TELOS
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A WILLIAMS JOURNAL OF CHRISTIAN DISCOURSE
Overflow Searching for Hope Christian Identity in the Academy
searching
FALL 2019
t he W I L L I A M S
TELOS TEAM Julie Kim ’19
Anna Sun ’19
Angela Tang ’19
Haelynn Gim ’19
Andre Hui ’21
Andrew Rim ’20
Jeremy Shields ’20
Rebecca Park ’22
Leslie Garcia ’22
Joe Gentry ’22
{Purpose}
The Williams Telos is a journal dedicated to the expression of opinions and perspectives informed by the Christian faith.
{Definition}
Telos is the Greek word for “purpose,” “goal,” or “fulfillment.” For us, telos represents a direction that can only be found through God.
{Thanks}
We would like to thank College Council and the Chaplains’ Office for their financial support.
{Contact}
Email williamstelos@gmail.com with comments, questions, donations, or submissions.
The Williams Telos is a member of the Augustine Col-
lective, a student-led movement of Christian journals on college campuses. augustinecollective.org All pieces in The Williams Telos are the contributors’ own interpretation and understanding of the Christian faith, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Telos board or the publication as a whole.
The Williams Telos is a journal for Christian discourse founded Spring 2009. Searching, the theme of this year’s publication, explores a process that many, if not all, students go through during their time at Williams. Some are searching for their purpose in life. Others, their identity in the context of a rapidly changing society. Whether purposefully seeking or aimlessly wandering, we are always looking for something in the path of life. Our journey with Christ is one that is never static. God encourages and commands us to search for Him. In Matthew 7:7, Jesus says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” In navigating our lives, we search for God and His purpose for us in a continual process of discernment, action, reflection, and prayer. From seeking Christ’s presence daily to desiring a deeper and fuller relationship with Him, our searching occurs in all stages of the Christian journey. Yet in the end, it is ultimately God who seeks and finds us, bringing us back into His arms. Luke 9:11 shares the good news: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” The beauty of the Gospel is how God came down to earth to search for us in His abounding love. Although we lose our way or even withdraw from His presence, He finds us to draw us closer to Himself. In this publication, we hold these two truths in tension. Our last issue focused on Reconciliation in the Christian journey. We propose an intermediate step on that journey with Searching – a process that reminds us how as Christians, our walk with Jesus is never truly over. This issue’s contributors range from current students, to alumni, to professors, all of whom offer insight into their own searches for, by, and with God. Joseph Wilson shares his process of discernment to remain on campus his junior year. Greg Phelan affirms the hope in suffering that can be found through Christ’s resurrection. Anna Plantinga reflects on her search for identity within academia, showing how her identity as God’s child is one that is received, not achieved. We invite you to join us in this process of searching.
The Telos Team Fall 2019
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Features Andrew Rim 05
Be Still.
Rebecca Park 09
Unconditional Love
Greg Phelan 19
Searching For Hope
Reflection Philemon Abel 03
Musings on Faith, Monuments, Missionaries, and Identity
Anna Plantinga 12 Christian Identity in the Academy Joe Gentry 16
Seeking Morality and Biblical Hope in Missions
Art Angela Tang 14
The Lord is My Shepherd
Poetry Joseph Wilson 10 Overflow the WILLIAMS
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TELOS
Musings on Faith, Monuments, Missionaries, and Identity by Philemon Abel
When I’m asked what my identities are, a number of labels may come to mind. For me, Christian, Black, male, straight, cis, Williams student, musician, Kansas Citian, Missourian, American, and human are among the first of many. I often wonder, who or what defines these labels? Do these labels define me? Do I define them? Both? Neither? For example, what does it mean to be Black – especially if the answers to this question vary depending on who and when you ask? Does Blackness define me? And is it a passive definition – I’m Black no matter what – or an active one – I have to live up to certain standards or act a certain way to be Black? And if it doesn’t define me, how do I reconcile that with the reality that no matter where I go, people will see me as Black and attribute any prejudices they have (good or bad) onto me? I can ask this question for almost all of my identity labels except for one – Christian. For me, my Christian faith is how I define myself. All other labels can only describe me imperfectly. Specifically, I define myself as a child of the living and loving God. My worth rests not on how well I perform a role or what grades I get, but it is forever validated by God. This isn’t to say that my other labels are unimportant or don’t impact my life. But I look at them through the lens of Christ. Going back to the questions I ask about my Blackness, my general answer is this: my Blackness is a result of the attempt at dehumanizing my African ancestors who were enslaved. White supremacy labeled Black skin as non-human and attempted to erase any parts of their language and culture that it could get its hands on. This dehumanization and erasure in turn sparked the creation of African American culture that we see today: a culture of survival and resistance, of Jazz and Gospel, of hip hop and breakdancing, of soul food and cookouts, and so much more. All of these things are facets of Blackness as it relates to my identity as a Black American. But as much as I embrace the beauty that
the resistance of my ancestors and people who look like me have produced, I am also faced with the reality that my Blackness is still something ultimately ascribed to me out of dehumanizing circumstances, the impact of which are also still felt today. My Blackness is seen as a threat to a not insignificant part of the world. That is the original reason why Blackness was created. Everytime I see a Black death, I wonder if it could be me. Through no fault or action of my own, my Black skin puts me at risk. Even beyond the risks of Blackness, however, there still lie pressures to conform to one form of Blackness or another. Growing up, I was often told by that I “acted White” because I didn’t use African American Vernacular English and enjoyed school. Some peers told me I couldn’t be Christian and Black, since Christianity was the “White man’s religion.” My own idea of Blackness was shattered and transformed when I came to Williams and realized that African American culture wasn’t the only way to be Black – that Haitians, Jamaicans, Nigerians, Ghanaians, and others of the Diaspora were Black in their own ways. All this is to say that, while Blackness can describe me, its
“It shows that God is not on the side of oppressors, but the oppressed.” ever-changing definitions depending on context and its origin in dehumanization make it a label that I could never use to be my primary identifier. My Blackness will always have an impact on my life to the extent that others see me as Black and attribute whatever meanings they have of Blackness onto me. But I can choose whether or not I meet others expectations of Blackness rather than allow these expectations of Blackness to define me. When I look at my Blackness through the lens of Christ, I can Fall 2019
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say that my Black skin is beautiful because God gave it to me, and I am made in His image. I can praise God and connect with Him through worship in the styles that my Black heritage created, namely Gospel and Jazz. When people say that Blacks shouldn’t be Christian because Christianity is steeped in White supremacy, I always start by defining the vocabulary of my faith. When I think of Christianity, I think first and foremost of the teachings of Jesus, who commanded that we love our neighbor, that we feed the poor, that we seek justice, that we proclaim freedom for the oppressed. While it is undeniable that people who have called themselves Christians did a lot of heinous actions throughout history, it is also undeniable that Jesus Himself preached against those very same things – not to mention that Jesus was not White by any definition, came from a marginalized people, and ministered on behalf of the marginalized, going as far as to declare that how we treat the “least of those” among us is how we treat Christ Himself.1 Christ has always affirmed the life and value of everyone. Christ never forced anyone to follow Him but always gave all who encountered Him the choice. As a Christian, I can admit and acknowledge that a lot of missionary work has actively gone against the model that Christ laid out. I can acknowledge Christ’s death and resurrection while also condemning the actions of those who promoted colonization in Christ’s name. But as a Christian who is Black, I can also look at people such as Sojourner Truth, Jarena Lee Florence Spearing Randolph, Frederick Douglass, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King as other Christians who lived and practiced Christ’s teaching of justice and
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used their faith to call out those who tried to promote White supremacy, sexism, and other forms of oppression in Jesus’ name. I believe fighting for the freedom of oppressed peoples is at the core of Jesus’ Gospel. Studying religion, politics, and racial theory in my four years at Williams has led me to see just how much the Gospel of God becoming human in Christ is relevant to the Black experience. God relates to the marginalized and takes the side of the humbled and oppressed. Rather than coming to earth as a member of the Roman majority, He was born to the Jewish minority, born into poverty and under a government that was persecuting His people. He was a poor refugee who spoke out against those who oppressed the poor, the hungry, the imprisoned, and the migrant. If Jesus walked the earth today, His life would mirror the Black and Brown experience. And that is very reassuring to me, that my God chose to take the form of an oppressed person, who not only faced the physical trauma of the cross for me, but also chose to experience on a human level the emotional and mental toll of ethnic prejudice and oppression. It shows that God is not on the side of oppressors, but the oppressed. 1
Matthew 25:31-45 (NIV).
Philemon Abel graduated from Williams College in 2019 with a major in Political Science and a concentration in Africana Studies. He is currently student-teaching high school English in Baltimore, where he is also pursuing a Masters in Education from Johns Hopkins University.
Be Still.
by Andrew Rim
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. ~Philippians 4:6-7
BE STILL. still·ness noun The absence of movement or sound. Something about stillness is so difficult to grasp, amidst a time and culture in which our generation glorifies speed and hastiness. Due to the steady rise of technology’s presence in our lives and a higher demand for productivity, we are all the more innately constructed to be relentless in our daily tasks. There seems to be neither time nor space that offers quietness and stillness anymore. In my dorm room, the quietest moments are in the evening, when the day approaches a close and I rest in preparation for a new busy day of academia. But even as the activity of campus life begins to dwindle in the evening, the gentle hum of the mini-fridge in my room, the occasional shouts outside my window from nocturnal companions, and even the sound of my own breathing reminds me that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to allow complete silence to pervade my room and my mind. There is also internal unrest. With the increased pace of life come more thoughts to process, more “to-do lists” to internalize, more tasks to manage. Fall behind, and the brain has to handle all the more stress as labor piles on. Physical quietness and stillness are so difficult to find; internal and mental peace seem just as difficult to locate, if not more difficult, as anxious thoughts begin to creep in with the myriad of burdens accumulating. During the beginning of the school year, a mentor encouraged me to spend the semester in deeper – and quieter – meditation with God, in which I enter a time of Scripture reading, prayer, and then sitting still for 30 minutes to an hour, as an exercise to listen for what God could say to me, whether it was an actual voice, or a visual cue, or even just an unwarranted, random tug in my chest. My mentor’s reasoning was that often times, we barrage God with questions and requests but don’t give Him
any time or even a chance to reply back to us with what He may want to say. As a culprit of this habit, I can almost imagine God exasperatedly calling out “Let me speak, please!” – only to have that one plea ignored as well. As diligently as we may try to follow the exercises of quiet and enter into these times of prayer and listening, anxious and distracting thoughts can fill the void of our minds and keep us from sitting in internal quiet. These anxieties ring through our heads, amplifying as they remain in our headspace, ultimately crippling us in fear, and refusing to quiet down. When this internal unrest finally anchors itself in our minds, we question our purpose in life, question our daily motives, question our academic and career aspirations, and ultimately wander aimlessly in search of what God may have planned for us in the future. And, unfortunately, as more burdens and troubles pile up due
“In this season of my life, anxiety had become an impediment for me.” to the seemingly never-ending commotion of our lives, things only get worse. In this season of my life, anxiety had become an impediment for me. Sleepless nights haunted me with visions of disgrace and failure. Passions for my future career began to dim, and I was wallowing in self-doubt. As the walls of my self-confidence crumbled, I could feel panic tighten around my throat. No matter how hard I was forcing myself to pray, to meditate, to remain in that quiet room or space, I was only met with the harrowing words of my own anxious thoughts. We desire the things that appeal to our senses. We find security in the things that can be seen and the words that can be heard to give us the confidence of realness, the certainty and Fall 2019
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reliability of authenticity. We want signs, just like the ones the characters in the Bible experienced. Noah received a rainbow as a sign of God’s covenant to never destroy the earth again with flood. Moses saw a burning bush in his encounter with God, through which Moses was assigned the duty of leading God’s people out of Egypt. A burning shrub, a burning pencil, even a burning toothpick would suffice for many of us, to give us this visual assurance that God is indeed by our side, that He is indeed available to speak to us. I so badly wanted to know what God had to say to me. I was searching for answers from Him, but in that quiet room, I just couldn’t find that sign. I just couldn’t hear His voice. One night, I finally did have the encounter with God that I so longed for. Worn down from lack of sleep, frustrated, and most desperate, I cried out to God in my room while hiding under my bed. I did not ask any questions, and I instead poured my woes and frustrations out to God. I was tired. I was anxious. I felt trapped and burdened. And in that moment, I felt the faintest tug on my heart, and heard a voice resonate in my head. This voice felt powerful, and silenced all other thoughts in my mind; yet, the voice was gentle, and spoke softly to me. I was met by God with only two words: Be still.
the grand change in hearts of the sinful, and was instead met with seemingly disappointing and life-threatening failure. How misaligned Elijah’s expectations were from God’s own intentions. “Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.” -1 Kings 9:11-13 Elijah’s encounter in itself was a testament to God’s faithfulness, even in the smallest of moments and the quietest of hours. God restored Elijah with a word of encouragement, that
“It was in the stillness that God met with the prophet Elijah, in the moment Eijah was shrouded by fear and disappointment.” Be still. My God had commanded me to be still. It was in the stillness that God met with the prophet Elijah, in the moment Elijah was shrouded by fear and disappointment. Elijah had destroyed the prophets of Baal in a test to light an altar of sacrifice through the power of his God versus their idolatrous worship. After hearing of Elijah’s victory, the cruel rulers of Israel ordered to have him killed. Elijah went into hiding in a cave, filled with terror and dismay. In the cave he cried out to God, lamenting that his victory over the worshipers of Baal had so quickly faded away; he had expected the miracle of fire at the altar on Mount Carmel to bring conversion to his enemies and all of Israel, that they would fall to their knees and repent of their idolatry. Elijah wanted to see with his own eyes
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Elijah’s work had indeed borne fruit, even if Elijah did not see it. But God’s work through His quiet yet steady ministry stood truer and more resolute than Elijah’s single spectacle on Mount Carmel against the worshipers of Baal. This God had created the world Elijah stood on and witnessed the fallibility of the world as mankind turned against Him. The same God kept watch over His chosen people in the aftermath of their disobedience to Him. The same God provided Israel with a human king, when Israel dearly desired rulership by mortal, visible man. The same God used Elijah to bring a widow’s son back from the dead. The gentle whisper of the Lord had long been present before Elijah even came into conception and would continue to move long after Elijah passed. I came to realize through this passage that what we see in the
“What we see in the physical cannot match the unseen perseverance we need in our pursuit of the Kingdom.” physical cannot match the unseen perseverance we need in our pursuit for the Kingdom. We tend to try to find God through the metaphorical quakes, storms, and fires of our lives. However, God will not always appear to us in the form of miracles; instead, more often than not, He will speak to us in the quietest of whispers, in our most secret and quietest place. I was not using
my quiet time in the way He wanted to spend it with me. I may have entered a physical silence, but I was not properly quieting my heart, nor posturing myself in a way that God could enter into my daily devotional time. So, what has to be done in order to let God into daily devotional time? Be still. Let go. Even though I had been called to fully surrender every facet of my life to the will of the Father, I had been holding back a lot, out of my own greed for my own expectations of the future. I still had many secret places in my heart and my life that I was not willing to share with God. And, more often than not, I had been neglecting what the Bible, the living Word, had been trying to tell me about God’s nature and God’s promises for
me. Instead, I had been building my own twisted understanding of God – an understanding of God that was not aligned with Scripture, but instead aligned more with my own expectations of Him. I had been trying to fathom the plans of a God whose history and past I did not know, and did not care to know. And because I could not fathom it, in times of struggle I would enter into the headspace of my own deceitful thoughts, unable to find peace or conclusion to the most secret of struggles and conflicts. In light of a new season, I have been experiencing God’s goodness and His story for me in a very powerful way. A lot of it has come from devoting more of my quiet time to reading Scripture, and examining the nature and identity of God through the Old Testament and New Testament. A Christian life without the Word is a life where you end up building your own god. By reading the Word, I have been coming to understand and know God and His nature, and as a result, I have been coming to understand His will and His plans for me. I find it much easier to follow God’s will because the Bible has been teaching me about the promises that He has made and keeps holding onto. My prayers have been fueled less by my own worries and my own desires, but more by my yearning to fully obey and abide in God’s calling for me and His convictions He has placed in me. Since my own revelation, have I received a word from God yet about what I’m called to do and whom I’m called to be? Have I received my own “burning bush” from God? Not quite, and not yet. But I am not agonizing over my lack of knowing, because I trust that all things will happen in God’s time, and that in His time the unknown will be made known. He has already spoken to me in one way: “Be still.” In other ways, He has revealed to me in my quiet times people I should be taking notice of and caring for. He has presented issues and matters on our campus that my community and I should be praying about. And, in my most personal moments with Him, He’s been telling me how much He loves me. I’m not waiting for that earth-quaking, mountainshaking moment to move me – I wait in the quietness, in the peace of my own heart and soul, for God to nudge me and speak in the gentlest of whispers, and I prepare myself to abide to His calling then.
Andrew Rim ’20 is majoring in Biology at Williams College. He enjoys making music, playing tennis and basketball, and cooking food. Andrew coordinates musical worship at his church with a team of college students and also leads a Bible study group on campus. Fall 2019
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Unconditional Love by Rebecca Park We often make sense of the world through logical transactions. We earn rewards for performing certain actions: high marks for studying well for a test, money for working hard at our jobs. Friedrich Nietzsche, a 19th century German philosopher, states that all human interaction involves the “contractual relationship between creditor and debtor.”1 The idea of deserving something, whether a reward or a punishment, guides our thoughts and actions in life. The Parable of the Lost Son, found in the Gospel of Luke, is a story of a younger son who asks his father for his inheritance, and after receiving it, leaves home to indulge in his wealth. After he squanders all of his money, the son decides to return home, ashamed of his actions and ready to beg at his father’s feet. Yet, on the son’s way home, the father sees him from afar and runs to meet and embrace him. He calls servants to dress his son in lavish garments, a ring, and sandals, and there is a feast to celebrate the son’s return. Meanwhile, the elder son becomes angry and refuses to partake in the festivities. For a large part of my life, I deeply identified with the elder son’s frustration. He is the one toiling in the fields and working hard, doing everything that deserves praise. Yet it is the younger son – the one who dishonors his father and abandons home – who receives celebration instead of reprimand. In my high school years, I strove toward academic success, taking pride in my grades and looking down on those who were unable to reach my level of achievement. And yet, like the elder son, I secretly envied those who seemed to be rewarded despite their inadequacies. The younger son may have been physically away from home, but the elder son was also lost, adrift in his own desires and drive for success. In his book The Return of the Prodigal Son, theologian Henri Nouwen states that “it is this lostness – characterized by judgment and condemnation, anger and resentment, bitterness and jealousy – that is so pernicious and so damaging to the human heart.”2
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I was lost. In a relentless pursuit, I was searching for the world to satisfy me, continually seeking things to give me worth, acceptance, and love. I did not understand the reality – that in a society governed by transactions, where our behavior is subject to criticism or praise, the world could only offer us a conditional, fleeting love. Nouwen states, “There are endless ‘ifs’ hidden in the world’s love. These ‘ifs’ enslave [us], since it is impossible to respond adequately to all of them. The world’s love is and always will be conditional.”3 The world tells us: I love you if you are intelligent. I love you if you agree with my perspective on political issues. I love you if you are productive, if you can prove your worth to me over and over again.
“This is the burden we carry if we believe our successes and failures define our worth.” This is the burden we carry if we believe our successes and failures define our worth. For most of my academic career, I idolized academic achievement. But the satisfaction I received was so fleeting and so temporary. If I could not pursue worlddefined success, my morale shattered. I felt shame for my failures, and insecurities permeated my mind. In that shame, we experience the lostness of the younger son. As we recognize and dwell on our faults, we become slaves to selfjudgment, self-deprecation, and self-hate; this is the Nietzschean concept of slave morality. According to Nietzsche, all humans are inherently evil and naturally inclined to cruel thoughts. Our minds are constantly focused on criticism and judgment – if not toward others, then toward ourselves. “All instincts that do not discharge themselves outwardly turn themselves inwards
– this is what I call the internalizing of man: thus first grows in man that which he later calls his soul… hostility, cruelty, pleasure in persecution, in assault, in change, in destruction.”4 We internalize violence in this way, tormenting ourselves with accusations of inadequacy, which ultimately reinforces shame, feelings of humiliation, and anxiety. Like the younger son, I drowned in shame because of the brokenness in my life. I hid from God because I was afraid of His disappointment in my failures and my pride. Interestingly, Nietzsche notes the existence of God as a reaffirmation of our bad conscience, self-torture, and internal guilt. His perfection, Nietzsche argues, magnifies our imperfection as we become the foil to His holiness. The Parable of the Lost Son does not end in the father’s silence to each of his sons. When the younger son returns, covered in rags and filth, the father embraces him and welcomes him back
home. When the elder son refuses to join in on celebrating his brother’s return, the father leaves the house to find the elder son and entreats, “My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”5 Our incapacity to reach perfection does not permanently separate us from God. Instead, Jesus delivers us from our shame. As the perfect sacrifice, He takes all of the punishment, the guilt, and the shame onto himself – so that we do not have to live in slavish fear and hopelessness. This mercy He extends to us does not fit into our conception of worldly relationships. Instead of receiving what we deserve – which is punishment for our recklessness and sin – God lovingly extends grace and mercy through His Son. Jesus rewrites our understanding of love as one that is received, not achieved. The Father accepts and loves us because of who He is and what He’s done, not because of who we are. “I am loved so much that I am left free to leave home,” Nouwen says. “The blessing is there from the beginning. I have left it and keep on leaving it. But the Father is always looking for me with outstretched arms to receive me back and whisper again in my ear: “You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.”6 I am starting to understand more and more how God’s unconditional love and grace transcends my inadequacies, removes my shame, and calls me His child. I now know that He is always ready to welcome me back into his arms. And because of His great love, God cannot force me to come back to Him; I am given the freedom to choose. When I forget and wander once more in search of worldly success, He continues to wait patiently for me to return home. Nietzsche, Friedrich. “On the Genealogy of Morality.” In Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2008, 887. 2 Nouwen 70 3 Nouwen 42 4 Nietzsche 897 5 Luke 15:31-32 (NIV) 6 Nouwen 44 1
Rebecca Park ’22 is a prospective Political Science and Economics major at Williams College. Having lived across the United States, China, and South Korea, she enjoys traveling and eating unique foods. Fall 2019
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I want to be ready for the overflow Although it does not seem like rain is on the horizon And it has been a drought for a long time So much so that my mustard seed has not received water And is near the point of dying I want the refreshing Because I’ve been a dry place too long And it’s past time to be courageous and strong For me to use the power that God has given me It’s time to get harvest ready For despite the drought, some seeds have been planted And are ready to sprout Others have tilled the ground, and are putting the seeds out Lord don’t let me be a weed Because I want to feel that rushing mighty wind I want to feel those rivers of living water I want to feel that powerful breath swifting through the dry bones As they come alive I want to be ready for the overflow For rain is on the horizon The clouds signal the drought will be over soon And my mustard seed has enough water That it can exponentially grow into a great tree Lord send it, and by grace, with faith, I’ll be ready!
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Overflow by Joseph Wilson Junior year is an interesting time. Friends become JAs, others go abroad, and the rest try to survive the bitter winter. While I knew that I did not want to be a JA, I had desired to go abroad since I was a prefrosh, and I was determined to make it happen. I took four lab classes my sophomore fall, constantly met with professors to ensure that I could complete all my required classes, and told everyone I saw that I was not going to be on campus junior spring. However, in the midst of all this, I was also praying to God for “His will to be done in my life.” This can be a dangerous question, especially when there are a few signs that your desires may be different from God’s plan for you. In the middle of my junior fall, I noticed that positive things were happening on campus – as if the Christian fellowship was on the brink of something big happening. I was attending weekly prayer meetings, becoming more engaged with the fellowship, and truly seeing God move in my heart and in the hearts of others. I began to ask myself: do I really want to miss a move of God on campus? After two weeks of prayer and fasting, I felt that it was meant for me to stay on campus my junior spring. I was disappointed, because while I did pray for God’s will to be done, I was hoping that it aligned with my desire to visit somewhere. It was in my acceptance of God’s plan for me to stay on campus that I wrote this poem. I knew that if I stayed, God would not only move powerfully in my life, but that he would provide an overflow of blessings! God did just that. So be careful when you search for God’s will – not only will He answer, but He just might provide an overflow!
Born and raised in Augusta, GA, Joseph graduated from Williams College in 2019 with a major in Psychology and a concentration in Neuroscience. He is currently pursuing a masters degree at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. You can catch him playing the tambourine or eating well-seasoned food. Fall 2019
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Christian Identity in the Academy Who am I? Why am I here? Many religious leaders, psychologists, philosophers, and writers have tried to characterize the fundamental questions of life, with varying answers. Almost every list, however, contains some version of these two questions. The search for identity and purpose is a central part of the human experience. The academy puts forth a very tempting narrative to answer those questions. Your identity is your intelligence, your work ethic, how many papers you’ve read or written, or whether anyone cares about the discovery you made. Your purpose is to be smarter, work harder, and stay on top. My friend Sarah* is studying for her MD/PhD. Sarah was the triple-major college student who was in the library by 7am on weekends and barely took breaks to eat, the graduate student whose light was on well into the evening. Her primary aim was to excel academically. As we all do, Sarah eventually hit a wall. The uncertainty that goes hand-in-hand with research – the lack of a predetermined, well-controlled procedure – threatened to paralyze her. Without the security of her previous academic life, Sarah wasn’t sure who she was; when research was going slowly, she wasn’t convinced she was still worthy of respect. She told me once that she really likes the idea of religion. After all, research has shown that it has a variety of social, health-related, and emotional benefits, all for the low price of an hour and a half on Sunday mornings! Still, Sarah can’t quite bring herself to buy in. She’s training to be a doctor: she knows that dead people just don’t rise again. We must all be deluding ourselves. I get it. When I tried to explain what I believe and why, I saw again through her eyes that Christians make some pretty radical claims. So, then, why do I believe?
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by Anna Plantinga
I believe because some of the people I respect most highly have committed their lives to understanding more about God and about God’s relationship with humanity. In every other area of life, we base our beliefs on the testimony of reliable witnesses and wise experts; why not in this area? I believe because even non-Christian sources from around Jesus’ time make some radical claims about who Jesus was and what He did. Even then, people who did not believe in God saw something special in Jesus. I believe because what human would have come up with an idea as audacious as God dying in shame on a cross?
“I believe because once in my teens, I felt unexplainable, incandescent joy; joy too big for my heart, much less my head; joy too big for anyone but God to hold.” But all of those reasons fall flat at some point. In truth, I believe because there have been moments – fleeting, yes, and with plenty of doubts in between – but there have been moments when I was absolutely certain that God was present and active. I believe because once in my teens, I felt unexplainable, incandescent joy; joy too big for my heart, much less my head; joy too big for anyone but God to hold. I believe because I can see, despite all the early warning signs for a medical condition that would have resulted in blindness.
I believe because once in a while, words come out of my mouth that have never resided in my head, and they happen to be the words someone needed to hear.
“As a follower of Jesus Christ, you don’t need to prove yourself. God has proved Himself instead.” Those things are hard to quantify, and I understand why Sarah has a hard time with them. In statistics, we can quantify our uncertainty in answering scientific questions and say something about its source; in matters of faith, we don’t have that luxury. But I think what attracted Sarah to the idea of religion, and what prompted her to regularly ask me how I was not as constricted by the pressure of academia, was her unnamed longing for a better answer to those two questions: who am I? Why am I here?
Because the Bible, of course, presents a very different narrative. Your identity is one who was created by God with intrinsic value; who has been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ; and who is sent out to do God’s work. Your worth is in your identity: a person beloved by God. As a follower of Jesus Christ, you don’t need to prove yourself: God has proved Himself instead. *Name changed for privacy
Anna Plantinga is an Assistant Professor of Statistics at Williams College. She plays viola and loves looking for mushrooms and tiny amphibians on mountain hikes.
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“The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in
The Lord is My Shepherd by Angela Tang
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green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.� Psalm 23:1-3
Angela Tang graduated from Williams College in 2019 with a major in Art History and Practice. She is now working in Beijing as a college counselor advising high schoolers in China to apply to colleges in America.
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Seeking Morality and Biblical Tru
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In the church today, I believe we have begun to see a split between material sacrifice and love and the preaching of the Gospel. There have seemingly always been extremes in this divide, from “Bible-thumping” Christians who won’t raise a finger for the homeless on their street to fierce social activists who won’t speak a word about their faith. Increasingly, though, Christians have begun to take sides, and I can see myself pulling back from my own evangelism even while I become more involved in social efforts. Sometimes, it can feel like clutching at straws to find justification for sharing my faith. In fact, a recent study by the Barna research group found 47% of millennials believe that evangelism is wrong.1 Though this study found that millennials read the Bible the most out of any generation and are the most committed to their faith, almost half of those surveyed believed it is “wrong to share one’s personal beliefs with someone of a different faith in hopes that they will one day share the same faith.” As a student at Williams, I can see the reasoning for this belief. Christian missions and evangelism in general have had an incredibly controversial history. Horrible things have been done in the name of Christian evangelism, from the Crusades, to Western colonization, to violence and organized takeover in Hawai’i. It’s difficult to speak about your religion when those that have gone before you paired it with such violence. In addition, the secular world has largely turned against religion and towards pluralism, or the belief that anyone can believe what they will, and trying to convince someone of your own beliefs is morally wrong. Who are we to say humanity is enslaved to sin? Who are we to say Jesus is the only true Peace, Hope, and Joy, and our example of how to live? In the eyes of the world today, the gospel message is controversial at best, and bigoted and oppressive at worst. In the presence of these convictions, it can be easy for us to create an alternate version of Christianity and evangelism. One that makes us more comfortable with calling ourselves Christians. We can emphasize material service, love, and social justice and begin to separate it from teaching the Gospel. We can pride ourselves in tithing and food drives, or church trips to the The Williams Telos
homeless shelter. But we become fearful of explicitly sharing the good news alongside our time and money. As a missionary kid, I have grappled with evangelism myself, particularly since coming to Williams and being exposed to many drastically differing views. I can be fearful of calling myself the child of missionaries. In some contexts, I tell peers that we worked for an NGO (which we did), in order to steer away from any negative reactions to my faith. I’ve been taught that every culture is precious and every viewpoint is valid in some way. Why should I push my point of view on someone’s equally valid differing opinion? When helping with service projects at home, or when trying to love others, I can put my faith under a bushel, hoping no one will ask me why I serve. But this is wrong, and my and others’ omissions of the Gospel are detrimental not only to our faith, but to those we serve. Jesus called us to heal the sick, to care for the orphan and widow, and to provide for the poor.2 We should be actively
“But as Christians, showing love to others and working for justice without also preaching the Gospel reduces the Church to a charitable non-profit organization.” working towards justice and mercy in a broken world, and we should be loving selflessly. But as Christians, showing love to others and working for justice without also preaching the Gospel reduces the Church to a charitable non-profit organization. It reduces Jesus to Gandhi or Bill Gates. Fundamentally, it ignores the power of Jesus’s death and resurrection to heal both the present and eternity, and it ignores the way Jesus and his disciples lived. During the spring of 2019, I went through Acts in my morn-
uth in Missions
by Joe Gentry
ing devotions, and I think it has a lot to talk about on this topic. Initially, I wanted to read Acts to dive into how the early Church lived out their faith. I’ve been trying to sort out the truth from my ingrained beliefs and worldly influences and to seek out what God’s Word truly says. In this vein, something I’ve been particularly interested in is how the early Church served and taught the communities they lived in, and I’ve discovered a trend. Especially in the beginning of Acts, Luke writes story after story of the apostles bringing healing to the communities they lived in. He writes they “performed many signs and wonders among the people” and materially helped those around them.3 Peter and John heal a lame beggar and a paralytic named Aneneas, and they even raise a woman named Dorcas from the dead. These actions clearly follow Jesus’s examples in his healings and obey his commands, and these are the actions we ourselves emphasize. But Luke does not emphasize the signs and wonders themselves. Every healing by the apostles is paired with their evangelism. Almost every one of these passages is concluded with some form of either “and they were filled with amazement and astonishment”4 or “they turned to the Lord,” or even a longer, detailed message by the apostles.5 The crowds’ amazement and astonishment lead to the apostles preaching the gospel and “many of those who heard the word [coming] to believe.”6 This is written at the end of each passage, emphasizing the teaching, not healing, and it is a quite consistent pattern. In the first of these teachings, after healing the lame beggar, Peter speaks to the crowd surrounding him. “And [Jesus’s] name – by faith in his name – has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.” 7 Soon after Peter and the apostles continue healing others, they are captured and put in prison, but they are broken out by an angel in the night, telling them to “go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.” On the whole, I think that we as a church have done a wonderful job in recent years with using our platforms for reconFall 2019
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ciliation and justice. And we should continue to press forward with our efforts. But through framing our love to others and our faith in Jesus as different parts of our walks, we have denied those we serve the words of Life. From these examples, the apostles saw serving and teaching as not only linked, but as one and the same. They consistently used their signs and wonders to point to and teach the Gospel,
“Though we can give our time and money to others and serve our communities, only through Christ can we offer lasting reconciliation and peace to the world. We should be using our acts of service to not only help others here and now, but to point them to the true healing in Christ.” which they saw as the ultimate healing. Peter teaches that his physical ability to heal came from God, and that God can provide an eternal healing beyond the temporary, physical healing that just took place. With the lame beggar, he teaches the crowd to “repent, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”8 We can just as easily see this in Jesus’s life. As he traveled through Judea, he constantly taught the crowds following him how to live and treat each other in order to “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”9 In Luke 9, Jesus “sent [the apostles] out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.” Physical and spiritual healing were inseparable in Jesus’s ministry. As uncomfortable as we can be with evangelism today, teaching the Gospel to those around us is a fundamental part of our faith. And it is not without reason that Jesus and the apostles insisted we do so. Though we can give our time and money to others and serve our communities, only through Christ can we offer lasting reconciliation and peace to the world. We should be using our acts of service to not only help others here and
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now, but to point them to the true healing in Christ. If we truly believe in the power of the cross and empty grave to set us free from the law of sin and death10 and give us an inheritance in heaven we cannot be satisfied with only providing others with material healing.11 Jesus and his apostles were not afraid to teach, though their words put them in prison and had them killed. They were not worried that the declaration of the Gospel was infringing on the rights of those around them. On the contrary, they believed their teaching was for the freedom of all who would listen. John 3:16 declares that the primary way God showed his love to us was to give his Son in order that we may have a chance to choose eternal life. Though he also provided healing and blessings to those he taught, Jesus’s death was his ultimate act of service. As a church, we need to separate the horrific way evangelism has been co-opted in the past and present from the loving and passionate evangelism of the New Testament. We need to find better, more biblical ways to share our faith. But we can’t act as if Christian servitude can exist without the Gospel. We can’t separate loving others from evangelism, because without teaching the Gospel, we cannot serve the world fully. Though it can be hard, and it may be against what the world views as moral, we cannot stray from informing the world of the death and resurrection of our Savior. https://www.barna.com/research/millennials-opposeevangelism/. 2 Matthew 25:31-46 (ESV). 3 Acts 5:12 (ESV). 4 Acts 3:10 (ESV). 5 Acts 9:35 (ESV). 6 Acts 4:4 (ESV). 7 Acts 3:16 (ESV). 8 Acts 3:19 (ESV). 9 Matthew 4:17 (ESV). 10 Romans 8:2 (ESV). 11 Ephesians 1:11 (ESV). 1
Joe Gentry ’22 is a prospective English major and Global Studies concentrator at Williams. He grew up in Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Kentucky and is planning on working in and writing for the non-profit sector serving refugees from Central Asia.
Searching for Hope by Greg Phelan Where can I find hope in my suffering? The author of Hebrews addresses this question in greater detail than any other author in the Bible. The answer Hebrews gives is that we can find hope for our suffering by looking at Jesus’ suffering. Jesus offers an example of how to find hope in suffering. But more than that, Jesus offers hope because of his suffering. To find that hope, we need to understand Jesus’ cry and his tears. Hebrews 5:7-9 says, “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.” What were the prayers, and what was the answer? The night Jesus was betrayed, before he would be tortured and crucified, Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. He said, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death,” and then he prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will … My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”1 Luke 22:44 adds that “being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” Jesus knew the plan: in order to save the world – to bring forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation – he would be betrayed, falsely accused, denied justice, beaten, scourged, stripped naked, and nailed to a Roman cross, where he would be forsaken by his closest friends, mocked by his accusers, and alienated even from God, his Heavenly Father. This is what the biblical symbol of “the cup” represents. Jesus asked if there was any other way: “Let this cup pass from me.”2 Hebrews 5:5 says that Jesus prayed to the one who “was able to save him from death” and his prayers were heard. But the next day, with his hands and feet nailed in, Jesus cried, “My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?”3 And Hebrews says that his prayers the night before were heard. Hmmm. The author of Hebrews points to Jesus crying out to his Father in agony, pleading not to be sent to the Cross, and claims that God heard his prayer. And to be clear, in the Bible “hear” doesn’t just mean “perceive with the ear.” Hearing means to do. So, God heard Jesus’ prayer, and answered.4 How can he say that Jesus was heard? The central claim of Christianity is that Jesus didn’t stay dead. Jesus was delivered from all his afflictions – just not how we would have expected. Jesus cried out, and he was answered by being resurrected to an indestructible life.
“The Christian hope is for resurrection – an eternal, indestructible life.” The Christian hope is for resurrection – an eternal, indestructible life – not just avoiding bad things in the present. Yes, as we do justice and love mercy there is hope of alleviating injustices and suffering now. But the ultimate hope of Christianity is not that we will escape the world’s suffering. We won’t; we are promised we won’t.5 The ultimate hope of Christianity is that one day God will return and make everything right, that God will create a New Heavens and a New Earth and bring Heaven down to Earth. Christianity is the only religion in history that promises a resurrection. Not resuscitation, not reincarnation, not going to heaven to live on spiritually. The ultimate hope for a Christian is what the theologian N. T. Wright calls, “life after life after death.”6 It’s for the day that Jesus returns and the dead are raised, the day that evil is definitively defeated and justice is established, Fall 2019
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and we get our indestructible, redeemed bodies. And somehow, the glory we will experience then will be greater because of the suffering and injustice of this world. How that could possibly be is a mystery, but it’s the promise of resurrection. We don’t merely get a really good consolation. God redeems the evil. Redemption, not consolation. Do our hearts long for anything less? The author of Hebrews can say that Jesus’ prayers to the one who can save from death were heard because on the other side of the cross is indestructible, eternal life – resurrection. The promise for us is that on the other side of our suffering is resurrection. On the other side of our anxiety and pain; on the other side of our financial woes; on the other side of addressing the injustice in this world – resurrection. All of the injustice we ever face will be redeemed. Following Jesus is worth it because his answer for our suffering is resurrection. The hope of Christianity often feels too good to be true. It is literally incredible. I heard one person say that nobody ever disbelieved Christianity because it didn’t promise enough. An indestructible eternal world, in perfect fellowship with an allpowerful and all-loving God, in which injustice and evil are defeated and all the suffering from this world is redeemed – it’s more than we could hope for. When hope in this world is so hard to find, most of us feel
“All of the injustice we ever face will be redeemed.” that we need more than answers about historical evidence or philosophical explanations. We feel like, even if everything I’ve just claimed about the resurrection hope is true, something feels missing. That intuition is right. Our hearts need more than intellectual assent to doctrines about death and resurrection in order to find hope. Our hearts need to know the person at the heart of those doctrines who gave himself, crying out in tears in the Garden, to give us that hope. The resurrection is not just an idea. Resurrection is the personal offer of a savior who found his hope in resurrection. And with that personal offer comes a savior who sympathizes with us in our suffering. Do you know what Jesus is doing in Heaven now? He’s not sitting around binge-watching Netflix. He’s interceding to God the Father. He’s offering up prayers and supplications. And because of the prayers and supplications in the Garden, because of his loud cries and tears, he can intercede for us now to the
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God who delivers from death. Jesus can sympathize with us because at the Garden and at the Cross he cried out with prayers and petitions that now echo throughout eternity. Jesus can sympathize with us when we feel like our prayers aren’t answered because Jesus knows what that’s like. No matter how we feel, no human being has ever been so cosmically let down. But Jesus can do more than sympathize. He offers the only hope that will suffice for our doubts and suffering. Hebrews is saying that mere answers for our struggles won’t be enough. But if with those answers we get the embrace of a personal God who loves us and gave himself personally for us, then we will find hope to get us through. There are lots of questions about Christianity, and the Bible never rashly disregards them. God invites us to draw near. We can’t let questions keep us from the only cries and tears that can give us hope. Bring those questions; bring those longings. If we draw near in our sufferings, we will find our hope. Matthew 26:36-39 (ESV). Ibid. 3 Matthew 28:46 (ESV). 4 First, it’s clear that the author of Hebrews is presenting God hearing Jesus’ prayer as encouragement to the readers – what encouragement would there be if his point was God heard his prayer but didn’t answer? Second, throughout the Bible “to hear” means to “hear and obey, or to do,” which is why the foundational prayer of Israel was the “Shema” (which means “listen”) and why God often accused Israel of having ears but not hearing. 5 Consider Mark 10:30, Romans 8:17, 2 Cor 1:5, Phil 3:8, and many others. 6 Editor’s note: This quotation of N. T. Wright may appear in a number of his publications. It may find its most common expression in Wright’s Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church., (HarperOne: 2008). 1 2
Greg Phelan is a theoretical economist who teaches macroeconomics and finance at Williams College. Originally from Miami, he enjoys exploring the outdoors with his wife and three kids, all of whom are beautiful.
All images have been made black and white from the originals and cropped. Cover: Leslie Garcia ’22; 2: Leslie Garcia ’22; 4: Leslie Garcia ’22; 6: Leslie Garcia ’22; 9: Leslie Garcia ’22; 10: Leslie Garcia ’22; 13: Lori Tiede; 14: Angela Tang ’19; 15: Angela Tang ’19; 17: Leslie Garcia ’22; t h e W I L L IAM S Inside Back Cover: Leslie Garcia ’22
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