TAUG: Power, Spring 2017

TAUG To An Unknown God: A Journal of Christian Thought at Berkeley

POWER

Volume 10 | Issue 1 | Spring 2017

Artwork Credit

Front Cover: Ami Yuen, Joanne Chen; Yuen, Joanne Chen;

12: SpaceX;

2: Ami Yuen;

14: John Tower;

Millie Ma; 28: Andrei Ianovskii; 30: Austin Smart;

5: Simon Kuang; 17: Ami Yuen;

6: Joel Filipe;

9: Ami

18: Christian Bruno;

20:

Back cover: Ami Yuen, Joanne Chen

artwork credits 02 letter from the Editor 04 Masthead 05

Themed Articles “Scientia Potentia Est�

So where are the real scary things?

Lauren Hall 06

Simon Kuang 17

The Crippling Power of Love

Why in the Name of Jesus?

William tang 09

Victoria Lai 20

Remembrance of Later Things

The House that Fire Built

Nicholas Ward 12

John Knox 27

What love is Jacinta Lu 14

Short Story To Choose His Healing Andrew Y 30

Photography Control // support

Horizon

Andrew Chang 22

Stanley Shaw 34

Letter from the Editor Dear Reader,

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ere at Cal, conversations about empowerment and “power to the people” are common. Yet what does it mean to give or have power? This semester, the TAUG editorial team wanted to explore this question.

Since the conception of the journal 10 years ago, we have striven to create dialogue about topics that are important and relevant to Cal students. Thus, we believe that the theme of Power is timely: an opportunity for voices to speak about what they believe true power to be. Often times, when we think of power, we focus on the political sphere—especially given this recent election.

However, as will be seen, power and its dynamics exist even beyond political contexts.

For example, there is power in fear: uncertainties of the future can grip and sway us. There is power in the advancement of knowledge and the development of artificial intelligence. In fact, it seems that humanity is on the brink of a power unknown in previous centuries. There is power in prayer: when things seem overwhelming or hopeless, exciting or awesome, we tend to whisper or shout prayers of fear or gratitude to something, or Someone. And lastly, a power sought after by all, is Love—tender, yet able to move mountains.

We do not know your background. We do not know exactly what you have experienced, searched or longed for. Yet, there is something in common between all of us: We know what it is like to strive for power, and to feel utterly powerless. Perhaps that is because prior experiences and understandings of how the world operates have led us to believe that power is defined by dominance, level of influence, prestige, and control. Yet Jesus had a radically different and rather strange idea of power. He did not view it as something to be grasped politically, economically, or socially. Rather, from the cradle to the cross, he viewed power as something to give—through love, sacrifice, and truth.

2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV) says, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” It was at the cross, at his utterly humiliating and excruciating death, that Jesus was proclaimed victor, not victim, with power to give his own life and no one to take it away. In the end, true, sustainable, life-giving power pertains not to might, but rather to mercy. Reader, we humbly invite you, with all of your experiences and whatever your background may be, to think through this question of power as you explore the journal. Our hope is that it sparks questions, opens dialogue, and ultimately leads to a greater understanding of power.

In Christ,

Aurora Ling

4 To An Unknown God | Spring 2017

“Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you.”

—Acts 17:23 *Not photographed: Calvin Han, Millie Ma

Editor in Chief Aurora Ling

Business Manager Anna Park

Executive Editor Simon Kuang

Poetry Editor Calvin Han

Executive Design Editor Ami Yuen

Website Manager Kerri A. Chen

Publisher Joanne Chen

Social Chair Jacquelyn Vasantachat

Associate Editors Amy Fann, Jacinta Lu, Millie Ma, Ben Sydserff Editors Emeriti Chris Han, Sarah Cho, Stephanie Chiao, Laura Ferris, John Montague, Whitney Moret, Wesleigh Anderson, Natalie Cha, Micaela Walker, Laura Clark

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-sponsered 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.

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“Scientia Potentia Est” Knowledge is power, but what is knowledge?

Lauren Hall, CONTRIBUTING WRITER cientia potentia est, more commonly known as “knowledge is power,” is an aphorism suggesting that higher forms of knowledge correlate with greater power. Though the aphorism has been uttered so frequently as to relegate it trite, it reflects humanity’s desire to establish a measure of objective truth as a means of explanation for the world around it.

One instance of this endeavor can be seen through hedonism1 in which pleasure is considered as the highest form of good, whereas pain, conversely, is to be critically avoided. Similarly, leading scholars of the Enlightenment period2 pursued refined knowledge, as they opposed ideals of established religion and elevated reason and their individual intellect to make sense of humanity and their circumstances. In more prevalent postmodernism,3 society has shifted from upholding any absolute truth to promoting often self-refuting relativistic thought, namely, that there is no truth. The perception of knowledge as power encapsulates the way humanity is drawn to seeking a sufficient, unwavering framework through which to comprehend the world.

As we consider various frameworks that have been glorified, it becomes apparent that no framework is sufficient. Though each form of knowledge prized

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at a given point in time bears its own legitimacy, it struggles to be a satisfactory form of knowledge that appeals to each person’s or subculture’s sensibilities.

One framework is traded for another when it provides a more suitable understanding.

Perhaps a distinction can be made between two types of knowledge: intellectual knowledge and interpersonal knowledge. Though what is deemed the highest form of intellectual knowledge is perpetually reassigned to different frameworks, the value of interpersonal relations typically remains constant.

We see this in Kant’s conviction of a person’s intrinsic value4 and Bentham’s utilitarian belief to seek the good of a collective community.5 The frameworks we create and adopt generally each provide an explanation for the intuitive value of people and human connections.

This instinct that people are valuable predisposes us to placing hope in human relationships. As we grant people to be valuable in and of themselves, we hope that what we receive from our relationships with these people will meet our expectations. If various forms of “knowledge” are important to us because they offer frameworks that might give our lives and world meaning, then it might be fair to consider the value of interpersonal relations a similarly esteemed

framework, or a form of scientia potentia est, as well.

We see validity in this framework when we affirm acts of human selflessness, such as mentoring young girls in STEM or carving out time to support friends in discouraging circumstances. We are proponents of it when we encourage people to have faith in the “good of humanity” or to believe in “true love.” When people are generous or patient or kind, it occurs to us that perhaps there is some dependable value in human connection.

However, we are at risk of placing too lofty of expectations on human relationships and can quickly grow cynical when people fall short of our expectations. We want to believe that people are worth investing in and that the relationships we build function as building blocks to our own meaningful lives, but disillusionment in that notion is inescapable.

Given that disillusionment in relationships is inescapable, we might be tempted to do away with interpersonal relations altogether. Nonetheless, it appears that a yearning for knowledge of and connection with other humans is an intrinsic function of being human. We are seemingly hardwired for relationships, an intuition that is difficult to reason away to irrelevance.

However, frustration arises at the realization that both a need for relationships and a disappointment in them are inevitable.

If we can posit the notion that we were created by a god— and perhaps that he created us for the purpose of being in relationship with him and one another—there might be value in addressing inherent desire for human connection as a framework for understanding the world.

Like the English word “knowledge,” the Hebrew word yada’ refers to both knowledge of concepts and knowledge of people.6 However, the word yada’ is more commonly used to imply a deep relational bond that cannot be dissipated nor be severed. It was first used to portray the relationship documented between Yahweh, or God, and his chosen people, the Israelites.

Yahweh’s relationship with the Israelites began with a promise that he would bring forth a multitude of nations from them, providing for and avenging them in all circumstances.7 Reciprocally, they would acknowledge him as their God and prioritize their relationship with him above all else.

While the Israelites initially tried to devote themselves to Yahweh first and foremost, they repeatedly forgot the multitude of ways he had delivered them from precarious situations. They would attempt to display their commitment to Yahweh through half-hearted completion of instated rituals, but they had no desire to know him relationally, to immerse themselves in fuller understanding of who he was as their creator who made them

for deep relationship with him.8 As the Israelites fell further away from knowing who Yahweh was and dedicating themselves to him, a prophet named Hosea admonished the people: “Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.”9 This “knowing” Hosea encouraged was not a merely shallow knowledge about who Yahweh was, but an experience of his love and steadfastness. Though the people continually broke their promises to commit to Yahweh and frequently forgot the number of times he demonstrated his faithfulness to him, he was no less constant; rather, he steadily continued to be good to them in provision and vindication, as “sure as the dawn” and the “spring rains.”

The irony is that Yahweh, who had perfect yada’ of the fickle Israelites, continued to pursue a relationship with them.

This is not because they deserved it but because his character epitomized what it meant to know a person fully.10 As forgetful and self-seeking humans, they would never be capable of the standard of yada’ that Yahweh embodied, but that didn’t avert him from vowing himself to them wholly. These were humans he had lovingly created,11 and his perfect knowledge of them and desire for relationship with them remained vastly abundant despite their indifference12 towards him.

Among the intellectual frameworks of knowledge created to understand the world, we find they fail to be reliable. The prevailing form of intellectual knowledge continually changes because no given framework can establish meaning for us that is relevant across time and cultures. We take pause to consider the value of relationships; from an evolutionary standpoint, connections are essential for our proliferation.

When we encounter manifestations of human compassion and selflessness, there seems to be a glimpse of meaning in human relationships. Frequently, we are disillusioned by them, and subsequently are offered by the world or preach to ourselves that interpersonal relations were not valuable anyway.

This disillusionment stems from falling short of knowing and loving other humans the way we were created to, which is a ramification of being incapable of knowing and loving God the way he created us to. Just as we were designed for perfect relationship with our creator, embedded in us is also an inherent longing for perfect relationships with those around us.

However, despite our inability to know God relationally in a sufficient capacity, God, as a function of his character, still has perfect knowledge of us. In his yada’, he pursues relationships with us that do not dismiss our flawed nature, but also convey 7

that we are deeply known and loved by him. We are liberated to pursue relationships with other humans not because we are adequate in ourselves to fill the voids that people have or shoulder the weights that burden them, but because of the fullness of the relationship God has with us despite the fact that we can never actualize the standard of reciprocity he intended.

Christians whose hearts know the saving love of Christ13 can deconstruct the barriers society has imposed between them and others. They have the power to openly embrace someone they have been taught to fear or hate because the love they received from Christ eradicates all traces of fear and hate. For Christians whose minds comprehend amazing grace, they have the power to resist generalizing others based on their presidential nominee or ignorance of privilege, for the grace they have received from God has covered every one of their own despicable actions, every vile thought. For Christians, it is not an ability within themselves that affords closer emulation of the yada’ God has of them in their relations with others, but an ability that God empowers them with as they mature in their yada’ of him.14 This is a truth we can champion with confidence for its credibility is not reliant on us but rather transcends our understanding. This is a reality that is unwavering, a knowledge that, on our own, we could not attempt to attribute legitimacy to, for its power and authority does not come from us but from he himself who has all power and authority. Intellectual movements such as the Enlightenment and postmodernism differ from interpersonal knowledge because they are credible only insofar as society deems them to be valid. Subsequently, their livelihood is liable to being subjectively overwritten and no longer regarded as legitimate frameworks to understand the surrounding world. It is thus difficult to ascribe such “knowledge” as being powerful in its fluctuations and inconsistencies.

Contrastively, our predisposition for human relationships and seemingly inherent desire for and value of them finds its origins in the compelling constancy of God’s relationship with us. Though his perfect knowledge of us is beyond our comprehension, this does not change his steadiness. Since nothing we do could ever alter his pursuit of a relationship with us,15 we can be assured that the interpersonal knowledge that comes from him is powerful enough to sustain our relationships with others. It thereby functions as a framework that is not displaced as intellectual knowledge is, as well as affirms the inherent value we place on interpersonal connections. In our pursuit of an objective measure through which to perceive the world, where intellectual forms of knowledge are dispensable and therefore unreliable, we find an undeniable strength and certainty when we juxtapose it against interpersonal knowledge.

The paradox of human relationship lies in its dual intuitiveness 8 To An Unknown God | Spring 2017

and brokenness. Our rawest selves crave profound connections with others, yet we cannot cease hurting them with our egotistical and self-preserving tendencies. Consequently, our understanding and pursuit of relationships can only be refined if we first know and experience the only perfect relationship in existence. It is solely this relational knowledge that is enduring in all circumstances and across all cultural contexts, engraved on every human heart, and thus undoubtedly mighty in its veracity.

_____ 1 Moore, Andrew. “Hedonism”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2013. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/hedonism/.

2 Bristow, William. “Enlightenment”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2011. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/ enlightenment/.

Aylesworth, Gary. “Postmodernism”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2015. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/.

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Kant’s Formula of Humanity: So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means. (Johnson, Robert and Adam Cureton. "Kant's Moral Philosophy”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2017 Edition. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/kant-moral/.)

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Under Bentham’s “greatest happiness principle” it is considered more valuable to seek a community’s aggregate happiness versus a mere individual’s happiness. (Crimmins, James E. "Jeremy Bentham”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2017. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/ bentham/.)

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6 Hegg, Tim. “The Hebrew Word (‘yada) As a Covenant Term in the Bible and the Ancient Near East.” Torah Resource. http://www.torahresource.com/ EnglishArticles/Yada_as_Covenant_Term.pdf/.

See Genesis 17:4–8.

7

See Hosea 6:4-6 and Isaiah 1.

8

Hosea 6:3, English Standard Version.

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See Psalm 139:1–12.

10

See Psalm 139:13–16.

11

See Micah 7:18–20 and Hosea 11.

12

“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” (Romans 5:8). See also Romans 5:6–11.

13

“We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). See also 1 John 4:7–21.

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“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ 15

Jesus, our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39).

Lauren finds people deeply complex, yet is ironically captivated by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. She is an ISTJ who enjoys wordplay and all things matcha.

The Crippling Power of Love

William Tang, CONTRIBUTING WRITER n today’s society, many people see love through a rather onesided lens. It’s the lifeblood of fairy tales, the driving factor behind the most endearing of songs, and the intangible force that ties together even the most unlikely of marriages. And while I certainly agree with each of these associations, there’s another facet of love that is often overlooked: its power to cripple and restrict. When we think about crippling restrictions, the immediate associations that leap to mind are rules and regulations, red tape, steel chains, and a variety of other mechanisms meant to hold one against one’s will. But what’s unique about love is that its constraints are voluntarily self-imposed. The one in love need not be physically or legally restrained; rather, the person will willingly limit himself or herself for the sake of love. And it’s this confounding, almost masochistic aspect of love that perhaps best

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exemplifies its beauty and value.

If we take a trip down memory lane, we probably needn’t look too far before we come across our first crush—our first romantic interest. And while I certainly wouldn’t go so far as to claim that this was genuine love, the experience itself is almost as unforgettable as it is stereotypical. For a male, when we first gaze at that girl and realize that something has changed—that a core part of our perception has permanently been altered—our priorities are suddenly flipped on their heads. Our pride, our money, our time, our energy—all of it is at the mercy of this mysterious, beautiful creature whom we hope will somehow reciprocate our feelings. We are crippled. We dote on her every word and can’t help but watch her out of the corners of our eyes, hoping for a wayward glance or passing smile. Biologically, we might have been taller, stronger, or more physically dominant in every sense of the word, yet how was it that a simple glance from her melted our hearts? And looking one or two decades later, how is it that one person could bring us to our knees with ring in hand, willing to bind ourselves to her for the rest of our lives? And conversely, what possible insanity could bring any right-minded girl to agree?

Or moving away from the arena of romantic love, we see one of the most prominent examples of this restriction in parenthood. From a purely rational, cost-benefit analysis, a married couple has no real reason to produce children. They’re a liability and limitation at best. Statistics show that raising a child from birth until 18 years of age costs, on average, $250,000 in the United States.1 And for much of the developed world, we’re long past the days when children were parents’ “insurance policies” for the future. So then why? What causes parents to so willingly take on years of stress, time, and energy for these helpless bundles of poop and constant wailing? If the average married couple can live happily without this added financial and emotional burden, then why accept this living, breathing restriction into one’s life?

This love—this seemingly benign, “feel-good” force—is actually far fiercer and more powerful than most would give it credit for. Love’s most touching qualities aren’t necessarily based in chocolates and roses. But rather, they’re found in one’s willingness to be restricted and limited for the other. It’s the reason why Disney’s Hercules renounced his godhood to join his human lover, Megara. It’s why Jane left society and enclosed herself in the jungle to be with Tarzan. And when we look to the Bible, we see a similar story etched on its pages.

In Genesis 12, we see the story of Abram and his beautiful wife, Sarai, as they travel through the hostile lands of Egypt.

And out of fear for his own life, he makes a request of Sarai— 10 To An Unknown God | Spring 2017

that she might pretend to be his sister: When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, 12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live.

13 Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.”

14 When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.

15 And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.

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—Genesis 12:11–152 Most readers of this passage are quick to pounce upon Abram’s cowardice—his willingness to give his wife into the clutches of another man. But what perhaps stands out as even greater than Abram’s cowardice is Sarai’s love. Having heard Abram’s request, we can’t possibly imagine that she was happy with her husband’s wish: her beauty and body being used purely to save Abram’s own skin. And at this point, she could have left Abram to the dogs. As shown by the passage, her beauty was powerful enough to win the affections of even a king, guaranteeing a life in the lap of luxury; she didn’t need Abram for her survival. But her love and faithfulness told a different story, driving her to limit herself and her rights for her husband.

When we look at these examples in history, we see that love has the capability to limit and restrict in the most astounding of ways. And in many ways, it’s the greatest of these restrictions that strikes us as the most meaningful and significant. We sympathize with the lovestruck boy, tear up at the sacrifice of parents, and reel back in awe at the devotion of Sarai.

But if we approach these inspiring yet ultimately finite sacrifices with such wonder, then how much more should we admire a sacrifice of infinite proportions? If there truly were a being who had eternity and infinity at his beck and call, then how much more veneration would his self-limitation deserve?

Can there even be such a thing?

We need only think for a moment before realizing that no mere human could fit this description. All the presidents that ever held office, all the emperors that ever reigned, all the warlords that ever conquered—all were finite beings with vast,

but ultimately limited, capabilities. But if we expand our search and open our minds to the possibilities, we come across an oftoverlooked candidate: God. In Luke 2, we see the God of the Bible brought down to the most humbling of forms: a baby with nothing more than swaddling cloths and a manger to receive him. What was once infinite and untouchable became flesh and blood through Jesus Christ—the mightiest of beings now shedding his own suit of armor: “One night in the cold, in the dark, among the wrinkled hills of Bethlehem…two worlds came together at a dramatic point of intersection. God, who knows no before or after, entered time and space.

God, who knows no boundaries took on the shocking confines of a baby’s skin, the ominous restraints of mortality.”

for dead to the delight of his own sinful children.

So how did God respond? With wrath? With justice? With an abandonment of the loving self-restraint that crippled Him in the first place? Not in the slightest. Like a parent who simply could not abandon his children, God could not abandon us. Up until the very moments before His crucifixion in the Garden of Gethsemane, God lovingly, painstakingly showed self-limitation that is undeserved. The man who could have summoned “twelve legions of angels” to his defense was instead quietly taken away—a lamb brought silently to the slaughter for sins that were not his, for a people that would not love him, and for his own love that would not die.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

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—John 3:165 —Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew

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Putting aside all doubts and denominational differences for just a moment, we quickly realize that the nature of God’s sacrifice—His self-limitation—is of a completely different nature than any of our previous examples. With the lovestruck boy or even the loyal Sarai, we simply see the finite becoming more finite. But with God, we see a paradox in reality itself: the infinite made finite, the timeless now bound to a mere 33 years of life. And the reason for this seemingly suicidal transformation?

Love for the very people He created. Like a father longing to connect with his children, He knew our sin prevented us from reaching Him and He came to us instead:

When we consider love, we must be privy to every facet: the rosy-colored glasses as well as the crippling restriction that comes with it. And we see examples of this scattered throughout history. It’s driven countless adolescents to fall head over heels, millions of parents to make the most tender of sacrifices for their children, and even royalty itself to bend a knee. And in just one case in history, but only once, it drove the God of the universe Himself to a cross, broken and bloodied, infinite made finite, to redeem us from our sins. All for the sake of love.

_____ "Parents Projected to Spend $245,340 to Raise a Child Born in 2013, According to USDA Report." USDA. USDA, 18 Aug. 2014. Web. 05 Apr. 2017.

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Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear, 2 But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God.

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—Isaiah 59:1–24 But had the story ended there, Jesus’ life would have been nothing more than a sentimental parental visit—God’s casual stroll through the human world before returning to his heavenly abode. But instead, God’s inconceivable self-limitation was only met by an even more inconceivable response: betrayal and crucifixion by the very people he loved. In the most brutal of ways, Jesus was humiliated, tortured, nailed to a cross, and left

“Genesis 12:11–15.” Holy Bible ESV Bible. N.p.: Crossway, 2016. Print.

2

Yancey, Philip. The Jesus I Never Knew. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002.

Print.

3

“Isaiah 59:1–2.” Holy Bible ESV Bible. N.p.: Crossway, 2016. Print.

4

5

“John 3:16.” Holy Bible ESV Bible. N.p.: Crossway, 2016. Print.

William Tang is a graduating senior at Cal who loves dumplings and pasta, watches the occasional breakdancing video, and somehow found himself studying Business Administration and Computer Science somewhere along the way.

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Remembrance of Later Things Nicholas Ward, CONTRIBUTING WRITER hat has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

Would Solomon still have written this if he had seen today’s world, with its satellites and computers and autonomous vehicles? On the outside at least, the world has changed immensely since he wrote those words. Have science and technology allowed us to break free of this cycle, to overcome the hopelessness of nature?

Over the past few centuries in particular, technological change has accelerated tremendously, bringing significant changes to every area of life. These changes have had innumerable benefits, including an extraordinary increase in the well-being of the developed world. Prosperity is slowly spreading to other parts of the world, with 100 million people in India lifted out of extreme poverty in the past few years.1 Technology has brought changes to power as well as to prosperity. Wealth and influence have been shifting to those who understand new inventions and know how to use them, sometimes leaving others behind. States and national actors are using technology in different ways for their own power plays. At times this has helped level the playing field, as with the Stuxnet virus, used by Israel to protect itself from Iran.2 Yet more often than not, it has simply benefited those already in the superior position, as seen in Russia’s unchallenged cyber attacks on Estonia.3 Overall, then, it is clear that technology’s effect on power has been mixed. However, there is a more important question.

While technological change may indeed have shifted power among different groups of people, one of its most-touted promises is the ability to give us control—not over each other, but over the world around us. We are now able to control nature in radical ways. We can predict weather changes and natural disasters. We’re no longer subject to the constraints of distance, thanks to new forms of communication. We have more control over our lives, our schedules, our physical environment. But has this really given us more power?

Many thinkers are excited about the possibility of taking

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these changes to what seems to be a logical conclusion: controlling everything, eventually, including our own bodies and minds. “Transhumanist” thinkers like Ray Kurzweil and Eliezer Yudkowsky look forward to a future when humans transcend our current limits. Once we can augment ourselves with cybernetic implants, we can solve disease and poverty and extend our lifetimes indefinitely, they say. Meanwhile, entrepreneur Elon Musk recently revealed a vision of humans merging with machines and becoming exponentially more intelligent.4 Once this happens, new, immortal, human cyborgs would be able to upgrade themselves and do what they like.

Isn’t that power for the human race? No longer subject to the tyranny of nature…free from sickness and every kind of physical constraint? C.S. Lewis addresses this in The Abolition of Man, a prophetic collection of essays written in 1943. He describes a future where a technologically triumphant group of humans has found the key to controlling every aspect of ourselves. The question, he says, is what they will do with that power.

Lewis envisions these “Conditioners,” powerful scientists whose generation has cracked the code of human genetics, as having gained total power—and having completely lost meaning. Given the ability to control the future of the human race, of the entire world, they will have nothing to do with it. The Conditioners have the ability to redefine morality, conscience, and honor in future generations…but which of these can motivate them? Now that all our human values have been “seen through,” no motivation can remain other than instinct and emotion. In a dark twist, Lewis says, “Man’s conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature’s conquest of Man.”5 This echoes even earlier thoughts

by American historian Henry Adams: “Man has mounted science, and is now run away with…before many centuries more, science will be the master of men.”6 In some ways, this prediction is already starting to come true. Discussions are frequent about how to make AI safe, so that it doesn’t discard human life as an irrelevant resource in its relentless pursuit of efficiency. Others consider how to ensure that the goals of artificial superintelligence align with those of

humans—at least, those of the humans who are lucky enough to be involved. Many papers have been published which examine, for example, the “ethics of artificial intelligence.”7 UC Berkeley professor Stuart Russell has focused extensive research on “reaping the benefits and avoiding the risks” of AI.8 For instance, one new technique called “inverse reinforcement learning” involves machines watching humans and trying to codify the ethical behaviors they observe.9 But what is truly ethical, especially when different humans have contrasting ideas? When we can reprogram every motivation in our new superintelligent incarnations, which ones are worth keeping? Similarly, which of the many goals for which people spend their lives should these creations prioritize?

What reason could any purpose claim for being better than the others? That will always be a problem from the secular, naturalistic perspective. The atheistic philosophy that has taken hold over the past few centuries has been bent on denying the existence of any universal spiritual truth, any value system apart from personal preference. The growing dominance of technology and artificial life will require us to explicitly state and codify our priorities…and naturalism has nothing to say.

There is no solution, as Lewis argued long ago, outside of objective morality. The Bible offers unchanging truth, a sovereign god who defines ultimate good, unaffected by the changing ideas of any person, or any machine. From a scriptural perspective, then, how ought we to respond? I can’t claim to know all the answers, but I have some ideas.

Certainly, we need to remember that no matter what changes the modern world brings, the Christian gospel is unchanged.

While Christians have always been at the forefront of saving and improving lives on earth, people’s eternities are more important than anything that takes place in these short lives.

So while science and technology have helped in innumerable ways, they are not, and never will be, the answer to our greatest need. All the advances and inventions have not made us into better people. They give us no power over our greatest enemy— our own broken nature. Jesus is still the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6), and that hasn’t changed.

However, to retreat from the modern world and set up exclusive communes, as increasingly many Christians are, is as misguided as ever.10 And opposing technological progress (like Christians of past generations who called credit cards “the mark of the beast”) cannot succeed and instead risks alienating others. Instead, we should be grateful for all the blessings we have received, including new advances, and be intentional in using all of them to bless others. Our new connectivity can provide exciting new ways to discuss life’s important questions, to share different perspectives, and to explore truth. For

Christians, new opportunities for evangelism and discipleship abound. Efforts like InterVarsity’s Ministry in Digital Spaces and the global Indigitous platform are only starting to explore these possibilities.

In particular, those of us blessed with jobs in the tech industry and involvement in the Silicon Valley ecosystem should keep in mind possibilities beyond making money and creating new, flashy apps. All of us need to remember that when we interact with others through the Internet or other modern methods, we’re still connecting with real people—people who matter. In all our use of technology, we should strive to be a blessing to others, rather than to grasp for power. We have new ways to try to exalt ourselves, but also new ways to empty ourselves for others, following the example of Jesus (Philippians 2:1–11).

Sometimes it’s not clear how to respond to changing times and seasons. Jesus didn’t give many details about what to expect, but he did make clear that we should follow him and be his faithful witnesses. And he promised that, no matter what, “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). _____ 1 Manas Chakravarty, “The World Bank on India’s poverty,” Mint, October 13, 2014, http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/xrATLLP8ojKEVEQgJV0UxJ/TheWorld-Bank-on-Indias-poverty.html.

2 Kim Zetter, “An Unprecedented Look at Stuxnet, the World’s First Digital Weapon,” Wired, November 3, 2014, https://www.wired.com/2014/11/countdown-to-zero-day-stuxnet/.

3 Patrick Howell O’Neill, “The cyberattack that changed the world,” The Daily Dot, May 20, 2016, https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/web-war-cyberattack-russia-estonia/.

4 Olivia Solon, “Elon Musk says humans must become cyborgs to stay relevant.

Is he right?,” The Guardian, February 15, 2017, https://www.theguardian. com/technology/2017/feb/15/elon-musk-cyborgs-robots-artificial-intelligence-is-he-right.

5 C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 68.

6 Henry Adams. AZQuotes.com, Wind and Fly LTD, 2017. http://www. azquotes.com/quote/650670.

7 See, for example, Nick Bostrom and Eliezer Yudkowsky, “The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence,” Machine Intelligence Research Institute website, https:// intelligence.org/files/EthicsofAI.pdf.

8 Stuart Russell’s website, “The long-term future of AI,” https://people.eecs. berkeley.edu/~russell/research/future/.

9 John C. Havens, “The ethics of AI: how to stop your robot cooking your cat,” The Guardian, June 23, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/jun/23/the-ethics-of-ai-how-to-stop-your-robot-cooking-your-cat.

10 Ian Lovett, “Wary of Modern Society, Some Christians Choose a Life Apart,” The Wall Street Journal, February 17, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/communities-built-on-faith-1487349471.

Nick is a third-year math and computer science major, born in Switzerland and raised in the East Bay. He's happiest when covered in chalk or covered in flour.

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W H AT L OV E I S Jacinta Lu, STAFF WRITER

Dear Heavenly Father.

“How do I know that I love God?” My Sunday School teacher gave me a weird look.

“What do you mean how? How do you know you love your sister?”

I shrugged. “I guess I would die for her.”

“Well, there you go.”

14 To An Unknown God | Spring 2017

I believe you died 1 my sins and rose from the dead.

The world generally agrees that the most genuine demonstration of love is the act of sacrificing your own life for another when you have done no wrong. Christianity is the only religion whose God claims to be Love and then demonstrates it by coming to Earth in the form of Jesus and literally dying for us.

In my eight-year-old mind, it made sense that this act was worthy of honor. Adoration. Praise. Devoting my life to following this man Jesus (whose life on Earth was very noteworthy and admirable in itself ) made sense. But that’s all this act was for me—fantastically altruistic, truly worthy of recognition and deserving of myself. I was duty bound, obliged, to pay this man the respect he deserved in return for his sacrifice.

But duty wasn’t what Christianity was asking for. Christianity demanded this strange concept of a relationship with a God I didn’t know and couldn’t understand. I was called not only to obey and serve Him but to love Him—with all of my mind, my soul, my strength.1 With all of me. But how? I couldn’t even understand what love was. With martyrdom as the test for true love, I didn’t think I could really know whether or not I loved Him until a gun was pointed to my head.

And even then, I feared the reality of my so-called love. With a gun pointed to my head, sure—I could die for my beliefs.

Not because of some radically intimate relationship I had with my God, but out of a sense of duty and honor as a proclaimed Christian. Even then, would I hold up under torture? If this imaginary terrorist threatened my family or other innocents?

The more I grappled with these thoughts, the more uncertain I became. My claim that I could die for my God was slowly being unveiled as shockingly, terribly, honestly shallow. And it became clear that the real question I was grappling with was whether I would be able to surrender my life to Him. Not understanding what love was, but becoming increasingly conscious of what it meant to give my all, I sought for another answer. Anything that wouldn’t involve opening my heart up to God and surrendering control over my mind, soul, and strength to Him, because this sort of intense transformation terrified me. Ronald Heifetz, a renowned leadership expert, argues that the reason people are so resistant to change is because of its “potential for loss.”2 Whatever God had in store for me, whatever was to come after, I couldn’t bear the loss of control.

I know that I am a sinner.

Type A.3 Perfectionist. Practical idealist. Ambitious. Growthoriented. All words I have used to describe myself, good or bad, as an attempt to pinpoint the correct euphemism for the fact that, when it comes to my own life, I’m a control freak. I take pride over having ownership of my life and being independent,

for being the reason for both the successes and the failures in my life. Admitting that I was imperfect, that I was a horrible person, that I was a sinner, was not difficult. My future didn’t have to be exactly the way I wanted it to be, but my own happiness was something that I could earn and deserve in the end. Happiness was achievable. Therefore my own perfection, as it coincided with my ideals, was achievable.

But there was no room for God in this picture.

The most fundamental tenet of Christianity that every Christian must believe and admit in their heart is that they are a sinner. I believed this and admitted it in my heart.

Admitting this to the church, however—to my family, my friends—was different. Revealing to them my deepest, darkest sins, that I had anger and trust issues, that I struggled with lust and pornography, that I was a habitual liar, was not okay.

I would go to the grave with my sins before allowing others to see me at my dirtiest. That was my hypocrisy. I was terrified of admitting my sinfulness because I was afraid of the world and its accusatory stare, of being judged and seen as dirty and broken, even though that was who I truly was. I was afraid of being completely vulnerable and being rejected. I was haunted by this terror and clenched my fist tighter over my sin, more determined than ever to have control over the reputation and security that I believed would inevitably come to ruin once my sins were revealed.

So I would give him everything except my deepest, darkest sins. Except my career aspirations. Except the people I loved.

Except the things that mattered to me. Except me.

I ask for forgiveness.

I couldn’t be vulnerable with God. I couldn’t open my heart up to receiving His love nor learning to love Him because I believed that love would expose and destroy me. But I also could not run away, because it was becoming clear from the disastrous state of the relationships in my life, from my struggles with lust, that I had a serious misunderstanding of what that love was.

In a moment of utter insanity, I paused my whirlwind of control-centered concerns, gave God a cursory glance and asked him, “Show me what it means to love.”

You’d think that an all-powerful God who had just been treated like a genie in a lamp, a part-time supervisor, an afterthought in this oh-so-busy and important life of mine, would take this opportunity, this little open door in my heart, to rebuke the hell out of me. Bring down the thunder and the destruction, for who does this little girl think she is, to take the God of glory for granted?

Incredibly, unspeakably, He wasn’t like that at all. I mean, He wrecked me. But He did it in the most gentle way. I stumbled upon a preview of the book of Hosea and something stirred in 15

my heart, so I opened my Bible with something more than just duty in my heart for the first time in my life and was absolutely taken off guard by what I found.

Hosea, a prophet, is called by God to love a prostitute named Gomer, who he brings into his home, marries, and builds a family with. Despite his love and care, she eventually abandons their family and goes back into prostitution. Yet God calls Hosea to go and bring her back. So Hosea goes to the market, and he buys his wife back. A hauntingly familiar story that parallels God’s relationship with Israel and humanity, Hosea added depth to my understanding of love that I had never realized was lacking.

Throughout the book, the wrathful God of the Old Testament (that I had never been able to reconcile with His identity as Love) rages for pages on end about Israel’s sinfulness and adultery against Him. What was so powerful about His anger, however, was that it came from a place of vulnerability and suffering. Vulnerability? Suffering? God couldn’t experience either of these things, not as I understood Him. Yet if God is a God of love, is that not what love opens you up to? Love makes you vulnerable, and out of that vulnerability comes the possibility for suffering. And God was suffering, willingly surrendering to absolute anguish because of His love for a people that was committing adultery with other idols and languishing in sin instead of walking alongside Him in a loving relationship.

Just like Gomer had left Hosea and the family they had built together, Israel had run away from this incredibly loving God and had chosen temporary gratification. And it broke God’s heart. Because He’s a just God, He calls for the punishment they are due. But in the midst of His call for justice, He cries out, “How can I give you up?”.4 A God who needs nothing, who is complete perfection, loved us so completely that in the midst of our inadequacy He still cries out in His anguish that He could not willingly destroy us despite the punishment we deserved.

I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and my life.

My heart that had been closed to Him for so long, that had held onto my sin and my life and my own control and power for so long because I could not fathom giving up control over my life, broke. I hadn’t been willing to become vulnerable and relinquish power over my sins and my soul to some God whose very essence I could not understand. But God ever so gently, ever so intimately, radicalized my understanding of what love was. He showed me His heart and helped me to empathize with Him. This heart, that I suddenly knew on such an intimate and personal level. This wreckage that was both my heart and His. 16 To An Unknown God | Spring 2017

The radical realization that He was overwhelming me with, the things that I had known so well for so many years finally being etched onto the pieces of my broken soul.

This was an everyday kind of love.5 A love that actually touched me. A love that I could entrust my fears, my worries, my life to. This God became irresistible; as I fell deeper in love with His warmth, I slowly began to loosen my grip on my own heart, to surrender myself to His embrace. Because love, as it turns out, is surrender.

I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior.

It wasn’t easy. Opening up my heart to a God who was allowing me to empathize with His incredible heart was beyond anything I have ever experienced, the most genuine intimacy I will ever experience. Yet in my inadequacy I caught myself searching for love elsewhere when things got tougher, reverting to old habits and sins like Gomer had in Hosea. But now, in my relationship with Him, I daily bring myself back to the cross and His heart for me and deny myself 6 before Him with as much of me as I can muster, to say that I can no longer play god. I, alone, cannot live a life worth living. I, alone, am not enough. I am not enough. I am not enough.

You are enough.

In Your Name.

Amen.7 “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.”

— 1 John 3:16 (NIV)

_____

1 Mark 12:30 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” (NIV)

2 Ronald Heifetz, Leadership on the Line (Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press, 2002), 5.

3 A popular psychology term regarding personality type. http://www.apa.org/ research/action/glossary.aspx?tab=19

Hosea 11:8 “ ‘Oh, how can I give you up, Israel? How can I let you go? How can I destroy you like Admah or demolish you like Zeboiim? My heart is torn within me, and my compassion overflows.’ ” (NLT)

4

5

“This Love” (Housefires)

6 Matthew 16:24 “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’ ” (NIV)

Billy Graham, The Sinner’s Prayer

7

Jacinta is a junior at UC Berkeley who enjoys shaved snow, bad puns and long walks at IKEA. She prays daily to be a person who fully entrusts her life to Jesus.

Simon Kuang

STAFF WRITER

SO WHERE ARE THE REAL SCARY THINGS?

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o force of man or nature grips the human heart with as much violence as fear. We look both ways before crossing the street and procrastinate looking up our grades. We live in a decade in which the manipulation of fear has proven itself so insidious that nations and continents wage war to eradicate it. My challenge, however, is to look at the things that you fear as an individual: what are these things that paralyze us or move us to act? Rejection, disease, disaster, loss—surely, death? Alas, if we already rightly discern fear so influential in our thoughts and our actions, we must at some point give some thought to whether it is really well-founded or just a defect of human existence. Respecting this question, I intend to exhibit secular and then Biblical thought consisting for fear a sympathy and a refutation, followed by a renewed perspective that reconciles these antipodal reactions.

I believe that the fears I listed above are representative, albeit not exhaustive, of human fear, and that they immediately motivate a sharp dichotomy of the primary objects of human fear: we fear known things and we fear unknown things. Rejection and failure and disease are things that are universally understood. At least once have we all performed poorly at some crucial assignment and tripped on some infelicitous branch. We fear these things because we know them unpleasant and damaging, and with a knowledge we absolutely do not care to deepen. The object of this fear I will term “pain.”

On the other pole of my dichotomy there lie things that we fear not because they associate with familiar sensations, but because they are so alien to us. This is the fear with which I taste a food nobody has ever tasted before, and this is the fear with which I would enter a fantastic time-travel machine on its maiden voyage. Not surprisingly, my preferred equivalence term for the unknown object will be “death,” for death appears to be the most representative object in this

17

class—there are some pains that are universal and some esoteric, but, ostensibly, there is not a single eyewitness who will inform us as to what, if anything, lies on the opposite side. Perhaps, one objects, death is to be feared partly for a common pain of of dying, aside from the abstract of the unknown. In that case, I will submit “death” partly to the equivalence class of “pain,” and my dichotomy stands.

I will restrict my discussion chiefly to this fear, for I consider every other fear subordinate—we ingrain this thesis in our very English idiom when we use phrases like “under pain of death” and “scared to death.” Klein recounts terminally ill patients under the treatment of potent painkillers who, confronted with the question of pain, answer such as that “pain no longer bothers me.”1 What about the patient who is likewise afflicted and awaits his analgesic: is he justified to fear pain? Indeed, just as Camus declares suicide the ultimate question to every worldview (“why?”), I assert our fear of death is the ultimate critic of every other fear.

In Western philosophy, it has been the predominant view since antiquity that fear of death is irrational.2 Most simply, Epicurus argues, if death is a ceasing to exist, there is nothing to fear because there is in fact nothing at all. His student Lucretius offers what is known as the symmetry argument: if we do not fear our former nonexistence (before our birth), then we have no business fearing our impending nonexistence (after our 18 To An Unknown God | Spring 2017

death). A more modern refinement is the argument by interests: the litmus test of whether something is good to fear is whether it is able to impede our interests; for example, I am justified when cycling to fear a pothole in the road because it threatens to prevent me from reaching my class. Then because the dead have no interests, they are impervious to any object of fear.

This is a position that has been relaxed in more contemporary philosophy. Green points out to Epicurus that perhaps it is too hasty to assert the boundedness of personhood, and criticizes the interests argument by invoking the fact that indeed we all act conforming to a longer view of at least virtual personhood if we pay respect or honor promises to the dead. Dutch philosopher Spinoza, writing from the cradle of the Enlightenment, deflects the discussion to how we should act: perhaps even if death is rational to fear, it is irrational on our part to act according to this fear. English political philosopher Hobbes argues likewise pragmatically that as a broad principle, nature must not be allowed to have its way over man; just as good government exists to restrain the evil of man, man must dominate nature, wherein death is considered evil because it opposes man’s right plans.

Can we really presume so easily that personhood is finite and that we have no interests beyond the here and now?

One response to the former question might be to wager after Pascal (the most threatening reality believed, “just in case.”),

but answering the latter satisfies the former, and I think the answer is a resounding “no.” It appears self-evident that there is something we esteem more dearly than life, or that we hate more bitterly than death—to Hobbes, many men would sooner suffer slander than death.3 In his last hour, Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilych reflects on how cruel the world must be to tantalize us with work and ambition and opportunity, only to strike us with futility. Surely, he laments, there remained one last rung to grasp, one last stone to turn, one last opportunity to die satisfied and right one last wrong. What, then is the thing that we treasure more dearly than life itself, and why, if life truly is no more than an ephemeral probation facing an eternal plunge into nonexistence?

Qohelet quite agrees in Ecclesiastes: Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end […] Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?4 The Jewish king, like Ivan, realizes the infinitely grave burden of existence, whence, having thoroughly known mundane pleasure, wealth, and wisdom; he despises it all for God, who “has made everything beautiful in its time.” What explains this enigmatic hope that pervades Christian Scripture?

Surely mastery of pleasure must not, replies Job, who knew every earthly good thing then lost everything but his life: For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.

And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, Whom I shall see for myself.5 Over and over in Scripture a statue of imperturbable hope stands among the vapor and ashes of human brokenness. Indeed, emotion diffuses and edifices blow away, but the Christian faith hopes in what cannot change or fade away: We shall not all sleep, but [...] the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality [...] then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

O death, where is your sting?”6 So where are the real scary things? Neither the strongman, nor the general, nor the scholar, nor even folly and chance will stand up to death. Humans by their sin are afflicted with temporal futility on Earth and sentenced to eternal condemnation after, for death, the Bible tells us, is the sour fruit of human sin. But Paul writes that death has no more power, because what death threatens to remove—the consciousness of life and the flesh of the mortal body—is perfected by God’s own work, a new creation fitting man’s new destruction. Jesus justly died guilty, condemning sin’s power of condemnation, and resurrected to show that true life is lived with God even now and forever.

“One short sleepe [that is life] past, we wake eternally,” may we answer in chorus with Donne, “And death shall be no more, Death, thou shalt die.”

The root of fear is power, and real power belongs not to death but to the terrible master of life and death both. As in “Dies Irae” in the Catholic mass for the dead, “King of fearsome majesty, who freely savest those that are to be saved, save me, O font of mercy.” The speaker trembles in his supreme wretchedness before God’s whelming holiness, supplicating for a mercy that is never denied.

God’s power is not like the disaster of nature wrought by chaos and chance—for he is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow; or the branch that stumbles, for God is strong to work all things to profit those who love and fear him. No instance of natural human fear so juxtaposes perfect power with perfect mercy. By the person of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us, the fear of the Lord boldly knows the unknowable god, dissolving earthly pleasures and anxieties in the succor of humble worship. _____ 1 Klein, Colin. "An Imperative Theory of Pain." The Journal of Philosophy 104, no. 10 (2007): 517-32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20620051.

2 Green, O. H. "Fear of Death." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 43, no. 1 (1982): 99-105. doi:10.2307/2107516.

3 Murphy, Jeffrie G. "RATIONALITY AND THE FEAR OF DEATH." The Monist 59, no. 2 (1976): 187-203. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27902415.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

4 5

Job 19:25–27a

6

1 Corinthians 15:51–55

Simon is a first-year EECS major quite distracted with chess, landscape photography, linear algebra, and Reformed Baptist covenant theology.

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O death, where is your victory?

His favorite book of the Bible is Ecclesiastes, and he is still exceptionally bad at arithmetic.

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Why in the Name of Jesus?

Victoria Lai, CONTRIBUTING WRITER

“In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

F

or some, this phrase is meaningless. For others, it’s merely a routine ending to prayer. And still for others, it’s the single most powerful way to plead with God. In this article, I will unpack this phrase through the following question: why do Christians end their prayers with the name of Jesus?

Let’s begin in the Book of Acts with a story about a broken man who is healed. This book provides a historical account of how Christianity began—the first churches, the evangelist movement by Jesus’ disciples and followers, and the last commandment of Jesus, or, as Christians say—the Great Commission: “Then Jesus came to [his 11 disciples] and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’”1 As a result, churches were built, miracles were performed, and the gospel was spread during a time in which Christians were being persecuted. The miracle that I want to share is in Acts chapter 3. The story begins by introducing two of Jesus’ disciples, Peter and John. These men, present for Jesus’ last commandment, had followed Jesus during his three years of ministry and spiritual direction.

They regarded Jesus as their teacher and leader.

As Peter and John go to the temple to pray, they cross paths with a lame beggar who is being carried to the front of the temple’s gate to beg for money.

The only thing readers know about this beggar is that he has been lame ever since birth. The ramifications of this detail are subtle but important. He is well known by others for his disability. He is recognized for his brokenness, his inability to walk, his lack of status in society, and his constant state of depression.

He is a nobody in this society––forgotten at best, and abused at worst. Everyday, he is reminded of his situation. This is the broken man who is found begging at

20 To An Unknown God | Spring 2017

the gates of the temple.

As Peter and John are about to enter the temple, the beggar asks them for money. Peter calls for the beggar’s attention and says: “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”2 Peter takes him by the hand to help him to his feet, and the man walks. My personal favorite verse comes after this moment: “He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with [Peter and John] into the temple courts, walking and jumping and praising God.”3 The once lame and broken man who knew only his disability and weakness, who only went so far as to sit outside of the temple by the gate, is now not only healed, but also ushered into the very place that he was told he was too broken to enter. The broken man finds himself in the presence of the God who heals. His response of praising God shows how he understands the power that healed him was not the power of a man, but of something greater.

I understand the beggar to be a reflection of us. He is a reflection of me even though I do not share the same brokenness as the beggar––I am still like him. Broken. I struggle with social inadequacy and the fear of failing expectations. I place myself at the mercies of other people’s judgment and opinions and I often become the person someone else wants me to be. Brokenness is a reality not only in our society, but also in the world that we live in. Suffering is a guarantee and some live lives accepting this reality as all there is. Maybe it is depression and the intense darkness and emptiness that leave you emotionally and mentally shattered. Maybe it is anxiety and the crippling worry of being at the mercies of everything and everyone around you. Perhaps it is addiction, substituting that all-too-idealistic satisfaction and joy for a temporary one. Perhaps it is your most loved ones who are sick, with cancer or leukemia, those who suffer from mental illness, or those have been hurt by society.

Like the beggar, some might find themselves at the gate of the temple, thinking that no god will ever care for or love such a broken person. More will be skeptical of any healing or of a God powerful enough to intervene, and moreover, others will reject the hand that is offered. For the lame beggar, he was healed in the name of Jesus Christ, for there is power in the name of Jesus. It was the lame man’s faith in Jesus, who He was and what He has done, that ushered in the beginnings of healing. While we were broken people, lost and without hope to save ourselves, God sent his one and only Son to the world to be the healer that we did not deserve. In our rejection of Him, He was crucified but three days later, resurrected, and the reality that we once knew—the suffering and the pain, the death and the worries—is overcome by the reality of hope and healing, of life and peace.

The power of Jesus is not only one that saves but one that conquers death and suffering. It is a power that brings hope to places of darkness. It is a power that heals the great divide between God and his children and that same power is the power that heals the broken and makes it something beautiful.

This is why Christians pray in the name of Jesus, because there is power in the name of Jesus. In times of suffering, Jesus is the source of comfort. In times of darkness, Jesus is the source of light. In times of shame and brokenness, Jesus is the source of healing. When God feels so far away, the name of Jesus is a reminder of the cross and the bridging of the greatest divide.

It is in the name of Jesus that one can stand unashamed and whole again.

Like the beggar, there will be days beyond the pain and suffering of our everyday lives. The hurt and the pain are real and such are the consequences of a broken world. But friends, there is hope for all who hurt and are lost in the midst of darkness. Admittedly, our lives and our healing process might not be as immediate and miraculous as the beggar’s, but through all things, it is the same Savior and Healer at work.

It is the same Jesus and the same power that is ever present and moving in our everyday brokenness. When nothing in this world is constant and when there seems to be nothing to hold on to, perhaps, the answer comes in our desperate desire to hold on to anything we can. This desire to find comfort and confidence that we all know too well when life is difficult points to a deep yearning for that desire to be satisfied. Not all things will satisfy forever, but perhaps there is an answer to what seems for some a never-ending search for something greater. Like the story of the beggar, Christians do not pray merely to be free of their current suffering, but in the hope that one day, they too can enter into the temple, praising and worshipping their God. To the friends who are in their darkest times and have found the need to pray—even if you might not call it that—and do not know where to go or who to talk to, I want you to know that the unknown god has a name. And in that name, there is hope and healing for all who believe.

_____ Matthew 28:18-20, NIV

1

Acts 3:6, NIV

2

Acts 3:8, NIV

3

Hello! My name is Victoria but many people call me Charlie (after Charlie the unicorn). I am a third year double major in Philosophy and Rhetoric. I love music and food; not necessarily together or in that order.

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Andrew Chang

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Control//Support Power, in our modern context, consists of (1) the ability to do things others are not able to do, or (2) the ability to control others’ actions directly.

What makes our God so great is that even though he has total control over our lives and everything in it, his provision supports us in everything that we do, through mountains and valleys. I took this photoset during a church retreat, and something I really felt that weekend was that even though we might feel restricted by the Lord and his Word at times, we have to remember that the control we believe is choking us is actually holding us up and allowing us to walk, see and live in this broken world.

1) Away: Turning away is easy, turning back is hard 2) Self-ish: Your tightest constrictor is yourself 3) Self-less: He helps us against ourselves 4) Vision: When we can’t see, He will open our eyes 5) Humility: When we can’t stand, He will lower himself in order to help us walk 6) Support: When we can’t raise our arms, He will raise our arms

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24   To An Unknown God | Spring 2017

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26   To An Unknown God | Spring 2017

The House That Fire Built John Knox, CONTRIBUTING WRITER

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rowing up in San Diego county, my mother was an aspiring business consultant and my father was a newly minted lawyer. Both started out in lower-tier jobs and dreamed of moving me and my older brother out of our small apartment in La Mesa and into a larger house we could grow into as a family. One thing that left an indelible imprint on my young mind was the high frequency with which we visited model homes on the weekends. At the most ritzy real estate developments, there were even clowns, balloon animals, free food, and face painting for kids. I saw my parents walk arm-inarm, dreaming out loud about what amenities would provide the perfect match. Equally fastidious and frugal, we made our house-hunting rounds all around the nearby communities before my parents realized we’d have to move an hour north to find a place that fit the mold. Ultimately, they wanted to be somewhere so new that they could see the construction workers lay the very foundations. In some sense, I get why they wanted to break the ground and watch the surveyors go around measuring the dimensions. You can truly say you’re a part of something from the beginning—and there’s an immense sense of ownership this imparts. After all these years…they’ve never moved.

Thanks to my upbringing, I came to understand the value of building on a great foundation and taking home maintenance seriously. Since moving to the Bay Area, good housing is in even higher demand. There’s also earthquake risks thanks to the nearby Hayward fault. Any given week, I’ve found myself in conversation about what goes into stable, safe, and affordable housing. It’s one thing to prioritize building on physically strong foundations, and quite another to ask the deeper question of how to build one’s soul and spirit on a strong foundation.

Attending UC Berkeley, I started asking myself questions about the harder task of how to take ownership and responsibility for my spiritual life. Thankfully, I discovered that the analogy of building a formidable foundation for one’s life is replete throughout the Scripture.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus characterizes someone who hears His words and acts on them as a wise man who has chosen to lay the foundation of his home on solid rock.

He contrasts this first man with another builder who hears the word of God and does not act on it—describing that man’s home as one founded on sand. The moral is that when the rain, floods, and winds inevitably come to test our home, if we have not followed through with Jesus’ teaching, the very foundation of our life will be swept away in the storm.1 In his letters to the church at Corinth, the apostle, Paul, expands on this truth further, warning his audience: “if any man builds on top of the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”2 When Paul says that fire “tests” the quality of each man’s work, the word he uses is dokimazō, which translates as “to prove whether a substance is genuine or not.” In essence, as precious metals are heated white-hot, dross and impurities bubble to the surface and are burned off so that the metals’ genuine value can be clearly recognized. As Allen Hood notes,3 it’s interesting that the fiery, purifying work of God judges the “seen things” from the “unseen things.” While wood, hay, and straw are building 27

materials found above ground, it’s the deeper minerals of the earth that withstand the testing and come out with even greater strength for building. Hood sees this dichotomy as indicative of the truth that our inner “unseen” heart posture before the Lord is much more important than whatever outward measures we could use to judge the workmanship of our house. This outlook aligns with scripture, as the Lord confirms to the prophet Samuel that He “does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”4 Each person therefore is given the charge to “guard your heart above all else, for out of it flows the wellspring of life.”5 So where does this leave me as a Christian? Laying the foundation of my house on God, my aim is to trust the Lord with all my heart and not lean on my own understanding.

However, I’m still called to build a house out of my very life— my body likened as to a temple of the Holy Spirit6 with Christ as the chief cornerstone.7 When I came to Cal, I knew this much, but here’s where things got interesting; I still had some pretty metaphorical questions concerning houses.

1. How do I go about building my house?

2. How large of a house should I build?

3. Wouldn’t a house with a lot of precious metals and jewels look pretty ostentatious to the world?

Thankfully, my Christian community helped me answer 28 To An Unknown God | Spring 2017

the first question. From the very start of the Church in Acts, Jesus assures His disciples “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”8 While waiting upon the Lord in the upper room of their gathering space, the apostles received this baptismal fire9 of which the prophet John spoke—as the Spirit of God descended upon those waiting as if He was placing flickering tongues of flame over each of their heads. Those who experienced God’s manifest presence in this way were immediately filled with the gifts of the Spirit to continually walk in the miraculous life Jesus promised to His followers.10 Paul illuminates the scope of Jesus’ incredible provision by teaching the Corinthian church that each person is granted a unique manifestation of the Holy Spirit—which among other things allows them to operate in supernatural wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, distinguishing spirits, speaking kinds of tongues, and interpreting said tongues.11 Bearing these empowering gifts in mind, I realized that while the “fire” of testing and purification refines what materials go on top of my foundation, Holy Spirit fire truly builds my house!

Next, I needed to figure out how big my house would be— how large of an impact would I have on the world? I reasoned I should make as large of a house as possible, as that is synonymous

with saying I want to live a life abounding in good works! In this I must remember to abide in Jesus, for without Him I can do nothing12 but with Him I can go through all things—both the good and the bad.13 All of this sounds really encouraging, but it is here we run into two potential roadblocks: the lack of shared memory of Christian leadership history, and the false humility of self-ordained obscurity.

Recently I was grabbing pizza with a new friend to share more about life. While talking about her passions, she confessed to me that she almost stopped following God because she couldn’t find any Christians passionate about fighting injustice and systemic oppression in the prison system. Friends at church told her to stop fixating so much on social issues, saying that “as Christians, our job is to get people saved!” The next day I caught up with a missionary friend over coffee. I came to find out his sister does not want to follow Jesus simply because she cares about the environment—while all the Christians she knows see conservation as a “liberal issue” that only serves to distract people from the “truth.” My thoughts swirling, that night I went to my church small group, where guys were questioning whether God was cool with the idea of them being software engineers and businessmen. Should they drop what they were doing and pursue a more “spiritual” path to building the Kingdom of God? Lastly, I spoke with a young woman who was a leader of a burgeoning nonprofit artistic collective. She had significant reservations calling herself a ‘Director’ of her organization for fear of “making the community culture more like a business instead of an egalitarian partnership worshipping God.” Can you read between the lines to see the common threads between these four stories? In the first three, potentially ardent followers of Jesus are left confused and reprimanded by others (or themselves) for being passionate about prison reform, conservation, and professional career paths, when ironically historical Christians have dedicated their life’s work to glorifying God through these avenues!14 In the fourth and final story, a uniquely gifted Christian leader shies away from honor and title in order preserve her understanding of glorifying God and not elevating herself.

While the Christian leader’s motivation is noble and may be construed as humility, I believe it misses the mark of spiritual maturity.15 Peter urges each believer in the church to “use whatever [spiritual] gift he has received to serve one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”16 People serve one another best in a sustainable fashion when they have roles, responsibilities, titles, and boundaries to guide their service. It is my conviction that we need not worry about how ostentatious our houses are if they are committed wholly to the Lord—His

testing fire will prove their worth. Even the apostle Paul left final judgement of his actions to the Lord instead of fretting about whether 100% of his decisions were sanctified before he built an inch of his house.17 As a believer, I find it startling that most of us rarely aspire to great power or impact on a large scale. Beloved, we must remember that the history of great Christians yielded to the Holy Spirit; we must see each spheres of society as ground to claim for the work of God and a place to glean building materials for our houses. Then, we will not fear having titles or being honored by men, because we will ultimately know that the value of our work is determined by God. In that humility, we can receive the truth that our diverse passions have value in serving the Lord and bringing His Kingdom on Earth, as it is in Heaven. In the Kingdom, with great power, comes great surrender.

“Have you understood all these things?” They said to Him, “Yes.” And Jesus said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of Heaven is like a head of a household who brings out of his treasury, things new and old.”18 _____ Matthew 7:24–27

1

1st Corinthians 3:10–17

2

OneThing 2016 Sermon: Allen Hood http://www.ihopkc.org/resources/asset/2016_12_29_1900_ONETHING_MSG_2/auto/true/

3

1st Samuel 16:7 (NASB)

4 5

Proverbs 4:23 (NASB)

6

1st Corinthians 6:19–20 (NASB) Ephesians 2:20 (NASB)

7

Acts 1:8 (NIV)

8

Matthew 3:11 (NASB)

9

John 14:12 (NASB)

10

1st Corinthians 12:7–11 (NASB)

11

John 15:1–4 (NASB)

12

Philippians 4:13 (NASB)

13

See the Biographies of Elizabeth Fry, John Muir, Pat Gelsinger, and Chris Luo respectively 14

15 Unless God specifically told her to not take any credit or title--in which case, rejoice in obscurity!

1st Peter 4:10 (NASB)

16

1st Corinthians 4:3 (NASB)

17

Matthew 13:41–42

18

John Knox is the Director of Unity in Christ (UiC) at UC Berkeley and also puts in hours at SurveyMonkey to keep the lights on. He loves hiking, biking, interceding for revival, and calling out the potential in all God’s kids over Sliver pizza and salad.

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To Choose His Healing Andrew Y, CONTRIBUTING WRITER

T

hrough the vertical slit between the sliding metal doors, she could see the sun dipping down to touch the distant hills, speckling the inside of the compartment with fabulous spurts of light every time the trees cleared a path to the golden sphere. Peering down at her younger brother, she cupped his hands in hers, just as mamá had, and blew softly.

Mumbling sleepily, Rafael burrowed deeper into her side as he enjoyed this whisper of warmth amidst the biting cold. Just as mamá had…she remembered it well.

It was only two short weeks ago that she was at the dinner table, little Rafa crouched on his stool, both of them enjoying the flaky warmth of the pupusas1 mamá baked that afternoon.

30 To An Unknown God | Spring 2017

It was a miracle that mamá could produce the fluffy texture they enjoyed so much with such small amounts of masa.2 Everything was the same. But just as quickly, everything changed.

A knock on the door. A strange man urgently talking to mamá. Wrestling a powdery morsel from Rafa as he tried to put it in his lap, she could not hear the conversation. But craning her neck, she could see mamá’s face. Sun-beaten and wind-struck, it still exuded the same serene grace from mamá’s younger years. For a sliver of a moment, however, this beautiful face fell slack with horror. Had she seen correctly? It was just for a second. Perhaps she had imagined it, for a familiar gritty mask of determination quickly replaced the momentary lapse in composure.

Before she could call out, the man jogged away, the door seemed to close itself, and mamá disappeared into the hallway.

Clattering and the sharp rustle of rope echoing back into the hallway only added to the growing air of secrecy.

“Gabbi, come help!”

Jolted from her dazed curiosity, Gabriela got to her feet, leaving Rafa to his own accord, and walked to the hallway entrance only to be quickly swung back like a hinged door as mamá came barreling through.

“Put the pupusas in this bag. And grab Rafa’s coat for me, dear.”

Her pulse ticking, Gabriela surged into action. She knew this routine well. Perhaps this was just another trip to school. But why was mamá carrying her Bible? Returning to the kitchen, Gabriela couldn’t help but stagger back at what she beheld. The same mystery man was back, helping mamá organize a collection of essentials even as Rafa’s hands christened everything within reach with white flakes.

“Gabbi, come here please.”

Mamá’s hands stroked her cheek, pausing lightly at the corner of her chin before resting on her shoulders.

“Gabbi, it was las maras. Papá was killed. No questions now, dear. You and Rafa must travel to the states tonight. You will find Uncle Juan and his family in California. Their address and some money are in the green pouch. There is one bag of food and another with toiletries and my Bible. Ration slowly, and wash yourself and Rafa whenever you can, but only when it’s safe. Álvarez will take you where you need to go. Listen to him at all costs, okay? I love you so much, my dear.”

That was it. Another act of gang violence. Another life lost.

But the normalized tale now struck Gabriela like the most unrealistic situation plausible. Papá, gone? Why did they have to go? Who was Álvarez? And why couldn’t mamá come? But the questions were left to turn stale at the table as the party of four rushed under the cover of night. At the corner, Rafa, still not comprehending what had happened, looked up at mamá,

expecting to take her hand. Instead, mamá knelt down next to Rafa.

“Mijo, I cannot come with you today, and I might not see you for a long time. Rafa…Rafa, don’t cry now. Be my brave little boy and listen…you will go with Gabbi. And when Gabbi cups your hands like this, you see? And she blows softly like I am now, remember that I am here with you. I am always the gentle warmth in your hands.

And mijo, this is important. I need you to do the same for Gabbi; remind her that mamá is always here. Breathe it gently. Breathe it warm. Can you try one time?…good. I think this is a big job you can do for her. And when you do this for each other, remember my love. Remember God’s love. Listen to your sister always, okay? Now, dame un abrazo y un beso.” 3 Sniffling, Rafa stubbornly and proudly puffed his chest out.

His eyes radiated brightly like their home’s little hearth. Upon seeing this, Gabriela breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that her little brother would not cry for the night. With a quick hug, Gabriela followed Rafa and Álvarez’s hurried trot down the graveled road, taking one more wistful look over her shoulder before mamá vanished behind the night’s closing curtain.

Gabriela noticed the silence the most. Since his triumphant first night, Rafa had fallen into an ashen and diminished composure. And Álvarez, while always calm, could only be described as curt, only speaking to give instructions and never using their actual names (Bicha, ve a dormir. Bicha, bebe agua.

Bicha, bicha, bicha4). But in just two weeks’ time, with barely a word spoken between them, they had traversed enormous stretches of countryside, finally entering México, where they raced to board el tren de la muerte.

El tren de la muerte….el tren de los desconocidos. Most often, La Bestia5. It was a dreaded train. A transit that everyone knew, but one that only personal experience could truly reveal. Even subdued and quiet Rafa cried out his objection.

NO! The freight train is for bad people! Mamá wouldn’t want us on there!

For Gabriela, the anxiety etched in Rafa’s face would have been enough to deter her, let alone the countless tales. Dismembered limbs from accidents. Sexual assault. Kidnappings. Homicides.

It was a dark, shifting pool full of lone sharks; La Bestia was an unpredictable monster of mishaps. If you followed its loose leash through the thicket, you found it held by the iron fist of los Etas, the cruelest of cartels. As catatonic as its pet, los Etas represented the world’s darkest gratifications and ecstasies. But, as Álvarez reminded her, there was only one way through to safety. So once again, she found Rafa’s eyes, no longer gleaming but pulsing feebly like a fire’s last coals. She held his hand. And 31

she leapt.

Only shadows filled the cargo hold now, the particularly splintered shipping box under her and Rafa’s weight in her lap quickly becoming more present realities than anything she could see. Besides the constant, rumbling wheels, few made a sound. Hushed. Fearful. That’s how Gabriela perceived the other migrants in the train car. Most came in twos or threes, a few individually. Some were adults. Most were teenagers, a few children, like Rafa. Gabriela made no effort to know them and welcomed the silence they returned. There was no room for niceties. Instead, Gabriela retreated into her own mental refuge to pass the aching hours. Each time the train hit a bump or turned unexpectedly, their bodies lurched as one, like distanced buoys along the shoreline.

But now that she was committed to waiting, an old question gnawed deeper into her mind. Who was Álvarez? In the darkness there was little more to see than she already knew.

He was a light, brown-skinned man of considerable height. A permanent morning shadow accentuated his rugged look. Most impressively, he was always still, so much so that it seemed to define his character. When he carried Rafa, it seemed like Rafa rested better than he ever could in Gabriela’s arms. Her jealousy always blossomed in these moments, but she would just as quickly berate herself. What did it matter so long as Rafa slept?

But at the same time, what made Álvarez so steady, so collected?

Before she could pick up the courage to ask him, however, the door to the gangway corridor on the left slammed open to reveal a young boy, his sweat tightly wrapping his shirt around his heaving chest. To Gabriela’s even greater surprise, Álvarez leapt to his feet just as quickly as the boy had barged into their quiet refuge.

What is it?

Six cars down. Coming quickly. Etas!

Panic. The passengers, once as still as the cargo, burst into a throng of activity. Everyone leapt to their feet, stampeding as they rushed to the ladder leading to the car’s roof. Everyone, that is, except for Álvarez. After pulling Gabriela and Rafa to their feet, Álvarez wove through the crowd, seizing the youngest children, including the boy who had warned them.

Bicha! Into the next car! Take the kids and hide in the shipping boxes!

She could not believe her ears. While everyone was escaping to the roof, they would simply hide in boxes? Would they not be found in a matter of seconds? How could mamá leave them with such an imbécil ? 6 The longer he kept ushering them towards the door, the quicker their chances of escape dwindled.

And then what? Her stomach curdled at the thought. Raped?

32 To An Unknown God | Spring 2017

Ransomed? Or perhaps just killed and left to rot in this desolate landscape?

A warmth crept into her hand. She gazed down to see Rafa puffing mightily into her hand, beseeching her to relax. In that moment, she remembered their last night at home, how Rafa seemed to sparkle at the chance to comfort his big sister, confident that mamá was sending them to safety…No! This was enough. She had journeyed through hundreds of overgrown miles to reach México. She had boarded La Bestia knowing that mamá trusted Álvarez to safely lead them through. She had given Álvarez the benefit of the doubt. But no, mamá had been mistaken! Álvarez could not, would not, keep them safe. For whatever reason, Álvarez no longer had the strength to do so.

Now, it was up to her. They would not touch her Rafa!

Quickly glancing at Álvarez, who was tracking down one last little girl, she made her move. Breaking from the other children, she wove her way towards the ladder. Placing one hand on the first rung, however, she found her other hand grasping nothing but air.

She whirled around only to find herself face-to-face with Álvarez, a squirming Rafa gripped in his arms.

Bicha, what are you doing?!

Let Rafa go! Let him go! Are you un baboso7? How can you— Another look at Álvarez’s face and her words floated away, even as the last escaping teenager seemed to waft out and into the consuming canopy above. A bolt of fury, unlike any she had seen before, slashed across his jagged features. And she could now see her own fear mirrored in the dark mires of his eyes.

We do not have the time for this!

But we have t— No! Rafa and the other children will not survive on the roof ! It is too cold, the train too fast. They will freeze and fall, left for dead before the night is out. You must take them into hiding!

But los Etas! They will find us!

I will lead them away.

How? How will you do that, Alvarez?

Despite being flushed with derision, Gabriela found herself suddenly curious and then quickly horrified. For in that moment, Álvarez responded by pulling down the neck of his shirt, revealing a clear view of his collar.

Do you see?

And how could she not? The mark was taboo but so remarkably recognizable, imprinted masterfully by ink and its long-forgotten artist’s hands.

Y-you are one of them? Los Etas?

Yes. Your father sent me. I bore this mark many years ago so that I could lead you, Rafa, and many more children to safety. It is the only way. So hurry now, do you wish to be saved?

But Gabriela had drifted away. Papá? She had suppressed memories of her father for what felt like centuries now, to be strong for Rafa. How could it be? The consequences of joining los Etas were innumerable. Forever an outcast, and what sadistic deeds must he have participated in to keep their trust? This was impossible. It was a trick, a deception that pulled at her vulnerabilities and grief for her father. He would hurt her and all these children.

No...no, I cannot tr— Gabriela!

Her name, he had said her name.

Gabriela, you must trust me as your father did. As your mother did. Please.

Her mind raced. Their chances of reaching the roof were slim now, but could Alvarez be trusted? He was right, mamá had trusted him…But did she know about his tattoo, his afiliación?8 How could she decide? How could she bear this weight? As the world collapsed around her, she hugged herself tightly, seeking to hide herself away from the pressure, away from this night.

But even as she did so, an object protruding from her bag jabbed painfully into her palm. Instinctively, her fingers seized its corner through the bag’s thin fabric. It was unmistakable.

Out of all their possessions, she recognized this one best. Its shape, its four corners, the thin embroidery along its spine.

She knew what it was and what it said…Perhaps mamá had known she would struggle to trust Alvarez all along…Gabriela’s eyes scrutinized Alvarez more closely than ever before, piercing through the shifting shadows. And begging desperately that she was right when she saw no ill intent, she spoke.

I…I trust mamá, and I think you’re here to help. But I still don’t see how you can stop them, how your plan can save us.

Let me try, Gabriela. Put your faith in me. Allow me to cure your unbelief.

Juan 5:1–15 Lucas 18:1–8 Marcos 9: 14–29 Isaías 41:10 Con Amor, Mamá

She read them all. Once, twice. When she was done, she gently eased the cover closed. Swiveling in her chair, she could just spot a hint of Rafa’s tousled hair poking out from under the bed sheets. Smiling to herself, Gabriela shut the lights and climbed under the cool covers, nuzzling Rafa’s cusped hands.

And gently, under the still night, she blew softly and whispered..

Gracias, Álvarez.

Every year, thousands of young refugees flee from the violence that stains El Salvador’s urban streets. Upon reaching México, they join an estimated 400,000 Central Americans to ride el tren de la muerte, a freight train system infamous for its horrific scenes. But this exodus is embarked on each and every year, sustained by the hope of freedom and salvation. God’s greatest power is His power of healing. But he preserves your dignity to choose His plan and individual path for you. In the end, He is asking us to step out in faith. It is a terrifying step to make, but if you can, you will find His joy, His peace, and His love.

Rafael: God has healed Gabriela: God is with us Álvarez: Noble Guardian Pupusa: A most excellent Salvadoran delicacy

1

Masa: Dough

2

A warm summer breeze whispered past the window, ruffling Gabriela’s hair. At her desk, Gabriela held mamá’s Bible in both her hands. It had always been a musty little book, but it had been stained, browned, and wrinkled in the last month almost beyond recognition, dirt still found everywhere in its binding. The tiny golden letters, la santa biblia, were almost indecipherable.

With deliberate care, she turned the pages, which automatically creased and bent to her request as they had so many times before during their journey over. And after flattening out the page, she found herself looking at a list in mamá’s own neat, swirling letters.

Para Gabriela y Rafael. Les aseguro que estaré con ustedes siempre, hasta el fin del mundo.

9

Dame un abrazo y un beso: Give me a hug and a kiss.

3

Bicha (as used in El Salvador): Little Girl

4

El tren de la muerte, el tren de los desconocidos, La Bestia: The train of death, the train of the unknown, the Beast 5

Imbécil: Imbecile

6

Bamboso: Someone who is dense, an idiot

7

8

Afiliación: Affiliation, membership

Les aseguro que estaré con ustedes siempre, hasta el fin del mundo: Surely I will always be with you until the end of the world.

9

_____ Andrew Y is continually humbled by God’s gift of healing. In the next year, he plans to travel to El Salvador to serve the country’s communities and enjoy a pupusa or two.

33

Stanley Shaw, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Sometimes, power can just be as simple as persevering through the thick of it and to just be left standing after the storm’s passed.

34 To An Unknown God | Spring 2017

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. We seek to foster a deeper understanding of the faith by providing a forum for discussing these issues.

DeCal The TAUG DeCal course is designed with two primary purposes. The first is to introduce students to the rich tradition of Christian thought through various texts written by major Christian thinkers of the past, from Augustine to Martin Luther to C.S. Lewis, and to discuss those texts with fellow Cal students. The second is to teach students how to produce a journal through writing, editing, and designing articles. If you would like to join the DeCal, please check decal.org at the beginning of the fall semester to register.

Every semester, To An Unknown God relies heavily on private donations to fund its printing costs. Please prayerfully consider donating to make our next issue possible! Checks should be made out to ASUC/To An Unknown God and mailed to ASUC/To An Unknown God University of California 112 Hearst Gym, MC 4520 Berkeley, CA 94720-4520 Any amount is highly appreciated. Thank you for your generosity!

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“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

2 TIMOTHY 1:7 (NKJV)

www.unknowngodjournal.com