shame, your hurt, and your worries, He can give you a new sense of wholeness. The first, and hardest, step is honesty— complete vulnerability. God already knows, you just need to say it. If you confide in Him, He will help you reconcile the rest.

Some days it still hurts. A lot. But it doesn’t consume me anymore.

The coolest part? God’s grace extends beyond anything you could ever imagine. Everything that’s holding you captive— addiction, abuse, anxiety, grief, fear, midterms or finals— don’t have to define you anymore. You can be freed from those bonds. God loves you just as you are, but He loves you too much to leave you just as you are. He wants you to be free to be everything He created you to be.

I am a survivor of sexual assault. But more than that, much more than that, I am a Disney fanatic. A dog enthusiast. A loving friend.

A big sister. A music junkie. A child of God*, and I am free. *And if you’re not religious, I want you to know that God’s love is always available to you. It’s never been too long and you could never wander too far. He’s reaching out if you’re ever ready to reach back. If you’re not ready yet, that’s okay. You can find love and comfort in those around you, and I pray that you do. This still does not define you. You are not this awful thing that happened to you.

You are not the things you’ve done. You are all the things you love.

Your favorite childhood memories, the songs you can’t help but sing along to, and your laptop stickers. That’s who you are. And if God ever makes that list, you can be sure He is a strong foundation to rest your identity on. You are worthy and deserving of love, and you are not alone. You can feel whole again, no matter what your shackles are.

Eventually, I came to my youth pastor and he started me on a journey of unbinding myself. I began to know God again. If Kailah is a freshman and member of Chi Alpha. She’s currently you’ve ever felt like you were being held hostage by your guilt VERY undecided, but enjoys simply exploring. She loves spendand shame, there is redemption. ing time in her fort (yes, it is as cool as it sounds), playing her ukelele, and midnight baking.

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The Tyranny of Perfection I am grateful for the many freedoms that I enjoy: political, financial, religious, academic, physical… Yet in the midst of these privileges, I live under a harsh dictator. Perhaps you could say that I’ve subjected myself, yet I have lived under the tyranny of perfection for so long that I don’t think it was ever a “choice.”

My perfectionism is expressed in many regards, not all of which are enslaving. The satisfaction of finally getting the layout of a map just right or tweaking that last bit of code brings a joy that would be missed if I didn’t care about the details. But the deepest, most maiming expression of perfectionism affects my view of myself and of God’s slow work as he makes me more like himself. In reality, the fact that God is actively bring transformation in me gives me the freedom to be a work in progress. But the lens of perfection makes it hard for me to see that and demands that I be perfect now.

I tend to see things in black and white. Things are either good or bad and I am either good or bad for doing them. Sometimes, if I can’t handle being on the wrong side of the binary delineation, I may artificially adjust my mental threshold between good and bad. It’s like tuning the thresholding value to sharpen a grayscale image: anything above 50% grey becomes black and anything below becomes white, adjusting the value until I’m okay with how it looks. In this world of black and white, it is existentially less painful to lower my standards (yes, even for a perfectionist) than it is to acknowledge that I am not living up to them. I get stuck in a moment of time and think that my eternal “okay-ness” is determined by which side of the line I fall on. But that’s not how God sees things. There is a song that reminds me of this: “change is slow but I feel it taking place,” “gray is not a compromise – it is the bridge between two sides. I would even argue that it is the color that most represents God’s eyes.”1 As an example of how I play with my artificial black and white threshold, for several years I have wrestled with a thought pattern.

Whenever I am feeling insecure, a name pops into my head: the name of a former best friend. While the name used to bring me great joy, somewhere along the line it morphed into a reminder that I lost my best friend and that my attempts to reconcile just made things worse. Now my perfectionist brain brings it back as an accusation whenever I feel like I may blunder my way into losing something.

Beyond the obvious ways in which this is unhealthy, the fact that my mind has co-opted her name like this is unfair both to my friend and to my own memories of her. Yet over the years of wrestling with this, I have vacillated between thinking it is either imperative that I break the habit or really not a big deal. Since I struggle with the ambiguity of gray, I play with the threshold of whether it is “bad” or “good” (or at least “okay”).

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In Romans 7, Paul describes his own struggle with being stuck in a pattern that he doesn’t want. Symbolically, it is hard to even recite the passage with its tongue-twisting “what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”2 His conclusion, after despairing “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” is to shout a victorious “Thanks be to God!” as Paul remembers that

Anne Hulsey

it is not up to him to perfect himself.3 In fact, we can “set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”4 So recently I have tried a different strategy whenever I hear the accusing word in my head. Instead of wondering whether I should beat myself up for it or just not care, I respond with “I repent” to acknowledge that this is not where I want to be. (To repent simply means to recognize and turn away from an unwanted thought or action.) But then, rather than wallowing in guilt over having needed to repent, I echo Paul’s victorious “Thanks be to God!” in the certainty that he is at work even in this.

This is what I mean when I say that God’s active, continuous work of transforming me gives me the freedom to be in progress. Switching from a black and white metaphor to one with color, God is resolving this process of making more me like himself in the same way that I would solve a Rubik’s cube. It is a messy process as I iteratively jumble up the partially arranged cube so that I can get one more block in its proper place. But I know the algorithms and I will solve it in the end, just like I can be confident that “he who began a good work in [me] will carry it on to completion.”5 As freeing as this Rubik’s cube metaphor is, however, there is a nuance that can easily be misinterpreted. It’s a nuance that I am only just starting to catch a glimpse of. The freedom isn’t due to an assurance that we are headed in the right direction and will eventually arrive at the longed for “perfection.” The root of this freedom is that our reconciliation with God has never been, nor will it ever be based on how well we measure up. Though our personal brokenness tore our relationship with the perfect God, he is the one who initiated and bore the cost of the reconciliation: “because by one sacrifice [Jesus’ death] he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”6 The very grammar of that sentence speaks to the nuance that even though we are still in the process of being made holy (i.e. our character is being transformed to be more like God’s), he already took care of the question of whether we are “good enough” once and for all when he clothed us in Jesus’ perfection. For all my worry over where the threshold is between black and white and which side I fall on, he sidestepped that question and, in doing so, answered it forever.

One of the Rubik’s cube blocks that God is shuffling around in me is how I engage perfection and the way that it shapes how I see myself and God’s work in me. I have a feeling that it will take many more iterations before it finally settles into its proper place. Good thing it has no bearing on how God sees me.

1

Sleeping at Last, 101010 2 Romans 7:15 (NIV) 3 Romans 7:24-25

4 1 John 3:19-20

5 Philippians 1:6

6 Hebrews 10:14

Anne Hulsey spent her elementary years in Turkey, high school in Germany, and university in the USA. In a similarly random triad, she received degrees in liberal arts, engineering, and public affairs from the University of Texas, before coming to Stanford for a PhD in earthquake engineering. Anne is part of Palo Alto Vineyard Church.

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love."

Galatians 5:13

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Augustine Collective Vox Clara is part of the Augustine Collective, a network of thirty student-led Christian journals on college campuses across the United States. The Augustine Collective supports journals that seek to reinvigorate thoughtful conversation about faith on their campuses by showcasing an array of essays, reviews, art, and poetry inspired by the conviction that the Christian Gospel encompasses the whole of life itself.

For more information, visit augustinecollective.org.

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We welcome submissions in the form of articles, fiction, poetry, artwork, and photography. The deadline for the next issue will be early March, so please email voxclarastanford@gmail.com if you are interested in submitting a piece for our next issue; we would love to discuss your ideas with you! For more information on how we select submissions for publication, please visit https://voxclara.wixsite.com/voxclara/writersguide.

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al eci

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T

N HA ta

s p arlos Armencs C hi t o : Folger Grap and

KS

If our vision resonates with you, and you would like to help us engage with the campus on issues of faith and thought, we invite you to join our staff! We are always looking to expand our staff and need people to help with the editorial, design, distribution, and vision-casting processes. We also welcome one-time editors who can provide input on articles on a one-time basis. We meet weekly on Mondays nights at Old Union. Email us at voxclarastanford@gmail.com for more information.

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VoxClara

ABOUT

Vox Clara in Boston for the 2019 Augustine Collective Conference

Vox Clara is a student-run journal of Christian thought at Stanford. We seek to provide a forum through which students can explore and discuss the meaning and role of faith in their lives. We are trying to give an account for the hope that is within us; the hope that we cherish and derive from our relationship with Jesus Christ. We engage the university community as Christian scholars, artists, thinkers, workers, students, children, parents, lovers, and sufferers.

We affirm the Nicene Creed and believe the voice of Jesus Christ is the true voice, which forms the foundation of our hope and strength. His voice has impacted the way we view our disciplines, personal lives, and communities. For this reason, we have chosen “Vox Clara,” a Latin phrase meaning “clear voice,” as our name.

We do not wish to impose our beliefs, but rather to serve as faithful conduits of our Christian faith to everyone at Stanford who, like us, is searching; searching for meaning, for truth and for Love.

S TAFF:

President & Managing Editor

Editor in Chief

Financial Officer

Dorothy Kang

Sarah Thomas

Pablo Garcia

Editors

Laura Clark Riley DeHaan Jasmine Doan Philip Eykamp Brice Jansen George Lausten Amy Wang Tristan Wang

CONTRIBUTORS:

Prescott Bliss, Glen Davis, Erika DePalatis, Katie Ferrick, Anne Hulsey, Jiwon Lee, Rinchu Mathew, Lorena Orozco, Aldis Petriceks, Kailah Seymour, Stephen Sills, & Andi Wang

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this is for you.

Atheist, Christian, agnostic, religious— wherever you are in the journey of seeking truth, this journal you’ve been handed or picked up is meant to be read by you.

Regardless of your level of interest in spirituality, we ask you to take just 10 minutes sometime before you sleep today to read something from these 28 pages that interests you. And if you’re inclined, read on.

We from Vox Clara, Stanford’s Journal of Christian Thought, want to encourage you to think, ask, and have conversations about life’s big questions.

Life is challenging but we have each experienced God bring freedom into the darkest areas of our lives and lift the burdens of our hearts and minds. These articles are filled with testaments of God's freedom. We do not wish to impose our beliefs, but rather to serve as faithful conduits of our Christian faith to everyone at Stanford who, like us, is searching; searching for meaning, for truth and for Love.