The Gospel's Culture War

by Andrew Shi

David Brooks, a widely respected conservative social commentator, observes in his New York Times column that Christianity is destined to lose the culture war around sex (if you haven’t yet, I strongly encourage you to read the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage). Mr. Brooks urges Christians to direct their social conservative views more towards visible service such as caring for the underprivileged rather than towards defending traditional dogma. Given Mr. Brooks is a man who practices and writes on spirituality, I find it surprising that he thinks faith will win over culture if it simply picks and choose its fights. For one, I’m not even sure that as a Christian I am called to a movement that will win over the culture. That may be the purpose (and end goal) of any minority movement, but is it the purpose of the Church today? What’s more, it disturbs me that the overtone of this piece is that religion’s role in our society should be a tool for peace.

Football and Faith

by Rob Hendricks

The lights. The fresh grass. The crisp autumn air. And…God? Nothing in my life has spoken Christ and the Gospel into my life quite like the gridiron. From fear to depression to pain to idolatry to the Gospel, God has used football to move me through inward and outward trials to His surrounding, covenant love. Through football God has shown me that (as Andy Mineo raps in “Never Land”) “the way up is down; stay low to the ground and you close to the clouds.”

Finding God at Cornell

by Esther Jiang

At times it can be difficult to find God at Cornell. When you stand in front of Day Hall, you can hear tour guides touting to the masses, “Cornell University was founded as the first non-sectarian university of the Ivy League.”  Ezra Cornell expressed his disdain for the “dead and putrid carcass of ‘the Church,’” as well as his hope for the triumph of secular humanism. Andrew White wrote A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, which ended with science replacing theology. At Cornell, the products of the non-sectarian ideology are many, and each accomplishment reiterates the foundation on which it was laid.