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LOCUSTSPRING 2017 | ISSUE NO. 1WALK

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Special Thanks Dan Cheely, David DeHuff, John Dilulio, David Johnston, Stephen Kocher, Justin Mills, Augustine Collective, Christian Union, The Collegium Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture

Editor-in-Chief: Esther JouBusiness Manager: Michael RuanDesign Editor: Sarah TangCommunications Chair: Wendy ZhouWebmaster: Austin Eng

Editorial Board

WritersGrace ChoNicole FlibbertEmma HetrickHenrique LaurinoPhoebe LowSummer OsbornAndrew WangJoanna Xue

Design & PhotographyAliya ChenIsabella GongMichelle Kim

M I S S I O N S TAT E M E N TLocust Walk is a student-led Christian publication that exists to present the perspectives of faith and non-faith worl-dviews on questions of truth and pur-pose. Through active dialogue within the University of Pennsylvania, we seek to build relationships modeled after the life and teachings of Jesus Christ who informs our understanding of cultural engagement, reconciliation, and commu-nity. We pledge to cultivate an environ-ment where the pursuit of solidarity in diversity can lay a foundation for conver-sation conducted with love and mutual respect.

Sebastian de ArmasMark Hoover Patricia JiaConnie MillerEmily SchutskyHannah Victor

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TABLE OF

CONTENTS

WHO TELLS YOUR STORY?Connie Miller06

APOCRYPHAHenrique Laurino

NON-FICTIONJoanna Xue

<WHOLLY INCOMPLETE>Grace Cho

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CROSSING A TWO-WAY STREETSebastian de Armas14

CERTAINTY AMIDST UNCERTAINTYIsaac Han

FIND ME A LEARNED CHRISTIAN IN THE CHURCHRamsey Reyes

HOUSE OF MIRRORSPhoebe Low

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A HARLOT’S HOMECOMINGMichael Ruan22

RIFF WRATHNicole Flibbert

FORGIVENESSMorgan Wu

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LOVING THE OTHERMark Hoover28

WHAT’S FAIR IN LOVE AND POLITICS

Summer OsbornDECONSTRUCTING THE OTHER

Emma Hetrick

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FROM THE EDITOREsther Jou04

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A COMPASS, A BRIDGE, AND A COVENANT

ESTHER JOU

FROM THE EDITOR

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familiar thought shared by students at Penn is how rarely we acknowledge one

another on Locust Walk. Content with ask-ing a rhetorical “Hey, how have you been?”, we rush our overworked selves to the next demanding, perhaps promising appoint-ment. We all feel the need to head some-where. We’re told that the culmination of our four years should prepare us to answer: Where is your destination and what is your plan? Neither of those questions demands us to consider the other faces on Locust Walk. Can we find community in a culture that glorifies the individual? Should we even bother searching for a model of community? If so, what would that community look like?

The Penn Christian journal is re-launching under the name Locust Walk, falling into step with the brick-paved path that takes students through three communal points – a compass, a bridge, and a covenant. Locust Walk longs to see each individual journey directed out-wards – for each step and foot placed forward to be made alongside a meaningful com-mitment to conversation and community.

Stand in the middle of the Compass and you will need to choose a direction – north, south, east, or west. Every decision we make takes place at such an intersection. Locust Walk wants to be part of the conversations leading up to these decisions. In the follow-ing pages, you will find feature articles writ-ten by Christians on themes of storytelling, doubt, anger, and love. Each article con-cludes with an invitation – a choice for you to consider the author’s argument in light of what you believe. How will you respond?

Walk west and eventually you will arrive at the foot of a bridge. As questions are asked and stories begin to unfold, Locust Walk commits to listening and engaging with those making their way across. To il-lustrate the ongoing conversation, we have collected a variety of pieces from Chris-tians and non-Christians responding to the feature article. Some writers agreed; oth-

ers agreed to disagree. In the body of their works, you may end up finding shared ex-periences amidst the diversity of voices.

Follow some more bricks until you reach a covenant – a towering red steel composition solidifying the promises we make with one an-other. We at Locust Walk are a group of Chris-tians who find hope in the covenant of Jesus Christ, that through His crucifixion and res-urrection, humans are promised a relation-ship of grace, mercy, and unconditional love with God. We believe that just as Christ laid himself down for us on the cross, we too are called to lay down our preferences and com-forts, and radically listen to and love others. In this way, Locust Walk now seeks to write out its own covenant with Penn – to ask ques-tions with humility and to hold discussions that allow for vulnerability. This journal is ea-ger to see people of different identities make room for one another, share in one anoth-er’s lives, and form authentic relationships.

Wherever you are, Locust Walk invites you to genuinely search for the other faces as we ask ourselves and one another the questions: Where is your destination? And now, what is your plan? Many of us do not have answers to those questions right now; we feel unpre-pared or unwilling. Some of us believe more pressing questions need to be asked. Let us choose first to listen to one another’s stories and explore their intersections with a cer-tainty that our individuality can and will be preserved. We ask you to join us in a pursuit of diversity that goes beyond a mere dilu-tion of our differences and explores a deeper truth that realizes diversity through unity.

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uring Penn’s 2016 commencement, Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator and star of the Broadway hit

musical Hamilton, sent off the graduating class by sharing two stories from his own life. Stories, in fact, were the main theme of Miranda’s speech. The motif came as no surprise to anyone who has seen or heard Hamilton, an otherwise upbeat musical which is relentlessly haunted by the refrain, “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” Miranda’s speech was simply a variation on this theme, during which he concluded, “Your stories are essential… They are the stories in which you figure out who you are.”

Yet despite his emphasis on the theme of stories and storytelling, Miranda was never entirely clear on what he meant by “our stories” or what the significance of storytelling in general might be. Miranda vacillated between two main notions of “our stories.” In the first meaning, a story is a euphemism for a life, so that anyone’s story is simply the unfolding of their life. Miranda’s second, more engaging, use of the term “story” referred to the narratives that we create and believe about ourselves, our lives, and the world around us. I’d like to consider more carefully Miranda’s treatment of this second conceptualization of stories and to embellish on how we figure out who we are through our own stories and the stories of others.

Miranda’s characterization of the relationship between stories and self-knowledge is incomplete. In fact, we often fail to know ourselves in our own stories (using the second definition). Miranda’s assertion is at best dissonant with the stories he told in his speech. Take, for example, Miranda’s first story. A brief summary: During Miranda’s college years, he developed severe shoulder pain. When he at last visited a doctor, he was informed that he didn’t have any shoulder problems, just a nervous tick. The doctor proceeded to inquire after the potential causes of the tick. Eventually, it became clear that Miranda’s stress surrounding his romantic and academic life, resulting from the pressure he felt to be good and successful, was the source of the tick. Said Miranda, “The story I had been telling myself…was being physically rejected by my body.” Miranda recalled that another story was needed to free him from his own story—in this case, that of composer Giuseppe Verdi, whose experience with pain freed Miranda from his old story. Verdi’s story liberated Miranda to experience pain and failure, and assured him that he could redeem his experiences through art.

Neither Miranda’s experience with Verdi’s story nor its effect on his life is unique. The attempt to live the perfect life, to write the perfect script for our lives, rarely leads to true self-discovery. For Miranda, rigid adherence to his own story fomented self-delusion rather than self-knowledge. Later, in describing his defense of Nina – the protagonist of Miranda’s other musical, In the Heights – Miranda emphasized the importance of hearing stories that broaden our perspective while resonating with our experiences. Miranda’s suggestion that we achieve self-knowledge through our own stories is incomplete; rather, it is in the stories of others that we truly begin to know ourselves.

Rather covertly, I have just claimed that the stories we expose ourselves to and subsequently assimilate shape both our identities and our lives. It may appear a bit dramatic to ascribe such power to a medium which we generally treat as frivolous—after all, most of us consume stories in the pursuit of entertainment rather than identity. So what is it about stories that could give them such power over our lives?

The biblical book of Joshua contains a story about the people of Israel, who needed to cross the Jordan River to enter the land promised them by God. The passage recounts how the Lord dried the ground of the Jordan for Israel to pass over. After the people had safely crossed the river, God told Joshua to pile stones on the riverbanks in remembrance of what He had done. As so often, this command to action came with a reason:

These stories of institution and remembrance are prevalent in Christian Scripture. The God of the Bible recognizes the storyteller in each of us, and is Himself a storyteller. From the institution of Passover to the institution of the Lord’s Supper, the God of the Bible masterfully employs stories. These stories are never idle. Stories – in Scripture, in Miranda’s speech, in life – give us a script for conducting our lives and a lens for

Who Tells Your Story?

“When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”1

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CONNIE MILLER

On seeing clearly, living well, and narrative wisdom

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viewing the world. In the passage from Joshua, the story was passing over the Jordan on dry ground. The script is fear, obedience, and love. The lens is knowledge of the Lord’s might and faithfulness. A story, both through script and lens, directly affects how the hearers live.

Given the role of stories in each of our lives as lens and script for living, and given that we can not achieve robust self-knowledge based solely on our own stories, it seems that stories themselves, from the fairytale to the epic poem, are actually deeply important. The stories that we take in and assimilate profoundly affect

who we admire, how we behave, and who we desire to be, to say nothing of how they shape our outlook on the rest of the world. With all of this in mind, I’d like to return to Miranda’s persistent question: Who tells your story?

Who tells your story, Penn students? What narratives have your ear? In our cutthroat daily races, we hear the imperative: achieve. In TV shows, at career fairs, in our classrooms, we are daily offered the glamorized narrative of Harold J. Abrahams in Chariots of Fire: We all believe to some extent that Penn has offered us ten lonely seconds to prove the worth of our existence.

But when we look around us, at our own self-esteem, at the atomization of the University community, even at Penn’s mental health epidemic, is that really the final story we want to hear? Is it the final story we want to tell?

The deepest, richest, and most life-giving story that I have ever encountered is the Gospel. It the only story in which I find the balance between shame and love, between drive and contentment, between beauty and pain, and a multitude of other irreconcilables. Perhaps most importantly, it is the only story with a protagonist whom I could wish to imitate in all things. When I think about the lens and script which come from the Gospel of Christ, I see a life and a story that I desire to live and to tell. Whatever your current stories, Penn students, seek out the narratives that provide you with the lens and the script to meet the world with grace. Therefore, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”2

And see how it changes your story.

1. Joshua 4:21-24, ESV.2. Philippians 4:8, ESV.

“The attempt to live the perfect life, to write the perfect script for our lives, rarely leads to true self-discovery.”

Connie Miller is a junior studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, who has been transformed by numerous

as a Ravenclaw, a Hobbit, a Narnian, and a daughter of God.

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ana, let me tell you a story.

I squirmed in my bed restlessly as my dad paused to inhale. My seven-year-old self, tucked safely into my Disney Princess-covered blanket, groaned as he took a few minutes too long to gather his thoughts.

Once upon a time…

With that cliché phrase signifying the beginning of a story, my dad introduced me to a world of wonder. In the next forty-five minutes, I experienced the adventures of heroes and royalty. I slayed a giant soldier in full armor with a mere sling and stone, survived a night in the lion’s den without a scratch, and reigned as a queen who saved a nation by confronting the king about a conniving traitor, his own right-hand man. I became part of the five thousand who were fed with just five loaves of bread and two fishes, and I was the faithless follower who walked on water for a brief five seconds before crying for help. The forty-five minutes each evening left me wanting my own story to tell: one marked by the awe and wonder of taking part in something greater than myself, and encountering Someone who could write that story for me.

Though I soon grew out of evening story time, I continued the tradition by taking the pen and writing my own story. I sought out ways to add “renown” to my narrative with outstanding academic performances, leadership positions in extracurricular activities, a strange but amiable personality, and romance. I tailored my narrative to fit the genre preference of my audience: classmates, parents, and social media. My story seemed fit for a “happily-ever-after” on many levels: I was the queen who garnered the favor of her peers. I conquered the giant soldier that was high school AP classes and an overbooked schedule. I survived the lion’s den through my countless sleepless nights. My story was told by me and revolved around me. And yet, the plotline felt contrived, disingenuous, and unfulfilling. With my first year of college, I had expected an even grander narrative of success, but instead, the threads of my carefully crafted storyline fell loose – pulled apart by failure and loneliness.

My pen was out of ink, and I had no more plot twists up my sleeve. Embittered and weary, I paused to put

down my story and pick up someone else’s. I chose to read the story of a Samaritan woman and Jesus Christ, two individuals whose lives stood in stark contrast but intersected two thousand years ago in a city north of Jerusalem. As I pored through chapter 4 in the book of John, it was like I was seven again, snuggled into my Disney princess blanket, waiting for my dad to begin.

Nana, let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, a Samaritan woman approached her town’s well, hoping to draw water to sustain her for the week. She found Jesus – a Jewish man – sitting at the well’s edge. Back then, men did not associate themselves with women in public and Jewish people considered the Samaritans second-class citizens, outcasts – vermin.

The woman cautiously approached the well, unsure of the outcome: Would she be sneered at with a racial slur? Or worse, spit on?

“Give me a drink.”

The woman couldn’t believe her ears. The Jewish people considered anything even in remote contact with the Samaritan people as unclean. She weakly protested his strange gesture. She couldn’t help but wonder – “Who is this man?” Half-jokingly, she wondered to herself, “He is either a sociopath or the Messiah, the coming King we have been waiting on to deliver us.”

“I am the Messiah – the Christ, the Savior. I am he.”

Jesus held her gaze and told her about her five failed marriages without her own admission. He knew that she was tired of weaving her own narrative of romance and worth. He knew that only the Messiah – the Savior – the true Storyteller, could write a narrative of healing and hope.

“He told me all that I ever did. He is the Christ.”

Non-FictionJOANNA XUE

At the bottom of the (ink)well

“My pen was out of ink, and I had no more plot twists up my sleeve. Embittered and weary, I paused to put down my story and pick up someone else’s.”

In response to: WHO TELLS YOUR STORY?

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Jesus revealed the secrets of her life, but unlike the others, he stayed, dignified her story and offered her a reservoir of redemption. The Samaritan woman ran into the town square and proclaimed to the people her new story. She no longer crafted her plotline around the arc of “Samaritan, rejected and unloved.” He had taken her narrative full of despair, and rewritten it into a story of abundant life.

It was an ordinary day for the Samaritan woman. It was an ordinary day for me. She sat at the well, expecting to retrieve another week’s worth of water. I entered college thinking that my story would continue along the trajectory that I had set into motion. In her despair, she encountered Jesus, the Savior who came to her with a story of hope. In my bitterness, I encountered Jesus, the Savior who waited for my pen

to run out, so that I could see how His story for me was far more satisfying, glorious, and authentic than any I could write on my own.

Joanna Xue is a senior studying Psychology and Chinese. She is a true champion of the Myers-Briggs personality test despite her professors’ empirical evidence disproving its accuracy.

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In this world I try;I seek my color, something to grasp onto.

Delight in originality,but grow in instability.

This pen I hold,I hold with pride,

beaming with the notion that I, and only I, can slay the blank space.Hiss and swat at the hands that try to override mine,

but spill tears in self-created isolation.

I admit when life is grim,I’ve gripped the pen tighter:

gripped to the point of callouses,to the point of blood,

to the point of no circulation.I craved perfect control

in a flawed and broken world.

And in the cycling emptiness, a realization:I

cannot.

There is no enough, no permanent satisfaction here.

And my vain work stops.

I am sorry that only when all is stripped away,when I let everything go,

I seeYour hand wrapped around mine.

Your strokes are gentle,Your words are powerful

and You include everything that is truebecause You, not I, have all authority.

Your burden is light and my rest is sweet.

My story is still incomplete, but I do not fret.You said “It is finished,” and I trust:

Your last breath started mine.I am unable, yet stable.

My story is blank in sightbut filled by faith.

<Wholly Incomplete>

Grace Cho is a sophomore studying Nursing and hopes to minor in East Asian Studies. She is a collector of

virtual cats and an appreciator of all things acoustic.

GRACE CHO

A poetic cry of humbly surrendering to the Author

In response to: WHO TELLS YOUR STORY?

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In response to: WHO TELLS YOUR STORY? Apocrypha

often hear discourses on the importance of faith based mostly on personal anecdotes, and somehow

those always seem lacking in something for my taste. Given the chance to write this article, I thought I’d dedicate it to the life of someone other than myself, and do her a favor I failed to in the past.

We met for the first time three and a half years ago, when I had just moved out of my parents’ house; it was a Monday, around 5 p.m. I was coming back from school, and she gracefully pulled my jacket and asked for money… then called me a son of a whore when I refused. I never knew her name, so let’s call her the Graceful Lady of Cross Station. She was old and wise, and throughout the months greeted me daily with

lectures on the multiple ways to insult someone, all the while smelling worse than a corpse; more importantly, she showed me a neat way to spit in someone’s face when they offer you twenty bucks. But of course, these are now of little relevance, besides providing evidence that I truly knew nothing about her story. Well into my second month journeying through Cross Station, she got this distinctive gash in her left foot. It rotted fast. I think her toes fell first. Through the years, I saw her lose her legs through a series of necrotic weeks and charitable amputations. Some Fridays the smell of rot wasn’t that foul; some Mondays it was almost as bad as the stink of early morning sewer. I will spare the kind reader of the nastier details, for the essential information is that as I came back for one more summer

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HENRIQUE LAURINO

In praise of a good dose of realism

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in town, the Graceful Lady was gone. Anonymously as she entered my life, she plunged out of life altogether.

Of all the shallow and false things we are told in life, graduation speeches hit me particularly hard. Graduation speakers are meant to recite words of comfort about life and achievement, and call it advice, so when they talk about stories it’s to tell us that our stories will matter, that we will be remembered. We won’t. Even the most successful of us will be nameless corpses for the next generations, and our stories will most certainly be muted as the Graceful Lady’s was. We are all rotting as we shamble through streets of putrefaction and amalgamate silent stories of anonymous faces. And yet, even though I never knew the Graceful Lady’s tale, I will carry her memory with me. Our own stories will be annihilated by the hooves of time, but we can participate in the stories of others and live on through them. The Graceful Lady wrote a bit of my story, and I hope to pass this on to you, Reader, so that you may think kindly upon her if only for a moment. Yes, it’s a nasty chant, I know. But human stories are not meant to be perfect.

This is where I would like to disagree with my peers in this journal. As we talk about human stories, do we need to bring God into this? Human stories are faulty, chaotic, senseless, and maybe all the more wonderful for that. They should be incredibly boring for a reader who knows all about us, or for a writer who knows where his novel is going – and that is the same reason why these broken everyday rhymes are essential to us. Because we are ignorant and imperfect, we are able to fantasize tales and sympathize with others; we are able to imagine the best in others and be humbled by the vastness of how incomplete our own stories are. Those irreconcilables mentioned in an earlier text are not dichotomies at all: life is all of that all the time (well, if you stop to look at it). Life is nasty. Life is putrefaction.

Life is wondrous and marvelous for it. If we are talking about the Gospel, it is important to remember that it is in no way a story about Jesus alone. Jesus in a void is a very uninteresting character. It is his broken and vile world, full of anonymous tax collectors, lepers, Levites, merchants, priests, prostitutes, et cetera, that makes his story relevant for us. We are those same anonymous faces, and as we learn from him we are not readers but characters in a continuing narrative of his world.

It is easy to sink in the comforting puddle that tells us that our stories matter, that we should have others tell of our achievements, defeats and triumphs. We will not be known – praise incompletion! Yet we can hope to be that one stranger who gave us a smile in the morning, who helped us get up when we tripped on the street, who stood up so we could get a seat on the subway. It’s not much, not nearly an outline of a narrative, but it’s in the small acts that we shape a better collective story. To the Graceful Lady, wherever she is, be it Heaven, Hell or Nothingness, I offer this little piece of remembrance, and I hope she can find peace if she hasn’t already. After galloping Death has trampled me as well, I hope someone will remain behind to tell a story about me with the least bit of sympathy. Indeed, if I am able to make someone’s life a little bit more tolerable, that should be enough of a story for me.

“Those irreconcilables mentioned in an earlier text are not dichotomies at all: life is all of that all the time (well, if you stop to look at it). Life is nasty. Life is putrefaction. Life is wondrous and marvelous for it.”

Henrique Laurino is a junior majoring in Coffee Studies, but to the public, he’s doing Statistics. His favorite authors are Goethe, Borges and Wittgenstein, and hopefully they haven’t come up in his texts too much recently.

“If we are talking about the Gospel, it is important to remember that it is in no way a story about Jesus alone.”

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hy should I care about a God when I’m doing fine just by myself?” I sat there waiting to

see what my other two Christian friends would say. The three of us were having a late night conversation with another friend when, curious about what we believed in, he asked that question. There was one of those prolonged awkward silences—the elephant-in-the-room, cricket-chirping kind. Rather than directly answering the question, my two other friends simply gave confused looks. Later, they commented on their feelings of shock as, to them, the answer was self-evident and therefore the question was unnecessary. Though the conversation continued, I left feeling profoundly uncomfortable. It seemed like no one was willing to break past the wall of differing opinions in order to engage in meaningful dialogue. One of the great things about college is that we can have conversations of depth like these, but how often do we engage in conversations that will challenge our beliefs? A willingness to dialogue—and to ask questions that make us uncomfortable—is vitally important for two reasons. First, it is a better way to learn. Second, it deepens our relationships with others. Both of these dynamics are at work not only in our human relationships, but also in our relationship with God.

A large part of who we are and what we believe is shaped by those we admire. Though we are in many ways dependent on these people, we actually learn more from them when we don’t immediately accept their words and teachings. I find that I’ve learned the most by constantly asking questions—questions not grounded in skepticism of the other but based on curiosity for the sake of clarity. From an early age we all think this way. Recall the times when we questioned our parents to death with the endless “Who’s, What’s, and When’s.” We saw our parents as sources of truth that could provide

insight into the world around us. As we grew older, we began to ask the challenging “How’s and Why’s” about their worldviews. Asking them why they care about what they do or why we ought to act a certain way became an important supplement to the observations we made about ourselves and our surroundings.

This is also true of our learning from and about God. Testing our beliefs through study of the Bible is an integral aspect of our spiritual growth. I constantly ask myself questions about my beliefs so that I can continually justify to myself why I believe what I believe. God tells us in the book of James that “if any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly.”1 When I actively bring my beliefs and assumptions to God, He promises to reveal the reasons I can place my faith in Him. Questioning others and ourselves in matters concerning our beliefs solidifies our foundation of truth and clarifies the claims we make.

Besides enriching our personal worldview, asking others questions plays a crucial role in deepening our relationships with each other and, for those who believe, with God. Imagine a friendship in which one friend never bothered to get to know the other. We could hardly call it a friendship. The two could never grow in mutual understanding, and attachments to any other person or thing would become immediately more attractive. That night with my friends, people who were otherwise very close were divided by a shared complacency over engaging in deep dialogue. Asking and discussing profound and difficult questions about our thoughts, opinions, and beliefs is essential to building relationships on all fronts, no matter the type of relationship (i.e. friend to friend, believer to non-believer, etc.). We each inhabit a unique culture of

Crossing a Two-Way StreetWho, what, why? Asking questions for deeper understanding

SEBASTIAN DE ARMAS

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knowledge and belief. Bridging the gaps between these worlds is an important step to growing deeper in our understanding of different truths. We can see this reality manifest when we face problems in our relationships with our friends. Most people are prone to being non-confrontational. Typically when there are problems between friends, those problems escalate due to a lack of communication that would clear up the issue. For example, when I let emotions like bitterness grow in my heart, seemingly unbreakable walls rise between me and my friends. If left unchecked, irreparable damage can occur to the relationship.

This is also true of our relationship with God. A relationship with God is, like that shared with a friend or a parent, founded on us asking the deepest, most profound questions. It’s predicated on caring to know Him as He cares for us. God is the one I go to when I have both “smaller” questions about my current circumstances: “Why should I still love the guy at Starbucks who was so mean to me?” and “bigger” questions about my life and purpose: “How does my identity as a Christian change the way I naturally treat a stranger?” Without asking difficult questions about our present reality, we fail to fully appreciate God’s love for all people. What’s incredible is that God freely invites everyone to ask these questions out of His desire to have a personal relationship with us.

Asking questions and engaging in difficult dialogue helps us grow deeply in knowledge and in relationships, both with others and with God. But one might find an objection to this: What if repeated questioning yields no answer? What if asking questions leads one to lose one’s faith?

The act of asking questions should not solely depend on receiving a clear answer. In life, we will often ask questions without receiving responses. What, then, do we do when we’re seemingly abandoned in our pursuit of knowledge? I often find myself asking questions about my religious faith and my understanding of God. Sometimes it’s because I’m intrigued by a specific idea, but many times it’s because I doubt. I’ve found myself doubting concepts ranging from Creation to God’s existence, yet I’ve also found comfort in situations where I have not been given answers. Only by reflecting on my doubt can I really find the truth. It causes me to seek, to depend, and to keep asking questions—my form of communication with God. In fact, this doubt is the reason why we are able to ask questions, i.e. how we deepen our relationships, in the first place. In Psalm 77, David cries out to God for help and questions God’s intentions to rescue him in his distress. Halfway through the Psalm, he concludes that all is lost: “it is my grief, that the right hand of the Most High has changed.”2

Yet as the psalm continues, David’s questions remind him of God’s faithfulness to the Israelites who escaped Egypt by crossing the Red Sea. This restores his trust in God. Questioning allowed David to live in hope rather than continually existing in doubt. Similarly, if we don’t begin to question our present state of faith, we may always be stuck harboring bitter doubts about His promises, believing in God with our minds but not with our hearts.

1. James 1:5, NRSV.

2. Psalm 77:10, NRSV.

Sebastian de Armas is a junior studying Health Care Management and Policy. Dwight Nelson and Max Lu-cado are his favorite Christian authors. He is an ENFJ, a Type 2 Enneagram, and a devoted fan of West Wing.

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ould there be a need for faith if the gospel could be proven? If there were definitive evidence

proving the existence of an omnipotent God, who wouldn’t become a believer? As we begin to question our faith and try to dig deeper into what is “truth,” a line should be drawn when trying to make faith tangible. Let me explain. Call me a fundamentalist, a radical, or a blind follower, but I don’t want the gospel proven to me as if it were a scientific theory or a historical event. The tangibility of faith should have no effect on our belief if we are to call it true faith. The problem I see with apologetics, or a “rational defense” of the gospel, is that it attempts to rationalize God and produce some sort of logical backbone. However, where in the Bible are we called to defend the gospel with the rational? Christians are called to be certain in the uncertain. Uncertain not in our doctrine or theology but in the very basis of our faith. In attempting to prove the gospel, we begin to deteriorate what it means to have faith. I am not trying to say there aren’t any positive effects of apologetics, as I’m sure some personal belief in God may have been strengthened by apologetics. There is, however, a clear distinction between faith and belief. Faith is the “assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”1 while belief can exist after something is proven to you. So while belief does not require faith and can exist in light of evidential circumstances, faith requires belief. Now then, the question becomes whether we, as Christians, are called to belief or faith.

In its modern adaptation, there are four functions apologetics tries to serve: vindication, defense, refutation, and persuasion. Robert Reymond, Reformed theologian and Professor of Systematic Theology at Knox Jones University, describes apologetics as serving the purpose of answering particular objections, such as alleged contradictions and misconceptions of Christianity (defense), and giving an account of the foundations of the Christian faith (vindication).2 Of course an important tenet in faith should be a firm grasp of what one puts their faith in (through vindication and defense); however, it is in refutation and persuasion that

problems emerge. When apologetics is used to condemn other beliefs through reasoning or contradictions in their faith (refutation and persuasion), I see hypocrisy. How can we as Christians say that our religion or our depiction of God makes more sense than another? How can we use our rational thoughts to provide some deep justification of our beliefs? Is that not, in its own way, pride, to say it is through our profound understanding of grace that somehow the death of who we believe to be

the Son of God opens the gates of heaven? The gospel justifies itself, and our calling is to believe through faith.Am I saying to not approach the gospel with a logical mindset? Of course not. We must strive to understand and clarify the truth that is in the Bible. But we must understand that this truth in its fullness can not be proven to others. In my twenty-one years in the church, I have not heard a single testimony that concluded with someone coming to Christ through a well-argued apologetics debate; more times than not it was the opposite.

In Acts 2, after Peter, empowered by the Holy Spirit, preached to those around him, three thousand came to believe in Jesus as the Messiah.3 What theological philosophy could he have known at the time? The backbone of New Testament theology wasn’t even written yet! And yet, thousands found themselves compelled to believe. In uncertainty there can be certainty, and without proof there can be truth. That is, belief through faith. If our faith is compromised in the pursuit of an “absolute truth” then what is the point of being a Christian? The fundamental appeal of Christianity lies in the characteristics that transcend the rational and the tangible.

Certainty

ISAAC HAN

A perspective on faith and reason

AmidstUncertainty

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“Where in the Bible are we called to defend the gospel with the rational? Christians are called to be certain in the uncertain.”

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If you are someone who doesn’t believe in my faith, you probably think I’m a fundamentalist fanatic. In all honesty, if I could have it my way, I would want a more definitive proof of my faith. It would be so much easierto put my trust in a book written thousands of years

ago. And yet, I still choose to have faith. Why? Because there is something greater than simply knowing the truth as absolute; there is struggle in faith that satisfies. I challenge you to discover it. As for fellow Christians, we are called to believe through faith, not through reason. Why? Because if our belief were hinged on some foundational evidence of the gospel, then there would be no need for faith, no need for a power unseen. If and when we share our faith, I spur you to share the

“what” we believe rather than the “why,” for the “why” cannot be explained through our logic or reason. The gospel need not be sold or marketed as a well-argued thesis. I acknowledge that Christians, regardless of their background, struggle with the stigma of being close-minded and ignorant; however, it is not through circumstantial evidence and logical debate that we will be able to prove otherwise. It is not our place to make the gospel more palatable or concrete for those to believe; rather, the proof of the gospel will be found through living out our belief rooted in faith.

“The fundamental appeal of Christianity lies in the character-istics that transcend the rational and the tangible.”

1. Hebrews 11:1, ESV. 2. Raymond, Robert L. 1976. The Justification of Knowledge: An Introducto-ry Study in Christian Apologetic Methodology. Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed.3. Acts 2:37-41, ESV.

Isaac Han is a guest contributor and a senior studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He takes the world with a grain of salt and a healthy serving of cynicism. Amateur at life; professional procrastinator.

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Find Me a

RAMSEY REYES

A rebuke to intellectually passive Christians

Learned Christianin the Church

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here is a problem flourishing in Evangelical Cul-ture—faith and logic are viewed as rivals. Rising

contemporary church ideas of Christianity being “just a relationship, not a religion” subtly reject traditional church practice, portraying theology as trivial knowl-edge for the pretentious Bible study member, and re-sulting in a less historically-informed doctrinal base. Christian theology is the study of belief and practice, where we seek to know more about God, how He has revealed Himself to humanity, and how we are called to respond. We must understand three things regard-ing this issue of intellectual indifference: (1) the Church has spent centuries rooting itself in a rational founda-tion of beliefs that we still benefit from; (2) reason ap-plied to Christian practice is what most strongly arms us to properly respond to life’s many complex predic-aments; and (3) increased knowledge, sought with the continuous aim of loving God, empowers our evange-listic efforts. If we truly want our faith to be our own, and not something we simply inherited from others, we must learn to think for ourselves and, as the Great Commandment teaches us, love the Lord God with all our heart, and soul, and mind.

Since the beginning of Christianity, the Church has sought to learn how the Gospel of Jesus Christ presents truth to us. We millennials can confidently profess the “simple message” of what we believe because our an-cestors scrupulously thought out the complex issues that we now consider common sense. For example, why are churches so different from each other if they ba-sically teach the same thing? Why does some account of some man (or God, somehow) who died and rose again play any meaningful role in the larger history of humanity? Thinkers such as Athanasius, Aquinas, and Tertullian fought centuries of heresy in order to protect the Church. Saying that a rational understanding of the Gospel is marginally important for faith is like a child telling his parents that money is marginally important for sustenance, as he perfunctorily tosses away left-overs of hot food and goes to his room to play Xbox. The tradition of deep thought and testing of the Scriptures is not an issue we “leave to the philosophers”; everyone in the Church must be invested in this endeavor.

While Christ served as the completion of things that needed to be revealed to humanity, He did not explic-itly specify how to be twenty-first century Christians. By using reason, we interpret what God wants us to do in situations too complex to be plainly answered by a single Bible verse or prayer. To illustrate, let’s assume that we have our bare-bones understanding of the Gos-pel in check and can confidently call ourselves secure, mature Christians. With that, what keeps us from join-ing a Mormon church, or the Heaven’s Gate Cult? Their Gospel messages sound pretty similar to ours; why not? How should I as an American Christian function in a country where issues of sexual progressiveness, Black

Lives Matter, and Trump’s America are relentlessly pelted at me from all sides like bird droppings in an aviary? Most commonly, evangelicals either give empty answers or take another’s word for it (which, depend-ing on the person, can be quite dangerous). Without a strong practice of interpreting God’s will, we can be swung in any number of directions and inadvertently obscure our witness by not appropriately responding to the world around us.

As we increase in our knowledge of what we believe, we become better equipped to share this truth with oth-ers. Obviously, the goal is not to “prove the Gospel” to others; we can only know as much as has been revealed, and we are okay with and eternally thankful for that. But we cannot afford to share our faith without confi-dence in its veracity. If we genuinely believe that Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, became fully man and God, accepted death by crucifixion despite leading a sinless life, and rose from the dead, all in order to rec-oncile humankind to God out of love, then we necessari-ly believe that we are correct while others are incorrect. With God’s help, we can grow in our understanding of the Gospel and share this conviction with assurance to others, loving them all the while, fulfilling our duty as followers of Christ. Not knowing exactly why others are wrong but maintaining it is bold faithfulness. Not caring to know why they are wrong is brazen ignorance.

If we as Ivy League students can use our minds to take on some of the most exigent fields in our world’s economy, shouldn’t we use a decent amount more of our brainpower to understand the God who has been incessantly vouching for us since before the day we were born? Many questions about God were meant to be just outside of the full reach of human conception, so we need to exercise wisdom in how thoroughly we answer questions. Our minds were designed to constantly desire pursuing Him; it’s only a matter of maintaining good motives. I’m not saying that Christians are meant to devote their intellects solely to collecting theological nuggets—our minds must likewise work to the fullest in our professions and our relationships in order to glorify God. What I am saying is that the more we learn about what God has done and how He has worked in our lives, the more grateful we can be and the better we can serve Him.

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Ramsey Reyes graduated from Penn in 2016 with a degree in Music and currently teaches Piano, Spanish, and P.E. at the Philadelphia School. Piano is life, ball is life, LeBron is the greatest to play the game.

“Not knowing exactly why others are wrong but maintaining it is bold faith-fulness. Not caring to know why they are wrong is brazen ignorance.”

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PHOEBE LOW

Some thoughts on existentialism

HOUSE OF MIRRORS

ho do you ask?Locked in a room of mirrors. Every image, every reflection stares into your eyes, knowing, wise. They whisper:

you are an accidentyou are aloneGod is deadcollective existence could do without you

Want to be a doctor? Heal the sick?Thousands would take your place, who are in fact crawling over each other reaching, reaching for that letter, who would gladly claw your eyes out with their need, let it be me not them creating their own existence, never mind yours, but it’s a zero sum game.

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Want to help the poor?Fly to a place of sand and tin where the flies buzz around the crud in the streets, see the resentment burning in their eyes, not bothering to hide you think you’re saving us why are you really hereand for all the aching in your back and the sweat stinging your eyes, in two weeks a month a year you board another plane and the rush of pain the darkness you think you see you think you can see? swarms back over the tiny clean island you carved out for yourself in the desert, no better than beforemaybe worse

Back in the room of mirrors, you cry out but all you see are thousands millions of your reflections, fractured light, eyes mouths gaping in a silent screamthis is how it is.

Yet.Yet you are here,here,The only one alive, the only one breathing, the only one with tears coming out of your eyes.The only one, if you punched through the glass and gripped a shard between your fingers and sliced allthewaydown,who would die.

So you open your eyes, shout beyond your maze of glass to the air, the sky.Because of your need, yourreason.Because you’re sick of looking at yourself, because when you blinkjust for a momentyour reflections contort into a single stream of rotting scales, a snake with a million eyes, tasting the air, smelling bloodhungry so hungry

Because there is no exit.

And you realize this is what it was all about, all these mirrors, to trap you as the disease creeps up invisiblemurmurs in your ear no one can help you now

It will pounce, its body swelling as it chews, swallows, lets out a colossal belch. one down, seven billion to—

noNo.

And so you ask. You crack open dry lips and out comes a single word, less than a breath.

Help.

The mirrors shatter, all at once, glass exploding like a wall of water. They fall to the ground in little round droplets and you breathe in the open air, just breathe, drinking in whole swallows like you’ve never before tasted air this sweet. And you look around and there’s the sun and the sky and the trees blowing gently in the breeze and you realize they were there all along

That all along you were safe

And they were just waitingfor you to ask.

Phoebe Low is a senior majoring in Architecture and English. Her plans for next year may or may not include

seeing Hamilton in Chicago.

osea, I have instructions for you. I want you to go into the city to find a prostitute, whom you

are to marry. She will conceive your offo spring, and they ffffshall be children of whoredom…”

Hosea meanders into the local brothel, where he meetsa woman named Gomer to take as his wife. It is unsur-prising that the ensuing marriage proves challenging for Hosea. Roaming the dark alleyways at night, he shouts the name of his beloved, entertaining the possibility that he can catch but one glimpse of Gomer as she immerses herself in the lustfulness of the night.

His spirits, already discouraged by the embarrassment of searching for his errant spouse, are only further damp-ened by the questions he receives from the townspeople.“Hosea, you are a prophet, a man of God. Would you ex-plain why you associate yourself with this adulteress? What keeps you from abandoning an unfaithful wife like Gomer?”

As Hosea struggles to respond, he remembers the mo-ment when God pledged to relinquish His burning wrath so that it would not consume the disobedient Israelites, saying, “Those who were not my people, I will call chil-dren of the living God.”1” What did God’s bold act of mercy imply for the anger he and the townspeople felt towards Gomer, a harlot deserving of every dishonor for causing so many years of pain?

With this, Hosea’s bitterness was no longer. He replies, “It is the same love that keeps God from abandoning an unfaithful people like us.”2”

Although the biography of Hosea offers readers an ffffopportunity to indulge in the characteristics of an ev-er-benevolent divine, it would be a mistake to ignore passages in the book that clearly portray God as furious and violent towards the Israelites. Why does God be-come angry, and is this facet of Him consistent with the character that Christians believe? What does God hope to achieve with His anger? Lastly, what precedent do God’s actions set for the way Christians approach the issue of anger?

These questions are of paramount importance because the concept of an angry God is unpalatable and confus-ing for both the Christian and the non-Christian. One does not need a particular religious identification to experience discomfort at the sight of a picket sign de-scribing what kinds of people God “hates,” or to cringe at the sound of a street evangelist shouting that God sends all sinners to hell. While seemingly mired in big-otry, it is important to ask why those statements make people uncomfortable – are they true and simply pre-sented in an unloving way, or does the notion itself of a vengeful God contradict the frequently preached por-trayal of a loving father? For the Christian, the book of Hosea addresses the persistent issue of an angry God, a fact that is unfortunately misunderstood or ignored; for the non-Christian, Hosea asserts that God’s nature is cohesive rather than contradictory.

First, according to the Biblical text, the Israelites have blatantly committed sinful acts instead of obeying the laws they have been given. Through Hosea, God lays out His charges against the people:

“H

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Presently, God is noting that they worshiped other gods in direct violation to the first of His Ten Com-mandments (“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”).4 Historians write that many of the Israelites were engaged in sexual intimacy with cult prostitutes at pagan shrines, hoping that Baal would reward them with fertile bodies and crops. Furthermore, in Chapter 6, God alleges that Israel’s spiritual leaders were guilty of inflicting tremendous harm; like robbers, the priests banded together to murder and exploit the people.5

Understanding that the Israelites had blatantly reject-ed God in a multitude of ways is the first half of under-standing the wrath of God.

The other half rests upon the theological premise that, by definition, God is holy and without sin; in other words, the giver of the moral law must possess moral perfection because the standards set are his own. With these premises in place, one can draw the conclusion that God is angry because His character has been vio-lated and contradicted by the Israelites’ decisions. A holy God must, by definition, remain pure and perfect by refusing to tolerate sin. In fact, any tolerance for sin (i.e. permitting the Israelites’ behavior instead of re-buking it) would be a true inconsistency.

Richard Dawkins, a renowned critic of Christianity, de-clares in his book The God Delusion that “the God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant charac-ter in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser…”6 This statement seems to have mer-it upon a cursory reading of a book such as Hosea. In Chapter 9, God says “Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more; all their princes are rebels.”7 Also, in Chapter 13, God portrays Himself as a lion that will tear Israel apart with no hope for rescue.8 Indeed, “bloodthirsty”

seems to be an apt description.9 However, in light of Israel’s unfaithfulness to the Almighty, Dawkins’ ar-gument no longer retains its plausibility. An informed understanding of the context actually portrays God as the diametric opposite of “jealous,” “petty,” “unjust,” and “unforgiving.”

In C.S. Lewis’ tale The Lion, the Witch and the Ward-robe, a lion named Aslan serves to illustrate the char-acteristics of a savior. One of the protagonists, Lucy, asks about Aslan: “Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.” Mr. Beaver responds, “Who said anything about being safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”10

God is much the same. While loving to and relational with the Israelites, He is at once dangerous, omnipo-tent, and, above all, consistently holy.

Hosea further explicates what God intends to achieve by expressing anger instead of, for instance, suppress-ing his displeasure. God’s anger leads sinners to repen-tance and restores relationships that have gone astray. Directly following the rejection in Chapter 5, God says that He will depart until they “acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.”11 Chapter 10 warns that:

God is not aimlessly furious. He believes redemption of the Israelites will come from destroying the altars they made for idols. If His chosen people refuse to remove those obstacles, God must proceed to warn them of the inevitable punishment that results from disobedience, deter them from further wickedness, and ultimately restore them to the relationship promised to Abraham and Moses. This previously established agreement de-fines the highest standard of holiness (Hebrew qodesh, meaning “set apart” in relation to the rest of the world) that God sought from the Israelites.13 In return for be-ing their divine provider and protector, God expected full commitment to His law and their relationship. 23

“And I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals when she burned offerings to them and adorned her-self with her ring and jewelry, and went after her lov-ers and forgot me,” declares the Lord.”3

“Their heart is false; now they must bear their guilt. The Lord will break down their altars and destroy their pillars.”12

Often, the aim of restoration to holiness differentiates God’s anger from human anger. J.I. Packer, a contem-porary theologian, states that “God’s wrath in the Bible is never the capricious, self-indulgent, irritable, moral-ly ignoble thing that human anger so often is. It is, in-stead, a right and necessary reaction to objective moral evil.”14 God does not demonstrate anger stemming from uncontrolled, “heat of the moment” emotions. Rather, the wrath manifested in the Old Testament is a delib-erate and consistent response to sin; this is in stark contrast to the anger that people feel, which is often engendered by poor planning, pride that has been hurt, or a lack of caffeine. Seldom can one confidently declare that he has never been subject to capricious mental states, while, on the other hand, God affirms that “I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.”15 Thus, especially while analyzing accounts such as Hosea in the Bible, one must be care-ful not to confound God’s anger with human connota-tions or experiences of this emotion.

While Hosea focuses on God’s perfect anger, the book still offers wisdom to Christians seeking a Biblical viewpoint on the role of anger in their daily lives. Three precedents are established through God’s actions and commands.

First, Christians are instructed to demonstrate anger that is slow, or, in other words, deliberate and nonvola-tile. One should ask, “Is my anger moving me to take sin-ful instead of loving action? Is the magnitude of my an-ger appropriate for this situation?” Such questions are important because humans are prone to demonstrating what St. Augustine calls “disordered love” – that is, ob-

jects of affection become objects of worship (i.e. idols), thus leading one to demonstrate unjustifiably strong anger during a situation that does not warrant such a reaction.16 Slow anger is therefore essential, as it helps prevent the occurrence of disordered anger by allowing one to reconsider whether he has just cause.

Second, God demonstrates that one ought to express anger if a proper object of affection is threatened. Par-ents, for example, should exhibit anger if their children are harmed because this anger motivates them to take protective action; members of a community should likewise be angry instead of apathetic towards the in-justices experienced by other members. Anger is not inherently sinful; in fact, for many, indifference may actually be the greater issue.

The final imperative is to embrace vulnerability in the same way God did before the Israelites. In Chapter 11,

God offers an opportunity to reunite despite His every right to punish:

Vulnerability opens the door to forgiveness, the ulti-mate resolution to man’s perpetual struggle with anger. In the final chapter, God reiterates that having turned His anger from them, He is able to love them freely and reconcile their estrangement.18

On behalf of those experiencing racial discrimination during America’s Civil Rights Movement, Martin Lu-ther King Jr. had this to declare: “But be assured that we’ll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win free-dom for ourselves; we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.”19 Forgiveness is the core of the Christian ethic, made available for each believer to freely give and receive because God first of-fered it to mankind. Forgiveness destroys the sin while rebuilding the sinner. Did not the same paradigm man-ifested decades ago in the struggle for desegregation also hold millennia ago when a hurt God appealed to the Israelites for their acknowledgement?

Nowhere is this forgiveness better exemplified than in what becomes of Hosea’s marriage. God instructs the prophet to continue loving Gomer, a directive he obeys without complaint. It is with humility that he re-purchases her from another man for fifteen shekels of silver in addition to the same value in barley. As Hosea walks with her, the object of his affection for whom he had paid every piece of silver he owned, he says: “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.”20

Even through anger, God has paid the price necessary to offer forgiveness. May this grace be greatly cherished by anyone willing to receive it.

1. Hosea 1:10, ESV., 2. Italicized introduction incorporates author’s interpreta-tion of the Hosea text., 3. Hosea 2:13, ESV., 4. Exodus 20:3, ESV., 5. Hosea 6:9, ESV., 6. Dawkins, Richard. 2006. The God Delusion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin., 7. Hosea 9:15, ESV., 8. Hosea 13:8, ESV., 9. Hosea 5:14, ESV., 10. Lewis, C.S. 1950. The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe. New York: Penguin., 11. Hosea 5:15, ESV., 12. Hosea 10:2, ESV., 13. Genesis 12:2-3, Exodus 19:5-6, ESV., 14. Packer, J.I. 1975. Knowing God. London: Hodder and Stoughton., 15. Malachi 3:6, ESV., 16. Augustine, Saint, R. S. Pine-Coffin, Marcus Dods, and J.J. Shaw. 1990. The Con-fessions; The City of God; On Christian Doctrine. 2nd ed. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica., 17. Hosea 11:8-9, ESV., 18. Hosea 14:4, ESV., 19. King, Martin Lu-ther, Jr. 1967. “A Christmas Sermon for Peace on December 24, 1967.” Sermon delivered to the congregation of Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, December 24., 20. Hosea 3:3, ESV.

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RIFF WRATHRethinking the role of divine wrath in causing social harm NICOLE FLIBBERT

he presence of evil in a world governed by a just and merciful God poses a difficulty for Christian-

ity. Thomas Aquinas had an answer: evil and suffering are “part of the infinite goodness of God, that he should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good.”1

But the idea of a wrathful God, to me, presents a differ-ent problem. God is not only allowing evil to exist, but potentially creating it. In order to justify a wrathful God within Aquinas’s paradigm, we must conclude that all instances of God’s wrath in Scripture serve a higher purpose that is uniformly for good.

But how can we determine such a subjective claim? The instances of wrath in the Bible are terrible to the people on the receiving end of the wrath, but a person could argue that these accounts hold metaphorical sig-nificance that is uniformly beneficial to followers of the Holy Word. In “A Harlot’s Homecoming,” Michael ar-gues that they do. My coffee-deprived, belligerent self disagrees.

I will argue that the precise nature of instances of wrath in the Bible does not matter. The potential for nasty

punishment by a deity always incurs negative conse-quences. God’s wrath in the Bible is a fundamental fea-ture of Scripture; this is not a matter of misinterpreta-tion or superficial reading. The threatened wrath of a religious figure, in any form, detracts from the spiritual life of its followers.

Let us conduct a short thought exercise in which we consider the social consequences of a wrathful god. This thought exercise should illuminate how the per-ception of divinity impacts individuals. Psychology in-forms us that people respond to certain conditions in predictable ways. If we are familiar with the conditions, then we can name some likely effects.

Effect number one: wrath instills fear. The threatened wrath of a divine figure would impress terror upon his subjects. Some people will counter that fear is not al-ways a negative thing. We all need a healthy dose of cau-tion to prevent us from doing dumb things. Fear is one of the greatest motivators out there.

But then we must ask ourselves: does fear motivate us in the right way? If we are behaving morally out of fear,

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In response to: A HARLOT’S HOMECOMING

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does this achieve the same ends as behavior motivated by other means?

Lawrence Kohlberg theorizes a set of stages of moral development for humans. The first of these stages is a punishment and obedience-oriented moral system, in which people conceive notions of right and wrong based on the anticipation of pleasure or pain. When we act out of fear of the consequences, we are adopting this moral system. We all do this sometimes, but Kohlberg postulates that people at the preconventional stage of moral development formulate their entire ethical frameworks in terms of reward and punishment. Al-most all of us leave this stage by adolescence.2

Following Kohlberg’s model, if we are behaving accord-ing to a moral system only out of fear of punishment, we inherently have a diminished understanding of ethics. I have to agree with Kant here;3 an ethical system that relies upon external motivation is unethical.

Effect number two: wrath creates a hierarchy of au-thority. By that, I mean that when a person behaves wrathfully, the intent is to intimidate and subordi-nate others. The idea of a wrathful god recreates this same relationship between human beings and divinity. Some people will argue this is beneficial for people. The phrase “God-fearing” exists for a reason.

An easy parallel to this relationship dynamic involves the theory of four parenting styles created by Baum-rind.4 The Christian framework often regards God as a parent, in that we look to Him for guidance in our lives. But the implementation of wrath as a discipline strate-gy is reminiscent of the authoritarian parenting style. Because God is an absolute authority, there is no room for negotiation or adjustment of response in any disci-pline scenario. In many instances of Scripture, wrathful punishments are administered to large groups without explanation or opportunity for redemption.

Children with parents who fit the authoritarian type actually have more disciplinary problems than other groups and exhibit more violent tendencies.5 The de-mand for obedience from a position of inequality often incurs harmful results. In the least blasphemous way possible, let me say: if a wrathful God is our divine par-ent, then He ought to take a few parenting classes.

Effect number three: wrath implies blame. When a per-son behaves wrathfully towards others, there is an im-plication that the people in his or her wrath have done wrong and require punishment.

The problem is that people have no way of recognizing when a situation results from divine wrath. In many faiths, not just Christianity, divine wrath offers an ex-planation for otherwise meaningless natural events. Your barn burned down? God must have been punish-ing you. Any explanation offers a sense of security that

is better than the alternative of an indifferent world. I relate this phenomenon to Terror Management Theo-ry, which postulates that people select beliefs in order to simulate agency in a chaotic world. It’s an intuitive thought process that nonetheless leads to many un-healthy conclusions about culpability.

When a tragic event occurs, one common response is self-blame. Another is blaming other people. The con-cept of a selectively wrathful god enables people to scapegoat members of religious out-groups. The mas-sacre of Jews in Medieval Europe during the waves of the Black Plague is the classic example. Whenever a

religious framework includes the seemingly senseless wrath of a god, it is too easy an extension to attribute this wrath to any situation that requires it, in whatever form is most convenient for its followers.

From these short examples, I conclude that the concept of a wrathful deity in itself results in negative conse-quences at the individual level. Wrath lies at the center of harmful human impulses. There are occasions when anger is a healthy emotional response, but the prospect of unpredictable anger in others produces a different effect entirely. The negative impact of God’s wrath is not only situational, but systemic.

“Wrath instills fear. Wrath creates a hierarchy of authority. Wrath implies blame.”

Nicole Flibbert is a senior majoring in Tea Studies (but in public she’s a Medievalist). Her hobbies include visiting

ancient theological tomes.

1. Aquinas, Summa Theologica I.2.3.2. Kohlberg, Lawrence. 1985. “Kohlberg’s stages of moral development.” Theo-ries of development. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 118-136. 3. Alexander, Larry, and Michael Moore. 2016. “Deontological Ethics.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. Last modified October 20.4. Levin, Elizabeth. 2011. “Baumrind’s parenting styles.” Encyclopedia of child behavior and development. New York: Springer, 213-215.5. Esmali Kooraneh, Ahmad, and Leili Amirsardari. 2015. “Predicting Early Maladaptive Schemas Using Baumrind’s Parenting Styles.” Iranian Journal of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences 9.2, e952.

27

THE BURDEN OF

MORGAN WU

ive weeks after the election, I embraced a friend who had broken down in tears as she spoke about

Donald Trump, her family, the safety of her body, and those of her loved ones.

When I look back on this moment, I see in her sorrow the same despair that has plagued marginalized com-munities for far longer than any single person could attempt to remember. This terror, this pain, this anxi-ety is not new. When a woman of color or a queer per-son has a moment of explicit anguish such as this one, what many do not realize is that such anguish is always present, simply controlled, kept invisible under years of navigating a world that wants nothing more than to commodify, manage, and wage war against bodies deemed criminal by virtue of their existence.

Doesn’t it follow, then, that out of such prolonged an-guish may emerge an anger that is righteous, just like the righteous wrath cited in “A Harlot’s Homecoming”? The anger that has reared its head over the past several weeks is not aimless; it is a visceral reaction that is dif-ficult and damaging to suppress. It allows marginalized communities to commiserate and seek solace with oth-ers who are feeling the same fear and anger.

In some of this anger, I also see hope, expectation, and a call to action—what may be called, in religious terms, a “restoration to holiness.” The anger we have seen challenges those in power: now what will you do? It asks for an acknowledgement of the decades of atrocities committed against the marginalized; further, it asks for concrete action from those who are in a position to take such steps. It challenges: now that we have ar-rived at such a political moment, what will you do to step into your role as an ally? What will you do to support us? These questions reveal the vulnerability characteristic of righteous wrath. They acknowledge the difficulty of the position in which marginalized groups have found themselves. They confess something that is frequently uttered only through gritted teeth: we need your sup-port.

If, despite our intuitions, anger on the part of the dis-enfranchised is a rightful and logical response, what re-sponse qualifies as illogical? In the days and weeks fol-lowing the election, I saw in newspapers, articles, and

social media calls for forgiveness for those who ushered in Trump’s election. This prompt raises in me not an-ger, not sadness, but weariness. I think that in asking people to forgive, we must also remember: these are not new atrocities. Trump’s election is, as CNN’s Van Jones stated, a whitelash; it is a product of years of racism, an outbreak from a buildup of discomfort from white folks who detect a threat to their racial privilege.1

Requesting forgiveness is not a novel demand, but that doesn’t make it a reasonable one. It is a request to toler-ate ignorance and discrimination. It is a command that queer folks look the homophobic in the eye, that people of color look the racist in the eye and pardon a history of microaggressions and of hate crimes that have slaugh-tered their communities. My classmate outwardly ex-periencing this fear, these atrocities, is not a singular act. It is a storm that rages just below the skin of every individual who has ever occupied a body that is seen as undeserving, as somehow less than human.

So what is an appropriate response to such anger?

Let us mourn. Let us do this without asking for an ex-planation. It may be the first time we have been able to do so. And stand with us. Know that our anger reveals a vulnerability that stretches over decades and decades. Only once this has been accomplished can we, together, attempt to fight on.

FORGIVENESS

“The anger that has reared its head over the past sever-al weeks is not aimless; it is a

and damaging to suppress.”

1. Ryan, Josiah. 2016. “‘This was a whitelash’: Van Jones’ take on the election results.” CNN, November 9, 2016. Accessed December 26, 2016. http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/09/politics/van-jones-results-disappointment-cnntv/.

Morgan Wu is a guest contributor and a junior studying psychology and English. She plans on being a therapist.

her spare time, she can be found drinking too much coffee and panicking about her future.

F

In response to: A HARLOT’S HOMECOMING

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ur culture has a problem with the Other. Mexicans, Muslims, conservatives, homosexuals, racists,

evangelicals, blacks, homophobes, liberals, Jews, Arabs, and many more. In each case someone thinks that the world would be better without them.

At the root of this dynamic lies a philosophy which C.S. Lewis calls the “Philosophy of Hell,” which:

In a world shaped by this philosophy, it is impossible to live in community with those who are other than us. Either the Other’s otherness or the Other himself must be annihilated. A deeply homogeneous, even if superfi-cially diverse, society remains.

It has been argued that Christianity follows the “Phi-losophy of Hell.” After all, it teaches the existence of Hell. Along these lines, the Enlightenment philosopher Rousseau (1712–1778) argued that “It is impossible to live in peace with those one believes to be damned. To love them would be to hate God, who punishes them. It is absolutely necessary to either reclaim them or tor-ment them.”2 Thus, to keep the peace, “whoever dares to say, ‘Outside the church there is no salvation’3 ought to be expelled from the state.”4 If Rousseau is right, Christianity is fundamentally intolerant and a threat to peace.

Countering Rousseau, I want to argue that Christiani-ty not only enables but demands that Christians relate to the Other in a way that both preserves the Other as Other and still allows Christians to be in community with her. Christianity’s ability to do this is rooted in its conception of God and of his activity in the world. To argue my case, I will undertake a brief overview of sev-eral Christian beliefs.

God is wholly Other. Being the creator, he is fundamen-

LOVING THE OTHERGod’s Other-love enables us to love the Other

MARK HOOVER

O

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“...rests on recognition of the axiom that one thing is not another thing, and specially, that one self is not another self. My good is my good and your good is yours. What one gains another loses. Even an inanimate object is what it is by excluding all other objects from the space it occupies; if it expands, it does so by thrusting other objects aside or by ab-sorbing them. A self does the same… “To be” means “to be in competition.”1

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tally Other to creation. He is so Other that all descrip-tions of him (“God is great”) can only be true analog-ically. Only negative language about him (“God is not limited”) can be true absolutely. But further, otherness is essential to God. Even if he had never created any-thing, otherness would still exist in his very Godself.

I am referring to the doctrine of the Trinity. God, while one in nature, is in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father, and so on, but each of them alone and all of them together are the one undivided God. In other words, each Divine person is Other to the other two, yet they are still One.

Their unity does not abolish their mutual otherness. Even as they indwell each other totally,5 their distinc-tive personhoods are preserved. In their otherness they do not threaten each other, but complement each other. They never act independently of each other,6 but each plays a different role in their shared action. For exam-ple, the Father creates the world through the Son and sustains it by the Spirit.7

This mutual indwelling of the Trinitarian persons is called perichoresis. Church Father St. John of Damas-cus (676–749) described it this way:

So God is other to himself, and this allows him to be radically one. God’s perichoresis means that God not only loves the Other, but is the love of the Other. “God is love.”9 God is not narcissistic self-love that excludes others, but generous love that allows multiple selves to be one while retaining their uniqueness. God’s very be-ing thus resists C.S. Lewis’ “Philosophy of Hell.”

God created humans through the Son to draw us into perichoresis, to make us participants in his love. Church Father St. Athanasius (296–373) wrote that God made humans “according to his own image, giving them a share of the power of his own Word [the Son],10 so that… they might be able to abide in blessedness, living the true life.”11 As a result of being made in the image of God we, mere Homo sapiens, were made “Trinitarian” per-sons, capable of entering into relationships with each other and with God characterized by perichoresis.

Yet we humans sinned and turned away from God, and thus introduced a new kind of otherness into the world.

While God’s complementary otherness is characterized by cooperation, love, and harmony—in a word: pericho-resis—this new otherness is characterized by alien-ation, competition, fear, and violence. Not only did we become Other to God in this alienated sense, but also to each other, and to creation. In this state we are nigh incapable of loving Others. Rather, perceiving them as a threat to our identity, we either try to violently anni-hilate them or forcibly assimilate them into ourselves. This alienated otherness is what Christians call sin. Its effects in the social world are obvious, and its effects on the environment are becoming ever clearer. C.S. Lewis’ “Philosophy of Hell” articulates its effects.

God was not willing that humanity should stay in alien-ation. So he sent the Son to reunite the divine and hu-man natures by becoming incarnate as man. By his incarnation the Son restored a relationship of pericho-resis between divinity and humanity within his own person, bringing them into unity without destroying their distinctiveness. This reconciled man, “truly God and truly man,”12 is Jesus Christ.

Jesus, by letting himself be crucified, extended this rec-onciliation to the rest of humanity. By allowing them to kill him rather than annihilating them to make space for himself, he preserved their personhood at the cost of his own. Yet Jesus’ sacrifice of his personhood was not the end of it, for God raised him from the dead. Je-sus’ resurrection overcame his alienation from human-ity and re-extended the possibility of complementary otherness to it.

Because of the Son’s resurrection, those who accept his self-sacrifice on their behalf are no longer alienated, but reconciled to God. The Church Fathers called the process by which this happens theosis, or divinification, for by it Christians become “participants of the divine nature.”13 This does not mean that Christians become God, properly speaking, but that they are restored to being “Trinitarian” persons capable of being in rela-tionships with each other and with God that make them one while preserving each other’s otherness.

The unity formed by theosis is the Church, which in a mysterious yet real way is the body of Christ even while Christ himself, the head of the church, is enthroned in heaven. Because of this the Church unites heaven and earth and all their inhabitants that believe in Christ into one community of persons characterized by peri-choresis, dwelling with and in each other, united by that otherness-preserving love which is God himself. As with God, their mutual otherness is essential to their oneness, for if they were not Other to each other, there could be no “with” or “in,” but only bland sameness and identity.14

The Church, as Christ’s body, is called to love all hu-mans with God’s other-love, drawing them into peri-choresis. In this loving, every person’s particularity is to 29

another. For they are inseparable and cannot part from one another, but keep to their separate courses within one another, without coalescing or mingling, but cleaving to each other. For the Son is in the Fa-ther and the Spirit: and the Spirit in the Father and the Son: and the Father in the Son and the Spirit, but there is no coalescence or commingling or con-fusion.”8

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remain. The Church’s love does not demand uniformi-ty, but draws into communion. Some, finding that this love resonates with their deepest being, will embrace Christ, this love’s source, by conversion. Some will not convert, but the Church still loves them as persons through friendship and dialogue. Some again will re-fuse Christ’s love and be hostile to the Church. These the Church must love just as Christ loved his executors, laying down her life for them, sometimes literally, re-specting their personhood even while they deny hers. Thus the Church can join into community even with those outside of herself, drawing together while pre-serving particularity, healing the divisions of the world.

The Church’s extension of personhood to all is in ten-sion with the violence necessary to maintain order in our alienated world. This violence is the preserve of the state, which, as the theologian Dietrich Bonhoef-fer (1906–1945) put it, is called by God to use violence to “create law and order by force;”15 otherwise person-hood would be consumed by unrestrained violence. Facing the state’s violence, the Church faces a dilemma. Seeing how the state’s violence protects some persons, she can unquestioningly endorse it. Or, seeing how it violates other persons, she can unilaterally denounce it. Both actions deny personhood to someone. The ter-rorist on a shooting spree cannot be demonized, but the Church cannot reasonably ask the government not to kill him: both terrorist and victims must be loved. The tension is even greater if the policeman or soldier who shoots him is a Christian. In these cases, Christian love rests on hope, hope that Christ will return at the end of history, resurrect the dead, and establish God’s king-dom of perichoresis fully. Christian love is inseparable from Christian hope.

Yet does not the consignment of the wicked to Hell when Christ returns negate the “kingdom of pericho-resis” he will establish? Is not Hell a concession to the “Philosophy of Hell”? No, the existence of Hell violates the “Philosophy of Hell,” but follows the logic of peri-choresis. The “Philosophy of Hell” would demand that those who oppose God are either annihilated or forced to assimilate into heaven. But perichoresis continues to extend personhood to those who reject it. Instead of silencing them, it grants them an eternal dissenting voice. Hell preserves the integrity of God’s opponents even while neutralizing the evil they bring about. Dante was right to claim that Hell was founded by God’s love.16

I have shown that Christianity has extensive theolog-ical resources to draw on for living in peace with Oth-

ers. Because of its Trinitarian conception of God and its hope based on Christ’s resurrection, Christianity is capable of loving the Other. Hell, which Rousseau based his condemnation of Christianity on, does not negate this, but illustrates it. Given that precisely these teachings enable Christianity to love the Other, I invite the reader to consider how, and maybe whether, worl-dviews lacking any or all of these are capable of analo-gous Other-love.

A challenging task faces Christians, especially in the current political climate. In a world being torn apart by ever more mutually exclusive Others, the “Philosophy of Hell” can seem incontestable. Yet followers of the Trinitarian God simply cannot forget or annihilate the personhood of members of any of the groups listed in this article’s first sentence. Even if it is a terrorist out to kill us, Christians must love him, even if only in memo-ry; otherwise they are untrue to God’s very nature. This may seem impossible, but Christians, at least, have cause for hope: if God really did raise Christ from the dead, God can accomplish this in them as well.

1. Lewis, C.S. 1942. The Screwtape Letters, chapter 18. In C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters with Screwtape Proposes a Toast, Sixtieth Anniversary Edition (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2002)., 2. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 2011. The Social Contract. In Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Basic Political Writings, translated by Donald A. Cress, 250. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 3. Rousseau is quoting the Church Father St. Cyprian of Carthage “Epistle 72: To Jubianus, Concerning the Baptism of Heretics” chapter 21, which can be found in Ante-Nicene Fathers, 5, edited by Philip Schaff (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library), 394., 4. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 2011. The Social Contract. In Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Basic Political Writings, translated by Donald A. Cress, 251. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 5. John 14:11; 17:21-22., 6. John 5:19-30; 14:10., 7. Genesis 1:1-3; Psalm 104:29-30; John 1:1-3., 8. Translation adapted from St. John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, book 1, chapter 14. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., 9, edited by Philip Schaff (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library), 17., 9. 1 John 4:8, NRSV., 10. John 1:1, 18. The Son is also called “the Image of God.” See Colossians 1:15., 11. St. Athanasius the Great of Alexandria, On the Incarnation, chapter 3. Translated by John Behr (New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), 52. See also Genesis 1:27., 12. Council of Chalcedon, “Definition of the Union of the Divine and Human Natures in the Person of Christ” (451), as given in The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church Together with the Psalter or Psalms of David According to the Use of the Episcopal Church (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2007), 864., 13. 2 Peter 1:4, NRSV., 14. 1 Corinthians 12:14-20, especially verse 19., 15. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. 1933. “The Church and the Jewish Question.” In Berlin: 1932-1933, vol. 12 of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, ed. Larry L. Rasmussen, trans. Isabel Best and David Higgins (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009), 364. See also Romans 13:1-7., 16. Part of the inscription on the gate of Hell: “To rear me was the task of the Power divine/ Supremest Wisdom, and primeval Love.” Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, “Hell,” canto 3, trans. H.F. Cary (New York: Grolier Incorporated, n.d.), 11.

Mark Hoover wrote this article while a summer fellow of the Collegium Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture. He is now a student at Princeton Theological Seminary, having graduated from Penn in December 2015 with a major in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Aquinas teaches him how to think, Dante how to dream, and Bonhoeffer challenges him

“The Church’s love does not de-mand uniformity but draws into communion.”

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to follow Jesus.

he term “other” is more nuanced than it may first appear. It is unfair to lump every ostracized group

of people into one category called “other.” Historical-ly, this term was created by people who sought to jus-tify their discrimination by differentiating themselves from the “other.” In A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, sixteenth century missionary Bartolomé de Las Casas writes about the horrific consequences suffered by the native peoples of the Americas at the hands of Spanish colonialism.1 The desires of Spanish conquistadores to discover riches in Central America devolved into a desire to subvert native peoples in a ra-cialized system. It is clear from this account that when another’s beliefs jeopardize the rights of an individual, particularly the right to life, the offending person needs to be put in check.

Let’s look at two groups of people purported to have labeled each other as the “other.” An important dif-ference exists between racists and African-Ameri-cans. American history is filled with people compelled to eliminate people of color. From slave ships to the plantation system, black codes to Jim Crow laws, seg-regation to discrimination, black people have lived in a world that restricts their right to life. This is not so with racists. There is no history of oppression against people whose words or actions are racist in nature, yet racists themselves have not always felt that this is the case. In White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Con-servatism, Kevin M. Kruse writes about the mid-nine-teenth century attitudes of white Georgians:

These segregationists were threatened by the idea of desegregation and so flipped the rhetoric of Civil Rights activism on its head. As a result of these self-created rights, mid-century separatists justified their discrim-ination toward African-Americans. Differently, men and women who have fought against racism do not think “the world would be better” without certain peo-

ple. They believe that the world would be a better world without racism. It is inaccurate to characterize racists as the “other”; for a long period of American history they were in positions of power. Although they are be-coming a marginalized group, there is a desire to edu-cate them on their amoral attitudes and actions, rather than a desire to eradicate them altogether. While Christians are called to love everyone, we must not embrace the beliefs of those who contradict fun-damental Christian teaching. The phrase “hate the sin, love the sinner” is commonly used in Christian com-munities, but what the Bible says is a little more com-plex. It is written in Jude 1:22-23, “Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire;

to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.” In simpler terms, Christians need to show grace and kindness when con-fronted with sin, but should still treat sin as the danger-ous and ungodly entity that it is. In fact, we are called to actively remove sin from our own lives, and to help others in their attempts toward purification.3 It is not enough to recognize that racism is wrong. We must try to eradicate racism from our society through dialogue, forgiveness, and action. Only when we stop thinking of people unlike us as “other” and treat them with the dignity and respect worthy of human beings, will we be able to bridge the gap between the socially constructed binaries of our world.

T

1. Casas, Bartolomé de las. 1992. A short account of the destruction of the Indies. Edited by Nigel Griffin. London: Penguin Books.2. Kruse, Kevin Michael. 2005. White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Mod-ern Conservatism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.3. Mark 9:42-47.

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WHAT’S FAIR IN

Being a Christian amidst the polarization of politics SUMMER OSBORN

LOVE & POLITICS

In response to: LOVING THE OTHER

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Humanity seems naturally disposed to bondingwith those who are similar and competing against

those who are dissimilar. Not only do we do this within the realms of our God-given variations such as race and ethnicity, we even create groups ourselves whose pur-poses are to glorify and work for the like-minded while condemning the opposition. This is seen everywhere from sports teams to nations to entire religions. In no area is this kind of purposeful polarization more preva-lent in American society today than in politics.

Between the Trump rallies filled with violent threats and the Clinton campaign’s personal insults, it was clear that American politics has become more about who can spew the most popular form of hate than about who can buckle down and create the best policies for everyone. The labels of Republican or Democrat mean far more than the character of the candidates or the quality of their plans for action. For many Americans, once they pick a side, their party can do no wrong while the “opponent” can do no right.

I was shocked to find that, in the duration of my work on a Senate campaign over the summer, I was given no education about the values of the candidates, not even

quick talking points to present to potential voters, and I was given even less information about their opponents. If I had not been a political junkie invested in making educated choices on where to place my support, I could have walked into that office all summer and known nothing except the name and party of the candidate I was working for. All I had to do was believe that his par-ty was inherently better than the party label under the name of his opponent.

Unfortunately, this polarization does not subside once candidates leave the campaign trail. This summer Congress underwent an extended recess due to lack of agreement on gun control and funding for the Zika vi-rus, and my favorite politician released an email listing all the ways this was the opposing party’s fault. Regard-less of whether these points were valid or not, that kind of response does not reflect an attitude of willingness to work with those who have different views.

As a Christian who someday hopes to work in law and politics, this is extremely discouraging. It seems nearly impossible for Christians to have any sort of effective influence in the realm of government in this country while still upholding God’s command to love others to the highest degree. If a Christian practicing this kind of radical love ran for public office, no one would elect her because of her unwillingness to publicly tear down her opponents for the ways their views may differ. And even if she chose to work in law enforcement, she is still

faced with the issue of how to love the person she is ar-resting for his differing views about morality.How can we reconcile this? Does the church just ignore

issues of the state entirely? Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Ger-man theologian during the first half of the 20th century, argues that while the church as a unit should not take sides on issues of the state, responsibility is left up to individuals.1 So how does this work? Do some Chris-tians just need to do the “dirty work” of government and law enforcement, almost in self-sacrifice, to make life better for everyone, even if it does not align with Biblical commands?

I would argue that there is a way to have a career in gov-ernment without sacrificing the Christian faith. This is supported by the number of Biblical figures involved in government. King David is the best known example, but even the Judges and Moses can be considered poli-ticians of their time. Ultimately, Christians involved in government should make it their goal to show Christ’s love to as many people as they are able. It is possible to disagree but still proceed with love. Christians must contain their responses of anger, and must work to create laws that make society better, regardless of the party from which their agenda originates. There is a difference between respectfully criticizing the policies and cruelly tearing down the policymakers. Christians should view their role in government, not as a dirty job or a moral sacrifice, but a chance to live out the Biblical principles they profess to believe in.

“It is possible to disagree but still proceed with love.”

“If a Christian practicing this kind of radical love ran for

elect her because of her unwillingness to publicly tear down her opponent for the ways his views may differ.”

1. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. 2009. “The Church and the Jewish Question.” In Berlin: 1932-1933 (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 12), edited by Larry L. Rasmussen, translated by Isabel Best and David Higgins. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

Summer Osborn is a sophomore studying Political Science. She plans to spend this year studying, keeping up with friends, and honing her cooking skills in order to not starve.

STATEMENT OF FAITH (THE NICENE CREED)

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the Father be-fore all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made; of the same essence as the Father. Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven; he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, and was made human. He was crucified for

us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried. The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand

of the Father. He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. His kingdom will never end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life. He proceeds from the Father and with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified. He spoke through the prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church. We affirm one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look forward to the resurrec-

tion of the dead, and to life in the world to come. Amen.

PRAYER

O Lord our God,

The Apostle John said that during Jesus’ limited time walking the earth, he did many things well such that not even the whole world could contain the books

that would be written (John 21:25). May we with joy and pleasure continue the attempt, filling up books and journals such as this with the good work that Jesus

continues to do in our world.

The heavens declare the glory of God and each day gushes forth with the majes-ty of your creation (Psalm 19). May we as creators after the image of the Creator never cease to speak and write about what we have seen and heard Jesus do and

continue to do in our midst (Acts 4:20).

May these words give us strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that

surpasses knowledge and escapes description even with our best, most eloquent words (Ephesians 3:18-19).

Encourage us by your Spirit unto the sure hope of Christ, our King. May we not believe merely on account of these words written by others, but because we

have seen and experienced for ourselves that Jesus is indeed the Savior of the world (John 4:42).

Amen, Justin Mills

Penn Faith and Action Ministry Fellow

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ARTWORK CREDITCover: Design by Aliya Chen; Photo taken by Isabella Gong4-5, 7, 10-11, 14-15: Isabella Gong9: Public Domain 12: Public Domain17-18: Grace Covenant Church Multimedia20: Phoebe Low22: (left) Public Domain; (right) “God’s Grace” by Rennett Stowe, retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomsaint/3380719036 used under Cre-ative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/) 23: Public Domain25: (left): Public Domain; (right) “parent and child” by Skyseeker retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/skyseeker/1345190119 used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/) 28: Public Domain 30: University of Pennsylvania, Office of University Communications32, 34-35: Isabella Gong

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