TAUG: Food, Fall 2016

artwork credit Cover: Ami Yuen, Millie Ma, Caitlyn Lim; 2: Ami Yuen; Table of Contents: Caitlyn Lim; 5: Anna Kang; 6: Public Domain; 8: Eric Fung, Christian Layman Church; 11: Public Domain; 14,17: "A eucalyptus plantation in final stages at Arimalam" by Balaji Kasirajan is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 / Black and white from original; 18: Ryan Pemberton; 20: Antony Gormley, Quantum Cloud VIII, 1999; photo courtesy Ami Yuen; 22: Jolana Chan; 25: Ami Yuen; 27: Ami Yuen; 28: "WelcomeWeekPreppin20160815-2947" (flic.kr/p/LjHzzi) by Skyler Roh (www.flickr.com/ photos/skylerroh/) is licensed under CC BY 2.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/) / Black and white from original; 29: Ami Yuen; 32: "Feather 2" (flic.kr/p/5pAp3i) by Jim Champion (www.flickr.com/photos/treehouse1977/) is licensed under CC BY 2.0 (creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/2.0/) / Black and white from original; 35: <div>Font made from <a href="http:// www.onlinewebfonts.com">oNline Web Fonts</a>is licensed by CC BY 3.0</div>; Millie Ma Back cover: Ami Yuen, Millie Ma, Caitlyn Lim.

2â&#x20AC;&#x192; To An Unknown God | Fall 2016

Letter from the Editor

Dear Reader,

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he TAUG editorial team has considered producing a food-themed issue for several semesters. Our journal’s vision is to start conversations on topics that are important to Cal students, and to think through how Christianity might be relevant to these topics. Food, therefore, seemed like a natural theme choice. Whether we as Cal students attend obscure events for promised free food, skip meals studying in Soda, or orient our social time around grabbing lunch with people, food plays an astonishingly large role in our lives.

However, our editorial team delayed writing about food because we weren’t sure it mattered enough. We all enjoy talking about food, but how many significant issues are actually associated with it? Yes, VLSB bathroom notes tell us the horrors of the meat industry, and requests for help from the homeless tell us that food security is difficult for people to attain within our own city. But these are issues people are already aware of, so why start new conversations on them?

In creating this issue, we discovered how meaty (excuse the pun), deep, and even heart-wrenching these very topics and others like them are. Food is not just something fun to talk about; it’s something we need to talk about. How we individually deal with eating and how we respond to food justice problems in the world around us are uncomfortable questions when we look at specifics like eating disorders, gluttony, and human rights. But they are critical. How we eat is an integral part of who we are, and how we respond to food problems in the world at large painfully hurts or significantly helps people around us..

As a journal of Christian thought, we feel we have a special obligation to ask these questions. There are nearly comicallyfrequent references to food in the Bible. Right after creating people, God tells them what they can eat. God feeds the Israelites with manna when they’re in the desert, institutes feast and fasts, commands sharing food with those in need, etc. God cares about food. Christians do not always do a great job of listening to what he says – consider how we eat, what food we waste, and the terrible food-related problems still ravaging our world. But God’s words on food are still worth thinking about.

Jesus calls himself the “bread of life.” He says, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life…For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink” (John 6:54, NIV). What strange words! They sound cannibalistic: Jesus tells us to eat his body, and calls it “real food.” And as ordinary food gives us temporary life, he promises that the sacrifice of his body can give us lasting, full life.

It is our hope that you use this TAUG edition to start conversations. Grab cookies and coffee, find a few friends, and start asking hard questions about food with us as we explore the importance of food and question what “real food” can heal the hurting hungers of our campus and our world.

In Christ,

Laura Clark

4 To An Unknown God | Fall 2016

"Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you." - Acts 17:23 * Not photographed: Calvin Han, Jenny Mun Editor-in-Chief Laura Clark

Publisher Aurora Ling

Executive Editor Jenny Mun

Business Manager Anna Park

Managing Editor Caitlyn Lim

Website Manager Kerri A. Chen

Managing Editor-Designate Ami Yuen

Social Chair Jacquelyn Vasantachat

Associate Editors Joanne Chen, Amy Fann, Naomi Francisco, Calvin Han, Simon Kuang, Millie Ma

Editors Emeriti Chris Han, Sarah Cho, Stephanie Chiao, Laura Ferris, John Montague, Whitney Moret, Wesleigh Anderson, Natalie Cha, Micaela Walker

To An Unknown God is not affiliated with any church or any religious group. Opinions expressed in articles do not necessarily represent those of the editors. We are completely student-run and funded partly by the student body as an ASUC-sponsored student publication. Funding is also provided through individual donations.

Distribution is free while supplies last. To contact us, please email us at unknowneditors@gmail.com. Visit us at unknowngodjournal.com.

Fall 2016 | To An Unknown Godâ&#x20AC;&#x192; 5

The Human Behind the Homeless

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John Yaw, CONTRIBUTING WRITER is the season for gratitude!

The holidays are just around the corner, and our thoughts are filled with the happy days to come. Our constant stress is coming to an end, and respite is within reach.

But as some of us daydream of lazy days at home, a jarring cacophony of coins snaps our gazes onto a homeless person. If I were in the middle of daydreaming, a flurry of emotions would seize me: annoyance, realization, shame, and then sympathy.

Then the thoughts would rush in: “It would be messed up to just pass by, but if I give them money they might use it for drugs.

Heck, a dollar buys a single cigarette here in Berkeley. What the heck should I do?”

As students in Cal this question has, at some point, bounced uncomfortably in our minds.

What should we do for the homeless? The dilemma is that we cannot come to a definite plan until we decide what to think about the homeless. And unfortunately, looking at the actions of my fellow students here, it seems that the consensus is to not think about them at all.

A local news organization, Berkeleyside, interviewed a 6 To An Unknown God | Fall 2016

homeless man named Buddy on this phenomenon: “These people [in Berkeley] are not like other people. They seem to be used to it. They are indifferent to us. We go about our business looking for our crumbs of bread and we’re ignored.”

Obviously, we need to think of the homeless as fellow human beings. And love them as such! But why should we think this way?

For both the Christian and the non-Christian, I believe that there is much we can learn from the Bible and Christian ideas about loving people like the homeless.

The book of Proverbs chapter 3, verse 27 to 28 states, “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act. Do not say to your neighbor, ‘Come back tomorrow and I’ll give it to you’—when you already have it with you.”1 Most of us have the power to do good, even when we think we don’t. We mostly refuse to act, myself included.

In addition to that, Jesus commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves. In the book of Mark, chapter 12, this command is only superseded by the command to love God! How much more imperative is it for us to love others, including the homeless?

Ultimately, we have no excuse.

C.S. Lewis writes about loving our neighbor in Mere Christianity: The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him… There is, indeed, one exception. If you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey the law of charity, but to

show him what a fine forgiving chap you are, and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his ‘gratitude’, you will probably be disappointed.2 Some may interpret this approach as a “fake it to make it” method. Bradley Hambrick, Adjunct Professor of Biblical Counseling at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, states that Lewis’ advice is to a Christian “who sincerely wants to please God, but does not naturally desire to do a particular thing that pleases God.”3 In trying to please Him, our obedience will transform us into genuinely loving people… eventually. Our love for God should be directed to others, and this requires much practice.

One of the easiest ways to develop a love for someone is to see the other person as a human being. And what better way to do that than through food!

Food personally helped me to get to know a homeless person (let’s call him “D”) in my sophomore year. As I walked by him every day on my way to class, my conscience pricked me enough to start caring for him. I started giving him money. Occasionally, I would bring him food. But when I brought food and actually sat with him, I quickly developed a genuine love for him as a fellow human being. (Regretfully, I did not actually eat with him. I only sat down with him while he ate, which looking back isn’t the most loving position to take!)

He’s a very friendly guy, and fortunate not to suffer from mental illness. I learned that he did go through high school, and that he had some wonderful memories hanging out with his friends and playing basketball. He was indeed trying to claw his way out of poverty, but he kept trying to keep his mind off of his situation. He would always ask how my classes were going, and he enjoyed listening to what I was learning about. I learned that he had eczema, and after getting to know talk to him more it was no problem for me to part with money to buy him some medical cream. And when we greeted each other, he gave me firm, loving handshakes. His eyes would normally stare—emptily—straight ahead, but when I greeted him they would brighten; and his features would soften into the face of an acknowledged man.

I would end the article here and leave you inspired, but I would be doing you a disservice if I didn’t throw some cold water on you before you left: not every encounter with the homeless will feel as good as mine.

There came a time when I could no longer find D at his normal spot. I ended up refraining from showing kindness to other homeless people out of the fear that my money and my time would be spent in vain.

My conscience pricked me into action again, and I bought food for two homeless people sitting on Durant. I tried to talk to them like I talked to D, to try to get to know them. Eventually I realized they were only talking to me out of social obligation, and

I left them feeling disappointed.

Like C.S. Lewis mentioned, I was unconsciously “trying to show what a fine forgiving chap” I was rather than trying to please God. I placed the other person in a position of debt, and waited for them to express their “gratitude.” And like Lewis said, I was sorely disappointed.

The experience left a negative impression in my mind, and yet as a Christian I’m still commanded to show kindness to “ungrateful” people. What should my ultimate motivation be, then? Jesus tells us in the book of Matthew, chapter 25, that serving those who are in need is the same as serving Him: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me”4 In the end, we as Christians need to see Jesus in every person we pass by on the sidewalk. Kevin Corinth, an AEI scholar and homelessness researcher states: the truth is that some are scam artists, and many will do harm to themselves with the money.

And yet EVERY single one of them is Jesus. We are called to love scam artists and substance abusers just as much as we are called to love those poor people society deems more “pure.”5 And so it becomes clear as to what the Christian should do. I acknowledge that caring for the homeless is difficult. Not long after writing this article, I stepped onto the street and saw a homeless person. It was very difficult to want to approach him as a person filled with brotherly love. Perhaps you may have an easier time loving someone who is homeless. But for people like me, that love comes from much thought and prayer.

For the non-Christian, it can be difficult to approach the homeless in such a loving fashion if the potential response to kindness is ingratitude. A person may run out of fuel very quickly without a higher imperative than, “this makes me feel good.” And yet we all acknowledge that it is good to show kindness to others.

How should we think about this then?

1. NIV. 2. Lewis, C. S. 1898-1963. Mere Christianity: A Revised and Amplified Edition, With a New Introduction, of the Three Books, Broadcast Talks, Christian Behaviour, and Beyond Personality. 1st HarperCollins ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001, 131.

3. “C.S. Lewis on ‘Fake It Until You Make It.’” Brad Hambrick. Accessed November 22, 2016. http://www.bradhambrick.com/lewisonfakeit/.

4. Matthew 25:40, NIV. 5. “Should Christians Give Cash to the Homeless? | Acton PowerBlog.” Acton Institute PowerBlog. 2014. Accessed November 22, 2016. http://blog.acton.org/ archives/71764-christian-give-cash-homeless.html.

John Yaw is a senior studying Environmental Economics and Policy. He hopes to be hired in an industry heavily involved with government policy, but mostly wants to serve as a youth teacher in churches that cannot afford youth pastors or instructors.

Fall 2016 | To An Unknown God 7

Crackers & Thoughts Over a Glass of Wine Andrew Chang, CONTRIBUTING WRITER

8â&#x20AC;&#x192; To An Unknown God | Fall 2016

D

ear brothers and sisters, Communion is a holy sacrament initiated by our Lord Jesus Christ as a gift to his disciples pointing to the forgiveness of sins.

By the precious Name of Jesus, I welcome all those who have received adult baptism or confirmation to partake in communion….

Listen carefully to these words of Jesus. “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty... and whoever comes to me, I will never drive away.”1 The pastor’s sonorous voice ran itself along each aisle. Left, right, and middle. At every chance, like water through cracks, his words rushed into the pews, cascading and leaving their impressions on the ears of so many listeners. And soon enough, this immense proclamation had pressed itself against every corner and every edge of the nave. There was, in a sense, no escaping this bold truth, a truth echoed for over two thousand years.

For all its grandeur, this Sunday’s truth, like every Sunday, found itself in unusual company: a 21st century crowd. Vans and Rainbows.

Jansport backpacks and Michael Kors bags (it was a Sunday after all) slouched against every other set of legs. And cell phones everywhere.

Some in pockets, and some unashamedly resting in their owners’ hands. Interestingly, though, all was silent. Attention was, for the most part, raptly focused on each syllable uttered.

Yet if one could parse and weave through this solemn crowd, if one could peek into the tumultuous thoughts and the flitting desires of each man, woman, and child, one would notice another individual.

Age of eighteen, a man in today’s world but truly little more than a boy. This boy, sitting amongst the rest, played his role well. He was silent and poised, following the pastor’s every word. Underneath it all, however, there was nothing but discomfort. And as the pastor drew breath to continue one might have noticed the slightest twitch, the slightest betrayal of the boy’s underlying, fearful anticipation.

Apostle Paul writes, “whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and the blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before partaking the bread and the cup.”2 Let us all now take this time in silent reflection to examine our lives to see if we have sinned against God or others, and ask Jesus to forgive us of these sins.

The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took the bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it saying, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.”3 After supper, in the same manner, Jesus took the cup saying, “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood, which is shed for you. Do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”4 He knew these lines. He had heard them before. In fact, almost a hundred times. And by now, the proceedings had an almost nauseating effect. Ushered by elders and deacons, the tray of unleavened bread and wine slithered its way through the room, aisle after aisle. With rapt attention, the boy tracked it. How ironic, he momentarily thought, to see the glistening of warm, summer sun on cold, plated steel. Its lustrous rim winked at him, as if to impress

on him its benign, even good, nature. But he knew better, and soon enough, it hissed to a gentle stop on top of his lap. No words were exchanged. He knew his part and, in a surrendered fashion, picked his choice of cup, his piece of bread. The pastor’s voice rumbled forward again, praying. But this time, the words fell on deaf ears. The boy was gone.

Instead, the tidal wave, the maelstrom of memories that had been held at bay was no longer to be denied and stormed violently through his conscience.

A flash to his first snowy winter retreat. To the verses that had first brought him to a roaring and tearful conviction. Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above….When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory5…. What a beautiful picture, he had thought. One of triumph and transcendence.

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry6…. And he had. He had renounced these vulgar acts. Spat at the Devil’s face. And he had cried for God to fill his empty heart with His everlasting grace and love.

In a line, grouped with his closest friends. Bubbling with excitement, and flashing a nervous grin to that same congregation, he had announced his belief in Jesus as Lord and Savior. Wondrous applause. Pictures and certificates. Bouquets and John Piper’s book, Desiring God. He had prayed. He had experienced joy. He had felt fear relieved by grace. A momentary bliss.

It had been four years. And now, in the present, the chest squeezing, heart ripping agony still had not stopped. No less, it had worsened. Haunted by insecurities of the future. Grossly inflated by pride. Chased by competitive envy. And, worst of all, ravaged by pornography and a boundary-crossing relationship. At first, he had burned with the determination to stem this flow of evil. But every failure acted as another wedge, savagely ripping and tearing into an already gaping wound, and in this wound festered something terrible.

Something cancerous and malignant. Cynical and apathetic. It was a growing mass that ate away at any resolve and sank its black tendrils into every reservoir of hope. Ultimately, it had made a home in his wounds, in his heart, making words of redemption, endless patience, and unconditional love seem like faded whispers, once heard but never kept.

Sexual immorality. Impurity. Lust. Evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.

Because of these, the wrath of God is coming….

From what seemed like hundreds of feet away, the pastor finished his monologue with one last invitation.

And now, let us drink of the cup and eat of this bread together as a congregation.

The boy gazed, almost unseeingly, at the tiny plastic cup and crumb before him. His heart had been blunted like a nail’s head under multiple, hammering blows. He no longer saw that redeeming, Fall 2016 | To An Unknown God 9

glorious end. No, his eyes only found a bleak, static, and secret future, one pitifully characterized by cheap substitutes, moments of hollow gratification, and a tainted communion. In the deepest gnarl of his twisted heart, he knew that this was an unworthy manner.

But he no longer cared. He had gone way too far for far too long.

Unnoticed, walking in the shadows. And out of this numbness, out of this indifference, he drank and ate recklessly, raising his cup to the heavens. All it took was a single swallow and a single, wine-soaked pellet of food. The downward spiral began again, and the Devil breathed new life and laughed his long, cold laugh after yet another victory at Sunday communion. ...Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and the blood of the Lord…. ***** Communion. It is a God-ordained ritual, one that invites communal participation but a furiously private and intimate experience with the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. It is a spiritual rejuvenation and necessary nourishment. Not only does it create a space and time for a miraculous encounter with God, it is also an event that burns bright with truth, like heated metal in an otherwise dark room. Rightly so, it is the climax to God’s exhortation to us to remind ourselves daily of His message of salvation and redemption and love. In the end, it is intended as a celebratory gift, helping to grant the Lord’s promised peace and rest. To see it as anything less, to treat it as anything less, is nothing but folly.

But there is an uncompromising caveat. How can one fully rejoice in the completely restorative and healing powers of God during communion if he or she continues to suffer the weight of sin in silence and secrecy? If we deceive ourselves into thinking that our sins will simply dissipate and diffuse into nonbeing on their own, that they do not merit a humbling admission of wrongdoing? That perhaps we can escape unseen and unscathed? No, we are called to repent, to acknowledge our failures to our Father so that He may meet us at our lowest and most vulnerable states. And logically, if perhaps seemingly inconvenient, this cathartic experience involves an organic, self-motivated transparency with at least one other person God has placed in our lives. If not, then communion can become an immensely burdensome and regular event.

The boy in our story was not alone. In fact, his experience with a long, drawn out battle of temptation and sin is reminiscent of numerous and countless other tragedies in the Church. But I believe his is a story that ends well. I believe that with time, after many tears and anguishing nights, this young man finds his peace. That he accepts God’s truth, repents and shares of his transgressions, and finally begins the treasured process of healing that he had always sought.

He will share in his own words that God has played His hand.

God has sent his one and only Son to die on the cross. He has freely offered salvation. And He has given His Word and His community

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to support us. There is just one more step. Like Peter in the storm, like the bleeding woman at Lake Gennesaret, this last component is none other than an invitation for a display of faith.

These moments. They rock you. They rush over you. They lift you and deposit you in a position where all your hesitance, insecurities, and reluctance froth and bubble to the surface of your heart. Like the fearsome beasts before the traveler’s road, they have forced a confrontation that cannot be ignored, and a response is required.

But notably, as the woman answers the Lord’s call in a trembling voice, Jesus proclaims her well and grants her peace. As Peter’s foot rests tentatively on the raging water’s dark and foreboding surface, it discovers a solid foundation upon which to stand.

And as for the young man, he finds that in sharing his deepest shame, communion in remembrance of Jesus becomes a treat, a privilege, and a chance to exalt the God most High. He realizes the potency of giving testimony to one’s own sin and God’s individual plan to mend that brokenness. He is encouraged to find that with each sharing, he breathes new life and the devil loses another grip and falls another rung. And finally, he is led to a point where he can share publicly with the intention of glorifying God. Perhaps, he might even write his story in a publication. And this, to repeat a wise old man, “is an encouraging thought.”7 “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” ~1 Timothy 1:15-17 (NIV) “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” ~James 5:16 (NIV) “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” ~1 John 1: 8-9 (NIV) 1. John 6:35-37, NIV. 2. 1 Corinthians 11:27, NIV. 3. 1 Corinthians 11:24, NIV. 4. 1 Corinthians 11: 23-32, NIV. 5. Colossians 3:1-4, NIV. 6. Colossians 3:5, NIV. 7. The Fellowship of the Ring. Dir. Peter Jackson. New Line Cinema. 2001, Film Still at the tender age of 20, Andrew has, as a product of his tendency to get cold and his general lethargy, been likened to a grandpa. Fortunately, his passion for nature, the Lakers, and Jesus keep his heart warm and youthful.

Chew On This Andrea Lee, CONTRIBUTING WRITER

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s people who espouse living according to truth, it’s strange and sad that Christians suffer the pall of an insular and reality-rejecting reputation.

This conception was personally conceived, circa my unsubstantiated faith in a conventionally accepted absence of a god, from the way I saw how other Christians maintained an apparently indifferent attitude towards social, political, environmental, or any other rallying interest generally accepted as virtuous. I saw their hope in heaven and prayer as a cop out to activism.1 My small scope of exposure and understanding turned me off to the possibility of a prioritization of purpose. Now, eyes opened by the Lord’s coruscations of reason and beauty, my highest calling is laid out in Mark 12:30, to love God and love others, and indeed our hope and home is in heaven. But though our infinite fate is sealed, we are not excused then to neglect stewardship over God’s gifts. Jesus himself tells us to pray, “let it be on earth as it is in heaven.” Though not of this world, we are still in it. And while in it, whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, we must do all to the glory of God. I’m now about to embark on a topic that, much like religion, people either like to dismiss or kill as soon as it comes up. This is often accomplished via an enforced apathetic attitude of “I don’t want to know,” since the truth may compel a change. But if it’s relevant, and if it’s true, we can all agree as people who want to live within the correct frame of reality, that this is not an appropriate response. So buckle in and listen with an open mind for just a hot second.

Perpetuating environmental degradation and animal cruelty by participating in consumption of the animal agriculture industry’s products is incongruous with Christian ethics. I’m not saying eating meat is inherently sinful. Jesus ate fish after resurrecting. God told Peter in Acts 10:13 to get up, kill and eat. The blatant disregard for environmental repercussions and objectively inhumane treatment of animals is what I have beef with, if you’ll excuse the pun.

I don’t mean to pontificate, or puntificate. Actually I do on the latter. But I seriously don’t want to be sanctimonious. I want to be real. We all have our different ways of glorifying God, and given our limited bandwidth, there are some ways that are more practical and personally suitable than others in carrying out His great commission and serving as vessels.

Incorporation of a meatless diet by no means detracts from the efficacy of our witness, but rather strengthens the power of our testimony of cultivating a Christ-like heart of empathy, compassion, and glorification of God. The only price is the gratification of our own appetite. This is a nuanced issue and there are so many diving boards off into a whole new can of worms, but I want to make a few points on why I think vegetarianism or veganism is aligned with Christian doctrine.

We are stewards not only of the gospel of salvation, but also of our earth. These are God’s gifts to us, from creation in Genesis, to “have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”2 To “have dominion” or “rule over” stems from the Hebrew word radah.3 It’s used in other areas of the bible such as in Psalm 72, a coronation psalm for King Solomon, to describe royalty and its implicit duties, to “deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help.” Genesis 2:15 says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep (shamar) it.” The word for keep, shamar, is interchangeable in relating God’s care for humanity.4 The direct translation is “to keep, guard, observe, give heed, ward, protect.”5 Why does God place such significance on our duty to be environmental stewards? Because his glory is revealed through phenomena of the natural world – from the majesty of the glaciated topography at Yosemite to the intricacies of microcosmic subcellular signaling of the plants that inhabit their slopes. From the bustling biodiversity of ecosystems to the silencing radiance of the Milky Way. Romans 1:20 declares, “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal

Fall 2016 | To An Unknown God 11

power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”6 God’s creation is good and his gift is undeserved, but our response of blithely adding to the amalgamation of humanity’s apathetic adulterations by supporting animal agriculture strikes discord in the comprehensive moral claims of Christianity.

At this point, I could bombard you with facts and figures about the reverberations of animal industry on global warming, water pollution, abhorrently inefficient land use, and the deplorable ethics, or lack thereof in factory farms. But I feel like this is where many minds turn off. But I’m gonna do it anyways, because they’re shocking and they’re true and hopefully they provide fodder for your ruminations. For the sake of brevity (or rather your sanity), I’ll just let the excerpts do the talking.

Global warming. 97% of the world’s scientists agree it is “extremely likely” that global warming is anthropogenic.

- “97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities.”7 - “Animal agriculture is responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined exhaust from all transportation.”8 - “The livestock sector generates 65 percent of human related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential of CO2. Most of this comes from manure. And it accounts for respectively 37% of all human induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64% of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.”9 - “Emissions for agriculture projected to increase by 80% by 2050.”10 Water waste and pollution.

- “Nearly half of all water used in the U.S. goes to raising animals for food.”11

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- “It takes on average 1840 gallons of water to produce 1lb of beef, and 110 gallons to produce 1lb of wheat.”12 - Run-offs of animal waste, pesticides, chemicals, fertilizers, hormones, and antibiotics are contributing to dead zones in coastal areas, degradation of coral reef and health problems.”13 Food waste.

- “Today only 55% of the world’s crop calories feed people directly; the rest are fed to livestock (around 36%) or tuned into biofuels and industrial products (roughly 9%).”14 - “The U.S. could feed 800 million people with grain that livestock eat.”15 Unethical treatment.

Here we have the issue of defining sentience, and what is ethical in terms of how to treat something that cannot verbally and clearly express a desire to not be mutilated at birth, suffocated or trampled, confined to knee deep slurry of bodily fluids, injected with growth hormones, raped, beaten, broken, and finally slaughtered. However, since each of these acts evokes some degree of visceral arousal and objection, we can deduce that this sort of treatment is not indicative of loving empathy.

If you feel these bullet points like a shotgun spray across your capacity for global concern, imagine how much more God, the creator, aches as humanity fulfills the trajectory of self-destruction He sent his only Son to reverse. Furthermore, imagine how this reflects the value we place on compassion, kindness, empathy, and our claim to live in a broader reality of this redemption, recollection, and gratitude. Yes, there is grace from God, but there’s a reason Paul writes to be holy and blameless.16 How can we proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light if we don’t demonstrate an awareness and appreciation for what we’ve been given? A turnaround of whole scale repentance and return to God doesn’t happen on a dime, but through a series of singular salvations won in part by the consistency of what it means to enter into a relationship

with Jesus Christ. By nonparticipation in the direct cause of each of the aforementioned issues, we each have the power to incite an open-minded dialogue about living a life perfused with Christ-imitating qualities of humility, dignity, empathy, and sacrifice out of respect for our relationship with God. Above all else, God calls us to love Him and love others as he has loved us. Our reconciliation and redemption has already been won in His victory over death. In light of eternity, this world and all its suffering is a miniscule speck in time, but while we still walk this earth, we must remember it is a responsibility affected by the implications of our own God-given free will. Jesus died so we could again be reconciled to the source of life, and God presents us opportunities to glorify Him in everything we do – how we relate with one another to how we respond to issues of contemporary importance.

Be it through anything from staying informed and praying for the issues that plague humanity to small relinquished rights such as the abstinence of consuming massive quantities of meat because of what it represents, we have a charge to live now in this world as respectful sojourners embodying our real home, the Kingdom of Heaven. The context of the moment is very much intertwined with the context of eternity, since every moment is one of witness and representation of the powerful saving love of Jesus Christ. Immortal souls who do not know they are infinite only see actions within the context of the finite. It is up to us to set the foundation of the bridge between the temporary and the everlasting circumstances and stakes, prioritizing the permanent and not neglecting the fact that our ephemeral choices bespeak eternal voices that praise and glorify God.

1. While vital, prayer is not the only calling of Christian concern and care.

See James 2:14-17.

2. Genesis 1:28, ESV. 3. “Radah - Old Testament Hebrew Lexicon - New American Standard.”

Bible Study Tools. Accessed November 22, 2016. http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/hebrew/nas/radah.html.

4. Psalm 121:5-8.

5. “Shamar - Old Testament Hebrew Lexicon - King James Version.”

Bible Study Tools. Accessed November 22, 2016. http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/hebrew/kjv/shamar.html.

6. See also Job 12, Psalm 8, 19. The bible in its entirety.

7. NASA. Accessed November 22, 2016. http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/.

8. “Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options.”

Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options. Accessed November 22, 2016. http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.

HTM. 9. “Livestock a Major Threat to Environment.” Livestock a Major Threat to Environment. Accessed November 22, 2016. http://www.fao.org/ newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html.

10. “Global Diets Link Environmental Sustainability and Human ...”

Accessed November 22, 2016. http://academic.regis.edu/MFRANCO/ Seminar in Biology research Literature/Papers/GobalDiets.pdf.

11. “Food Revolution Network.” Food Revolution Network. 2016. Accessed November 22, 2016. https://foodrevolution.org/.

12. “The Water Content of Things: How Much Water Does It Take to Grow a Hamburger?” How Much Water Is in Common Foods and Products: USGS Water Science School. Accessed November 22, 2016. http:// water.usgs.gov/edu/activity-watercontent.php.

13. Sojourners. “Eating Animals: 10 Reasons to Avoid Factory Farmed Flesh.” Sojourners. 2011. Accessed November 22, 2016. https://sojo.net/ articles/eating-animals-10-reasons-avoid-factory-farmed-flesh.

14.“Feeding 9 Billion - National Geographic.” Feeding 9 Billion - National Geographic. Accessed November 22, 2016. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/feeding-9-billion/.

15. “U.S. Could Feed 800 Million People with Grain That Livestock Eat, Cornell Ecologist Advises Animal Scientists | Cornell Chronicle.” U.S. Could Feed 800 Million People with Grain That Livestock Eat, Cornell Ecologist Advises Animal Scientists | Cornell Chronicle. Accessed November 22, 2016. http://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-couldfeed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat.

16. Ephesians 1:4.

Andrea Lee is a girl who loved her steaks rare, her lamb chops with sage, and her bacon crispy. However she hasn't tasted these things in three years and is never turning back.

Fall 2016 | To An Unknown God 13

The Manna of Human Rights W

Aurora Ling, STAFF WRITER hat does it mean to have human “rights”?

It’s a question that I’ve thought about a lot, as a human rights major and as a Christian. It’s a question that has kept me up at night as I read news stories about children being bombed in Aleppo and women being tortured in rape camps. It’s a question that permeates every field of study, from biology and nuclear engineering, to history and philosophy.

This question can determine life or death for individuals and communities.

This article will address the importance of having a theory behind human dignity in order to advocate for human rights.

And because all humans—regardless of their backgrounds and preferences—need food to live, I will use the lens of the human right to food to illustrate the practice of implementing the more theoretical arguments.

BACKGROUND OF “HUMAN RIGHTS” Capital H-R Human Rights were officially “founded” in 1948, with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR); the declaration was a response to the atrocities of World War II. However, because it was only a declaration, it had no legallybinding effect. Still, it laid forth the foundations for later legallyenforceable international human rights laws.

The first line of the UDHR recognizes “the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.”1 Actually, all nine of the core international human rights instruments2 are founded on the concept of human dignity.

HUMAN DIGNITY: NON-THEISTIC PERSPECTIVE But here’s the problem. Nowhere in any human rights 14 To An Unknown God | Fall 2016

document is “human dignity” ever defined. We just assume that people have human dignity and worth, and thus there is a standard of treatment towards humans that we must attain. There are no theories in human rights discourse that give clues as to how or why humans have inherent dignity. That is a problem, when a huge chunk of implementing human rights involves litigation in courts, and when said litigation involves a lot of nitty-gritty definition-seeking-and-tweaking work.

So why are human rights continually (and seemingly incessantly) violated? I dare say that it is because there is that fundamental issue of “human dignity.” After all, if its definition— the phrase being literally foundational to human rights discourse and advocacy—is vague and its origin is never thought out, then implementing human rights indeed becomes a game of politics, open to manipulation and, ultimately, legally-justified violations.

While it sounds great to say that human beings have inherent dignity and inalienable rights, until we discover how, why, and from where this dignity exists, these are just going to be empty words.

Now I’m going to say something that may be controversial, and may bring some whiplash: The problem with the current framework of international human rights, is that it is non-theistic and secular.

Bertrand Russell, an atheist (or debatably an agnostic3), sums up what the consistent atheist view is: If indeed there is no God, there is no actual purpose for our existence, and we are simply a “random collocation of atoms.”4 Humans are nothing more than the physical. The implication of this is that then, any rights or sense of dignity are actually just arbitrarily assigned—by humans themselves. And if these rights and this dignity were arbitrarily assigned and subjectively defined by humans, then they can be

arbitrarily taken away and subjectively “un-defined”—also by humans themselves.

The non-theistic conclusion of where our human dignity comes from is that our human dignity, the foundation of our human rights, is just arbitrary. “Human dignity” was simply defined by a group of humans in a period of time. There’s nothing more to it. Walk into any human rights class on this campus, strike up a conversation about where “human dignity” comes from, and you will be faced with circular arguments and an ultimate dead-end. The conversation just ends at, “We have dignity because we’re humans and we’re just entitled to it.” This lack of investigation provides leeway for human rights violations, atrocities, and ultimately, impunity.

HUMAN DIGNITY: CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE On the other hand, the Christian perspective is quite different, and it has some shocking claims.

Desmond M. Tutu, an Anglican Archbishop in Cape Town, writes that “the Bible makes some quite staggering assertions about human beings which came to be the foundations of the culture of basic human rights that have become so commonplace in our day and age.”5 Indeed, the human rights movement was originally a Christian movement. Before, “certain groups were inferior or superior because of possessing or not possessing a particular attribute (physical or cultural).”6 This changed with the claims of the Bible.

The first major claim of Christianity is that humans have human dignity because humans were made in the image of God (this doctrine is called Imago Dei7). Genesis 1 paints a picture of creation as something steadily progressing towards a climax. Then, in verse 26, there seems to be a pause—a sense of deliberation— before God finally says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”8 Humans are depicted as the climax of creation.

This is significant because, by claiming that human beings are all made in the image of God, the Bible is stating that humans have “this exalted status … that has nothing to do with this or that extraneous attribute”9 such as those of physical or cultural characteristics. Life being a gift from the Creator of everything, it is then inviolable.10 Having human dignity is equivalent to having a sense of inherent self-worth and empowerment, whether that be physical or psychological—on the basis that we are made in the likeness of God. But that’s not the full picture—that was before The Fall. The rest of this “Christian perspective” argument are my thoughts, after much pondering over how to approach human rights in a gospel-centered way.

In the beginning (the theory of the Big Bang—which was first theorized by a Christian scientist: Georges Lemaître), we were created in the image of God and given life. And everything

was fine and dandy. But then, The Fall happened. When Adam and Eve took the fruit, they betrayed God. A relationship was broken—a divorce between humans and God. Sin entered the picture, and it was passed down the generations. Fast forward to present day, and we are still helplessly broken sinners who hurt each other and get hurt. We just can’t help it.

When examining the atrocities of the world on both an international and personal level—the Holocaust, the genocides in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Srebrenica, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Armenia, the rape camps in the former Yugoslavia and in Da’esh-controlled territories, the war crimes in Aleppo, the hurtful things we say and do to one another on a day-to-day basis—any honest person would recognize that there is in fact nothing that we have done and nothing that we presently are that “entitle” us to any rights or dignity.11 Yet, in complete view of all the horrors of this world and what we humans have done to each other, God still loved us. And God still gave us inherent dignity, through His grace and His love. In fact, God so loved the world, that He gave His only son: Jesus.12 Indeed, “while we were still weak, … Christ died for the ungodly.

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person … but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”13 Dying for someone or something is the greatest declaration of worth. Ultimately, we have human dignity not because of who we are or what we have done, but because of who God is and what God has done.

Our rights and dignity were therefore never dependent on our works, characteristics, or environment. We are entitled to rights and dignity with regard to one another, not because we have done anything or because we happen to be a certain way. But rather, because God has given them to us, despite our having done so much wrong, and despite anything that we could ever do, say, or be. Dignity and rights were granted to us by Someone who is so much bigger and greater than any mere creation, Someone who is fully aware of injustice and horror. And this Someone gave irrevocable dignity to the decidedly undeserved.

Because we were freely given dignity and rights by Someone greater than any human, we are therefore entitled to dignity and rights that can never be revoked by any mere human. As Archbishop Tutu states, “To trample [people’s] dignity underfoot, is not just evil as it surely must be; it is not just painful as it frequently must be for the victims of injustice and oppression. It is positively blasphemous, for it is tantamount to spitting in the face of God.”14 THE HUMAN RIGHT TO FOOD Now, let us put these theoretical concepts into practice by digging into a discussion of food.

The international community claims that all humans have the Fall 2016 | To An Unknown God 15

human right to access to food. In fact, “The Right to Adequate Food” was proposed in Paragraph 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948. This paragraph states that “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food.”15 But again, declarations are not legally-enforceable.

So then in 1966, Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) set forth “the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger.”16 This was further expanded upon in 1989, with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which recognized food- and nutritionrelated rights of children to enjoy the “highest attainable standard of health.”17 Finally, the human right to food was put into law.

But here’s the catch. While declarations are legally non-binding, conventions or covenants are only legally applicable to signatory members. This means that non-signatories can get away with not following what the ICESCR or CRC declare as law. To make matters worse, the international community, in an attempt to try to get as many signatories as possible for conventions (because image matters), has actually made these covenants so vague as to be essentially un-enforceable18—thus, effectively defeating the entire purpose.

As aforementioned, the lack of a solid foundation for human rights and dignity provides leeway for human rights violations and impunity for perpetrators of atrocities. Especially from a non-theistic point of view, the concept of human rights becomes a game of politics, twisting what “human dignity” entails to a definition that is most beneficial for a group or situation. This happens theoretically with covenants, and also in practice.

In practice, there have been two movements regarding the human right to food. Initially, there was an emphasis on “Food Security.” The belief was that “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”19 The problem with this movement was that it was very minimal.

Food Security “emphasize[d] reliance on the global economy based on liberalized agricultural markets.”20 It provided a shortterm threshold to be reached, but allowed for long-term damage in communities to prevail.

People were given just enough to survive—but not enough to thrive. Not only were they given so little, but their autonomy and control over food production processes were also taken away.21 For example, they had no control over seed production because of companies like Monsanto and other “Big Four” GMO seed companies. They were forced to leave farmland because of national polices. They were also given inadequate income for agricultural production.

If indeed human dignity were equivalent to the biblical 16 To An Unknown God | Fall 2016

understanding of dignity, then one can see how Food Security stripped people of it. Biblically, a society which values inherent dignity would reflect “the holiness of God not by ritual purity and cultic correctness but by the fact that when you gleaned your harvest, you left something behind for the poor, the unemployed, the marginalized one.”22, 23 A Christian understanding of human dignity is one in which everyone is treated with the utmost respect, kindness, and compassion. With Food Security, the limited sources of sustenance in addition to the revocation of autonomy had stripped to the bare capitalist minimum any upholding of “human dignity.”

The issue with Food Security demonstrates just how problematic it is to be lacking in foundational definitions. It is then so easy to manipulate dignity to a bare-minimum standard and objectify people, viewing them as just mouths to feed or appetites to satisfy—rather than as human beings who deserve abundant lives, with respect and honor.

On the other hand, there has also been the current movement of Food Sovereignty. According to the 2007 Declaration of Nyéléni, Food Security emphasizes “The right of peoples, communities, and countries to define their own … food and land policies which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances.”24 Not only does the concept of Food Sovereignty include the right to food, but it also includes the right “to produce food, which means that all people have the right to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food and to food-producing resources.”25 This movement seeks to treat humans as those with dignity—as more than just physical clumps of atoms that metabolize food for energy.

Food Sovereignty mainly emphasizes local control that is culturally appropriate and gives power back to communities with regard to production of food. La Via Campesina (International Peasant’s Movement), founded in 1993 by farmers all over the world, is the physical embodiment of the Food Sovereignty movement. If upholding human dignity means championing people’s self-worth and treating people with respect and honor, La Via Campesina farmer Annette Desmarais nailed it on the head when she said that “it’s much bigger than how we produce food—it’s also about how we live and how we are.”26 To solely reach the surface level of necessity is not to give dignity. To take away people’s autonomy over their own livelihoods is not to give dignity. To solely provide the threshold is not to give people the proper humanizing that people deserve.

As a Christian, my ultimate stance revolves around two things.

First. The world’s ethic is rights-based: “Is it within my right to do [this]?” However, the Christian ethic, one I wish to personally develop, is a love-based approach: “Is it loving to do this?”27 If human beings were created in the image of God and were

endowed with inherent worth, dignity, and rights because God Himself gave them to humans, then we should (and indeed, must!) treat our neighbors with love and respect. When looking at the issue of the human right to food—or really, any human right— it is vital that the ethic of love be the motivation. Otherwise, we will only strive for the minimum or the “necessary.” When in reality, love has always been about more than the bare minimum.

28 I firmly believe that if we were to take a love-based approach when implementing Human Rights, many things might not have developed into the atrocities that they eventually developed into.

Violations of human rights break my heart—but I know that they break God’s more.

Lastly, as a Christian, I believe that the most important thing for human beings is not our physical hunger satiation. The human right to food is essential to treating humans as humans— our brothers and sisters as brothers and sisters. However, the most vital thing with regards to our lives is our relationship with God. God is the source of joy, justice, peace, and satisfaction, the one with whom the longings and the hunger that we feel for “something more in life” have their answer. After all, a person can have all the food (s)he desires each day, but yet may still feel starved in life. John 10:10 says, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”29 There was a reason why Jesus said he was the bread of life.

13. “Romans 5:6-8.” In Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles, 2001.

14. Tutu. 3.

15. “Universal Declaration of Human Rights | United Nations.” Welcome to the United Nations. http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.

16. Accessed November 20, 2016. http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/ProfessionalInterest/icescr.pdf.

17. Accessed November 20, 2016. http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/ProfessionalInterest/crc.pdf.

18. Another example is looking at the passing of CEDAW and the reservations that Saudi Arabia made against the most essential provisions of the document.

19. Zerbe, Noah. “Food Security Vs. Food Sovereignty.” Global Food Politics.

Last modified November 30, 2012. https://globalfoodpolitics.wordpress. com/2012/11/30/food-security-vs-food-sovereignty/.

20. Ibid.

21. Accessed November 20, 2016. https://viacampesina.net/downloads/PDF/ EN-3.pdf.

22. Tutu. 5.

23. See also Leviticus 23:22 and the book of Ruth in the Old Testament.

24. Zerbe. “Food Security Vs. Food Sovereignty.”

25. Ibid.

26. Provost, Claire. “La Via Campesina Celebrates 20 Years of Standing Up for Food Sovereignty.” The Guardian. Last modified June 17, 2013. https:// www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/jun/17/ la-via-campesina-food-sovereignty.

27. Kim, Daniel. “Sermon in First Corinthians.” Sermon, Gracepoint Church, Berkeley, California, November 6, 2016.

28. See 1 John 4:8.

1. “Universal Declaration of Human Rights | United Nations.” Welcome to the United Nations. http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.

2. “Core International Instruments.” http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CoreInstruments.aspx.

3. “Was Bertrand Russell An Atheist or Was He Really an Agnostic.” The Bertrand Russell Society - The Good Life is One Inspired by Love and Guided by Knowledge. http://bertrandrussell.org/archives/BRSpapers/2012/agnostic.php.

29. “John 10:10.” In Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles, 2001.

Aurora Ling is a junior at UC Berkeley studying Peace and Conflict Studies.

She wants to become a professor, but first and foremost prays to be molded into a minister of the gospel.

4. Russell, Bertrand. A Free Man’s Worship. Portland, Me: T.B. Mosher, 1923.

5. Tutu, Desmond M. “The first word: to be human is to be free.” In Christianity and Human Rights: An Introduction, edited by John Witte and Frank S. Alexander, 1. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

6. Tutu. 2.

7. This is discussed more in The Image of God: Rights, Reason, and Order by Jeremy Waldron.

8. “Genesis 1:26.” In Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles, 2001.

9. Tutu. 2.

10. Ibid.

11. This is also the whole idea behind giving thanks and having thanksgiving—we are indeed entitled to nothing. We give thanks knowing that we are blessed with what we have.

12. “John 3:16.” In Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles, 2001.

c i h t e n a e v o l f o

Fall 2016 | To An Unknown God 17

Who's My Neighbor?

The Female Central American Immigrant Experience Ryan Pemberton, CONTRIBUTING WRITER “Immigration has a lot of faces,” Mayra tells our group—ten UC Berkeley students, a university ministry coordinator, and myself, First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley’s university minister. “We can only focus on one.”

Our group sits on a bouquet of colored plastic seats in a semi-circle while Wendy, our guide, translates for a woman in a blood red dress— Mayra. Mayra owns El Mana, a roadside restaurant thirty minutes north of the Mexico-Guatemala border.

The restaurant’s waist-high walls are made from the same dirt that’s underfoot, lacquered and sprinkled with blue bottles from the bar. The ceiling is made from palm branches, intricately bound, folded, and layered. A familiar painting of Jesus standing outside a large wooden door hangs near the order counter with a photo of Che Guevara tucked into the bottom of the frame.

We are on a spring break service-learning trip with Amextra, a nonprofit that works to free families throughout Mexico from crippling poverty. Our hope is to learn more about the experience of those fleeing violence and poverty in Central America and return with a new perspective on our immigrant sisters and brothers back home. The East Bay is one of our nation’s largest resettlement sites for refugees, and home to many immigrants.

“Our focus is on women passing through, and those working at local bars,” Mayra continues. “We also help with the paperwork for those from Central America who would like to become legalized.”

Mayra’s face is serious, sturdy, and beautiful as she speaks. Women are constantly coming and going from the kitchen somewhere behind us as Mayra and Wendy talk, always carrying something: water, tortillas, and wood.

Mayra has been working for 12 years to support women who enter Mexico from Central America following promises of a steady income in hopes of escaping the poverty of their home country, only to become trapped in prostitution.

“Migration has always existed,” a restaurant volunteer named Mariló adds, referencing the Old Testament story of Ruth. “Most immigrants have come a long way, and have experienced a lot of difficulties.”

The women who arrive at Mayra’s restaurant stay for different lengths. A month or two is enough for some. Others stay for years.

Unlike most of the men who emigrate from Central America, most female emigrants are not aiming for the United States. The trip is too dangerous; few are willing risk it. Women who leave Central America for Mexico are happy to find a livable wage in Chiapas, usually in the sex trade, returning home to see family and share their earnings when they can.

Three waitresses join us and are asked if they would share their experience.

Francisca, 18, left her home and family in Guatemala three years earlier. She has been working for Mayra for several months.

“I came from a large family,” Francisca explains with the help of a translator. “My parents could not afford to take care of me. I had to leave home to find work.”

Francisca struggled to find work for almost three years. Finally, she came to Mayra’s restaurant.

Listening to Francisca’s story, I am struck by her ability to hold a smile. Later, she tells our translator how much she would like to learn English.

Another waitress, Mariel, left Guatemala for Chiapas when she was just 14.

“I’ve experienced a lot of bad treatment because of where I’m from, being discriminated against,” Mariel says. “Thanks to Mayra, I’m now working on my naturalization.”

At 28, Mariel now has three children, all of whom are in school in Guatemala. Mariel confesses that the scariest part of her journey was crossing the Mexico-Guatemala border.

“I was afraid that they would harm us physically and then throw us back,” Mariel tells us through a translator.

Someone asks if the women would be willing to share about any unique experiences they faced as female emigrants. The previously talkative women are silent, their eyes glued to the dirt floor.

On a late night walk earlier that week, I’m told that the escalating violence against women in recent years has birthed a new term: femicide. An increasing number of female bodies have been found in ravines, throats slit, intestines torn out.

A male volunteer breaks the silence, explaining that their experiences are hard to put into words, and 18 To An Unknown God | Fall 2016

that most still find it difficult to share.

“We’re working toward awareness. We’re all equal. We all deserve the same opportunities,” Mariló adds. “We won’t be able to solve everything, but at least we can stop and recognize one another as brothers and sisters.”

Of the women who come to Chiapas from Central America, we’re told that most end up in the sex trade industry. Some are tricked; others come for the prospect of a livable income or to support their family back home, without realizing the toll it will take on their health. Those women who find employment in bars are expected to drink heavily, and to encourage male customers to do the same.

“In order to make a decent salary, most women drink a couple cases a night,” we’re told. “When they can no longer keep up, they begin to think, If I can’t even do this, what can I do?”

Some bars require prostitution from their waitresses. The women charge at least 150 Pesos, we’re told—not quite $10. Many bar owners take a 50 Peso cut per customer.

I notice price tags the rest of our week in Mexico, trying to put this price into perspective. 150 Pesos would not have covered a carne asada dinner and a beer where we dined the previous night.

A Domino’s ad for a medium pizza and two sodas in the Tapachula city center the following night is also more than these women charge. Realizing that I cannot buy these meals for the price of a woman’s body makes me sick to my stomach.

When I ask if the story of Mayra’s restaurant has been told, she shakes her head.

“The media is so involved with the Mexican government and politics,” Mayra says, “which does not want to be showing anything that goes against its efforts to crack down on immigration.”

“Sometimes we think immigration is something that happens elsewhere, but it’s right here, around the corner,” Mariló, a restaurant volunteer, says. “A lot of times we don’t think it’s our problem because it involves people from other countries. But that’s precisely why it’s our problem.”

Mariló’s words haunt me. The fact that we think immigration is not our problem makes it our problem.

We’re invited to lunch and are greeted by a long table overflowing with food. Fried white fish with its mouth, eyes, and fins all in place take up the most space on our plate.

“Mmm, I love chicken,” I joke.

Rice, refried beans, and fresh avocado neatly flayed over a bed of iceberg lettuce round out the lunch. Wendy, our guide, squeezes lime over the length of her fish. We all follow.

The same women who just shared their intimate experiences with us serve the meal. I can’t help feeling I should be serving them.

Soon, the conversation returns to Berkeley: favorite fish tacos, best concert experiences. My mind stays on the women’s stories.

What difference does my Christian faith make, I wonder. What difference does this experience and my faith make to my return home?

••• There’s a scene in Luke’s gospel in which a lawyer approaches Jesus and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. When Jesus asks what the law says—the lawyer’s own field of expertise—he replies that the law commands love: in a vertical sense (love God), and in a horizontal sense (love neighbor). The two are always connected. “‘You have given the right answer,’” Jesus tells the lawyer. “‘Do this, and you will live.’”1 But the inquisitive lawyer doesn’t stop there.

“And who is my neighbor?” he asks.

Jesus replies with a story that we call The Parable of the Good Samaritan,2 revealing the surprising way Jesus defines “neighbor.”

This experience of Mayra’s restaurant, these women’s stories, and especially Mariló’s words illuminate this familiar story for me in a helpful way: the one in need whom I don’t see as my problem, that’s my neighbor.

As soon as I begin to put distance between someone else’s pain and my own comfort, I can be sure I’ve found the neighbor Jesus calls me to love. The immigrant fleeing crushing poverty and unthinkable violence, the Cal student in fear for her undocumented family’s wellbeing—both are my neighbor.

Jesus doesn’t tell us how to love these neighbors. He simply points to the one who showed mercy and says, “Go and do likewise.”

Ryan Pemberton (MTS, Duke Divinity School) is the Minister for University Engagement at First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley. He is the author of Called: My Journey to C. S. Lewis’s House and Back Again.

Fall 2016 | To An Unknown God 19

My Body is a

TEMPLE

I

Kimberly Webb, CONTRIBUTING WRITER t’s November 8th, 2014. It must be after 8:00 pm. I’m sitting at my desk in my room at the Clark Kerr dorms; and my stomach hurts because I ate a big meal at the Crossroads dining commons, the first big meal I have eaten in a while. As I’m working on my Math 54 homework, I take a glance at myself in the mirror on my door, and I can’t recognize myself anymore; I’ve starved myself for so long.

I then grab my phone from my desk, log onto my Facebook app, and tell everybody what I’ve done to myself.

The anecdote above describes my experience with anorexia, and how my concern about body image took a turn for the worse. I find it interesting that “females first experience a decline in self-esteem between the ages of 12 and 13, a time when most females have entered puberty,”1 because this statistic defines exactly how I felt being a chubby sixth grader, when I started to struggle with my body image. It was around this time that I became more concerned with my weight and became more conscious with what I ate. I ate less sweets, I ate more fruit, I drank more

20 To An Unknown God | Fall 2016

milk, and I developed a habit of running to stay in shape.

But one of the problems with that was that I was feeling discouraged from my own family. One of my sisters tried to control what I ate by making me eat not-so-healthy food when I refused to, and my other sister constantly poked at my belly and taunted me by calling me “fat.” Little did they know that while they were really just playing around, it would actually cause a long-term effect that would impact my teenage life in a major way.

When I started attending UC Berkeley, I thought that since I was away from my family and I wouldn’t feel pressured to eat a lot, it would be a perfect opportunity to lose a little weight and to get firmer. Through exercise and not eating as much as I usually would, I was able to lose a significant amount of weight, to the point where my family and my friends back at my hometown had noticed.

But since I lost at least 15 pounds by spring break of my freshman year, my family showed a bit of concern for me.

Yet instead of eating more to appease them, I took what

they said about my being skinny as a compliment instead of as a concern. My desire to be skinnier led me to exercise more and eat less even while I was home for summer break.

The fall semester of my sophomore year was when it started to get dangerous, because that’s when the anorexia phase began.

The moment I was back at Berkeley after summer 2014, I started eating “meals” in much smaller portions. I burned more calories than I consumed, and I claimed that I had made myself so busy that I thought food wasn’t a necessity to health. I took a more distorted approach to “man does not live by bread alone.”2 I had some friends point out to me that I looked dangerously skinny, but I ignored the warning and counted it as a compliment instead of a concern. I lost weight to the point where I was about 94 pounds. Commotion from my family came up when I posted a picture of my emaciated self on Facebook. It led to my sister who was a senior at UC Davis during this time to drive from Davis to Berkeley to take me to dinner and to show me how much she cared about my health. After she told me she was on her way to Berkeley, I thought to myself, “Okay, once she leaves, I’ll go back to not eating a lot.” But when she arrived at Berkeley and saw me face-to-face, she started to cry, and I became more aware of what I was doing to myself. I couldn’t go on with my anorexia because I finally saw how it was emotionally affecting my friends and family. My sister is not a Christian, but I still believe God used her to show me how His heart was breaking from how I was allowing my health to deteriorate.

It is estimated that 1.0% to 4.2% of women have suffered from anorexia in their lifetime.3 Even though my anorexia phase only lasted for a few months, the fact that I am part of this statistic convinces me that this can happen to anyone. This can even happen to men, of which 0.3% struggle with anorexia.4 The media and other secular perspectives tell us what defines beauty, and they try to convince us that the most beautiful people are stick-thin. This can lower people’s confidence with their bodies and make them desire a “perfect body.” This can lead to eating disorders such as anorexia, and since anorexia has the highest fatality rate of any mental illness,5 it’s as if we have to kill ourselves in order to look perfect in today’s society!

But even though the thought of being thinner sounds rather pleasant to some people, striving for a thinner body in an unhealthy manner can affect your body in ways that seem rather unpleasant. Symptoms of anorexia nervosa may include: extreme weight loss; abnormal blood counts; fatigue; hair that thins, breaks or falls out; absence of menstruation; irregular heart rhythms; and swelling of arms or legs.6 I’ve experienced some of these symptoms myself, and it was tough going through each day in pain due to my swollen ankles and not having as much energy as I usually do, even though I tried so hard to fight the pain.

My eating disorder not only affected me physically—but

mentally, socially, and spiritually, as well. It affected me mentally because I became so tired and hungry that it was harder for me to concentrate. It affected me socially because I had no willingness to hang out with anyone or come to any social gatherings; all I wanted to do was be alone in my dorm room, get work done, and go to sleep. It affected me spiritually because the more I continued not to eat a lot, the further I strayed away from God and the more I placed my identity in body image rather than in being a child of God. Even though I was going through a Biblereading plan at this time, constantly focusing on my schedule and planning my next small meal made it hard for me to comprehend and understand the significance of what I was reading.

Reminiscing about my eating disorder is not only bringing back that past pain, but it’s also reminding me of how God has intervened in the midst of it. He intervened through my friends and family who have shown concern for me, and He definitely intervened through my sister’s boldness and determination to get me back to good health again. He taught me to love my body and to take care of it, because our bodies are temples of the living God, and He allows His Holy Spirit to dwell within us.7 If God loves us enough to forgive us of our sins by sending His one and only Son Jesus Christ to live the human life in this world and to die on a cross to free us from being separated from Him, and to allow His Holy Spirit to dwell within us the moment we receive Christ into our lives, then why should we destroy His temple by allowing ourselves to get dangerously thin by not eating? We are fearfully and wonderfully made,8 and we should have confidence in ourselves knowing that there is a loving God who loves us and accepts us for who we are and who wants us to have a personal relationship with Him. 1. Hoffman, J.P., and S.A. Baldwin. “The Dynamics of Self-Esteem: A GrowthCurve Analysis.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence- 2002.

2. Deuteronomy 8:3, ESV. 3. The Renfrew Center Foundation for Eating Disorders, Eating Disorders 101 Guide: A Summary of Issues, Statistics and Resources, 2003.

4. Statistics on Eating Disorders: Anorexia, Bulimia, Binge Eating.” Eating Disorder Hope. Accessed November 21, 2016. https://www.eatingdisorderhope. com/information/statistics-studies.

5. Sullivan, P. (1995). American Journal of Psychiatry, 152 (7), 10731074.

6. By Mayo Clinic Staff Print. “Anorexia Nervosa.” Overview - Anorexia Nervosa - Mayo Clinic. 2016. Accessed November 21, 2016. http://www.mayoclinic. org/diseases-conditions/anorexia/home/ovc-20179508.

7. 1 Corinthians 6:19, ESV. 2 Corinthians 6:16, ESV. 8. Psalm 139:14, ESV. Kimberly Webb is a senior at UC Berkeley studying applied mathematics. She is a Christian who is on a never-ending journey and is awaiting the next chapter in her life, and her hobbies include running and martial arts.

Fall 2016 | To An Unknown God 21

W

Stuffed Without One Bite

22 To An Unknown God | Fall 2016

Ben Sydserff, CONTRIBUTING WRITER hen my parents were newlyweds, they met a certain friend. At that point he was vegetarian; he had been for a long time due to a conscious decision to not support an unethical meat industry. Upon becoming a Christian, he adapted his dietary habits to match his faith: now, abstaining from meat was his way of honoring God. His perspective changed, however, while taking a ministry training class. The speaker was discussing freedom in Christ, and a particular verse from one of Paul’s letters, extolling how “everything created

by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,” struck a chord with him.1 He experienced a paradigm shift: instead of avoiding meat to honor God, he could enjoy it while honoring God’s creation. My parent’s friend went home after the seminar along with a large quantity of meat he had bought from the grocery store. Being an avid cook, he was keen to whip something up and try it. And so he did.

And he didn’t stop. What started as a little taste quickly became excessive. Soon after he became violently sick for a week, being unable to eat anything during the whole period.

My parents’ friend did recover, and went on to eat meat at a regular rate, but his story is indicative of a phenomenon far more serious than this silly episode. We have a tendency to, upon realizing that something is not necessarily forbidden, go too far in our consumption of it to the point that our consumption becomes self-damaging.

This excessive consumption, easy to describe but harder to identify, has a name. Gluttony, according to the MerriamWebster definition, can be either “excess in eating or drinking” or “greedy or excessive indulgence.”2 The Bible contains several warnings, often indirect, against gluttony. Two separate passages from Proverbs warn against association with gluttons, with the threat that it either brings shame to your loved ones or will lead to becoming a glutton yourself.3 The connotation is certainly negative, and I am sure that most people would not feel any great sense of honor at being crowned a glutton. However, where is the discussion of gluttony? If it is a habit that leads to poverty and sleeping in rags, how come our culture—how come the church—is not talking about it? Discussing obesity, diets, and calorie-counting approaches the issue, but fails to address the underlying problem: that we lack self-control and do not see the choice for too much as an affront to both ourselves and God. Perhaps an even more overlooked aspect to gluttony is when it transcends the realm of food.

The second definition of gluttony given by Merriam-Webster was simply about excessive indulgence. That can apply to more

than empty tubs of ice cream after a Saturday night in. Three areas for us as Berkeley students that might be tainted by gluttony are media, attention, and achievements.

Amidst the stress and demands Berkeley places on us, we all enjoy a little escapism. In the modern era of quick internet speeds, YouTube, and more, we have plenty of options to choose from. We also possess an authority over our use of time that we may not have enjoyed in the past. Sometimes, these two factors go hand-in-hand with destructive consequences. Many of us are familiar with extended gaming sessions or long nights spent in front of our blazingly brilliant laptop screens. Think about the term “Netflix binge”—it has become a casual label for the increasingly common habit of plowing through many episodes of a show in one sitting. However, doesn’t this name borrow a term from a much more serious medical condition: binge eating disorder (which, as it so happens, is very similar to gluttony)?

Various surveys have found that 61% of TV streamers engage in binge watching, and researchers note how the activity contributes to health conditions (ex: obesity), addictive behaviors, and isolation (56% of binge watchers practice it alone)4. Relationships are a normal, healthy part of human life. Gluttonous media consumption, however, threatens to disrupt those relationships and keep us disengaged from others. Without any obvious reason to stop, the behavior will continue, and the aggressive pursuit of entertainment will continue to isolate and numb us.

Attention and admiration, harder to quantify but equally selfdamaging, are just as easily taken too far. It is perfectly normal and healthy to have a sense of self-value. Naturally, we seek affirmation of that self-value from others. In its purest form, this could be labeled as a desire for relationships. Today, however, we have plenty of other ways to gain the admiration of others beyond the tried and true format. Social media presents a great platform for advertising ourselves to a broad audience, but how much of that can replace the face-to-face interactions we were meant for? It’s one of the greatest ironies of our generation that we are the most connected with others thanks to Facebook, Google Hangouts, Twitter, etc.; yet we also experience such high rates of loneliness. The relatively new phenomenon of social media has been a buzzing subject for psychological studies, and results already point to platforms like Facebook leading to decreases in moment-to-moment and long-term feelings of wellbeing.5 Instead of allowing our sense of self-value to stem from those we can be intimate with—family, friends, or God— we allow it to be aggregated in the number of likes on a photo or retweets on Twitter. While these posts on social media might

reflect part of us, they can never represent the full complexities of each individual. Thanks to this aggressive desire to regulate our online footprint, the tools that were meant to connect us become ways of hiding our true selves and keeping that person locked away, out of sight, out of mind.

Closely related to a gluttonous desire for attention comes an unhealthy obsession with achievement. Following college is the working world (or, a detour into graduate studies). So, we look for internships, opportunities, etc. to make our resumes stand out from the pile of equally unique applications sitting on HR’s desk. At some point, however, resume-building crosses over into the realm of self-worth-building. The purpose of a resume is to present who you are to a potential employer and what you have done that would be relevant to that position, not to exaggerate or outright lie about skills we do not really possess. Surveys conducted on popular job listing sites find that 62% of employers spot embellishments on applications, with 54% finding blatant lies.6 If we base our identity on our achievements, then we will only ever be a worse person than the candidate who has done a little bit more. Identity is an incredibly important subject to people.

That makes the tie between glutinous achievement and identity all the more dangerous, because the perceived seriousness of that interaction distracts from examination of who we really are and what our purpose is. It is easy to buckle down and aggressively chase after the next achievement to add to our trophy wall, but I believe that only fuels the problem. A glutton for achievement can never be satisfied.

The three behaviors I just explored—gluttony in media, attention, and achievement—are examples of how problematic extreme excess can be. All three of these pulls in our life are perfectly fine in moderation; for the latter two, a complete absence could be considered unhealthy as well. However, each becomes ugly when stretched too far. They affect our evaluation of self and disrupt God’s intention for our lives. Gluttony in media isolates us, while God created us to exist in and desire relationships; gluttony in attention devalues us, while God demonstrated our value on the cross; gluttony in achievement distracts us from questions of purpose, while God asks us to slow down and consider who He is.

Although the consequences of taking these behaviors to excess are potentially extreme, it is not as if explicit warnings exist to ward us away. Society today is not just silent about these specific gluttonies; for the later it even actively encourages it. Also, if our peers in school or the workforce practice these behaviors, it would seem only natural to emulate them. As for the Bible, there are no explicit warnings about enjoying too much entertainment,

Fall 2016 | To An Unknown God 23

seeking too much approval, or working too hard for success.

Perhaps as capable, rational human beings we should be able to exercise moderation when necessary. However, the examples above paint a different picture: one of mankind as impulsive creatures, lacking self-control or foresight for how our actions hurt others and ourselves. The early Christian apostle Paul lamented over his own lack of selfcontrol in a letter to the early church in Rome: “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”7 These excesses do not just happen in isolated occurrences but also repeated flare-ups that influence us over the long term. Going too far with media or attention can become habits, and the problem with habitual behavior is it is both hard to break and easily confused as the norm. For the Christian this is especially distressing, considering that, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”8 Are these behaviors truly slave-like? Perhaps, and if so, as Christians who have pledged our allegiances elsewhere we must not fall victim to the seemingly harmless pursuits of today. Being a nonChristian does not make the negative impacts of gluttony any less negative; we are all human, and whether problems manifest as obesity caused by months of too much Netflix or self-esteem crushed by norms of beauty on Instagram, they still hurt.

It is one matter to approach issues of gluttony from an abstract perspective; it is another to explore its damage through a real account. During Winter Break 2015, I went home for four weeks after a long and strenuous semester.

I arrived with expectations of rest and relaxation, but also with a challenge: a small group of my friends and I from Berkeley had challenged each other to a 100 Bible verse memorization challenge during the break. It started off going well, but quickly I found myself more and more distracted by laziness and a gluttonous consumption of media. I had spent most of the semester grinding through school work, so I believed I had earned some time to lounge around.

However, it was not just “some time”; I progressed from a few episodes a night on Netflix to binges stretching on till 2 AM in the morning. I was distracted and unmotivated to keep up my promise to my friends. Worse still, my times of personal devotion to God lapsed. The experience of that winter break was abnormal, and fortunately did not continue into the following semester, but I still experienced

24 To An Unknown God | Fall 2016

isolation as I hid from high school friends long absent in my life, shame at having broken a promise to friends, and distance from God. My purpose in reflecting over gluttony is not simply to wallow in the midst of the problem, but to also consider what can be done about it. A crucial response to gluttonous behaviors is self-control. We must exercise it against impulses that, while seemingly benign, might trigger a gluttonous episode. Apostle Paul once again speaks into this dilemma by enumerating that while there are a great many things he can do, “not all things are helpful … I will not be dominated by anything.”9 Just because an option is open does not mean we have to explore it. Exercising discretion is not self-limiting but freeing from the behaviors that could later trap and damage us. If self-control is important for countering gluttonous impulses yet we are unable to manage that by willpower alone, then we should consider seeking help from others. That could mean consulting with older mentor figures who have more life experience, or asking close friends to honestly confront us when they notice worrying behaviors. Being unfettered from demands we cannot control allows us to turn our focus outwards— towards God’s desire for our lives or, perhaps, investigation into this deity that seems so concerned with our wellbeing.

My parents’ friend had the good fortune of only being violently sick for a week. A disregard for restraint could leave us violently sick for a lifetime.

1. 1 Timothy 4: 4, ESV. 2. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gluttony 3. Proverbs 23: 20-21; Proverbs 28: 7, ESV. 4. Stone, Chelsea. How Unhealthy is Binge Watching? Press Pause, and Read On. http://www.rd.com/culture/binge-watching-unhealthy/ 5. Kross, Ethan et. all, “Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults”.

6. Cook, Dan. 10 Most Ridiculous Resume Lies. http://www.cutimes. com/2015/08/25/10-most-ridiculous-resume-lies 7. Romans 7:15, ESV. 8. Galatians 5:1, ESV. 9. 1 Corinthians 6:12, ESV. Ben is a third year political science major with a sub-focus in international relations. When he isn't trying to get his friends to talk about something more interesting than CS, he enjoys playing volleyball, studying in cafes, and discussing worldviews with the people God has placed in his life.

The Whole

EUCHARIST T

Simon Kuang, STAFF WRITER he Christian practice of Eucharist, or Holy Communion—the one where we reenact the Last Supper, with its bread and wine—suggests a simple idea: ευχαριστία, “good gift”—thanksgiving. But what is it that we are thankful for? Why give thanks in this way?

Indeed, I am convinced that to explicate Eucharist is to recapitulate the entire Christian faith.

Most discussions of Eucharist begin at Jesus’s prescription at the Last Supper, but I think that approach entirely short-circuits the theological richness of the sacrament that is built from the beginning—the very beginning—of the story.

So instead of starting three-quarters of the way through your Bible, let’s flip to the very first page and start from there. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.

This suggests that we can look at every single thing that exists and classify it “heaven” or “Earth”—humans, angels, birds, clouds—no, that is not correct. Every single thing that exists, except for God: this is of great theological consequence!

God exists necessarily and independently. Perhaps I would say he existed before everything else, but that is not quite right either, because here my use of “before” is not well-defined, and I have no

way to describe God in relation to time, for God created time. He is the Ancient of Days, eternal and self-sufficient.

Atop almost all creation (it was good, the Bible says) God creates completely different stuff. Here are new beings totally unlike anything else in creation: they are like God! We learn that humans are conscious beings with a certain kind of free will (that is a lengthy discussion suitable for another time) and a peculiar kind of creative agency in their dominion over the rest of nature.

Most critically, humans are accountable to God. God’s relations with humans are laid in covenants, agreements between two parties. In Eden God makes a covenant with Adam: do this and you shall (all) live; do that and you shall (all) die. Note here a double-edged promise, and because the outcome follows Adam’s choices, this is called a conditional covenant. Adam, as we all know, disobeys, and he and Eve are both cast out of the Garden. The ground is cursed, life is painful, and people now die.

Equally important, God promises to build enmity between Satan and the woman, and that there is coming a day that he will have man injured and the serpent destroyed.1 God is embarking

Fall 2016 | To An Unknown God 25

on a new mission to reverse all of the injury of sin, working a new promise that will take thousands of years to make good.

This is an unprecedented unilateral promise, an unconditional covenant—in the language of a college student, free stuff.

Next we read how God creates a people for himself, the nation of Israel. The entire story of the former half of the Bible is summarized in this: that God has his own people and is leading them towards a promised land, and they do a terrible, terrible job of following. All you need to know is that Israel is constantly surrounded by enemies and never quite finds itself at home. One early story is important for our purpose. The story of the Exodus begins with the children of Israel enslaved in Egypt. I can’t tell how it was because I wasn’t there, but what we do know is that they so fiercely resented their slavery in Egypt that they would do anything to be anywhere else. God raises Moses, who pleads with Pharaoh to, as the gospel song goes, let his people go. Pharaoh is unwilling, so God introduces plague upon plague on the nation of Egypt in order to unbind his people.

These plagues are no mere magic tricks. We read of water turning into blood, thunderstorms of hail and fire, and three days’ darkness. Nine have passed, and Pharaoh hasn’t budged. God says that there is one final way: he will kill every first-born in Egypt. This, except, he tells Moses, that each Israelite household slaughter a fine spring lamb, and using hyssop branch, mark its doorposts with the lamb’s blood: over these homes shall the Lord pass. At last Pharaoh relents and the Israelites leave. In the aftermath, the Israelites are to celebrate the Passover every year with a number of symbols, among them slaughtering a lamb.

If slaughtering a lamb sounds familiar, maybe that is because lambs were required for a sin offering in the law God gave shortly after. The Israelites knew that God ought to be worshipped, but that they mustn’t get too close to God—decorating the temple are the same cherubim that enforce our exile from Eden. There was, however, another way. After elaborate cleansing, a priest could enter the holy place to sacrifice a lamb for the sins of his people. Even as God mandates death as the consequence of sin, it is almost as though the lamb’s death enables God to “pass over” some artifact of human imperfection.

Eventually God reveals that sin offerings effaced no real sin.

Alas, this is not the real promised land, but only a foreshadow thereof; and the original Israel is not God’s true people, only an image. God has in preparation a new people, a new land, a new ruler. God will at last make sacrifices useless with a perfect replacement for sin, replace dead stone hearts with living flesh, and write on these hearts his law, that every man know his king and creator. So radically different is this promise that it is called the New Covenant.

The king and the priest and the sacrifice made a surprise appearance in Jesus of Nazareth, God’s own son, born of a 26 To An Unknown God | Fall 2016

virgin, sidestepping Adam’s sinful heritage. He lived a perfect life; he died at the hands of sinners, on the cross absorbing the guilt of his own people; and in his death rent the temple veil separating holy and unholy since our expulsion from Eden. He rose stronger than sin, victorious over death, dreaded master of men.

In the hours before his arrest, on the eve of Passover, he dined with his disciples, instructing them: “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”2 The bread recalls Jesus’s body on the cross, and the cup Jesus’s blood—no, not on the cross—on us. Even as the priest would sprinkle the blood of the slain lamb all around for purification, no, we do not spread it on ourselves; in the symbol of Eucharist, we put it inside ourselves. Jesus’s sacrifice concealed no sin but expunged it, to sanctify the sinner: to supplant his sinful nature with one obedient to God, his dead stone heart with quickened flesh.

Eucharist is to us what Passover was to the Israelites. The Israelites’ slavery in Egypt prefigures the church’s former languor in death and sin. Just as the spirit passed over the homes marked with lamb’s blood, God’s condemnation passes over those made clean by the blood of the lamb, and we live free to worship and to enjoy God. But why food? “ ‘It is written,’ ” Jesus answered Satan, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”3 He said “ ‘it is written,’ ” and indeed he quotes Deuteronomy concerning God’s provision for the Israelites in the Exodus. All mundane treasure is fleeting, but Jesus, bread of life, is infinitely sweeter. When we take the bread and the cup, we remember and declare that the real stuff we need is neither food nor drink, but the finished work of Christ on the cross.

1. Genesis 3:15.

2. Luke 22:15-20, ESV. 3. Matthew 4:4, ESV. Simon is a first-year EECS major quite distracted with chess, landscape photography, linear algebra, and Reformed Baptist covenant theology. His favorite book of the Bible is Ecclesiastes, and he is exceptionally bad at arithmetic.

T

Jenny Mun, STAFF WRITER hrough the advent of social media, particularly in recent years, food has catapulted into status as a crazed phenomenon, a glorification of gluttony. On Instagram, one can simply search #foodporn, which will yield a visually stimulating conglomerate of heavily saturated images including the generously cheesy, gooey, crispy, buttery, creamy, and syrupy.

On YouTube, trending channels dedicated to excessive food preparation and subsequent consumption garner millions of avid viewers. The channel Epic Meal Time, which currently boasts over seven million subscribers, attracts clicks with egregiously enticing video titles, such as “100-Pound Pizza,” “Mega Oreo,” “Epic 3000 Piece Pull Apart,” and “100 Pound Brisket Sandwich.”

The channel 밴쯔 (romanized as “Banzz”) stars a young South Korean man, who single-handedly feasts on a copious amount of food in the private vicinity of his room. In his most popular video, which has over six million views, he ravenously devours

important part of the Christian journey of sanctification, the transformative process of becoming more holy. Galatians 5:2223 lists self-control as one of the fruits of the Spirit, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”2 All this is not to say that Christians should deprive themselves of food-related pleasures altogether, however. Proverbs 25:16 advises, “If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomit it.”3 Here, it is clear that Christians can and should enjoy food, but under moderated self-control. What is discouraged is a relentlessly unmediated gorging of food, driven by the innate flesh. The Bible warns against drunkards and gluttons in Proverbs 23:21, for it says that the “drunkard and glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags.”4 It is evident that overindulgence in hedonistic pleasures will result in demise.

The Glorification of Gluttony in the 21st Century five packets of cooked spicy noodles, in addition to a heaping plateful of steamed dumplings, all washed down with a carton of milk – in less than thirty minutes.

Food glorification is not solely limited to public figures on social media, however; it also infiltrates our daily lives, which can be witnessed through Snapchat. Arguably, the most common Snapstories posted by others (and ourselves) are likely those of food. It’s an all-too-familiar sight – either the video featuring a smoothly swooping motion from the plates of food to friend(s) huddled around the table, or the aesthetically angled picture of a dish garnished with a geofilter.

Such is the culture of the 21st century’s digital age. This technological era escalates the appreciation for food to the point where it’s an unhealthy idolization, which translates into an overwhelming feeding of perpetual temptation from multiple angles. Even when we are not hungry, being bombarded with these images and videos from various social media platforms stirs our fleshly desires, catalyzes our cravings, and galvanizes our gluttonous greed.

From a Christian stance, the Bible has a few words to say on the topic of gluttony. First, the Bible firmly discourages the succumbing to superfluous appetites (“And put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite”1). While the Bible does not necessarily mean this in the literal sense, it clearly evokes the notion that Christians ought to exercise control over their appetites, rather than surrendering to them. Self-control is an

While these may seem like mercilessly didactic and even legalistic instruction directed towards Christians, it’s important to remember the underlying motives that hopefully encourage those in the body of Christ to exercise self-control over their appetites.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”5 Ultimately, everything boils down to one simple and clear command for Christians, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God.”6 As for non-Christians, moderation and self-control are still a valuable practices that can be adopted from the Christian philosophy and implemented into daily habits, particularly for health benefits. All in all, even amidst this digital age where one can feel besieged by constant food temptation, it is indeed possible and fruitful to nurture the practice of self-control, which has both spiritual and physical benefits.

1. Proverbs 23:2, ESV.

4. ESV.

2. ESV.

5. ESV.

3. ESV.

6. 1 Corinthians 10:31, ESV.

Jenny Mun is a fourth year English major at UC Berkeley. After embarking on a healthy lifestyle change rooted in the Scriptural teachings of self-control, she felt inspired to write this article. Aside from her passion in writing – and now, fitness and health – her other interests include makeup artistry and singing.

Fall 2016 | To An Unknown God 27

Music and Pop Culture

I

Bryce Aggasid, CONTRIBUTING WRITER

s listening to Kanye bad? What about Future or Chance? Is it a sin that I attend D.R.A.M’s concert in a few hours? I know that I personally feel hypocritical when I listen to these songs, assumedly against God’s will, but I continue to do so. Why? To me, it’s an escape from reality – a safe haven. With the remainder of this article, I hope to delineate arguments from both sides of the spectrum and to simultaneously underscore both the historical and cultural importance of music on a global scale.

Undoubtedly, to most Christians, there is a sort of inherent beauty of music as God’s creation, but it is also quite appealing to non-Christians as well. From a scientific perspective, more or less, sound travels through a skinny tube in our ear, oscillates three tiny bones which mechanizes inner-ear fluids, and is received by little hairs on a basilar membrane / 3,500-band frequency analyzer. From a social perspective, the same sentence containing the same words can be perceived quite differently based solely on the positioning of certain inflections. And it is such words that have had such profound effects on our lives, not only acting as a means of untouched emotional connection and therapeutic service but also as a method of mass communication and movement unification. It brought together Jews during the Holocaust, celebrated minorities’ fight for civil equality, and armed the slave against his owners. It brought down the walls of Jericho. It is a part of every society in every region.

What does the bible say? Besides an entire book dedicated to song and a few vague commands such as to sing “to God with gratitude in your hearts” - actually not too much (Colossians 3:16).

Is it wrong to mourn through music at a funeral? Or to celebrate through song at a birthday? There exists no instruction as to what type or style is recommended or forbidden; no recommendation as to contemporary or traditional, band or choir. On one end, as referenced in Philippians 4:8, Christians are told to fill their minds only with “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is

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right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable,” and I think it is safe to say that much of secular music doesn’t meet these standards. However, we must look to the entirety of the Bible and, specifically, the full context of God’s will. When we do so, we learn that Jesus also said to his disciples, what should be of primary concern is the holiness of their own actions rather than the uncleanliness of exposure from the world around (Mark 7:20-23). Worldly music is not innately sinful; it only becomes sinful when it exacts a change of heart. Can we not read classics like Lolita and Ulysses because it will encourage us to murder and rape? Art is a means of expression, a focal lens of understanding and perspective from which great knowledge may be extracted.

So if that’s the case, how can we prevent such a change of heart? I think the answer lies in moral courage. If an individual has strong self-confidence and concrete inner-standards, then I believe that listening to such music should not be a problem.

If one believes he or she is capable enough to not succumb to the pressures of social conformity, then experiencing music as a means of artistic expression and social- and self-understanding is quite acceptable. Yet, unfortunately, there exists a sort of formulated social duality of good music versus Christian music where most assume that all secular music is sinful or, on the other hand, that all Christian music is not good music. But that’s simply not the case.

Look at Jay Cole and now Chance the Rapper. There are musicians who experience a ‘good’ change-of-heart. They may use profanity. They may boast of money. Some many indirectly encourage or speak of sinful activities. But they also tell a story, a thing as valuable as it is enlightening.

Bryce Aggasid is a second-year Pre-Haas major and entrepreneur. Last year, he founded the KDR fraternity with a group of friends and is currently designing a business course to teach in the Fall.

LIVING THE GOSPEL

T

Jay Lee, CONTRIBUTING WRITER he Word. The Bible. The Holy Spirit.

These are some of the answers I’ve gotten to the question, “What is the Gospel?” For being the basis of Christianity itself, the Gospel seems to be an ambiguous concept for both Christians and nonbelievers alike. So, what is the Gospel? And more importantly, what does it look like to live a life according to it?

In order for us to know how we can apply the Gospel to our daily lives, we must first understand it in its entirety. As the central message of Christianity, the Gospel can be broken up into three parts: original sin, the Good News, and the call to action.

The Gospel begins by introducing the concept of original sin. It all starts when Adam and Eve— the first humans to be created—sin against God by disobeying his commands and eat from the fruit of knowledge. In doing so, they bring death to the world, for death is the consequence for sin.

One may question how God justifies such a punishment for what we take to be a small act of disobedience. This is answered through Descartes’s framework for the degrees of reality within Meditations. He posits that everything on Earth has varying “degrees” of reality depending on its level of self-sustainment—for example, humans are on a higher plane of reality than dogs, because our cognitive faculties allow us to reason. As an extension of that thought, God can be taken to exist on the highest plane of existence as an infinite being; as such, like a dog cannot recognize a car as a method of transportation, it is reasonable to conclude that our “minor sins” could be seen as condemnable acts in the eyes of God. The Good News is what saves us from the eternal damnation that we deserve. Essentially, Jesus died for our sins so that when God looks upon our sinful lives, he sees Jesus’s perfect life instead.

It’s important to note that only Jesus could’ve made this sacrifice—because he is both fully man and fully God, only he could make the God-sized sacrifice that could satisfy a God-sized wrath. When Jesus came back to life, it was not a simple proof of his dominion over death; it was also the ultimate testament to his love for us. As John 3:16 (NLV) says, “ ‘For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son… ’ ” That a being as great as God would give his life to save his people from damnation is an act of immense grace that shows his love for us.

The final part of the Gospel is simple: we are called to repent for all our sins and accept Jesus Christ as our lord and savior.

Despite its role as the basis for all of Christianity, the Gospel, in my personal experience, has become marginalized within the modern church. Now by the modern church, I can only talk about what I know, so we’ll limit the boundaries of those words to the contemporary Korean Methodist church system. Efforts to make Christianity accessible to non-believers have created an activitycentered church. Though this is commendable, the side effects of such a church is one where the Gospel is pushed aside from the Christian limelight. Furthermore, the church today has made the Gospel abstract; the narratives we are familiarized with from a young age concerning the Gospel never directly tell us what it is, leaving each individual with a different understanding of it.

SO, the question remains: how do we live out the Gospel in our lives? I’ve come to the conclusion that we can do so by loving God and loving people. Though it’s a disappointing ending to a grand criticism of the church, this answer captures the spirit of the Gospel best. The core messages of the Gospel rely on the fact that 1) God is good, 2) God gave his only Son to save us from eternal damnation due to his love. Thus, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that we live to give the greatest glory to God. And what could glorify him more than to show the same love he displayed for us to those around us?

Jay Lee is a freshman majoring in Pre-Haas, and is recent convert to Christianity.

Fall 2016 | To An Unknown God 29

I Am Losing Rebekah Inouye, CONTRIBUTING WRITER I am losing.

I know this isn’t technically true because God has won Jesus has defeated death and my identity is in Him So I too have won.

I have been trained to say this my entire life I am a leader in this community I know this to be true And yet I still feel like I am losing Every day I wake up and a little part of me wishes I hadn’t I lay bed longer than I should because the prospect of facing another day is terrifying.

Living scares me Every moment is distorted by this horrible weight on my heart This feeling of inexplicably heavy nothingness that crushes my soul and makes me wish I didn’t exist.

Depression is a battle that I fight every day but right now, in this season, I am losing I forget to eat because getting out of bed seems impossible And honestly food has lost its flavor I sleep too much because I can’t manage to find the desire to pick up a book or turn on Netflix The things I once loved seem pointless and meaningless I make plans and show up to events because I know I should want to be there But when I’m there I feel so heartbreakingly disconnected I sit and worship my God and I feel nothing and it makes me want to scream I am losing My anxiety holds me captive Not with a clear fear of leaving my home but a wild desperation to return as soon as I leave This pounding in my chest, this shaking in my limbs, this intense pull back to comfort I know this will come I can feel it before it starts so I remain inside Panic attacks are easier to survive in a place where there are no witnesses I am losing I’m not supposed to be I’m supposed to be the girl that confronted her demons Who came out the other side victorious.

The one who can stand here and tell you to just have faith.

God won’t give you more than you can handle so just hold fast to that and He can see you through anything.

And let’s be clear I do believe those things But they don’t always help.

Pushing platitudes on those who are suffering does nothing more than make them feel judged and disconnected It makes them feel as though there is no space for them to safely voice their questions and doubts And some days I question everything I question my faith and why I believe I question my place in this community I question whether God really exists 30 To An Unknown God | Fall 2016

I want to have an unshakable faith A heart so fully consumed by God that there is nothing I can do but love and serve Him I want that so desperately Or rather, I want to want that I am fighting for that But I am losing.

I get pulled down into the darkness so easily I think part of me is always there There are nights when the nothingness is too much to bear When the anxiety overwhelms any idea of a happy future When I can’t see past the hollowness I feel Those are the nights The nights I wish desperately to feel God’s presence To feel His peace wash over me and calm my soul To experience His love so profoundly it changes me forever But that doesn’t happen Instead what happens is that in my frantic desire to feel God I remember God I remember what I believe I remember the hope I have in Him and that hope is just enough to provide for me when I can’t provide for myself Sure I still lay in bed for too long with no desire to move I still lose to my depression all the time But God has given me a reason to live A hope in Him It’s not a passion for life It’s not a cure for mental illness It doesn’t fix the numbness that surrounds me I still get angry when I don’t feel His presence When I don’t get showered in His peace I am still losing But God will meet me as a loser God will love me as a loser And I am such a loser I have not won This is not a happy story of victory But a real story of finding just enough God to survive in the darkness Enough God to try to push through the mess because hopefully I’ll be able to find more God Hopefully I’ll be able to really love God Hopefully this will one day be a story of victory

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“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”

-Isaiah 1:18 (ESV)

Disordered Amanda Gee CONTRIBUTING WRITER

32 To An Unknown God | Fall 2016

In the beginning of that spring morning, the only word on my mind was the praise I received for my thesis proposal.

I chewed over my daily oatmeal and half-listened to the voicemail that told me my health clearance to research in Cambridge had been denied.

Some dial tones later, the nurse crackled over static that this was no mistake.

Their records showed I had never followed up on my eating— Disordered. It’s like the knife of an old shadow crawled out of the kitchen and sliced me in half.

I heard my mind speaking but couldn’t follow its reasoning.

My body crumpled under the crackle of phone static, cracking off symptoms, just one after another after another. After that my mind tried to justify while my own body testified against me, playing witness to the electronic trail of delayed doctor follow-ups that I thought I could escape by running away across the Atlantic.

The reassurance that I just need to get cleared sent my body into tremors because my mind couldn’t quite untangle the stress of my thesis from the dress for junior prom when I knew he would be placing his hands on my waist.

And back in middle school, when my mind knew not what to do in a world turned upside-down my body instead turned to the truth that “skinny” was my best feature, and thus that truth became my anchor.

Three minutes on the phone scraped me dry into symptoms on a page.

Alone, I stumbled for words to put my body and mind back into order until some muscle memory dragged the bible from my backpack: Isaiah one, once again.

The Lord crying out through his prophet to his people in an upside-down land, to his people who cannot wash themselves clean before His eyes, who can no more cease their evil than they could learn to do good.

With all their failures, he confronts them.

In all their weaknesses, he would comfort them, if only they would come, come, and reason— The words filled my mind and washed over my body like new gulp of old air, staled by willing neglect but sweetened as I broke into unwitting surrender in the presence of the God who calls me to come.

At the end of that morning was the God who, from the beginning, so loved the world that His prophet could not contain His word that spoke a better word than phone crackled symptoms, a better reason than last week’s research, a better hope than this written verse.

For though I still walk in the valley of the shadow of this knife, it will not be my death for my God is with me.

His narrative already written, I wait for the day when my body no longer breaks from my mind.

Until then, may the only bread I crave be the words, “Come now, let us reason together.”

Fall 2016 | To An Unknown God 33

Complacency and Sin: To the tune of NF's "How Could You Leave Us" Nick Kang, CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Intro Why can’t I move past myself ?

Seems like I’ve been here before, Thousands and thousands and thousands of other times.

Seems like I just can’t help myself.

Verse 1 Fading, I can’t help but only see darkness inside, Besides, only thing that matters is what’s on the outside Right? But from the way that I’m currently feeling, It seems to me that I’m being slipped into a deeper dealing Beyond my capabilities, indicates my fragility, lack of stability, my life full of insecurities.

Maybe I just need to pray a little bit more, Or think through my life and just lay on the floor.

That’s how it usually goes, stand and lock the bedroom door.

So the shame can be kept and locked into my heart of stone.

God, I don’t know what to do, but I don’t need any of my friends, I thought you would give me bliss, and that you’d come to my defense, But how come I still feel so poor?

How come I still feel so regretful?

How come I still feel so lifeless and so damn helpless?

Lord, help me to feel something real and genuine, Cuz without that the complacency is surely bound to win Chorus Oh how much it hurts To not feel anything at all This callousness extends even to my soul I guess that’s just complacency and sin Verse 2 Sitting in my room once again contemplating About the need to see beyond my situation, and it’s frustrating That I’m not doing what I know what I should be doing But can’t seem to find the motivation that should be renewing, My conduct and thoughts that I should be changing, When the fact of the matter is following the path that God’s creating In my life, to follow Christ, made Jesus the Lord of my life Shouldn’t that mean my life is now immune to strife?

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No! That’s not the way this world revolves And it shows cuz God doesn’t glow cuz I don’t uphold, The holiness and righteousness of Christ, and he knows How much I need to grow, although I still dishonor him in the life that I live But is it simply effort that doesn’t make it sin?

I don’t know, and I don’t have any time for this I got other concerns and priorities on my list.

Chorus Verse 3 But I’ve come to terms to realize, That the sinner that I am, I recognize I myself can’t do anything about it, Cuz this isn’t something where I just have to commit, More time and effort and more of my life.

This is something that I have to totally surrender to Christ.

And it’s not just a one time thing, it’s everyday, Where I have to die to myself, and follow God’s way It’s hard to completely shake off the complacency, When the world always revolves around my self-esteem.

God, I pray that you can create in me, A broken and contrite spirit, that’ll glory thee Prayer Outro Father, I pray, recognizing I can be so self-absorbed, lazy, and apathetic, And I don’t seem to honor the commitments and promises that I made to you.

But despite my unfaithfulness, I know that you are faithful till the end.

Despite the ways I still neglect you, I know you’re still patiently waiting for me to call on you and seek you.

Let me grow out of my immaturity and complacency, and be brought to the fullness of Christ.

So ultimately, it will be you, who will shine throughout the entirety of my life.

Amen.

To An Unknown God To An Unknown God is a journal of Christian thought at UC Berkeley. We exist for the purpose of encouraging Christians and peoples of other faiths to engage in dialogue about how the Christian faith may influence thinking about important cultural, philosophical, political, and academic issues, and we seek to foster a deeper understanding of the faith by providing a forum for discussing these issues.

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36â&#x20AC;&#x192; To An Unknown God | Fall 2016