Crossroads: Where Love and Faith Intersect

     The greatest speech ever given was Jesus' Sermon on the Mount Speech, no other speech as stood the test of time as well, and even to this day it is one of the most quoted writings. Even though the speech is still popular, some parts of the speech may be confusing, such as the part that follows the Beatitudes, Matthew Chapter 5, Verse 13, which says, "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and be trampled underfoot." Nowadays, to say to someone that they are the salt of the earth sounds like an insult, but for most of world history this would have been seen as a complement. Salt use to be extremely valuable and the word salary actually comes from the Latin word for salt ( salis). The question arises, who is the salt of the earth? Jesus says "you", but who is the you that he is talking about. Is it the people in attendance at the speech, or ...

     When I was in high school, the neighborhood that I grew up in was less than ideal. At the time I did not know this because I had lived there all of my life and didn't think that the living was sub par. The crowd that I was involved in, is hard to classify, but there is no doubt that they could have been bad influences. Many of my friends did drugs, and committed several cases of vandalism. We were a Parks and Recreation Department's nightmare. (One of my friends actually still uses a park bench he stole as furniture.) Although these friends can be classified as criminals, they are some of the best people that I could have met and I thank God for having them in my life. I still hang out with one of these friends every once in awhile. He usually spends his days drinking, playing guitar, and sleeping on my couch. I once was asked, "Why do you still hang out with this guy?" There also a psalms quote that would go against him being in my presence, "Blessed in ...

      Today, we remember one of the greatest men to have ever walked this earth. As an American, few can hold a candle to him. He sought equal rights for all, he fought for nonviolence, and among all this he was a preacher. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. hopefully will be remembered by all Americans for many years to come and, we hope, that his dream may be fulfilled. From the moment he was born to the moment he was assassinated on that hot April morning in 1968, Dr. King also practised what he preached. I encourage all of you who read this to look up many of Dr. King's sermons on YouTube. He was an immaculate preacher who could grip your attention with the mountains and valleys of his voice. In a sermon called "But If Not", he tells all of us to have the same faith that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did when they disrespected Nebuchadnezzar's order to pray to his golden statue. To have a "though faith" and not an "if faith", meaning to always believ...

One of the most famous passages from the Bible is Mark 10: 17-31. In it, a man walks up to Jesus and asks him what he must do to go to heaven. Jesus told him, "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." At this the man went away sad, because he was wealthy. Then Jesus turned to his disciples and said, "How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." When I heard someone bring this up in my political philosophy class, a began to think what would the kingdom of God would look like on earth. I think it would look a like an egalitarian society, with almost everyone having the same amount of possessions. The reason why I believe this is Jesus' frequent disdain for money and greed. Possessions seem to be the most frequent failing among human beings, causing us to sin. There would be no sin in the kingdom of heaven, thu...

Michelangelo's The Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden            College students should always be in search for knowledge, but the question ought to be asked, "Is the pursuit of knowledge worthwhile?" While many would argue that knowledge is practically worthless, it could also be argued that knowledge has a corrupting effect on human nature, and given the story of the fall of man from Genesis, this appears to be the case. After Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they become corrupted and sinners, and thus all of humanity is also. St. Augustine calls it "original sin", that human beings are corrupt by nature and that this trait has been passed down from Adam to all of us, caused by Adam eating the forbidden fruit. Thus if eating from the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil corrupted all of mankind, this means that knowledge corrupts. This produces a paradox for college students if knowledge is sinful and y...

Today on campus there were hate preachers in the CSU mall causing a lot of heavy sentiments to be thrown from both sides. The preachers undoubtedly chose today to do the demonstration because it is National Coming Out Day, and on the other side of the mall there was the LGBT community handed out popsicles and causing no trouble. Now friends, as you all know, Crossroads is friends with the LGBT community, and acts of hatred against them should be frowned upon by our community. A crowd began to gather around the hate preacher, who stood on top of stool to look down upon us, and from both sides hatred was in the air. I saw one of my friends, who in a big supporter of the LGBT community, light a cigarette and blow the smoke into his face. Shouts of anger and hatred were thrown at him.    I ask of my fellow brothers and sisters, that we not answer hatred with hatred. That is like trying to put out fire with fire, the fire only spreads. We must answer hatred with love, for with lov...