The Veritas Forum at Columbia

What is a Veritas Forum?

Veritas Forums are university events that engage students and faculty in discussions about life's hardest questions and the relevance of Jesus Christ to all of life.

We invite people with differing worldviews, religions, and ideas to participate, ask questions, and join discussions in order to explore true life together, and we encourage participants to bring friends who are engaged in the exploration of life’s hardest questions.

From: www.veritas.org

“What is the biggest problem among today’s students?” Billy Graham recalled asking former Harvard president Derek Bok. The president answered, “Emptiness.” Started up by a group of Harvard students (hence Veritas, which is their school motto) in 1992, in response to the culture of fragmented scholars experiencing this “emptiness” within their own community, Veritas has taken root in more than over 50 campuses across America.

Exactly a week ago at Columbia, we had our annual Veritas forum –
“Exploring True Life. Responding to Suffering.”
This was my first Veritas Forum, ever, and I have just been so blessed by it. It was truly a privilege to grapple with some of life’s toughest questions in the company of very many distinguished speakers, alongside people of differing worldviews. I think that it is in engaging each other in respectful, meaningful conversation, that we all come to understand more of what is indeed, true life.


People Suffer – Who Cares?
A Secular Humanist and Christian Dialogue

The first session on Monday saw Professor Philip Kitcher, the Columbia University John Dewey Professor of Philosophy, in conversation with Dr. Vinoth Ramachandra, a theologian from Sri Lanka who has worked for decades among the destitute of his war-torn island.

Dr. Ramachandra started out by sharing some of his experiences with suffering – experiences that most of us are fortunate enough not to encounter daily, if at all. He spoke of comforting a friend who had lost her whole family to the tsunami, sitting by a four-year old child and watching him die of a disease that doesn’t exist in the West anymore, dealing with violence and tragedy on a daily basis, and watching his aged father slide further and further into dementia. I could feel my heart sink further with every illustration of the suffering that he has encountered. There is so much pain in this world, and yet for the most part, we are blissfully blind to it all.

Dr. Ramachandra was trained as a nuclear engineer in London, but he gave up a comfortable academic career to return to Sri Lanka. He spoke about how he has been passionate about the physical sciences ever since he was a boy. But, if science is the total truth, and all existence is a bizarre accident with no meaning, striving for justice is meaningless, because all people, good and evil, will suffer the same fate in the burning up of the sun, and in the end no one will be around to remember anything.

Nietzsche saw that all talk of human dignity and equality, upon which notions of justice are based, was a legacy of Judeo-Christian thought. We care, because God cares. Jesus’ crucifixion on the cross to cover our sins, tells us that God’s power is found in the mess that we’ve made of the world. God is a God who is not immune to suffering – God himself is to be numbered among the victims and not the oppressors. Human sin – the senseless attempt to live as if we were God and rejecting His rightful rule over our lives – is the prime evil. Dr. Ramachandra argued that the Bible does not even attempt to explain the origin of evil, for you can only explain the reasonable. Our turning against God, who loved us into existence and sustains us moment to moment, is absolutely irrational and absurd. It is because of our alienation from God that evil exists. Evil is irrational and unjustified. It is not be understood, but fought.

We live in the tension between the crucifixion and the resurrection. Jesus’ rising from the dead is the vindication and renewal of the created order, the redemption of all history, and God’s concrete promise that he will make all things new. We now live between the time where God suffered for us on earth and the eventual dawning of a new day. Remembering what God has done for us, and holding fast to His promises, we share in His indignation against injustice, and we turn from self-pity and apathy to action.


The problem of evil

Philip Kitcher responded by raising the age-old “problem of evil”. If God is good, why does He allow evil? Is it because He cannot prevent it? Then He is not all-powerful. Is it because He does not want to prevent it? Then He is not all good. This problem of theodicy has been discussed by countless philosophers far more distinguished than I throughout the centuries – there is not enough space (on this page and in my mind) to survey all that thought now, and I certainly do not profess to have the definitive answer.

However, I attended a debate at the Oxford Union sometime last year, between William Lane Craig and A. C. Grayling, about this very same topic. See Knowing Enough and The greatest thing you'll ever learn...

The gist of the response was that we are made in the image of God, so we have been given free will. The essence of sin is that we choose to reject God. We also considered the limits of human knowledge, especially with respect to finite minds trying to fathom the infinite.

I know that we do not know everything, but I think that we know enough. Now, I also think that if we could fathom God completely, he would surely cease to be God and become more a product of our imagination.

Prof. Kitcher then posed the question – if God is omnipotent, why did could he not create free-willed beings who always chose correctly? But of course, omnipotence does not mean enabling logical contradictions, and choice is not choice if you only ever choose the same thing. Also, I’ve read more recently, and very intriguingly, that free choice is absolutely necessary for true, genuine love. God made us such that we can experience the deepest joy, which is to have a relationship with him – to love him and to be loved by him. If we had no real choice, then there would be no genuine relationship of love. God gave us the ability to choose to truly love him, in the very same way that he chose, at infinite cost to himself, to love us.

Prof. Kitcher described morality as a great, ongoing, work-in-progress of which religion is only a part – none of the thinkers have told us the final story yet. Morality comes from the deep altruism within us, and we can also find primitive similar impulses in animals. We should combine all the best of human thought so that we can refine all the altruistic impulses within us.

One of the participants raised a very interesting question in response to this claim during the Q & A section. He pointed out that if we see morality as an ongoing project, of which we are the ultimate creators and ultimate judges, how will we know if we have improved from where we were before? It seems to me that we do in fact need absolute standards in order to judge “progress”.


The problem of the intrinsic lovability

Prof. Kitcher also argued that we should love people because they are intrinsically lovable and worthy – it is appalling to think that you can only love someone because they bear the image of God. We should do the best we can without any myths and stories and intractable logical problems about a good God who allows evil.

The moderator pointed out that Christians didn't see a distinction between loving people for who they are and loving them because they are made in the image of God. A large part of who they are is that they are made in the image of God. Dr. Ramachandra asked Prof. Kitcher what were his grounds for claiming that people were intrinsically lovable. He pointed out that in the history of Western thought, concepts of intrinsic dignity and inherent worth were only introduced with the arrival of Christianity. Until early Christianity took hold in the Greco-Roman world, philosophers like Plato and Aristotle advocated hierarchical societies made up of individuals of different intrinsic worth (some people were born to be slaves, while others were born to rule). The equality and dignity of all is not a natural assumption everywhere – India still has remnants of the caste system which relegates a certain class of people as a “sub-species”.

Prof. Kitcher insisted on the notion of intrinsic lovability as a free-standing claim with no need for cumbersome metaphysics, but Dr. Ramachandra pointed out that you would still, in the end, have to go back to the “metaphysics” and the foundational claims because how else would you convince people with a totally different worldview to contribute scarce resources to “intrinsically unequal” beings? Prof. Kitcher said that we could convince them by showing them the potential these people have to contribute towards society if they were just given the chance. Dr. Ramachandra said that he now seemed to be valuing people instrumentally, based on what they can give to society. But what about the elderly or the disabled?

Prof. Kitcher insisted on things being intrinsically valuable even though they were transient – it’s not only some kind of transcendental source that can give value. He didn’t really elaborate this particular claim, and I personally think that it is quite problematic. Without an external, objective, transcendental source that confers value, we humans would be the ultimate judges of value, and that would simply allow for far too much cultural and moral relativity – you still would not be able to convince, for example, certain high-caste members in India that the untouchables are equally worthy of love and respect as they are. Everyone would simply appeal to their own judgment and culture and tradition, and who is to say that I am more “right” than you are?


Secular Liberalism as a Christian heresy

Dr. Ramachandra pointed out that it is easy for Prof. Kitcher to assume the universal acceptability of the notion of the intrinsic worth of every human being, because he is very much shaped by Western liberal thought, which, in and of itself, owes a lot of its beginnings to the teachings of Christianity. Dr. Ramachandra said that John Gray (Professor of European Thought at the LSE), who is no Christian, pointed out that secular humanism was nothing more than a Christian heresy. The Guardian reviewer of John Gray’s book, Heresies, writes: Gray evinces a Swiftian contempt for our latter-day lay priestlings, direct heirs of the 18th-century philosophes who proclaimed a new paganism but were in fact neo-Christians, "missionaries of a new gospel more fantastical than anything in the creed they imagined they had abandoned". All the Enlightenment did was to promote religion by other means, and its belief in progress was only the Christian message "emptied of transcendence and mystery". One of the heresies promulgated by Gray is that many of those who today continue to hold to religious faith are far more profound in their thinking, and certainly better educated, than most of their liberal-humanist opponents.

books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1295980,00.html

In my reading, I’ve also come across a fantastic quote by Clifford Orwin, discussing the thought of one of the leading secular liberals of our time: “Richard Rorty, the leading postmodern liberal theorist, …concedes that liberalism, once so jealous of its autonomy from Biblical faith, is in fact parasitic upon it. In his essay “Postmodern Bourgeois Liberalism,” he describes secular liberals like himself as “freeloading atheists.” They continue to rely on the Judeo-Christian legacy of concern with human dignity despite their rejection of the revealed truth that alone could support this concern… For Rorty, God is dead but secularized Christian morality continues.”


A slight diversion: A discussion of John Rawls and limits of Liberalism

The widely acclaimed John Rawls, who with the publication of his book A Theory of Justice was proclaimed the modern saviour of liberalism, seemed to have been sensitive to this problem of fundamental justification. In his book on human rights, The Law of Peoples, published almost 30 years after he wrote A Theory of Justice, Rawls envisions a global world order in which he interestingly does not advocate any sort of “global liberalism”. He makes allowances to tolerate what he calls “decent hierarchical societies” based on a shorter, more basic list of human rights (as opposed to the more comprehensive doctrine of liberal constitutional democracy that he proposes in A Theory of Justice). I think that it is extremely telling that Rawls saw the difficulty of promoting worldwide liberalism in the face of very divergent fundamental worldviews. (How would one convince any of the Islamic states of the superiority of the Western liberal model?) There were many who thought that towards the end of his life Rawls must have lost it – they saw The Law of Peoples as a cop-out – but I think that he was being very prescient and very realistic about the limitations of his theory.

Rawls’ theory of justice has been described as a reworking of Kant without the metaphysics. He wants to build a theory based on an overlapping consensus about the good, without having to delve too far into cumbersome metaphysics or anything of the sort. But of course built into the very foundations of his theory are countless liberal assumptions. His hypothetical mechanism of the ‘original position’, which is used to generate the basic principles of justice, is sometimes thought of as a “neutral” mechanism.

The rational calculators in the original position are behind a “veil of ignorance” – they do not know their gender, intelligence, position in society, religion etc, and they are asked to choose basic principles upon which society will operate. In deriving his basic principles of equal respect and of fair equality of opportunity from this hypothetical construct, Rawls seems to want to procede from socio-economic facts about the human condition to principles of justice. G. A. Cohen (Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory, Oxford University), argues in a forthcoming book, that Rawls here confuses the principles of justice with optimal rules of social regulation. The fact that people are different in their abilities and beliefs and desires, makes it socially optimal that we construct a society that allows for different kinds of flourishing, but he argues that the fact of diversity in and of itself does not justify the principle of equality. After all, there have been many regimes and ideologies that recognised the fact of diversity but chose instead to brutally suppress it. The reason why any fact supports any principle is explained by a further, ultimate, fact-insensitive principle. (G. A. Cohen argues for this in his article, Facts and Principles). So the reason why the fact of diversity would lead us to support the principle of equality must be grounded upon a more ultimate principle like the value of human dignity and autonomy – two very “liberal” and very loaded claims.

I think Rawls realised that ultimate principles about the value of human autonomy were not accepted by all peoples – certain societies have a more “associationist” account of flourishing which sees people assigned specific roles in society (based on gender, class etc). The different, ultimate claims about the kind of value that human life has cannot be adjudicated by recourse to fact, and are extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to reconcile. I am inclined to think that it is with these considerations in mind that Rawls wrote The Law of Peoples, in which he advocated tolerance of decent, though illiberal, societies.


Conclusion

I think that Prof. Kitcher speaks hastily when he denies the great influence that Christianity has had on the development of secular humanism, and when he argues that claims about the intrinsic lovability and worth of all human beings are “free-standing”, and in no need of further justification. It is perhaps the privilege of we who have grown up in liberal Western societies (I use this term somewhat loosely…) to simply accept the equal dignity of all as brute fact, but we must never deceive ourselves into thinking that the rest of the world naturally sees things the way that we do, or that they can be easily convinced of our views without any discussion of more fundamental claims about “cumbersome metaphysics”, or perhaps even, a discussion about God.


Publishing the Cries of the Oppressed
On the Front Lines of Human Rights Journalism

Nicholas Kristof on Darfur

Almost as if to prove Dr. Ramachandra right, the next night we had two very distinguished human rights journalists speak to us about the horrors of genocide. Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for The New York Times and winner of a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of China’s Tiananmen Square democracy movement, spoke about the absolutely horrific genocide in Darfur, in western Sudan. Mr. Kristof was one of the first journalists to raise the alarm bell about the genocide in Darfur, and he is currently collecting pledges to send Bill O’Reilly, a major news network anchor, to Darfur. It’s partly a joke, but it’s also about naming and shaming the major broadcasters in an effort to get them to take their cameras and news crews into places like Darfur.

Mr. Kristof spoke of his own visits to the country, speaking to the displaced peoples and hearing countless stories of violent brutality and unspeakable horror. The government, in cahoots with the militia, are systematically wiping out the non-Arab African tribes. Rough estimates tell of 300,000 people having been systematically killed off, and 2 to 3 million people being displaced. Those who are alive all tell similar harrowing tales of assault, rape and slaughter. Mr. Kristof said that it was clear that the Sudanese government made the calculation that the death of a few hundred thousand in rural Sudan would not warrant the “trouble” of international intervention – so far they have been proved chillingly correct.

Check out: www.savedarfur.com

Mr. Kristof’s description of the situation in Sudan proves how heartbreakingly true it is, as Dr. Ramachandra argued, that beliefs about the intrinsic human worth and inviolability are not “natural” to all people.


Benedict Rogers on Burma and East Timor

Christian Solidarity Worldwide: www.csw.org.uk

Benedict Rogers, a freelance journalist and human rights activist spoke of the persecution of Burma’s ethnic minorities, which he says is basically genocide. He spoke of Burma as one of the most under-reported countries in the world, even though it is known to be one of the worst violaters of human rights. He said that all the people he spoke to there all say the same thing – ‘Thank God you’re here! We thought we had been forgotten’, and, ‘Please tell the world about us, please do not forget us.’

Mr. Rogers professed that he had become quite the Bob Dylan fan, citing his lyrics from Blowin' in the Wind:

How many ears must one man have
before he can hear people cry?
How many deaths will it take till he knows
that too many people have died?
How many years can some people exist
before they’re allowed to be free?
How many times can a man turn his head,
pretending he just doesn’t see?

He showed us photographs of people that had been used as human minesweepers, children who’d been kidnapped and forced to be child soldiers, villages burned to the ground, a child’s drawing of what he had seen – men being shot, women being raped, babies being crushed to death in rice pounders.

During a public speech a few years ago, a senior Burmese general spoke of the regime's desire to eliminate all opposition. "In 10 years, all Karen will be dead," he threatened. "If you want to see a Karen, you will have to go to a museum in Rangoon."

Another Burma Army commander, speaking after he had led an attack on a village—slaughtering people and urinating on the head of a villager—summed up the spirit of the SPDC: "I do not respect any religion. My religion is the trigger of my gun."

From Burma’s Almost Forgotten by Benedict Rogers
www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/003/7.52.html

That the West has come to embrace a system of belief that upholds the equality and dignity of all, without a necessary belief in God, seems to me to be a fortuitous culmination of historical forces, of which Christianity is a very important one (perhaps even the most important). Other cultures that have taken a different historical trajectory have not necessarily come to the same conclusions about human dignity and worth. It was Nietzsche who saw that the only logical consequence of the “death of God” and of the subsequent death of the morality that is rooted in the transcendental objectivity of God is that “This world is the will to power – and nothing besides!”

And this power can be used towards unspeakable ends.

Benedict Rogers also spoke movingly of the faith of those whom he had encountered – an unwavering faith that God is still with them, an unwavering faith that God will deliver them. Ending on a more positive note, Mr. Rogers spoke of East Timor. He was there the night the nation was formed. The account that he shared is very similar to what he writes here: It was midnight on May 20, 2002. The flag had just been raised, the national anthem sung, and the world’s newest nation was born. I turned to the man next to me, a priest who was the first from his country to be exiled. His name was Rev. Francisco Maria Fernandes, and he’d lived in exile for a quarter of a century. Had he ever believed he’d live to see the day when his country would be free? “Yes, I did,” he smiled. “All around the world, during our struggle, people asked me: ‘Why do you carry on? You are fighting a losing battle. The world will never help you; the oppressors will never let you go. Why don’t you just give up?’ But we had one thing those people did not know about. We trusted God. This was a victory of faith.”
www.crisismagazine.com/september2004/rogers.htm


Who Will Solve the Problem of Poverty? Bono, Bill Gates, You?
A Conversation with Jeffrey Sachs, Larry Reed and Vinoth Ramachandra

On the last night of the forum, we moved from theological and philosophical ideas, and issues about reporting atrocities and making them known, to discussing the widespread suffering caused by extreme poverty, and what we can do about it.


Larry Reed

www.opportunity.org

Larry Reed of Opportunity International Network, a global microfinancing coalition that provides affordable loans to the poor, spoke about how his faith had moved him to make a career out of poverty relief. He spoke about how we need to see the poor as part of the solution – not simply as the problem. He spoke touchingly about the people that Opportunity International worked with in the Third World, how all they needed was a little bit of help to get going. He also spoke about how Jesus has a radical concern for the poor, and how that when we serve others, especially the poor, we fulfill our purpose and we touch the very heart of God.


Jeffrey Sachs
www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu

Next up was the “star” of the evening – Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of The Earth Institute, Director of the UN Millenium Project, Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, and good friend of Bono and the Make Poverty History celebrity crew. He talked about extreme poverty in Africa. He said that Africa needs, firstly, better agricultural technology, which does not involve advanced machinery, but simply high yield seed varieties, fertilizers and better water management. Secondly, better disease control – 2 to 3 million a year die of malaria and other diseases that have virtually been eliminated in the West. Thirdly, increased connectivity in terms of everything from roads to internet access is also vital to economic progress.

He spoke forcefully about how we do in fact have the resources and the ability to fight poverty effectively, if only we can get our act together and do something about it. He showed us pictures from his numerous trips to Africa. And the one that will haunt me for a long time to come was a picture of toddlers lying in rows on colourful blankets in a spartan room. In close-up pictures of individual toddlers, you could see their eyes half-open and rolled back in a feverish stupor – these rows of children were all in malarial comatose. They were waiting to die.


A slight diversion: Reflections on the absurdity of sin

Professor Sachs looked like a man who was heavily burdened with all the cares of the world. There was a distinct tone of incredulity, of disbelief, in his voice when he spoke about how achievable and how affordable poverty relief is, and yet, time and time again, the rich just turn their backs on the poor. We turn our backs on each other. Children die of malaria, day after day after day, he said, and it just goes on and on and on. Henry Shue, when arguing for subsistence rights in his book Basic Rights, cites Coleridge saying that the poor will merely "die so slowly that none call it murder."

We can do something about it, but we don’t. These are our fellow human beings, but we just don’t care enough. What is wrong with us? It was at this point that I began to understand a little bit more of what Dr. Ramachandra meant by the absurdity of sin. In our self-absorption, in seeking to rule our own lives, our way, we turn away from God, and we turn our backs on each other. If we take selfishness as a brute fact of the human condition, then we are certainly not “irrational” in the means that we employ to achieve our selfish ends – no, we are perfectly rational in that. But what I think Dr. Ramachandra means here, is that if there is a God who created us and who loves us with an everlasting love, and if he created us all as his children through the redemptive work of Christ, then certainly, there is something intrinsically absurd about our sinful selfishness. It is utterly absurd for us to reject his love and to neglect, even actively harm, each other.


Vinoth Ramachandra

Dr. Ramachandra spoke last. He said he fully endorsed what Prof. Sachs had said. He started by talking about how we could understand the rights of the poor. In the 13th century, before any global human rights movement, Saint Thomas Aquinas argued that in cases of need, all things are common property – need alone constitutes the poor man’s right. When the poor steal from the rich it is not theft, for God gave the world to us all. In fact, I am committing theft so long as I refuse to share with my needy neighbour, for the right to life trumps the right to personal property. The poor claiming their rightful entitlement is not simply benevolent generosity or enlightened self-interest on our parts, it is a matter of justice.

He talked about how most of the economic flows in the world are from poor to rich – debt repayment, agricultural tariffs, MNC profits, corrupt politicians squirreling money away to first world tax havens, the brain drain of educated professionals etc. He argued that justice for the poor must be seen in the wider context of shalom, the concept of full human flourishing described in the Bible. Shalom characterises a right relationship with God, with all of creation, with others and with ourselves. Poverty must be understood as a lack of resources overall, for grave economic inequality undermines social solidarity. We cannot separate discussions of poverty from social inequality and domination. A relational approach to poverty would focus, not just on the ends, but also on the means of economic improvement – there is a need to dismantle the relations of domination and exploitation that currently exist in the global economic system.

Perhaps, just perhaps, said Dr. Ramachandra, we need the poor far more than they need us.

We need them to show us our irrationality, our wastefulness, our emptiness, our greed, and our idolatry.

Maybe, just maybe, we are the ones that are in need of human development.

Happy Chinese New Year: A Certain Hope

We celebrated Chinese New Year with 4 consecutive days of (over)-eating, culminating in a big potluck party in our building where everyone demonstrated, most admirably, their culinary skills. Cherfy and I went on a big shopping spree in the depths of Chinatown (for truly, that's where all the good groceries can be found - not in the touristy bits) and we made char kway tiao and gulau melaka. More accurately, I followed Cherfy's competent instructions as best as I could (I am sous-chef, she is master chef, or, master Cherf - excuse the corniness, it's a festive-holiday affliction). Our dishes turned out great, and Cherfy also baked lots of scrumptious Chinese cookies. She is indeed culinary goddess.

Because three and a half years overseas turns almost everyone into culinary god/ goddess, we also had super yummy Indian curry, Hainanese chicken rice, fried bee hoon, dates wrapped in bacon, and nasi briyani. One of our friends also bought some excellent fried chicken wings. We even managed to buy a lo hei set from a Malaysian restaurant in Chinatown, and so we all happily tossed away.

We also had three steamboats going with all kinds of meat, seafood and vegetables. For desserts we had brownies, peppermint cake, our gulau melaka, and delicious cakes from Payard (fancy-pants Upper East Side bakery). We had about 20 people crowded onto our floor - it's a good thing that we live on the mezzanine because the little indoor balcony area just outside our kitchen afforded us with extra space. And because we had so much food, the very next day we had a leftover party. So really, we had prepared exactly double the amount of food that we needed. We all decided that it was a very good sign that we had started out the year with such abundance.

There was much merriment and festivity, but towards the end of the night it was also tinged with a distinct sense of regret and nostalgia. This was to be, for many of us, our last Chinese New Year overseas, our last year away from home. And in any leaving and returning, there is always a bittersweetness in letting go of one place and returning to another. In all the years of flying back and forth between the two sides of the earth this has become a familiar sensation, and yet this time around it is compounded because we are going back for good. Of course I am greatly looking forward to spending time with family and friends after such a long separation, but at the other side of the plane ride is not just another summer holiday, but really, the rest of our lives. We do not only leave New York, we leave behind the last of our carefree student existence.

Hello, real world.

But even though leaving always leaves me feeling a little heavy-hearted, I have a certain hope.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Jeremiah 29:11

Wishing everyone a very happy
and prosperous Chinese new year.

Sweet Endings and New Beginnings

These winter holidays have been truly wonderful - it was with no small amount of regret that I bid the last of my friends goodbye and saw it all come to an end. It was a joyous time of meeting up with friends, both new and old. New York at Christmas, though thronging with tourists, is an endless treasure chest of fun. We watched Wynton Marsalis and his band rip up the stage with some festive, red-hot stomping jazz at Lincoln Centre. We also sat in, and attempted to join in (with 2000 other people), the annual Handel's Messiah sing-in - most of the time I just sat there in awe, letting the beautiful choral singing wash over me.

The great thing about having friends visit is that you can unabashedly go do all the touristy things that "real New Yorkers" (something that we sometimes aspire to be) don't ever do. Taking pictures in Central Park, going to the UN, going on the CNN tour, watching the sun set atop the Empire State building (after watching King Kong no less), hitting all the museums and art galleries (MoMA was especially fun - they had a Pixar exhibition), taking the harbour cruise (and nearly freezing to death in the process), going to see the big Christmas tree at Rockefeller Centre... And of course, who could forget the transit strike? I don't think I've ever walked that much in my life. We walked over 50 blocks to get to Lincoln Centre, and even further to go ice-skating in the Park. It was definitely worth it, but thank God the strike didn't last for long. It was amazing that we even managed to make it to Boston (many thanks to a kind friend), in our bid to escape the strike. But of course, the strike ended just after we arrived there.

Kenneth hosted a fantastic Christmas party which saw 25 Singaporeans gather in his apartment for a gourmet feast - lovingly prepared by the man himself and his lovely assistants. We contributed mulled cider to the kingly spread, and I am happy to say that it went down very well. I have developed a decided liking for the stuff, especially since cider in this country is non-alcoholic. There was also much boisterous carol singing and enthusiastic Taboo-playing.

We heralded in the new year watching fireworks explode over the Statue of Liberty at Battery Park (the clever alternative to squishing with a million other people in Times Square). Then we were off to Mount Poconos in Pennsylvania, for a week of skiing, snow-tubing and snow-fighting. While we were there we also had the opportunity to go on a horse-ride through snow-covered woods, and on our last day there we chanced upon a frozen lake.

As the sun set we walked on water.

In this season of warmth and love, we remember the greatest love of all. We celebrate the birth of He who was born to die so that we all might live. And we remember that everything we have, is truly a blessing. Most of all, we remember the ultimate gift of love, bought at infinite price, bestowed upon the deeply undeserving.

I think that it is so apt that Christmas segueways into the New Year. Why do people celebrate the New Year? I think that we all want second chances and new beginnings. Reinvention and rebirth. Bridging the chasm between the ideal and the reality. Yearning to be so much more. For in the midst of all this abundance there is so much want. And in the midst of all this laughter there are so many tears.

The last night we spent together we watched Rent. I love that musical - the music is fantastic. And it is true that everything (here and now, anyway) is rent. This is all fleeting, and nothing here lasts forever. No day but today. Right?

For all the soaring harmony and uplifting voices, I walked out of the musical a little heavy hearted. The couples in the musical sing of love with such conviction, but conclude that it will all pass away. But there is a forever to be had. And it is no mere coincidence that we often speak of love in the language of eternity (I will always love you). Because God came to earth as a little baby, living the life we should have lived, and dying the death that we should have died, so that we can have forever in Him. And this is the transforming love that gives new life. This is our second chance. And this is our new beginning.

Happy New Year everyone.

Mount Poconos, Pennsylvania

Remembering You

Steven Curtis Chapman

I found You in the most unlikely way

But really it was You who found me

And I found myself in the gifts that You gave

You gave me so much and I

I wish You could stay

but I'll, I'll wait for the day

And I watch as the cold winter melts into spring

And I'll be remembering You

Oh and I'll smell the flowers and hear the birds sing

and I'll be remembering You, I'll be remembering You

From the first moment when I heard Your name

Something in my heart came alive

You showed me love and no words could explain

A love with the power to

Open the door

To a world I was made for

And I watch as the cold winter melts into spring

And I'll be remembering You

Oh and I'll smell the flowers and hear the birds sing

and I'll be remembering

The dark night, the hard fight

The long climb up the hill knowing the cost

The brave death, the last breathe

The silence whispering all hope was lost

The thunder, the wonder

A power that brings the dead back to life

I wish You could stay

But I'll wait for the day

And though You've gone away

You'll come back

And I watch as the cold winter melts into spring

And I'll be remembering You

Oh and I'll smell the flowers and hear the birds sing

and I'll be remembering You, I'll be remembering You

And I'll watch as the sun fills a sky that was dark

And I'll be remembering You

And I'll think of the way that

You fill up my heart

And I'll be remembering You

I'll be remembering You

I'll be remembering You

I'll be remembering You

I'll be remembering You

from Music Inspired by The Chronicles of Narnia

Christmas Tidings

Happy Birthday Jesus!

And a Very Happy Christmas to all!


For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. - Isaiah 9:6

First Snow at Columbia

I'm feeling hopelessly Christmassy.

Autumn in Princeton

For Serene.

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;
let your glory be over all the earth.
Psalm 57:11

As Saint Frances prayed, "It is in giving that we recieve, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."

To those with ears to hear and eyes to see, there will be very great release from unbearable burdens in the language of autumn trees, for example, when they dress most gloriously in preparation for death. The red of the leaves is the sign of the cross.

Winter follows, when snow closes everything in frozen silence. The trees then are skeletons, but wonders are being performed under the surface of things. Spring comes, and the hidden wonders burst out all at once - tiny shoots, swelling buds, touches of green and red where all seemed hopeless the day before.

If the leaves had not been let go to fall and wither, if the tree had not consented to be skeleton for many months, there would be no new life rising, no bud, no flower, no fruit, no seed, no new generation.
Elisabeth Elliot in 'Passion and Purity'


The earth spins and the moon goes round
The green comes from the frozen ground
And everything will be made new again
like freedom in spring
'Golden' by Switchfoot

Liberalism, the Gospel and the Truth II

I had intended to do a series of posts chronicling the 15-day long birthday fete (Cherfy's declaration was very prophetic indeed) but I only managed 5 days. I find myself desperately short of time. In conclusion: much fun and too much cake was had. Janice bought a very yummy ice-cream cake (the 4th one!) - thank you Janice!

I am ever so thankful for all my wonderful friends.

This is a post that I'd written earlier and had intended to post but I somehow forgot, so here it is now.


I had thought that it was pretty clear in my Wednesday Oct 19 entry about Liberalism, Christianity and competing truth-claims that I was not advocating the overthrow of the liberal state. But on further consideration and conversation with the ever-thoughtful Cherfy, I see how I might have been mistaken. I have no wish to forcibly foist my views onto anyone, like I said I fully respect your right to your beliefs, and I do apologise if you felt offended by the entry. I was of course simply expressing my views on the matter in a personal capacity, in the hope that it would open up meaningful dialogue. And so to that end, I seek here to clarify my stance.

My previous entry was primarily about the hypocrisy of liberalism on the issue of intolerance and the nature of competing truth claims. It was not an all-out attack on the liberal state. I did state categorically that I believed in the separation of church and state, democracy and the right to individual choice. If that does not give you a liberal democracy, I really don't know what does.

Further more, liberal democracy is itself is built on a lot of Christian principles - the fallibility of men and the moral equality of all. C.S. Lewis claimed that the best argument for democracy is not that men are good enough to govern themselves, but that men are so bad none can be trusted with absolute power. In his "I Have A Dream" speech, Martin Luther King powerfully proclaimed, "Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children."

A liberal democracy, while not perfect, is the least worst of all available options.

Also, I do not advocate political revolution as such, because as I have said, I do not think that that is what fundamentally addresses our deepest problems. The darkness that sits within each of our hearts can only be dealt with by personal acceptance of the gospel.

The gospel is not a system of morality that can be externally imposed by any secular power. It is not a set of laws that can be enforced. It is not something that anyone else, or any governmental organisation, can make you do. God uses people to reach other people, that is why it is so important to share the gospel, sensitively, respectfully and lovingly. (Of course this is not how it always is because we are all fallen, but this is the way it should be.) Ultimately, believing the gospel is something that is entirely between you and God.

In the beautiful words of Martin Luther King (again), "Evil can be cast out, not by man alone nor by a dictatorial God who invades our lives, but when we open the door and invite God through Christ to enter. 'Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.' God is too courteous to break open the door, but when we open it in faith believing, a divine and human confrontation will transform our sin-ruined lives into radiant personalities."

The gospel is an individual understanding of what God has done for you. I am broken and self-absorbed. I do not love the one who created me and gave me every good thing, in fact, most of the time I do not acknowledge him and I live my life the way I please. I do not love my neighbour as myself. I am part of the reason why the world is the way it is. I am why I find it hard to read the news every morning because there is always something new that's wrong with the world.

But I have a certain hope, that this is not all there is, that our brokennes is not all there is to this world. Because there is one who has traversed every inch of the distance between the way things are and the way they should be. The infinite distance between our brokenness and the perfect beauty of God. Jesus descended to the depths in our place, on our behalves, that we might be lifted up and reconciled to God.

I am affirmed because God loved me enough to save me when I was least deserving. And I am humbled because there is nothing I can do to save myself. It isn't because I am cleverer, because I have read extensively and thought deeply, that I have come to believe what I believe. God found me. He came knocking at my door. And so even if you disagree with me, I do not look at you with eyes of pity, and wonder why you are so blind. We are all blind. But God, in his infinite love and mercy, reached out to us and showed us the way. It is not for anything that I have done, there is no pride, but for everything that he has done for me.

When I see how broken I am, yet how beautiful God is, when I see how far I was from God and how far he came to find me, this changes everything.

And this is why I believe in a liberal democracy because this is the only system under which there is freedom of belief, freedom to commune with God (or not to) as individuals exercising our God-given free will. I have no wish to forcibly impose my views on you. I suppose this is where I part company with the fundamentalist Christian right. My feeling is that though important, our biggest problem is not whether they teach evolution in schools, and that time and resources can probably be better spent in other ways, rather than brandishing our rights against others in political combat, but of course this is just me. All I ask for is open, respectful dialogue.

Individual faith worked out in community with others should be a thing of great beauty. My prayer is that we as Christians are so radically transformed by the saving grace of God that we pour out our lives into service, that we seek first to give instead of to gain at the expense of others, that we love as God loved - sacrificially, without pride and with no prejudice (I loved that book by the way), and that we become the revolution. Not a political revolution, but a gospel revolution, so that others may see the beauty of God in our lives and so be attracted and enticed to find out more about its true source.

For force is fleeting and temporal, but beauty transforms, and beauty is eternal.

A Beautiful Surprise

On Saturday night I was totally convinced that Cherfy, Kenneth and I were going to watch Falstaff at Lincoln Centre. I got downstairs to meet them only to find Shuxiang, Mark and Adrian there as well. I thought we were all going for dinner together before the opera. Turns out I was only partially right - we were going to dinner, but there was no opera to go to. I had been completely and utterly duped. I was most impressed. I did not suspect a thing. This was a surprise early birthday dinner (because quite a few people would not be free next weekend, myself included, hopefully - I am on the waiting list for my church's fall retreat).

Cherfy had gone to much trouble to deceive me about Falstaff and Kenneth had rounded up the others. They even gotten in touch with Cass, and Serene and Greg came all the way down to New York too! I called Janice at the very last minute and she braved the pouring rain to come uptown. I was very, very touched by it all.

We went to Carmine's on West 90th Street, a big bustling Italian restaurant where all the food comes in jumbo family portions and everyone shares everything (think the Chinese version of Italian food). We had to wait almost 3 hours for a table - I kid you not. Very New York. On the weekends, all the good places to eat are just packed to the brim. Carmine's also refused to take reservations and big parties are always harder to seat. Most of the time was spent rather enjoyably in raucous conversation in the comfort of a nearby Starbucks. The wait was not in vain - the food was most excellent and the size of the portions bordering on obscene. We rounded off the meal with a yummy tiramisu cake and they insisted on singing Happy Birthday in Chinese, and then in Malay, because everyone else was singing it in English. I was deeply embarrassed but also greatly tickled, not knowing whether to laugh or to hide under the table.

After dinner a few of us went on an impromptu road trip up to Princeton - Greg had driven up to New York and so we gave Serene a lift home after dropping Cass and Janice off downtown. The random road trip turned out to be much fun even though there was some initial protestation on Serene's part - she didn't want us to be driving around so late. But we didn't want her to be travelling on public transport so late all the way back to rural Princeton, and we really weren't taking no for an answer.

The freeways were clear and Jersey city spread out before us in a sea of light. As we were approaching Princeton, we saw a deer dancing on the green.

We got back to Manhattan around 4am. I crashed straight into bed, only to be woken by numerous phonecalls. We were brunching in Chinatown. We had yummy northern dim sum at Shanghai Cafe - that woke me right up. Cherfarn pointed out that my birthday had become an 15-day long fête - like Chinese New Year. I very much liked the sound of that. Just like all my other birthdays, I even have an exam very close to it - I have an oral French mid-term this Friday. All part of the celebrations of course.

Janice and I were going to drop by her apartment but we took a wrong train and ended up in Brooklyn. It was a lovely accidental trip. She suggested we go to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and so go there we did. The views overlooking the East River and Manhattan were stunning. The weather was perfect - clear skies sprinkled with clouds, a crisp breeze and gentle sunshine. It was so beautiful, I was almost taken by surprise.

This whole weekend in fact, has just been one beautiful surprise.

Thank you all.

Brooklyn Heights Promenade

From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets,
the name of the LORD is to be praised.
Psalm 113:3

Liberalism, the Gospel and the Truth

Today we had our last seminar session with Professor G. A. Cohen - we had done this seminar series at double speed (two sessions a week) because he's only here for 7 weeks. He leaves for Oxford tomorrow. I attended Prof Cohen's lectures while I was in Oxford, so I was thrilled beyond words to find out that he would be visiting Columbia for 7 weeks this term. I somehow managed to get into his oversubscribed class, and I've really enjoyed these 7 weeks.

I attended Prof Cohen's Plato lectures 3rd year in Oxford. This series of seminars that have just concluded were about the most recent debates in liberal political philosophy, centering mainly around justice and equality (Rawls, Dworkin and Cohen et al). While at Oxford, I dabbled in all the philosophy between Plato and contemporary liberalism, covering ethics and metaphysics in the process. But my favourite subject area of philosophy is still political philosophy. I suppose it's fitting that I got to take this seminar on contemporary political philosophy with Prof Cohen, because he is the one who gave me an introduction to the earliest important political philosophy that we know (we covered the Sophists as well).

I love political philosophy.

I love it because it speaks to our fundamental dissatisfaction with the way things are and our deep desire for the way things should be. All good political philosophy seeks change, from Plato to Rawls, Dworkin and Cohen. It is fuelled by discontent and a ceaseless searching for radical improvement.

But you see, as much I love political philosophy, I do not think that it is the answer to our problems. And becoming better acquainted with it over the years has just made me more certain of my basic convictions.

I have been mulling over the tension between secular philosophy and faith-based theology for a while now. One of the most fundamental clashes between Christianity and liberalism turns on the issue of religious conversion. Christians are called to proclaim the gospel in the hope that others will also believe and be "converted" (but of course the question of how we are to best proclaim the gospel is in no way straightforward). It was this Sunday at church that Tim Keller gave a most brilliant exposition of the conflict, and it's resolution.

We underestimate how pervasive and deep rooted our white, Western Enlightenment, philosophically liberal assumptions are. When we insist that encouraging religious conversion is intolerant, we subscribe to a view of expressive individualism, which we hold and which we, by the same token, try our darndest to convert others to.

To be converted by a non-innate, comprehensive view of reality is unavoidable. We are all converted. The question is - which view of reality do you subscribe to? Which view of reality are you converted by? As Charles Taylor (also of Oxford) wisely said, 'Liberalism is a fighting creed'. It is one truth-claim among many - just ask the Islamic fundamentalists.

One question I used to frequently ask my trenchantly liberal friend was "If you are so liberal, why can't you accept a "conservative" point of view?" Political liberalism is hardly the benign, magnanimous, all-inclusive, endlessly tolerant and wonderfully cuddly philosophy that it is sometimes made out to be. It is one conditional truth-claim among many. It just so happens to be the dominant truth-claim in modern Western societies, which, of all the societies in the world today, have the most global economic and political clout.

Christianity's view of things is a view of reality based on faith. The modern liberal view that says that, you mustn't convert people because all religions are subjectively valuable, and no one religion is more objectively more true than another, is similarly a view of reality based on faith. It also takes faith to not have faith.

If it's narrow to say that one religion is the right one, then it is just as narrow to say that one view of religion (i.e. that they are all equal) is the right one. To say that you musn't convert people because all religions are subjectively valuable, and no one religion is more objectively more true than another, is a view that you are saying is the right one. And it's more right than the Christian one, or the Muslim one or the Jewish one etc.

So when you say that you mustn't try to convert people to a non-innate, comprehensive view of reality, you are trying to do the very thing that you forbid.

Can people be intolerant when they are trying to convert others? Sure they can. You can be intolerant with your attitude, you can be arrogant and haughty, you can be rude and insensitive, and you can be coercive and manipulative in your tactics. (This is absolutely against what the Bible teaches of course - we are to be loving in all that we do. It's a sad fact that we often fail to do so, but our inadequacies are our own, not God's. In fact, it is only because of God that we have any hope of rising above ourselves at all.)

But when you say that anyone who is trying to convert someone else to their worldview is, on principle, intolerant, then you are being a hypocrite.

Conversion to a non-innate, comprehensive view of reality that changes your whole life, and then seeking to convert other people, is unavoidable.

Does this commit me to a theocracy? Hardly. Christianity has a strict separation between church and state; Jesus said with regard to tax-paying "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." (Matt 22:21)

Does this mean I oppose democracy? Not at all. I don't trust anyone to be vested with a disproportionate, unchecked amount of power, least of all myself. And I do firmly believe that we were all created equal. In fact, it was the Christian doctrine of the moral equality of men (we are all equally capable of knowing God, and we are all equally loved by God) that was a significant factor in fuelling the democratic revolution that brought down the monarchies of Europe. It has even been argued to have produced capitalism. (For an interesting, though rather biased, argument for this see Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic.)

However, this does mean that I am not entirely comfortable with the truth-claim that liberalism makes about the subjectivity of all religion. But as I said, my persuasions are essentially democratic. I believe that you have as much right to believe what you do, as I do. There is no point forcibly foisting views upon others - religious conversion needs to be genuine and personal, if not it's better not to be converted at all. God gave us all free will and I absolutely believe in our individual right to choose.

But what we should all recognise is that we are all trying to convert each other to some extent; the Liberal, just as much as the Christian. Liberals are just as "evangelical" as Christians are, the only difference is that there are far more of them in positions of power.

You cannot avoid truth-claims.

The question is, which truth claim leads to embrace of people who are different than you, and which truth claim leads you to scorn people who oppose you as fools? Which truth claim leads to genuine community? Which truth claim both humbles and affirms you, so that you are not afraid of people who disagree with you, nor can you despise them?

This one. Jesus died for all of us. For you. And for me.

If I build my name on being liberal, then I am going to despise conservatives.

If I build my name on moral and traditional values, I am going to despise liberals.

If I build my name on being hardworking, I am going to despise people who are lazy.

But if I build my name on what Jesus Christ did for me, paying for my sins by dying on the cross, paying the price that I could never pay, dying in my place, so that I can have eternal life with God, now and forever more, how can I feel superior to anyone?

The only way we have eternal love, the only way we have heaven, is not because we are better than anyone in any way whatsover, not because of anything that we have done, not because of anything that we can do, but because of everything that God has already done for us. And understanding this truly amazing grace both humbles and affirms you. I am more sinful than I ever before believed, but infinitely more loved than I ever dared hope.

My identity is built on somebody who was excluded for me, who was cut off from the land of the living on my behalf, who loved his enemies even at the point of death, and that is going to turn me into someone who embraces. That is what should be the basis for the new human community that this world so desperately needs.

I simply do not think that secular philosophy is capable of fundamentally altering our motivations and changing our hearts, as much as it strives to. Thinking of cleverer institutions does not fundamentally change the way we are, and intellectual theories about ethics and morality do not really have a widespread and deep enough grip on the human soul (see also The Revolution).

But knowing God changes everything.

This is the real change.

This is the revolution.

In this entry I have borrowed extensively from the sermons of Tim Keller. For more of his general brilliance check out Redeemer Presbyterian Vision Campaign Sermons

Chris Tomlin Indescribable Tour (ft Matt Redman)

At first I was uncertain about whether to go for the concert but in the end I was so very glad that I went. Chris Tomlin's music turned out to be much better than I expected (he sang lots of stuff from his new album, Arriving) and Matt Redman, whose music I've always liked (Blessed Be Your Name is one of my favourite songs, ever), got quite a bit of stage time too. In a way, the concert was like a big flashy church service, with really cool graphics and fantastic sound and lighting effects. But the best part was that the concert wasn't about any of that or either of them and their status as music stars. The words of the songs came up on screen and everyone sang along. We were all singing to an audience of one. I think it's so human to want to sing when you're happy. When your soul is full of joy, when your feet are full of dancing, and your heart is full of song. I sing because I'm happy, I sing because I'm free, His eye is on the sparrow, and He watches over me.


Indescribable
by Chris Tomlin

From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea
Creation's revealing Your majesty
From the colors of fall to the fragrance of spring
Every creature unique in the song that it sings
All exclaiming

Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky
and You know them by name
You are amazing God

All powerful, untameable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing God

Who has told every lightning bolt where it should go
Or seen heavenly storehouses laden with snow
Who imagined the sun and gives source to its light
Yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night
None can fathom

Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name
You are amazing God

Incomparable, unchangeable
You see the depths of my heart
and You love me the same
You are amazing God
You are amazing God

"He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name."

Psalm 147:4

"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?"

Psalm 8:2-4