Laura Ferris, Cliff Mak, John Montague

Letter from the Editors

— Originally published in print // Permalink

Dear Reader,

If you have taken a tour of Cal in the past couple of years, you may have heard that Berkeley is the Athens of the West Coast. Included in the collection of classical baggage that comes along with this epitaph is the idea of the Areopagus, where scholars of the ancient world debated the hot issues of their day. People who come to Berkeley expect to find this forum, where they can unpack their basket of thoughts and see what everyone else has brought to the table.

You see, the people of Berkeley are in every way very religious. Anyone who has run the flyer gauntlet on Sproul or walked frat row on a Friday night or lifted weights at the RSF on a Monday morning can see that Cal students are actively engaged in daily worship: honoring and seeking purpose, connection, excellence, and, occasionally, fun. We’re even willing to honor the unknown in life, at least for a little while, talking about and listening to the latest ideas as we bake cookies at our co-op or drink coffee at Strada or sprawl on Memorial Glade on a sunny day. And yet, we all have a little altar in our minds to an unknown god, a place where we’ll go when the party’s over, when the last sip of coffee turns cold, when the fog rolls in, and fall to our knees and ask, “Why?” And when we begin to search for meaning, when we begin to devote ourselves to the cult of the unknown god and ask “Why?” wholeheartedly, the question eventually becomes “Who?”

Knowledge is power. And too often we forget that knowledge or power comes from somewhere or someone. With so much out there to know and so much power in play, do we have the courage and wisdom to seriously ask, “Who is this unknown god?”

Welcome to the journal. To An Unknown God is a journal of Christian thought at Berkeley, and it is a forum where nothing is off the table, not even our “why.” But, be warned, we’re a people devoted to knowing the unknown God, “for in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). We want answers, but we want to be answered even more. In this issue you will encounter some strong opinions, transformed lives, and poetry that reflect the writers’ engagement with a verse of Christian scripture: “He has shown all you people what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). We invite you to join the debate, break out the cookies and coffee, and to ask your own questions as we ask ourselves, “What should Christian social justice look like?”

Sincerely,
Laura Ferris
Cliff Mak
John Montague