Telos Spring 2010 Issue

TELOS

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A WILLIAMs Journal of Christian Discourse

the

culture issue Sports, Divinely Illustrated Why I Avoid Rom Coms Redemption on Trial spring 2010

TELOS {Contributors}

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Virginia A. Cumberbatch ’10

Father Gary Caster Andrew Chen Tasha Chu Virginia A. Cumberbatch Giana Hutton Yue-Yi Hwa Stephanie H. Kim Matt Mascioli

Anthony V. Nguyen Effua Sosoo Adam Stoner Inez Tan Cale Weatherly Emily Yu Tina Zeng

{Thanks}

We are indebted to the Cecil B. Day Foundation, the Chaplain’s Office, and College Council.

{Definition}

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Stephanie H. Kim ’10

LAYOUT EDITOR

Tasha Chu ’11

Telos is the Greek word for “purpose,” “goal,” or “fulfillment.” For us, telos represents a direction that can only be found through God.

{Purpose}

The Williams Telos is a journal dedicated to the expression of opinions and perspectives informed by the Christian faith.

{Contact}

SECTION EDITOR

Andrew Chen ’11

SECTION EDITOR

Anthony V. Nguyen ’10

Email williamstelos@gmail.com with comments and questions, about donations, and about submissions.

All pieces in the Williams Telos are reflections of personal opinion, interpretation, and understanding of the Christian faith, but do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Telos board or the publication as a whole.

th e WIL L IA MS

BUSINESS MANAGER

ASSISTANT LAYOUT EDITOR

Giana Hutton ’10

Emily Yu ’11

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TELOS Spring 2010

the W I L L I A MS

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inside

Spring ’10

TELOS

EMILY YU ’11

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Letter from the Editor

FEATURES 05

Why I Avoid Rom Coms Yue-Yi Hwa explores romance and rela- tionships.

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Ethics and Economics A look at economic egalitarianism by Inez Tan.

Writing Through Faith and Doubt Stephanie H. Kim interviews author Sara Zarr.

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th e W I L L IAMS

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Sports, Divinely Illustrated A look at the platform of athletics by Virginia A. Cumberbatch.

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TELOS

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Untitled

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The Other Side

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The Amendment

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Quoting a Hymn

A poem by Effua Sosoo.

Forever-holic Giana Hutton reflects on consumerism and fashion.

REVIEWS 22

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Redemption on Trial

A review of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot

by Anthony V. Nguyen.

A photo by Tasha Chu.

Emily Yu imagines a frightening future.

Matt Mascioli reflects on Paul’s possible quotation of a Christian hymn.

The Subtle Watchmaker Cale Weatherly’s take on a Richard Dawk- ins novel.

REFLECTIONS 07

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Dazed and Confused Andrew Chen discusses Catholicism in Waiting for Godot.

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Baptism

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Featured Artwork

A poem by Father Gary Caster.

Artwork by Adam Stoner and Emily Yu.

TASHA CHU ’11

The Williams Telos

Letter from the Editor “Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.” 2 Corinthians 7:1 When I hear the phrase “pop culture,” I immediately think of the gossip blogs I check once a day (though I like to call them “alternative news sources”), the magazines and images I flip through to make sure my outfits for the season are on point (this spring I’m definitely feeling colorful jewelry and cute dresses) and the cause of the moment. But pop culture is more than just television, film, music, politics, and the things people indulge themselves in to pass the time. It’s lifestyle. You could say it’s the common knowledge of our age. In other words, “pop culture” is everywhere. You can attempt to avoid it, but even if you succeed, those everyone else around you are immersed in it.

Popular culture is, by definition, “the vernacular (people’s) culture that prevails in a modern society”. So what is our role as Christians in engaging with popular culture? For one thing, we need to study popular culture simply because it is a reflection of human nature in a specific context. Therefore, in order to transform humanity to reflect God’s will and way, we must stay attuned to the social and cultural shifts around us. I see no harm in checking to see what Rihanna wore today down the runway (and by runway I mean the streets of LA or the grocery aisle), or partaking in the collective awe of Lebron James, but there is a line that we must continuously be aware of. This line can only be personally determined, but it requires responsibility, accountability, and mindfulness of how our lives intersect with the world. Throughout the Bible, we are cautioned about the way ungodly cultures tempt us to sin. In the Old Testament, the Israelites were warned not to adopt the practices of those around them (Leviticus 18:1-5 and Deuteronomy 18:9-14). In the New Testament, James wrote that we should avoid “being polluted by the world” (James 1:27). Though the line is often blurred, we must continually re-evaluate our stance on popular social, political and cultural issues, but most importantly find ways to reconcile our participation in the world and our calling to live by a certain standard. We are more influenced by our culture than we realize, and we therefore must be mindful of embracing the world’s propaganda and becoming ineffective as God’s ambassadors. Oftentimes our indulgence in popular culture drags us farther away from the calling of the Gospels than we realize; we assimilate into our surrounding culture at times compromising our witness to the world.

We sometimes forget that God is sovereign and therefore more powerful than the richest pop stars, more potent than images of Brangelina and more important to our everyday life than Blackberrys, Facebook, and Twitter combined. But the truth is in order to truly be in this world and not of it, we must seek cultural symbols, social avenues and political structures that fuse the way we interact with the world and the love and reality of God. Our mandate as God’s children is to constantly and consistently discuss and demonstrate exactly how we ought to think about and interact with “pop culture.” So as we pull out our flip-flops and sunglasses, let us reflect on our consumption of, interactions with, and manifestation of culture. So whether you’re a “shopaholic,” reading your way through “faith and doubt,” or learning to “divinely illustrate” your talents on or off the court, let’s stop attempting to fit into our culture and start invading our culture, with passion, truth and love.

God Bless, Virginia A. Cumberbatch Spring 2010

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The Williams Telos

Why I avoid rom coms Because I like them more than I like to

By Yue-yi Hwa

Besides the humorously vapid gas station tomes that are integral to bonding on Williams trips, the closest that I’ve ever gotten to chick lit is Jane Austen. I’ve always steered clear of point-blank chick lit/flicks—by which I mean narratives that seem designed to convince me that the chief end of woman is to be devastatingly beautiful and have a devastatingly beautiful partner—because I can’t shake the sense that these stories defraud my feelings.

Ironically enough, I’m poaching this concept from a fluffy Christian romance that a friend foisted on me in middle school.

The book opens with this cute religious couple on a beach, and at one point the girl is thinking about how her boyfriend has always refused to cuddle beyond a certain point because he doesn’t want to “defraud her feelings,” i.e. arouse sensations that he can’t follow through on until they’re married. Midway through the first chapter I decided not to follow through with the rest of that book.

Also ironically, my ambivalence towards romantic comedies makes me a bit of a fraud myself: I often denounce them as silly, conveniently neglecting to acknowledge the (large) silly sector of my mind that really, really enjoys them. But I tend to call that mental sector “airhead.” Or “birdbrain.”

Don’t get me wrong: I’d love to be in a relationship. (And please don’t get that statement wrong: it wasn’t a desperate plea for attention. Shush, birdbrain.) It’s just that I’m looking for a

high-returns, low-risk relationship, and I would like to consider myself enough of a poli ec major to know that investments like that basically don’t exist. But since I’m looking to be in a relationship for the long haul, I’m prepared to wait. The birdbrain really doesn’t like that I’m 23 and haven’t dated yet, but the birdbrain can give in to peer pressure and be weird like the rest of my head.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with casual dating either.

But I do know that I’m generally an all-or-nothing commitment person. I’ve seen this in my closest friendships, my extracurriculars, and my sporadic eBay quests.

Chick lit is dangerous because it often projects a complete dedication to random people whom the poor suffering protagonists barely know—although other figments like James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” delusion and that soppy Marius from Les Miserables (at least in the musical) are just as culpable. However, neither Les Mis nor Pride and Prejudice make such simpering obsession into the be-all-and-end-all. They also offer compelling writing, characters, and themes that make them more than worth the consumption.

One problem with my stance on relationships is that waiting sucks. A lot. Knowing that it will be worth it at some vague point in the future doesn’t make the lonely moments any friendlier. (I’m leery of whether expensive engraved rings mitigate True Love’s tardiness either.) Unfortunately, one of the Spring 2010

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most satisfying ways to commiserate is to watch rom coms with similarly solitary friends. But that satisfaction is precisely why I feel defrauded: the movie ends and I’m left with a perplexing internal mess of “oh that was such intellectually insulting pap” and “ohhh that was so sweet!” and “he’s so cute!!” And I drift around with these unfulfilled notions chirping that if it Worked Out for them, undignified moments and distressing mishaps notwithstanding, it will Work Out for me.

Typically, these imaginings go one of two ways. One is that birdbrain starts wondering if maybe it won’t work out for me after all, because I’m so different from Heroine A. The lie creeps in—I’m single because of some deep personal flaw(s). Partly because chick flicks are such a visual immersion, my insecurities about attractiveness can coalesce around the physical. Perhaps the exception that proves the rule is Ugly Betty, a primetime TV show which reinforces the idea that, pretty or not, we can all get the better of the shiny people and find the affirmation that we crave. Like Austen’s novels, Ugly Betty transcends what I would generally consider chick media. But what if America Ferrera were actually ungainly off-screen? I’m inclined to hope that any confident, content person would come across as attractive most of the time—numerous Facebook profile picture evolutions from my high school girlfriends bear this out—but the cynical side of me wonders whether Ferrera would ever have landed the gig if she couldn’t carry herself down a red carpet in stilettos.

This Hollywood-flattened concept of beauty and worth plays into the other frustrating post-chick flick outcome. Apart from measuring myself against the saccharine narrative, I sometimes start imposing the movie’s standards on people around me: he’s not quite as charming as Dashing Movie Guy B, but maybe if he dressed a bit differently … I wonder if he’ll ever be gallant enough to walk all the way across town to rescue me in my dire need. Because I’m a progressive, independent woman &c, these musings occur on the subconscious birdbrain stratum— but that still doesn’t make them good.

I don’t want fantasies; I want faith. When no shining dude shows up at my door on his horse, I need the faith that makes me sure of what I hope for (Hebrews 11:1). And it’s tough enough to hold on to faith without some money-spinning director capitalizing on the fancy that Brooding Actor F, who is probably a jerk in person anyway, would make my life all rosy and fry me bacon for breakfast too. I’m not quite so odd that

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{

I do know that I’m generally an all-or-nothing commitment person. I’ve seen this in my closest friendships, my extracurriculars, and my sporadic eBay quests.

}

I don’t construct the occasional airy castle around an assorted crush, but I’ve seen how indulging attractions prematurely can threaten friendships—and I’d much rather develop the friendships than the castles, not least because the former are more likely to yield a stable relationship in the long run.

Just you wait, Mr. Darcy, just you wait.

References Photo from (www.webdesign.org/img_articles/14248/sunset.jpg).

Yue-Yi Hwa ’11 is a Political Economy major from Malaysia.

She likes good books, long walks on the beach, and irony.

Dazed and Confused

Godot’s World of Uncertain Icons

By Andrew Chen

Waiting for Godot is a play where characters constantly struggle to remember and to learn. As a result, for Vladimir and Estragon, Pozzo and Lucky, personal growth becomes increasingly difficult as memory and knowledge fail them. Together, their struggles symbolize the difficulty of finding fulfilling answers about the nature of man and the value of life. Although Samuel Beckett spent most of his life outside the nation of his birth, his play certainly questions Christianity’s heavy hand in society in 20th century Ireland. His choice of symbols and scripture doesn’t reject Christianity completely, but rather criticizes the dogmatic all-or-nothing interpretation of spiritual ideas. In this darkly whimsical world, simple, catechistic responses are inadequate.

The solitary tree in the center of the set, placed within a desolate wasteland, is the first problem to untangle, and the play’s first reaction against dogmatism. The tree bears remarkable thematic resemblance to the first appearance of God to Moses in Exodus 3—as Moses tends Jethro’s flocks, God calls to the Hebrew leader from within a burning bush. Moreover, God requests that Moses remove his sandals, as he is standing upon holy ground. Indeed, at one point Estragon mistakes the tree for such a shrub: “Looks to me more like a bush” (Godot 10).

Estragon also attempts to remove his boots—however, he has extreme difficulty doing so, as if considering the space as sacred were abhorrent to nature. Vladimir’s thoughts soon after, misquoting the Book of Proverbs, reinforce the idea that the tree

represents an uncertain divine vision: “Hope deferred maketh the something sick… who said that?” (Godot 8) The full verse says, “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when hope cometh, it is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12) Vladimir cannot remember the the life-affirming, positive clause—the idea that a tree of life could exist in this setting is out of mind and far from imagination. Assuming that the solitary tree actually in some capacity inhabits a blurry divine manifestation, the image of a country road expresses a similar idea. Moses’s burning bush lies in a sacred space on Horeb, the “mountain of God.” This lofty perch lends the deity importance, and suggests that humanity both struggles and desires to find Him—the act of physical ascension parallels a person’s desire to achieve salvation. Quite differently, Beckett’s burning bush resides in a barren wasteland, a “muckheap” (Godot 39) by a road in the middle of nowhere. Being placed adjacent to a rarely used roadway implies that the tree (bush) is unimportant, a destination to be

“Together, their struggles symbolize the difficulty of finding fulfilling answers about the nature of man and the value of life.”

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passed by and not sought after. Vladimir and Estragon’s periodic desire to hang themselves from this barren “tree of life” is ironic and saddening—again, the tree gestures towards life and spiritual (moral, personal) stability, but in their confusion, the two companions cannot see it.

Early in the first act, when the phrase “the last moment” (Godot 8) prompts Vladimir to reflect on death, he suddenly remembers the story of the two thieves crucified beside Christ.

The comedic biblical speculation that follows critiques the literal interpretation of scripture sharply but without malice.

This criticism takes two forms – Estragon strips the biblical text of all value by simply not caring, which he demonstrates through sarcastic apathy: “I find this really and most extraordinarily interesting”(Godot 9). On the other hand, Vladimir seems genuinely baffled by textual inconsistencies, wondering how only one of four gospel-writers would have written about The Williams Telos

the thief that was saved when they were all present at Christ’s death. Vladimir appears truly interested in reconciliation, to make this scrap of scripture a factually consistent text—in a sense, to make it whole. His simple statement, “It’s the only version they know,” criticizes Scripture’s claim to self-validity, but it also acknowledges that he and Estragon are in no position to judge, being lonely and somewhat ignorant too. Estragon does so anyway—“People are bloody, ignorant apes,” he grumbles, but his grousing isn’t so much contemptuous as frustrated at the elusiveness of concrete meaning. One begins to wonder if for Beckett, the important thing isn’t the answer but the courage to ask the question.

As an expatriate of Ireland’s religious conflict, Beckett’s experience as a Protestant in a completely Catholic-dominated Irish Free State would have likely been one of exclusion, prejudice, and denominational partisanship. In an environment

where people who believe in the same God, the same savior, and ostensibly the same criteria/principles for salvation often come to intractable, violent differences, the Gospel itself must have seemed a flimsy thing, a text that could mean whatever a faction wanted it to. These confusions and conflicts come together in the character of Lucky. On a fundamental level, he is comically sympathetic, a babbling “halfwit” or “cretin” whose eyes are “goggling out of his head” and whose neck is rubbed sore from the chafing of his leash. In his abuse and absolute incomprehensibility, Lucky seems to be an incarnation of what I would dub a “Christ-mute,” a religious figure whose image, name, and will are hijacked for a particular purpose, but whose actual voice and meaning is lost completely. Pozzo’s servant obediently does what he is told, but also has a voice of his own that his master does not want to understand or hear.

Like Christ, Lucky is beaten and spat upon, verbally abused, and tied up like a prisoner. When Pozzo enters, he seems to be completely in control, whip cracking, barking monosyllabic orders, his charge buckling over backward under the weight of his baggage like Christ carrying the cross. The master’s unending directional requests (Up! Down! Turn! Stop!) are not practical, but simply establish his dominance. Much like the Christ Beckett must have encountered in his observance of inter-Christian warfare, Lucky’s face is turned in every possible direction solely so that one man (or group) can claim he directs his will.

Now, obviously Lucky isn’t a direct allegory for Christ – where Jesus may have turned the other cheek, Lucky bites hard.

Where Christ was by all accounts socially gregarious, Lucky is an introverted half-lunatic. Indeed, I could not say that any religious fanatic would ever want to sell their savior at the fair.

“Ultimately, Pozzo and Lucky’s disabilities represent the atrophy of their reason- in his self-possessed arrogance, Pozzo loses sight of rational truth.”

However, despite this maltreatment, Lucky was the source of transcendent truth in Pozzo’s life, without whom “all my thoughts, all my feelings, would have been of common things” (Godot 33). Like Christ, the man was a greater figure than his debasement would indicate—he was, in a sense, Pozzo’s guide, literally so once Pozzo is struck blind in the second act. At some point Lucky possessed philosophical faculties, professing that “the tears of the world are a constant quality.” Moreover, shortly thereafter Pozzo refers to Lucky being his means to access “the truth of the first water.” Not only is Christ the giver of “living water” (John 4:5-15), but the notion of “first water” itself suggests that Lucky contains some knowledge of genesis, of simply beginning, a subject matter that no other character in the play can speak about, trapped as they are in the amnesiac, inertial process of waiting. This association of Lucky with truth is seemingly weakened when he ends up speaking nothing but incomprehensible gibberish. However, in the context that neither the “believer” (Pozzo) nor the nonreligious (Estragon, Vladimir) understands Lucky’s speech or even wants to, as all three plug their ears, the greater point is that religious fundamentalists understand as little of their savior’s purpose as the nonbelievers they condemn. The final image of Pozzo and Lucky the Christ-mute is dark and despairing: the believer, struck blind as suddenly as Saul (Acts 22:11), resigns himself to a thoroughly depressing view of life: “They give birth astride a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.”

(Godot 57) Stage directions tell us that Pozzo grows “more and more agitated” (Godot 28) as Lucky’s speech continues—he can no longer understand the words his former font of truth speaks. Meanwhile, Lucky has lost his voice completely. Ultimately, Pozzo and Lucky’s disabilities represent the atrophy of their reason—in his self-possessed arrogance, Pozzo loses sight of rational truth. So too, the former prophet’s will has been ignored for so long that his ability to articulate has been lost entirely.

The world of Waiting for Godot, in these examples and others, is rooted in uncertainty and spatial instability—time and identity are contorted. Even the few changes, indicators of time’s passage (new boots, tree leaves, etc.) seem random or anachronistic. In a nation dominated by rigorous Christian orthodoxy, of salvation and moral absolutism, Godot’s equivocation is a framework designed to complicate the traditional structures of religious dogma. By making a play whose charSpring 2010

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acters cannot find purpose or principled direction in life, nor any meaning thereafter, Beckett creates an environment that cannot be understood with dogma’s blunt instruments, where time, running straight and true in the ancient Hebrew conception, is fundamentally confused. “When! When! One day, is that not enough for you?” Pozzo cries. Without Lucky’s thoughts, Pozzo cannot make sense of the world around him, can no longer quantify his own tears. In an Ireland where the Prince of Peace fights voraciously for two sides, finding spiritual peace in the Christ-mute must have been similarly difficult.

However, as Beckett tells us through Vladimir, “Thinking is not the worst,” (Godot 41) reminding us that rational thought gives confidence in identity and comfort in existence. One may never know why one thief was condemned and the other saved, but the important thing is that one understood enough of justice to ask the question.

References Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot; Tragicomedy in 2 Acts,. New York: Grove, 1954. Print.

Photo from (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Bristlecone_Pines,_California.jpg).

Andrew Chen ’11 is an English major from Folsom, Calif. When not waiting, he enjoys writing and staying up too late.

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The Williams Telos

Ethics and Economics Why self-interest is not enough

By Inez Tan

Economics is mainly concerned with decisions about how to use scarce resources. (If I eat this candy bar, then you can’t eat it.) Scarcity usually leads to rivalry, which is a potential source of conflict and economic oppression. (You resent me because I ate the candy bar that could have been yours; maybe you are starving while I’m on the twenty-one meal plan. But I’m getting ahead of myself.)[1] Economic systems, such as capitalism or socialism, are simply ways of organizing our economic interdependence. Some call them the sets of economic relationships between people. At the root of economic systems are shared goals determined by society. And here’s the kicker. If you stepped back and looked at the American economy from a distance, what would you say our goals were? To profit at the expense of others? To ensure that everyone gets fed? To seek

equality—or advantage? Unfortunately, these implicit goals are seldom examined or challenged. Furthermore, economics alone won’t lead us to the endpoint – we need to be guided by ethics and religion as well.

At first glance, the dismal science, with its ‘natural laws’ and cost-benefit analyses, doesn’t seem to require moral interference. Adam Smith’s theory of ‘the invisible hand’ suggests that in markets, when every individual pursues his or her self-interest, it is as though an ‘invisible hand’ automatically allocates resources across society. Supply and demand meet—if people would like more bread, more bakeries will open; if people decide they’d rather have noodles, some bakeries will close. This is the foundation for ‘laissez-faire’ economics (French for ‘let it be’).

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However, the reality is that ethics and economics are inseparable. Many economic transactions depend upon ethical agreement: we respect property and contracts, and we don’t accept fraud or coercion. Furthermore, most economists today agree that there are some things that markets don’t do well at all. Left to their own devices, markets provide too few good things, such as education and roads, and too many bad things, such as pollution and the overuse of forests and lakes (called positive and negative externalities respectively). In such cases where self-interest does not serve the common good, economists recognize the need for regulation, usually by the government. Economists might disagree on the extent to which the government is responsible for dealing with externalities, but most would agree that government intervention and regulation are the best and most efficient solutions. Hence, governments might make laws that limit what businesses can do, and they might build schools and protect forests. Yet, economics alone fails to account for the social damage caused by self-interest.

The apostle Paul wrote that “the love of money is the root of all evil,” which encompasses materialism, the idolization of personal wealth, envy of the rich, contempt for the poor, exploitation, and divisions between all sides. Rebecca M. Blank, a Christian economist and current Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, writes that both market economies and human beings have “predictable weaknesses.” Hence, we need “more than markets to organize economic life.”2 How about Christianity? How does the Christian life intersect with the economic life? Jesus gives the two most important commandments in Mark 12, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

In all we do, as Christians we are called to have more than self-interest: we must also have other-interest. To illustrate his point, Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, found in Luke 10:24-37. A man is attacked by robbers and left to die on the side of the road. A priest and a Levite, who are both supposed to be figures of righteousness, pass him by, but a Samaritan, a despised foreigner, binds up the man’s injuries, puts him on his own donkey, and pays two silver coins for him to stay at an inn, with a promise to return and cover any extra expenses. The Samaritan sees a wounded stranger and cares for him like a brother, sharing his time, his resources, and his money. I’m filled with trepidation by Jesus’s next words: “Go

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“The apostle Paul wrote that ‘the love of money is the root of all evil,’ which encompasses materialism, the idolization of personal wealth, envy of the rich, contempt for the poor, exploitation, and divisions between all sides.” and do likewise.”

Looking further back into scripture, I was surprised to find many detailed laws in the Old Testament addressing economic activity. Did you know that when the Israelites first settled in Canaan, land was allocated according to the size of the family, and then by fair lottery? Every seven years, debts were cancelled, land was allowed to rest and fallow, and the produce was freely available to the poor. Every forty-nine years, any land that had been bought and sold was returned to its original owners in a celebration called the Jubilee. Just to give a few more examples, families had an obligation to bail out kinsmen who had fallen on hard times. Workers were not to glean the fields too thoroughly because the poor were entitled to whatever remained.

Specifically, such laws called for economic redistribution in order to promote greater equality of opportunity and outcome among all. Sadly, even in early Israel, the laws were not always followed.3 Thus we have arrived at two economic goals of the Christian perspective: equal opportunity and egalitarian outcomes. The former is an easier case. Depending on your personal view, this could mean anything from better public school systems to free universal healthcare, but most people would agree that everyone ought to start out on a level playing field. It will be harder to bring about egalitarian outcomes. Note that that doesn’t mean income should be perfectly equal. A waiter shouldn’t earn the same wages as a doctor. As Professor Gentry once said in class, “Socialism. Didn’t work.” David Miller, a British political

theorist at Oxford, explains that “a just distribution of income would be substantially unequal, but the range of inequality would be considerably smaller than the range that now exists in almost all capitalist economies.”4 Egalitarian outcomes that imply the equality of people are another way of saying, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

You might be wondering what chance we have of upholding Judeo-Christian standards in a secular economy today. Actually, the best justification for them is very simple: greater equality is good for the economy. A study by Brandolini & Rossi showed that economic growth might be enhanced by institutions that encourage equality; many more studies have note that income inequality deters economic growth. Beed & Beed argue that greater equality leads to greater social and political stability.

Certainly we could eliminate some of the worst of poverty.

In discussions about redistributive policies, a line often heard is “I worked hard for my money, so why should I have to support someone who didn’t?” Often, redistribution doesn’t feel fair. That’s because it isn’t. But Christianity has never been about fairness. It’s about grace, the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God. The very basis of the Christian faith is that God gave all of us better than we deserve when He sent Jesus, so that we might be reconciled to God. Given what God has done for us, it isn’t enough to just treat one another “fairly.”

Contrast the first sentence of this paragraph with a Christian perspective by Donald Hay, a Fellow and Tutor of Economics at Jesus College, Oxford, “[Even] work does not imply the right to consume all the fruits of our labors, since we are stewards working on God’s behalf with the talents He has provided.

There is therefore an obligation on those who have much to provide for those who have little.”5 What a difference the Good Samaritan made to the wounded man. How different the world could be if we made other-interest an economic goal.

3. Blank, Rebecca M. and McGurn, William. (2004) Is the Market Moral?, Brookings Institution Press.

4. Miller, D. (1999), Principles of Social Justice, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Pp.249-259 5. Hay, Donald A. (1989) Economics Today, A Christian Critique, Apollos, Leicester.

Photo from (http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/imgs/media/ Ted_s_pix/mars_bar.jpg).

Inez Tan ’12 is an Economics and English double major and currently resides in Singapore.

References 1. Bennett, John C., Bowen, Howard R., Brown Jr. William A., Oxnam, G. Bromley. (1954) Christian Values and Economic Life, Harpers & Brothers.

2. Beed, Clive and Beed, Cara. (2004) Distributional Implications of Contemporary Judeo-Christian Economics, International Journal of Social Economics, i. 31 v. 9/10.

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Baptism

By Father Gary Caster With living waters breaking bursts a child Who screams against the light that marks his passing, His plaintive shrieks too sharp for newly opened ears That prior to this birthing Have only known the drone of hallow antiphons Mere echoes sounded off the walls of fallen flesh That may have sheltered him But all the while had him darkness bound.

The air he breathes relieves his fledgling fear And lets him know that here new life is possible.

His unencumbered members flail within the space that once was But is not now the boundary of confinement.

With fragile hope and ebbing doubt and soothed trembling He lets himself by anxious hands be taken.

And love is born from water and the spirit, It exists unmeasured in the distance between The place he occupied alone And the blood soaked hands that helped him to be born, That wanted all along one day to hold him.

Father Gary Caster has been the Roman Catholic Chaplain at Williams College since 2007.

Tina Zeng ’11 is a Biology major and Neuroscience concentrator from Plano, Texas.

TINA ZENG ’11

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The Williams Telos

Writing through Faith and Doubt An Interview with Sara Zarr

By Stephanie H. Kim I picked up my first Sara Zarr novel during the summer of 2008, when I was looking for a quick, fun read and heard some buzz about the National Book Award Finalist Story of a Girl.

Young adult (YA) fiction is kind of my go-to for guilty pleasure reading, so I was eager to figure out what all the hype was about as I dove into the first few pages.

And yes, okay, that Third Eye Blind song immediately started ringing in my ears as I cracked open the paperback spine.

You know—“This is the story of a girl / Who cried a river and drowned the whole world.” Accordingly, I was half-expecting some melodramatic fluff with a lot of angst and a lot of tears.

To my pleasant surprise, this particular story of a girl hit every note completely right. I read it one sitting, turning the pages in the dim light of my bedroom late into the night, and by the time I reached the final sentence, I was an official Sara Zarr fan.

I read Sweethearts shortly after that, and I pre-ordered Once Was Lost in anticipation of its release in the fall of 2009. This last tale takes up the story of Samara Taylor, a small-town pastor’s kid whose wavering faith is pushed to the edge when a local girl is abducted and Sam’s life seems to fall crumbling around her. Her journey of faith and doubt struck an authentic chord with me, both as a pastor’s kid myself and as a person of faith. Something I find compelling in all three of Zarr’s novels is that none of the stories end in perfect resolution; instead, they’re left open-ended. Conceptually, this resonates not only with the genre of YA literature (because adolescence is nothing if not a journey), but also with the aspirations of faith as well.

Once Was Lost, to me, seemed like the perfect intersection of both journeys.

I had the privilege of interviewing Sara about her thoughts on this intersection as well as the relationship between faith

and art, and her answers can be found below. ______________________ While you don’t tackle religious faith as explicitly in your first two books as you do in OWL, related themes do show up. You deal with forgiveness and redemption in Story of a Girl and love and sacrifice in Sweethearts, but did you intentionally approach these themes from the perspective of faith?

I didn’t, but my faith is so ingrained---it really is the filter through which I experience the world, and it can’t help but also be the filter through which I write. All writers have a worldview, whether that’s framed in religious faith or politics or a certain belief about human nature. I think that always comes through.

“I never wanted to wind up in a position where I was being asked to softpedal the adolescent experience, or feel like I had to clumsily bolt on some Christian message or moment of conversion if it wasn’t organic to the story.”

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novel. There are so many expectations, and potential conflicts and misunderstandings, and meanwhile [there’s] this fairly big issue of God looming in the background or foreground.

In the book, Sam struggles with a lot of questions that I have had or continue to have. All the basic stuff anyone from a Christian tradition deals with eventually---why is there suffering, why doesn’t God just come down and fix things, why don’t I feel God’s presence right now, are miracles real.

OWL is a complicated book, part coming-of-age, part suspenseful mystery, part family drama, and part faith journey. Did you plan to address faith/doubt from the outset, or did that grow out of the story itself?

It grew out of the story itself. I started it while Elizabeth Smart was missing here in Salt Lake, and originally it was an adult novel told from multiple points of view. Once I decided to make it YA and settled on the pastor’s daughter as the narrator, it became more explicitly faith-oriented. Starting with a theme is rarely a good idea, in my opinion, because if you’re sure what you want to say you’re not as open to where the story might more naturally go in the process of writing. It becomes a struggle between what you wanted out of the story and what it wants to be.

You don’t find many pastor’s kids as protagonists in mainstream young adult literature, let alone multi-dimensional, sympathetic pastor’s kids. Where did the idea to make Sam one come from?

And is Sam’s faith journey at all reflective of your own?

It’s been so long since I first started the book---I don’t remember how or why exactly Sam was a pastor’s kid. I was probably very influenced by the fact that I was working at a church at the time (as an administrative assistant), and thinking a lot about how the behind-the-scenes of church life (or “underbelly,” to put a darker spin on it) was a rich setting for a

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Were you nervous at all about addressing the topic of religious faith in a book intended for general audiences, especially since it doesn’t fall into obvious patterns of wholly accepting or rejecting faith?

A little. I knew I had an understanding editor who would help make sure I was hitting the right balance. Responses have been great, and it’s been my best-reviewed book so far, but I do think it can be a harder sell to readers. Unless you are looking for a book about a crisis of faith, it’s not the kind of plot that jumps out at you and sells itself, and I’m sure potential readers make assumptions about where the character will end up. But, I’ve never seriously considered writing for the Christian market so it was never a question of, “Will this be a ‘Christian book’ or a mainstream book dealing with faith issues?” I always knew it would be the latter.

Speaking of which, the evangelical Christian subculture has produced its own version of the music, film, and book industries that come with their own expectations, requirements, and goals. When you started writing, did you make a conscious decision to write for general audiences rather than explicitly Christian ones?

Yes. I’ve rarely encountered books, movies, or music created within the Christian subculture that meet the highest standards of craft (there are exceptions, of course). My feeling is, if you’re going to be a writer, be the best writer you can, and unfortunately it seems like there’s not the freedom to do that in Christian publishing the way there is in the general marketplace. I never wanted to wind up in a position where I was being asked to soft-pedal the adolescent experience, or feel like I had to clumsily bolt on some Christian message or moment of conversion if it wasn’t organic to the story.

You also contributed a personal essay about community and your religious upbringing in a collection called Jesus Girls: True Tales of Growing Up Female and Evangelical. What led you to contribute,

“... honoring your responsibility to the vocation...means doing it to the highest level of craft you possibly can, thoughtfully and intentionally, and telling the whole story, not just the pretty or uplifting parts.” and why do you think the book is an important one?

When the editor of that collection, Hannah Notess, contacted me about the concept and about contributing, I jumped at it. My experiences growing up in the church were so formative in both positive and less positive ways. It was great to get the opportunity to explore that specifically with the editorial guidance of someone who understood. It’s a very good collection, and though the writers have lots of different perspectives, I feel like anyone who grew up in church can relate to all of them in some way.

the whole story, not just the pretty or uplifting parts. Everything sort of clicked into place for me then, as far as the relationship between my faith and my work. I’ve gone to the Glen Workshop just about every year since and have found a real community there who deal with all of these questions.

Do you envision more openness in the future about depicting faith in young adult literature without dealing in caricature or pat answers? Why or why not?

I’m hopeful for the future. The cultural landscape is always shifting, and though in some ways it’s more polarized now than it was twenty years ago, there is also this movement through Christendom of people like me who are seeking and finding a more integrated life. That is, wanting to bring all aspects of who they are and what they experience under God’s grace, instead of compartmentalizing and labeling. This movement is already trickling out into the arts, and I think it will continue to move into the YA world, too.

References Photo courtesy of Michael Schoenfeld.

Sara Zarr is the acclaimed author of three novels for young adults: Story of a Girl (National Book Award Finalist), Sweethearts (Cybil Award Finalist), and Once Was Lost Do you consider art to be vocational in any way—to use the fa- (a Kirkus Best Book of 2009). Her short fiction and essays miliar evangelical terminology, do you believe artists, or Christian have also appeared in Image, Hunger Mountain, and several artists, are “called” to something, anything? And/or do you feel you anthologies. She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with her husband, and online at www.sarazarr.com. have any particular responsibility to your audience, your faith tradition, or God in your creative process?

A turning point in my career was attending an arts and faith conference in 2002 (The Glen Workshop). I’d been writing about seven years with no tangible results, had just lost my agent and my job, and wondered if I was on the wrong path.

The theme of that year’s conference was “Art as Vocation: The Voice of This Calling.” It was the right time for me to be hearing that yes, creative careers are a valid way to spend one’s life, that honoring your responsibility to the vocation (and to audiences, and to God) means doing it to the highest level of craft you possibly can, thoughtfully and intentionally, and telling

Stephanie H. Kim ’10 is an English major and Jewish Studies concentrator from Rockville, Md. She has just written a thesis about children’s literature.

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ADAM STONER ’11

The Williams Telos

EMILY YU ’11

Adam Stoner ’11 is an Studio Art and Theatre double major from Charlotte, N.C. Emily Yu ’11 is a Computer Science and Chinese double major from Carlisle, Mass.

Spring 2010

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Untitled

By Effua Sosoo

As the court officer slapped on the cuffs, the young boy paused to hug his mother goodbye.

Then the tears fell as my heart began to swell with…pain.

Did he ask to be raped in juvie?

I mean, maybe we should put the “system” on trial for sexual assault.

The hope of the court: to supervise transition from childhood to adulthood.

And this is accomplished by…separating mommies and daddies from babies and maybe risking mental stability and ruining someone’s life…forever.

The submergence of the poor and ignorant into 504s and CHINS that simply magnify their sins that they…run from at night.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? I do, but do you swear to investigate the truth beyond courts’ doors, beyond these walls?

Do you?

Do you swear to come home with me every night to a husband that beats me and treats me like the dirt of the earth?

Do you swear to take the bottle out my hand when I’m drowning in my soul?

I can’t hear you…

Because I’m already dead.

And by the time you hear my case, I’ve risen to a state of nothingness.

Where the only way to heal pain is to numb it.

And the only way to numb pain is to sniff it.

And the only direction to run is…death.

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“I’m seeing a chapter of their lives. I just try to make it a little better. I don’t judge them.”

But don’t forget that chapters come from books, and the cover of a book doesn’t tell its story.

And when they wake up each morning, they aren’t concerned with your Individualized Education Plan, your 51A, B… See, they’re trying to understand how they can deal with their child selling pills at Mount Greylock, their daughter who is a new mother, and this blended family they thought would be a stable family.

So we break up a family that really isn’t a family at all?

I don’t know, this doesn’t seem…right.

And I know the law is the law, But I’m saying that life isn’t life and as I sit in my classroom and discuss derivatives, He’s sedated with Abilify and she’s overcome with PTSD and I wonder why my life is mine and where their parents went wrong and whether there is…hope.

Hope for that 12-year-old in custody, Hope for Caleb’s parents, Hope for the former sex slave…who might never see life the same again.

Because when I leave that courtroom, I’m heading back to my life of privilege.

But when he leaves, when she leaves, when they leave, They don’t know where they will end up.

References Photo from (http://votingfemale.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/handcuffs.jpg) and (http://cefn.com/blog/photos/open_book. jpg).

Effua Sosoo ’13 is from Brooklyn, N.Y. and plans on majoring in Psychology and concentrating in Legal Studies.

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Redemption on Trial Review of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot

By Anthony V. Nguyen

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I was surprised and elated when I first learned that Cap & Bells was putting on a production of a Christian-themed play, Stephen Adly Guirgis’s The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. In fact, I thought I might even try out for a part, until a friend told me of the voluminous amount of swearing among some of the characters. The last time I auditioned for a part that required cursing, I became so amused during the attempt that my body convulsed into a fit of gleeful chuckling. In any event, having seen the play for myself, any lingering doubts I had about the play’s quality were extinguished as I out-laughed almost everyone else in the audience.

Under the steady hands of the director Noah Schecter ’12, the actors did a splendid job of bringing the cast of sundry religious figures to life on stage. With only an expertly rendered model of the Brooklyn Bridge in the background, a few simple props, and a sparsely furnished courtroom as the main setting, the belated second trial of Judas Iscariot smoothly unfolded for nearly two hours. From beginning to end, figures that included Purgatorial denizens, apostles, and saints like Mary Magdalene mingled and wove a hilarious, yet serious, drama about Judas’s life and calamitous end—all the while two lawyers wrangled over the complex question of whether Judas was fairly damned or not.

In one of the more notable performances of the play, Joe Lorenz ’10 adroitly portrayed a two-faced, dissembling Satan who can charmingly beguile and throw an irate tantrum with equally terrifying skill. My favorite lines of the play by far came from a moment when the defense counsel, El-Fayoumi, was cross examining Satan: “And I appreciate your appreciation,” Satan slickly replied to a fawning expression of thanks. St. Monica, the mother of arguably the greatest intellectual saint of the Western Church, was depicted not according to the stereotypical caricature of Christian holiness—the docile, unassuming man or woman with hands statically folded in prayer—but as an audacious, foul-mouthed character who had nagged and nagged Heaven to convert Augustine from his intemperate ways. Acted by Lauren Young ’10, St. Monica became one fierce bulldozer of a saint; nonetheless, because of her genuinely honest and loving nature, she was a holy advocate whose powerful intercession was relied upon to obtain a second hearing for Judas against all odds.

For a supposedly religious comedy saturated with prurient and irreverent humor, I was actually taken aback by how deeply the play explored challenging issues related to Christian salvation. Although contemporary in dramatic context and setting, the play possessed a respectful and curious outlook on religious traditions and beliefs.

In general, I thought the playwright paid great attention to ensure that profound eschatological issues received their fair due, conveying with a decent amount of accuracy a Catholic understanding of the heavenly communion of saints, the mystery of Christ’s redemptive work, and the pitfalls of the satanic void we term hell. Most importantly, Guirgis addressed the perennially confounding question of divine judgment with remarkable sensitivity to subtle theological nuances in a playful and artistic manner.

In my view, the scene that best captured Guirgis’s considerate The Williams Telos

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handling of the intricacies of Christian redemption was the poignant moment when Judas’s legal counsel, Fabiana “...his cold alienation Cunningham, badgers Satan to answer how is it that he from companionship could love God. Without missing a beat, Satan quips, “I love God because He is all-powerful and all-forgiving. I with Mystery is the love God because his justice is perfect. I love God because unavoidable conseGod loves me.” It’s rather astonishing to hear the Prince quence of his selfof Evil himself declare any reason for loving the God he preoccupied despair.” so obviously loathes. One is immediately compelled to ask, “Well, if he loves God, then why does he still maintain complete dominion over Hell?” Good question.

It helps to see that the point of Satan’s statement is not to declare his unreserved adoration of his Creator. It’s evident that Satan has rejected God, preferring self-power over subservient obedience. Despite his “love,” he still intends to repudiate Cunningham’s claim—one frequently marshaled in debates about the nature of God’s love. This position argues that God’s love is conditional, that the Lord’s justice is spiteful, capricious, and retributive. Ultimately, Cunningham dares to assert that God actually revels in His arbitrary damnation of Judas. According to the logic of this argument, as long as Hell exists to contain condemned sinners, then either God is not all-benevolent or He is not omnipotent, since He is powerless to prevent humanity from offending the commandments. Therefore, it is indubitable that Judas was sentenced unjustly for his betrayal of Jesus Christ—a punishment which for Cunningham must be overturned if God is all-forgiving. Otherwise, the trial merely serves to confirm her skeptical suspicions as to the efficacy of divine mercy and compassion, and even to the very existence of God. Satan’s unexpected reply, however, tosses an inconvenient wrench into Cunningham’s well oiled logical contraption. If God still loves Satan, then there must be another explanation why his current address is 666 Avenue of Hades besides the assumption that God angrily exiled him there. For angels just as for humans, God bequeathed to them the gift of free will, with which they may make the subjective choice to enter into an existentially fulfilling relationship with Him or not. Following Satan’s proclamation that he “loves” God is his admission that he selected to terminate the intimate relationship he once had with the Absolute. By analogy, Judas’s isolation in hell is also the result of a choice to disconnect from God; his cold alienation from companionship with Mystery is the unavoidable consequence of his self-preoccupied despair. After his betrayal, Judas flees inward from shame instead of seeking safe refuge in Love, in God’s inexhaustible font of mercy. Judas has become terrified and disgusted of the very notion of God to the extent that only in God’s absence can Judas maintain any sense of self and identity.

Sadly for Judas, he consequently degrades into an empty shell void of genuine life and personhood. In the end, Cunningham’s adamant efforts to clear Judas’s name backfires, thereby throwing light upon her agnosticism and unwillingness to embrace forgiveness for her own sins.

Overall, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot is worth at least one viewing for its dynamic blend of humor and theology. For the inquisitive person concerned about the afterlife and who doesn’t mind the sustained battery of verbal indecency, I strongly recommend seeing this play whenever the opportunity presents itself again.

Referemces Photo from (http://blogs.courant.com/rick_green/courtroom-thumb-450x360.jpg).

Anthony Nguyen ’10 is a Chinese and Philosophy double major from New York, N.Y. Spring 2010

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The Other Side

By Tasha Chu

Tasha Chu ’11 is a Psychology major from Monrovia, Calif.

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The Williams Telos

The Amendment

By Emily Yu

“I had to arrest them. It’s the law. Someone called the department to report a family praying at the Great Brook Farm State Park. Chief Sullivan sent me to go check it out, so I went down to the park, and they were just sitting there as a family, under a tree, eating a nice, old-fashioned picnic lunch that they’d packed.”

“You didn’t actually see them?”

“Well, no…but there were several witnesses.”

“So you arrested them all. Even their five-year-old son?”

“What else could I do? They were on state property. It was a clear violation of the law.”

“I see. Do you think I could talk to any of these witnesses?”

“Sure, I’ll give you their teleportation coordinates. But don’t expect too much from them. They’ll probably want to stay as anonymous as they can.”

“Thanks.”

______________________

“Yeah, I’ll talk to you about it. I’m not scared of speaking out against this religious nonsense. In fact, I was one of the front men pushing hard to get all these laws passed.”

“I take it you’re a pretty strong believer in the Party?”

“Like I said, I basically WROTE Atheistic Amendment Seven. And I helped to draft Amendments Three and Five, too.”

“There’s no place in our elite scientific society for something as illogical as faith.”

“Why is the Party so against religion of any kind?”

“The Party’s main motto is: ‘Science is the answer.’ Religion gets in the way of scientific progress with all the arguments about ethics and whatnot. I mean imagine all the discoveries we can make now that stem cell research has been legalized.

There’s no place in our elite scientific society for something as illogical as faith. Think about it: the definition of faith is a belief that is not based on proof. That contradicts everything the Party stands for. Not to mention these religious nutcases all go around spreading their nonsense wherever they go. Trying to get people to believe in something that’s NOT based on proof?

It’s a threat to the Party.”

“I see. So were you the one who called the police?”

“I wish. I saw them praying out by the duck pond, giving thanks to their GOD for the food, so I called the police, but they told me someone had already called it in and that an officer was on his way.”

“What do you think will happen to the family?”

“They’ll get what’s coming to them. The law clearly states: ‘Anyone caught praying to a god or worshiping anyone or anything other than the Party will be thrown into a pit full of Life Ingesting Organ Nurturers.’ Robotic LIONs, if you will.

Original, don’t you think? I thought of it myself.”

“Even their kids? They have a five-year-old son and a sixteen-year-old daughter.”

“AA Nine just got passed a week ago. This family is the first group caught in violation of it. I suppose the courts might spare the children. Put them up for adoption or something.

But as for the parents, they have to be dealt with harshly as an example to all those out there who don’t think the Party is serious about ridding society of religion.”

“They can’t even be released on bail?”

“The amendment demands that they be held without bail.

These people are dangerous. They’re Evangelists. Let them go, Spring 2010

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and they’ll keep spreading their nonsense beliefs. There’s no room in our society for “God” and those who follow “God.” Science is the new god. We believe in the Leader and the Party.”

“Ok, thanks for your time.” ______________________

“So you were the one who called the police.”

“Yes… you’re not going to mention my name in this article are you?”

“No, this will be totally anonymous.”

“Can I get that in writing?”

“Sure. I’ll have my secretary send you the signed contract.

So can you tell me what happened that day?”

“I was in the park, exploring the trails on my hovercraft.”

“Were you alone?”

“No, I was on a blind date.”

“Ok, go on.”

“So I was floating with my date when we saw them praying.

They gave thanks for their food, for the nice weather, and asked for forgiveness for the leaders of the nation and the Party.”

“And this was when you called the police.”

“I had to! I didn’t know anything about my date. What if he worked for Them? I’ve seen what the Party does to those who knowingly let religion exist.”

“Are you a supporter of the Atheistic Amendments?”

“I’m not religious, but I always thought that people should be able to believe whatever they want.”

“So you were just afraid for yourself. You handed a whole family a death sentence because you were scared?”

“I’m s-s-sorry! I-I-I don’t want them to die! But have you seen what they do to dissenters? My husband, Chad… his best friend was a Muslim… and Chad refused to rat his friend out.

They took him away… and s-s-sent me b-back his ASHES a week later. Of course I was scared. I have a f-f-five year old s-sson! He needs me! I didn’t have a ch-ch-choice!”

“Ok, thanks, those are all my questions. There’s a box of tissues over there.”

“P-p-promise me that it’ll be anonymous.”

“I promise.”

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{

Exactly. Life Ingesting Organ Nurturers. These things are amazing.

They’re merciless. ______________________

}

“Jamison—how did the interviews go?”

“I talked to the lieutenant that arrested them and two of the witnesses from the scene. One of them demanded to remain anonymous. Linda’s sending her the contract right now.”

“What? No, no these witnesses should be commended publicly for doing their duty as citizens. Put the names in.”

“But sir, I talked to the chief of police and he said he thought both of the witnesses should be anonymous because the, uh, crazy Evangelists that are friends of this family might go and harass them with their, uh, Biblical mumbo-jumbo. So it’d be in their best interest to keep them unnamed.”

“Oh… all right, I guess. Those Evangelists are such a menace to society. Good thing we have the Party working hard to cleanse ourselves of them. Oh, they’ll make an example out of this family. You know what’s going to happen to them?”

“Er, the first witness I interviewed said something about mechanical lions?”

“Exactly. Life Ingesting Organ Nurturers. These things are amazing. They’re merciless. Well, of course they are, they’re machines. Did he tell you how they work?”

“No sir.”

“They are the height of scientific progress. They systematically rip a man apart limb-by-limb, starting with the feet and then working their way up the legs so that all the intestines and junk come spilling out. Then they bite off each finger one by one, work their way up each arm—” “Sounds unnecessarily cruel to me.”

“—and then drags the torso and head around before taking off the head. But the best part is, they do it while preserving the vital organs—you know, like the heart, liver, kidneys, lungs, all

those things. Then they harvest them and rush them to Sacred Heart Hospital for the transplant patients.”

“Why don’t they suck up all the blood too? And rip off all the skin? I’m sure that would be useful… you know, blood transfusions… and skin grafts…”

“That is an excellent idea. I’ll pass it along to the Leader.”

“Um. Thank you, sir,” “You’d better get going. The Leader has given you permission to go to the jail and interview Peter McGrath, the father of the family. Be brutal. Make him sound as radical as possible.”

“Yes, sir.” ______________________

“You have ten minutes to talk to him.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll be right out here if you need anything.”

“Ok.” ______________________

“Hello. My name is Marcus Jamison. I’m a reporter for the Globe. I’m here to ask you a few questions. Is that ok?”

“Sure, I’d be happy to answer any questions you have.”

“I guess my first question is the one that’s on everyone’s minds: why’d you do it? Surely you knew it was against the law.”

“Well, Marcus, we were just giving thanks to God for the food and for everything else He’s given us. As for the law, the laws we follow are not the laws of men, but God’s laws.”

“But you’re facing sure death. I’m sure you’ve heard about the LIONs.” “Yes.” “These things rip you apart one limb at a time and harvests your organs.”

“Well, at least our organs will bring some good to this world.”

“What about your kids?”

“Angela, my wife, and I have no choice. We have faith that someone will take care of Sarah and Ben.” “Are you scared?”

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“Of course we’re scared. Who wouldn’t be? But we rest assured that God will take care of us.”

“What do you mean by that? Do you think that he’ll somehow intervene and save you from this gruesome death?”

“No, not exactly. What I mean is, we’re comforted by the fact that God’s great love is more powerful than anything in this world. Since Jesus died for our sins, we’ve already won the battle.”

“The battle? The battle with whom? The Party?”

“No… the battle with death. Through Jesus, we have power over death. He died for our sins—yours too—so that we can all have life beyond death. All we have to do is choose to believe.”

______________________

“Well, I guess my time here is up. It was nice meeting you, Mr. McGrath.”

“Please, call me Pete. It was nice meeting you too.”

“All the best to you and your family.”

“God bless, Marcus.” ______________________

“Hi, is this your first time here?”

“Oh, yeah, it is. I’m a… friend… of Pete McGrath. He told me how to find this place.”

“Oh… I see. I heard what happened to them. Awfully brave of them. Thank God Pastor Jim was able to adopt Sarah and Ben.” “Yeah, thank God.” “I’m Jennifer, by the way. Jennifer Lee.” “Marcus. Marcus Jamison… nice to meet you.”

“Welcome to our church, Marcus.”

References Photo from (https://www.marchbrae.co.uk/acatalog/lionlge.jpg).

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The Williams Telos

“Welcome to our church, Marcus.”

Emily Yu ’11 is a Computer Science and Chinese double major from Carlisle, Mass.

The Subtle Watchmaker A Review of Richard Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth

By Cale Weatherly

In the opening chapter of The Greatest Show on Earth, writer, at least until the book’s end. Dawkins is also skilled in Richard Dawkins asks the reader to imagine the plight of a writing for a variety of scientific backgrounds, keeping descripLatin teacher whose efforts at teaching the wonders of Latin tions lucid enough for the novice and rigorous enough for the language and literature are hampered by the protests of politi- professional. His enthusiasm for biology, and particularly for cally connected groups who are able to persuade students that animal behavior, his professional specialty, is contagious, and the Romans never existed. His analogy of the Latin teacher’s he has good command of relevant topics in chemistry and geolplight to that of biology teachers forced to defend evolutionary ogy, two disciplines essential to evolutionary theory. This pastheory to creationist stusage on insect vision and dents is a poor one, not its important role in plant “Any one of these least because examining pollination is especially categories of evidence evidence for scientific fun and illuminating: might provide a modtheories is both a prierately persuasive mary source of scientific “If you have a tubular pleasure and among the flower in your garden it is case for the truth of most important skills a a good bet, though not a evolution; together high school science stucertain prediction, that in their evidence is overdent can learn. And this the wild it is pollinated not whelming.” is why Dawkins’ book is by insects but by birds, who a good one: a readable, see well at the red end of the convincing, and occaspectrum – perhaps humsionally wondrous account of evidence for the theory of evolu- mingbirds if it is a New World plant, or sunbirds if an Old World tion by natural selection that overcomes the intermittent drag plant. Flowers that look plain to us may actually be lavishly decoof Dawkins’ philosophizing. rated with spots or stripes for the benefit of insects, ornamentation Dawkins’ current fame stems largely from his atheist mani- that we can’t see because we are blind to ultraviolet. Many flowers festo, The God Delusion (2006), but he originally came to prom- guide bees in to land by little runway markings, painted on the inence as a biologist and first-rate popular science author. The flower in ultraviolet pigments, which the human eye can’t see.”

God Delusion’s vitriol spills over into the new book’s shaky first chapter—one part alarmism about creationists, kindly dubbed The structure of the book’s early chapters is careful and con“history-deniers”, one part rudimentary scientific method. vincing. Dawkins begins his discussion of evolutionary eviHowever, he soon calms and showcases his gifts as a science dence not in the primordial ooze of billions of years past, but

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in the cozy, familiar world of domesticated dogs. To this, as to all his zoological discussions, Dawkins brings a seemingly inexhaustible supply of anecdote, experiment and fact, demonstrating that a few centuries of selective breeding have cultivated great diversity and specificity among breeds – an example of observable evolution, though not evolution by natural selection. This first argument proceeds patiently and convincingly, as Dawkins takes his readers from the human-guided breeding of sunflowers, to sexual selection in peacocks, and finally to prey fishes’ accidental selection of attractive angler fish lures – building slowly from conscious, careful trait selection to unconscious, “natural” selection. Not only has he carried readers from a familiar arena to a more exotic one, he has established the all-important principle of natural selection without involving the incendiary facts of an old Earth and the common ancestry of all species. Even the most skeptical reader will track to this point.

Dawkins moves nimbly through evidence from the fossil record, embryology, the geographical distribution of species, genetic cousinship and comparative anatomy, demonstrating that evolution is not only a well supported theory, but a marvel of explanatory power, the tree from which the subdisciplines of biology branch. Any one of these categories of evidence might provide a moderately persuasive case for the truth of evolution; together their evidence is overwhelming. Creationists will find room to disagree. They will point to the lack of direct observation of speciation, they will peck away at methodologies, they will construct ever more elaborate extra-Biblical accounts of Noah’s flood to explain away the fossil record, species distri-

“And indeed, reading Dawkins’ work as a believer in both the Christian faith and the fact of evolution, I walk away with a deeper sense of the glory of God manifested in creation. ” 30

The Williams Telos

bution and genetic and physiological resemblances. They will do so after hearing any account of natural history that is not their own. But I think that after reading this account of the evidence, they will have to admit that if the evolutionists have been conned, they have been beaten by the best.

There is, however, one important flaw in the account.

Dawkins assumes throughout the text that evolution is triggered by random genetic mutation, and that these mutations are selected because they confer survival and reproductive advantages. Nevertheless, Dawkins admits that the vast majority of mutations are neutral or harmful. He demonstrates, particularly in a wonderful discussion of Richard Lenski’s bacteriology experiments, but the molecular “how” of mutation receives no discussion.

Such a discussion is a necessary component of a comprehensive case for evolution by natural selection because Intelligent Design theorists, prominent opponents of the kind of evolution Dawkins advocates, claim that the difficulty of positive mutation is the chink in the evolutionary armor. According to this school of thought, the astronomical improbability of genetic mutation leading to positive adaptation and the “irreducible complexity” of the machinery found in living organisms imply that a “designer” has repeatedly intervened in the evolutionary process. These ideas have gained public currency in both the United States and Great Britain, and a full defense of evolution requires response to them. Evolutionists can indeed provide good responses to these arguments, as demonstrated in Kenneth Miller’s excellent Only a Theory (2008), but they are sadly absent from Dawkins’ book.

This may be because Dawkins does not really understand either the contemporary Intelligent Design movement or the classical theistic argument from design. Near the end of the work, Dawkins delves again into philosophizing, repeatedly citing examples of complex machinery in mammals that has certain flaws – the human eye, in its need for the brain to modify the imperfect images it receives, or the giraffe’s laryngeal nerve, in its roundabout path through the creature’s neck.

These flaws, he argues, imply that the world is not designed, because a designer would have constructed the anatomy differently, in accordance with Dawkins’ own tastes and ideas of anatomical efficiency.

But the theistic argument from design, whether based on an interventionist view of evolution (that of the Intelligent De-

sign camp) or a mechanistic view of evolution (my own position, often called “theistic evolution”), is not reliant upon the premise that our world show the best of all possible designs, whatever that might mean. Rather, the argument states that the grandeur and beauty of the world, the elegance of the laws by which it operates, and its suitability for life are best explained as the act of a cosmic designer-creator. In evaluating the alleged flaws in the design of human and giraffe anatomy, one must weigh their inefficiencies against their remarkable functionality and their consistency with the operations of the entire evolutionary project. Ultimately, I think that the evaluation of the design argument is a nonscientific and very personal process – the point is that Dawkins’ consideration of this matter is very crude, and that the fact of evolution, even evolution without the interventions of a supernatural being, hardly settles the question of design.

And indeed, reading Dawkins’ work as a believer in both the Christian faith and the fact of evolution, I walk away with a deeper sense of the glory of God manifested in creation. As if the scope and intricacies of living things on Earth at present were insufficient to wonder at, evolution allows us to ponder the very process by which they came to be as grand and creative. I imagine the creation of the first living thing, a minuscule, asexually reproducing, defenseless primeval bacterium, and perhaps share in God’s pleasure by knowing that some three billion years later, its descendants would finally be capable of communion with their creator. Some have argued that this view diminishes humankind, rendering beings cre-

ated in the image of God as no more than common animals.

But throughout spiritual history, God has not called great what man calls great. He first chose Abraham, an ordinary pagan, to be the father of a nation; later David, the youngest of his family, to be Israel’s greatest king; and finally Jesus, of common birth and meek character, to bring salvation to the world. That the human animal should arise from humble beginnings is no surprise. Intentionally, Richard Dawkins has demonstrated that this origin is a fact. Despite all efforts to the contrary, he has demonstrated that it is among God’s greatest works.

References: Photo from (http://daily.swarthmore.edu/static/uploads/ by_date/2009/02/19/evolution.jpg).

Cale Weatherly ’09 will begin doctoral studies in organic chemisty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Fall 2010.

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Sports, Divinely Illustrated A Look at the Platform of Athletics

By Virginia A. Cumberbatch

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It is one thing to kiss the cross dangling from your neck before you step on the pitch, point to the sky when you score that touchdown, or make the sign of the cross before shooting that oh-so-critical free throw, but it’s an entirely different thing to truly understand your athletic talents and live them for the glory of God. When we recount some of the most talented and famous athletes in history, their stories often describe their incredible dedication to training, their agility, their strength, and all their other natural abilities that help them to dominate in their specific sport. But what if at the beginning, middle and end of these tales, the source of all the aforementioned characteristics was understood to be God? Throughout the 20th and 21st century, the relationship between Christianity and athletics at the collegiate and professional levels has been fraught with complications in the eyes of the public, the political arena and the media. But for many athletes and coaches, the relationship is quite simple: “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). The truth is, we live in a world where celebrity worship is at an all time high, where NBA, NFL, NCAA, MLS, MLB and Champions League players are making more money than most people can ever dream to make. Moreover, these men and women possess more than million-dollar contracts and endorsements; these athletes and coaches have one of the most visible and important platforms in the country. Yet two prominent coaches have gone on the record to say that while you can’t win without “defense,” “determination,” and “drive,” you certainly can’t win without God as a part of your game both on and off the court.

William J. Baker explains in his recent book Playing With God that the public collaboration between religious ideology and the athletic arena grew out of a religious revival that came The Williams Telos

in the wake of World War II, when evangelicals and fundamentalists reversed their attitudes toward sports and began to embrace athletics as a means for witnessing for Christ. Baker refers to it as “Sportianity,” a term coined by Sports Illustrated writer Frank Deford. When I sat down with Julie Rousseau, she expressed that the fusion of faith and athletics was more than natural, it was intrinsic--even ordained. Growing up as a PK (that’s hip lingo for preacher’s kid) and a naturally talented, self-proclaimed tomboy might have had something to do with the development of her personal philosophy, but she says: “God wants us to live a life of excellence and that is exactly what a

Julie Rousseau, Pepperdine Univ.

coach wants from a player, [their] dedication and discipline, everyday as [an] opportunity to get better and better and embrace the gifts God gave us and use them to God’s glory. What a beautiful stage to display [those gifts]…that’s what the end product is.”

Rousseau has always challenged the boundaries of social practices and ideas, and she even broke ground as the first girl to join her all boys baseball league: “They called me JR, so my opponents didn’t know I was a girl…the next year they passed a petition so girls could play.” She also played football and coached the JV boys’ basketball team at Washington Prep in Los Angeles. But her consistent push to break barriers didn’t stop there; in 1997, she became the youngest (and shortest at 5’5) coach in the WNBA when she was named the assistant (and later head) coach of the Los Angeles Sparks. These feats may seem like happenstance to some and the product of hard work and persistence to others, but to Julie Rousseau, “it was an opportunity that only God could afford me…[it] gave me another platform to share and live out my faith.” Reggie White took a similar stance on the football field during his time with the Green Bay Packers: “God restored me to the person He had created me to be. The lights came on. It was an adventure again...When I came into the NFL I totally trusted Him. I knew the only way I was in the NFL was because of God. I just went wherever He took me. I had no agenda, no aspirations, no goals aside from following Him.” It is safe to say that for Rousseau, Reggie White, and many other coaches and players, engaging with their talents is more than simply acknowledging the gifts that God has given them or accepting the place He puts them in to use those gifts. It is also understanding that without God, there is no power in the gift. Scripture indicates that God calls believers first to be faithful, and second to develop 100 percent of what He has given them—whether they are athletes, businessmen, spouses, parents, or whatever.

Rousseau believes that she can “impact and change lives, especially kids coming from inner the city. Not everybody [was graduating] and that became my mission...[to tell them that] basketball is a stepping stone, this is not the beginning or end

{

Harry Sheehy, Williams College

of your career...I’ve sought to expand this to kids from every walk of life.” Therefore as a coach, Rousseau actively chooses to use her position and talents to minister to young women.

“Whatever God wants you to do with the platform God has given you…I believe that whatever God has given us, is to glorify him…if we aren’t ashamed of God now, He won’t be ashamed of us in front of his Father.” This is all well and good, but for many collegiate athletes and those being newly baptized into the professional world of sports, understanding and more importantly reconciling the culture that is often packaged with that life proves to be difficult.

Maybe it’s her experience or the fact that she has truly grown into her destiny with God, but Rousseau, now the head coach of the Pepperdine Waves, reflects that “there is never a conflict, because you just have to make it known where you stand…because my choice has always been to live a life glorifying to God…and my decision has always been to profess and live it.”

Three-thousand miles away from the Pacific view of Pepperdine, Harry Sheehy, the athletic director at Williams College, came to realize that his faith and his passion for basketball

Christian athletes, [we] are constantly in a milieu that is opposite of [our] beliefs and values.

}

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Kaka, Brazillian National Futbol Team

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and sports could be viewed in a similar light. Reflecting on his almost 30-year career so far at Williams as a student-athlete, coach, and now athletic director, Sheehy maintains that he has had “one foot in each world at Williams.” And for many athletes and coaches, this seems to be the consensus. Sheehy relays that oftentimes in the arena of sports, especially on college campuses where students and faculty are faced with a multitude of choices in beliefs and behavior, he often wrestles with when, how, and if to share openly about his faith with those around him: “I struggle with that here at times. We are all about talking exchanging openly, but I don’t think that is necessarily applied to us as Christians, I certainly feel that.” For Sheehy, these feelings of displacement have been longstanding. After his college years, he traveled the world as a part of Athletes in Action, an organization that takes NBA caliber players around the world to compete at the international level while using the game of basketball as a vehicle for the Christian witness. He explains that during these years, he realized that as “Christian athletes, [we] are constantly in a milieu that is opposite of [our] beliefs and values.” But as Coach Tony Dungy, an NFL Superbowl Championship Coach, writes in his memoir Quiet Strength, “I coach football. But the good I can do to glorify God along the way is my real purpose.” And as Sheehy and Rousseau demonstrate, it is possible to build character, reshape lives, and bear The Williams Telos

witness to the Source of all things while passing the pigskin.

In reflecting on some of their most critical career moments, Julie Rousseau, Harry Sheehy, and many of the world’s most talented athletes of faith have one major thing in common: they are seeking to make a difference for the Lord through the visibility God had entrusted to them in their particular sport. The intersection of sports and religion is more critical and powerful than ever. As adolescent boys and girls search for meaning, gratification, and direction, it’s comforting to know that such inspiration can be gathered from images of Kaka celebrating another Brazilian goal by stripping down to his undershirt to reveal “I Belong to Jesus” written on his chest.

Or from a coach sitting in the hills of Malibu or in the mountains of Williamstown, MA, as Rousseau believes “we inspire people through our dedication and work ethic…we inspire… through our actions, our testimony…glorifying God and honoring him.” In fact, perhaps the Billy Grahams and Rick Warrens of our day have been joined by by Nike®-wearing, Under Armour®-sponsored, muscle-toting athletes and coaches, who are making sure that that every day on the field, court, pitch, or course is a day that honors God.

References Art Stricklin, “Reggie White honored during pre-Super Bowl breakfast,” Baptist Press. Feb. 2005. Web. 12 Apr. 2010 <http://www.baptistpress.com/bpnews.asp?id=20078>.

“Dungy’s life work begins after football but NFL lucky to have him.” ESPN. Jan. 2008. Web. 12 Apr. 2010 <http:// sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?id=3207460>.

Photos from (http://cache4.asset-cache.net/xc/95909361.j pg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=77BFBA49EF878921A343B 2C87A49D8F58D1BDEB7D20F624E98301AAF5C25EEB 8DF13C85672BB14B3E30A760B0D811297), (http://www. ecac.org/IMG_15488.jpg), and (http://www.whoateallthepies. tv/74249983.gif ).

Virginia A. Cumberbatch ’10 is a History major from Austin, Texas.

Quoting a Hymn

Cultural Relevance in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians

According to the history recorded by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles and by his own admission, the apostle Paul was originally a persecutor of the Christian faith. However, after an encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus, Paul was instructed that he would become God’s messenger to the Gentiles. Ethnically Jewish himself, and at a time when almost all followers of Jesus were ethnically Jewish, taking the Christian message into the Gentile world would have required a great degree of cultural awareness and sensitivity.

It was during one of his numerous imprisonments that Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians, which includes an expression of gratitude and joy and an exhortation to maintain humility, unity, and sound doctrine as they withstand persecution. And it is in this that we find Philippians 2:5-11, which in form and content resembles an ancient hymn.

Although some scholars, such as Gordon Fee, argue that there exists no historical evidence suggesting that the passage was ever actually used liturgically in the early church,1 many scholars do view it to be the quotation of an early Christian hymn, which is reflected in a growing number of English translations of the passage. F.F. Bruce argues quite persuasively that it is a Pre-Pauline Christian hymn in honor of Christ, cast in “rhythmical prose.” 2 Moises Silva, while acknowledging that there exists no absolute proof that the passage was a hymn, argues that it is impossible to overlook the overwhelming poetic aspects of the text: “Even the label ‘elevated prose’ does not do justice to the rhythm, parallelisms, lexical links, and other features that characterize these verses.”3 Scholars are obviously not unanimous on this point; in arguing for a poetic reading of the text, Silva and others do acknowledge that “a baffling diversity of opinion exists regarding the proper way of arranging these lines.”3 However, if the passage is indeed a hymn, then it represents the earliest Christian hymn that remains preserved. In that light, its appearance in the letter to the Philippians carries a significant suggestion about what it means to express one’s faith in context.

The early church in Philippi was comprised either exclusively or predominantly of Gentile believers. Upon Paul’s first

By Matt Mascioli

trip to Philippi, rather than visiting a synagogue on the Sabbath, he and his party instead went to the river in search of Jews in prayer (Acts 16:13), likely because there were not ten married Jewish men in the city, the number needed to form a synagogue. As a well-versed Jewish Pharisee educated under the great Jewish scholar Gamaliel, throughout his numerous New Testament letters, Paul most often uses the Jewish Scriptures as the fundamental components of his arguments.

However, in his letter to the Philippians, perhaps because of the almost exclusively Gentile audience, there exists not one direct quotation from the Jewish Scriptures. Instead, he quotes what was likely a familiar Christian hymn and avoids alienating his audience by meeting them where they are—arguably not only by presenting the familiar, but also by reinforcing the creation of new, culturally relevant art.

Although it may be possible to read too much into Paul’s likely quotation of this early Christian hymn, we must take care to not overlook its significance either. At the most basic level, Paul seems to be endorsing an approach of cultural relevance in his ministry. In our present time, in which there exists significant disagreement concerning the appropriate Christian interaction with popular culture, Paul seems to encourage an embrace and even usage of culture’s positive aspects in sharing and exploring the Christian faith. To a group of Gentile Christians seeking to understand and live out that faith, Paul’s quotation of a familiar hymn could have potentially provided just that needed point of cultural connection.

References 1. Gordon Fee, IVP New Testament Commentary Series: Philippians.

Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999. Page 90.

2. F.F. Bruce, New International Biblical Commentary: Philippians.

Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Press, 1989. Page 68.

3. Moises Silva, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Philippians. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1992. Page 105.

Matt Mascioli is a graduate of Amherst College and currently on staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Williams.

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Confessions of a Forever-holic Day 1

Dear Diary,

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If you knew anything about me, you would know that Forever 21 is my favorite store. I find myself walking around wherever I go, looking at the types of clothes people wear, just to get a new perspective on fashion; most of the time, I could probably tell you which part of a girl’s outfit she got from Forever 21. Yet like most of the people that choose to shop at Forever 21 and its sister store, Heritage 1981, I couldn’t have told you that its founders are Christians or that the Bible verse John 3:16 was written on the bottom of that shopping bag I was carrying around. That’s right--the famous sunbeam yellow bag with the black letters FOREVER 21 inscribed on just one side. But like most girls when it comes to shopping, all thoughts go out of the window once my mind wanders to those fun-filled images of intense frilly dresses, sparkling sequined hats, the choice between a racerback tank or a short-sleeved blossomed blouse. So when I saw the bottom of the Forever bag, I began to question the meaning behind the famous Bible verse. John 3:16—“For God so loved the world, He gave his only begotten Son…” I sat there reciting the memorized text that I had learned as a young girl and wondered how my addiction to clothing related to this Bible verse. I realized that my consumption of clothing became more about my obsessive and self-indulgent love for clothes than the literal text of God’s Word on the bottom of the Forever bag that I was famous for carrying. I saw my addiction to clothing and blatant dismissal of the line of Scripture found there as a reflection of how I felt when I would catch myself The Williams Telos

By Giana Hutton embracing the material things in my life. I knew that in so many instances in my life, I allowed myself to be consumed with unimportant things, and thus finding my relationship with God slipping away in the mean time. So while I knew that a multi-colored, tiered, flowered skirt could not compare to the eternal trust that I had in God, I saw the two as indirectly reflective of each other. I finally understood that with the everyday trials that I faced, there was no one other than God that I could put my faith in and never be disappointed. My friends laugh and tell me that I need to start shopping at other stores, but like God’s faith, I find consoling comfort in shopping at Forever 21; because while there may be other stores that I could shop at, Forever’s consistency and shopper-friendliness keeps me returning. So the next time I decide to indulge in the joys of a Forever 21 store, I won’t forget that recognizable black ink that is scrawled on the bottom of the bag.

Sincerely, AddictedForever21

References Photo from (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Forever21_Gift_Card.jpg).

Giana Hutton ’10 is a History major from Flossmoor, Ill.

ADAM STONER ’11

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