Author: Houghton STAR

Over the past year, COVID-19 has forced us all to sacrifice something personal. Whether it be the friendships we made along the way or the hope for an indoor 21st birthday party with 75 of your closest friends, everyone has lost something. 

Houghton College has, since its inception, held certain fundamental values that remain unwavering. Some of these values include: the inescapable terror that ensues while crossing Roth Bridge in the winter as well as the belief that all students, regardless of background, should have an existential crisis whenever they walk down the stairs to the KPAC and must decide if they want to leap to make each step or take multiple tiny steps on each level. 

Though COVID-19 has not affected these character building experiences that all Houghton students come to value, the pandemic has not spared all. An irrefutable truth held closest by many Houghton students is the right to a Ring By Spring. This right has never been infringed upon in Houghton’s past, but with the unique threat presented by COVID-19, it is becoming more apparent that this right will no longer be taken for granted. 

As students returned to campus in the fall, with fresh watch tans and a naive hope that Houghton was a tropical resort, the prowling freshmen looking for connection and the overconfident upperclassmen felt a roadblock never encountered before. With the introduction of social distancing and masking, students could no longer enjoy their usual obsessive public displays of affection in even the most secluded locations such as the Van Dyk Lounge and Big Als. No one could have imagined the emotional toll that such restrictions would have on students, but the impact became apparent quickly as the semester progressed. 

For those students practicing the coveted “Big Three,” days grew longer and lips remained unchapped. I can recall days where a trek from the Music Building to the Campus Center would be met with at least 3 couples scattered in my path. These couples were always noticeably enthralled with one another, unable to recognize the hundreds of other college students surrounding them. Ah, loves bliss. And now? As I make the usual trek across campus, all I see are individuals lacking identity and purpose. 

This serious disparity in Houghton’s usual guarantee that 86% of women will graduate with their MRS degree in four years (or less) can only mean ruin for the College in the coming years. Houghton is known for having generational students. If our current generation ignores the responsibility placed upon us to procreate the next generation of Houghton students, then what will become of our beloved institution?

You may be asking yourself, “This surely cannot be so bad?”. But I ask you this: If all of your friends are not getting engaged this spring, then what weddings will you be attending this summer? What will you spend your weekends doing? Who will see your swimsuit tan lines??

You may have heard Dean Jordan refer to a “celebration” of singless. Though this may sound convincing, this is a farce. The administration is covering up this disparaging loss. It is evident that, in a dire attempt to save-face, the higher ups (all of whom are married, I might add) are trying to comfort students who are desperate to enter into their “intentional relationship.” We simply cannot accept this call.

Here is my plea: In order to save Hougton’s promise to each and every student, it is evident that we should implement a spring proposal day where students may and are encouraged to propose to their fellow students (from a safe distance of course) and hope that one sticks. This is more than a fun side benefit from going to college, this is our duty. ★

Collin is a junior majoring in Music Education.

By David Bowers

A couple of weeks ago, the We Are All Houghton project published an open letter in the STAR. The letter argued for some policy changes related to LGBTQ+ issues, with which I take exception. But I’m here to question some of the rhetorical language it uses, which I take to be a symptom of a deeper problem. I think the language of “safety,” as it is understood in many corners of contemporary social discourse, and as it was used in the WAAH letter, acts as a kind of bait-and-switch, and betrays a lack of understanding of what is safe and what is dangerous. This lack of understanding and the associated fuzzy language throw up a smokescreen over the biggest threats humans face, crippling our ability to be truly safe.

The letter urges Houghton to “employ tangible changes in order to make LGBTQ+ students, alumni, and faculty and staff feel welcomed and safe.” Surely safety is a worthy aim? It can be; but the letter fails to define what it means to be safe. In the conventional sense, safety is “the condition of being protected from danger, risk, or injury.” In this sense, I stand staunchly with the LGBTQ+ community against those who would marginalize, bully, or abuse them. It was for this reason that I put my hand print on the rock last semester. But this, unfortunately, is not the sense in which the letter uses the word “safety;” this is the bait.

The letter goes on to “challenge Houghton College to… firmly acknowledge the challenges that LGBTQ+ students face on campus and provides a safe space for them to be who they are without judgment, shame, or controversy.” It then advocates six “first step” policy changes that collectively would undermine Houghton’s identity as a college committed to forming biblical Christians. Safety, for the authors of the letter, seems to be a matter of emotion; the human project, in their account, is to feel safe, regardless of whether those feelings correspond to a reality of being safe. This is the switch.

Please don’t hear me saying that feelings are bad. I think feelings are essential to the Christian life. You can’t be a Christian if you don’t delight in the person and work of Christ. Delight is a feeling. I’ve spent a good bit of my life arguing for this truth. You saw it reflected in the column I wrote in the last issue of the STAR. But feelings can’t float in our heads like jellyfish, stripped of anchor or guide. Feelings must be grounded in truth which does not change. 

Our minds, to use another metaphor, provide the fuel for the flame of our hearts, feeding carefully-discerned truth on which our hearts burn with delight and joy. Have truth without emotion, and you’re as good as a pile of firewood without a fire. Have emotion without truth, and you’re as good as a fire burning the house instead of the logs. There is no useful correlation between feeling safe and being ultimately safe, because our hearts lie to us (Jer. 17:9). Lots of things may feel safe that are not. Pornography, for example—even if it feels safe—is one of the most destructive forces in the modern world. We must use our minds to discern truth in scripture, with the voice of the Christian community to guide us.

So, since we’re looking for truth: what does true safety mean, in the context of a Christian community? I do think there is a good way for Christians to pursue safety for ourselves and for others, in addition to the dictionary definition. The most significant danger that any human faces is hell. Christian community, at its best, is one of the most hardened defenses against that danger for its members—not, of course, in a salvific way, but as a source of accountability against sin. In this sense, Houghton ought indeed to be a safe place as together we keep each other from falling to sins which will consume our souls, whether it’s pride, or pornography, or laziness, or selfishness, or sexual sin of any variety. Christians are safest when they are submitting themselves to God’s word and to the loving, painful accountability of his people.

But there’s another sense in which a Christian community oughtn’t be safe. Christian communities ought to be the most dangerous place in the world for sin. There shouldn’t be a single corner in a Christian community where sin can hide and not be found, dragged out, and killed. Sin dies in the light, but thrives in the dark. And it is that very act of fighting sin together, even when it can feel so risky, which secures true and ultimate safety.

I will not pretend this is not sometimes a hard truth. I know the pain of Christian accountability firsthand. I could never have killed pornography in my life without the searing, burning light of Christian community. Apart from Christian community, I could not now be battling, at great cost, self-centeredness and a lack of empathy. But it’s worth it, for the eternal joy ahead of me. Apart from Christian community, these sins would be killing me. What does all this mean for our community? The Houghton community will fail its members insofar as we fail to commit to the hard work of killing sin together. The WAAH letter seems to conceive of “safety” as a pleasant emotional state or as the absence of discomfort, and implies that Christian accountability is dangerous. This simultaneously obscures the real danger we face and disarms us of one of our principal weapons against it, leaving us defenseless in a battle for our lives. I hope that the LGBTQ+ people at Houghton—many of them my friends—allow the community and the college policies to provide hard, loving accountability to them, as they do for most of us. I hope they will forgive us for the many times when our accountability has not come from a place of Christian love and support. And I hope dearly that they will continue to be a source of accountability to me as we all seek to submit our feelings to the safe scrutiny of Scripture. The battle to be holy is hard, but we need to fight it together. ★

David is a senior majoring in Intercultural Studies with a concentration in Linguistics.

By Megan Brown (’22)

It seems a little redundant to state that we are all a little bit stressed. Turn to any of your classmates who may have blank stares and blank expressions hidden beneath their masks or even your roommate who has been zoning out at their laptop all day, and you will see that this semester is taking a toll on us. Couple regular school stress with no breaks in the semester, except Good Friday, add in stress because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it becomes perfectly clear why students at Houghton College feel the way they do. This semester was a poor time to remove all breaks because students are already at a heightened chance of burnout due to stress caused by COVID-19.

To make sure we are working from the same base, I am using the Merriam Webster definition of burnout, which is “exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration.” A normal college semester already leaves students vulnerable to burnout. Fifteen intense weeks of projects, tests, and extracurriculars alone can make us tired and prone to frustration. We know how we perform during college is often pertinent in getting jobs we desire in the future, so that stress of doing well adds up from week to week, from test to test. Removing a reprieve for students during a regular semester would be difficult for us to push through, but with the added stress of living through a pandemic that affects the we we must live our lives for the past year, it is no wonder why many of us are dealing with heightened exhaustion and frustration.

One way we often deal with stress to avoid burnout is by hanging out with friends. Humans are social creatures, and I think even the most introverted introvert may be beginning to feel that need for some basic social interaction. Being with the people we love and sharing our struggles is recommended for dealing with stress and trauma, but the irony of the matter is that due to COVID-19, to best take care of our friends we need to limit our interactions with people. Our circles must be smaller. When we do get to hang out with others, there now exists a subconscious nagging of “Am I going to get someone sick? Or is someone going to get me sick?” That is its own stressor, and that can add up, too. While we cannot take a break from the reality this pandemic has plunked us into, we can take a break from school, which would help ease some of the stress students are under.

I understand that if students were to leave during breaks, that would potentially add to the spread of the virus and put our campus at a significantly greater risk of shutting down because of an outbreak. That too would increase stress, as people’s lives would be put at risk and many could be put into quarantine. Because of this combination of immense stress due to COVID-19 and currently having no officially set academic breaks (the “snow days” this Monday and Tuesday only encourage professors to give students the day off), burnout will continue to occur.

To speak further about the encouraged off days that are happening this Monday and Tuesday, they are a nice gesture while also being a bit haphazard. These reading days were not planned when professors created their schedules, and because of this, some professors, especially ones that lead lab classes, and their students cannot participate in the reading days. Therefore, not every student will have a break early this week where they can relax and take a mental health moment before the final push to the end of the semester. Students should have an equal opportunity to avoid burnout by having the same breaks.

As we are nearing the last month of the semester, I urge our Houghton community to look to our neighbors who are burnt out and who may be short-tempered. We must have compassion and be slow to anger towards them. I know for me this is not always easy, especially when I am exhausted myself. However, if we all look towards each other and are a little bit more patient, especially in the moment when we desperately do not want to be, this could begin to chip away at our collective college student stress. ★

Megan is a junior majoring Writing and Communication with a concentration in Media Arts and Visual Communication.

By Samantha Gorski (’23)

When you think of the word “Dissonance,” what exactly comes to mind? Music majors might think of the sudden disharmony between chords. Psychology majors, like myself, think of contradictory beliefs or values. But either way, the word “dissonance” perfectly sums up my 2020 in a nutshell. Like everyone else you’ve heard talk about COVID-19, the pandemic took a toll on me that was completely unexpected. A lot of my expectations for the year went out the window, along with my sense of trust that things would happen the way that they were supposed to. But unlike everyone else, the pandemic also robbed me of my faith, which I unknowingly left unguarded. Only now, in the Spring of 2021, am I finally reclaiming what I internally lost and finding my way back to a God that never left.

If I were to ask the entire campus how COVID has impacted them, I don’t believe a single person would say their life got better last March. Social isolation and country-wide closings don’t exactly make for a happy lifestyle. But, for an introvert like me, I figured it wouldn’t be too bad. It could only last a couple weeks (which I’d peacefully spend at home), right?

Wrong. So wrong. I think once COVID ran into summertime, I knew something was different about myself. I was making rash decisions, not caring about consequences because it seemed like the things I had planned for myself were gone anyways, so what could it hurt? I rarely thought about God, was skipping church, barely prayed, and listened to secular music. Where the heck was the version of myself that started out at Houghton College with the hopes of becoming stronger in my faith? Where was the sophomore in high school that was already committed to Houghton before she even visited? The girl who knew she was home as soon as she stepped out of the car? Because she was nowhere to be found, and a defiant teenager was in her place all because of a pandemic that no one thought would last this long. I knew the beautiful thing about college was that you could rewrite yourself, start new. But what if you didn’t like who you were becoming? Actually missed your old self? Then what?

So yeah, I was a dissonant mess. An unfaithful servant at best. Yet, the beautiful thing about God is He tends to leave the 99 for the 1. In my fallen mess, He found me once again and lifted me up. And now, I can’t lie and say that I suddenly felt better, that COVID didn’t matter to me, or that my life was suddenly on track. But I knew what I needed to do to feel better, and it was possibly the best realization of my life. I needed God.    

I remember finding a safe haven in Josh Garrels music. And then Switchfoot. And then We the Kingdom. My playlist evolved. Going on walks with earbuds in, stopping and noticing the nature around me. Saying to God, “I might not be happy right now, but gee the leaves sure do look pretty and I thank You for that.” Going to church, finding meaning in the worship music, and applying the pastoral message to my life. Actually reading Scripture and… wait for it… enjoying it. I can confidently say that my faith is at an all-time high right now.

However, I didn’t want to give you the message that my life is perfect now, or that I won’t fall again. Because it will surely happen; we’re all human after all. I’ve still had some rough days and had to remind myself that someone will always be beside me in the fire. But I felt compelled to tell my 2020 journey in case COVID has hurt you as well. If you’re struggling a lot to feel God’s presence, I want you to know that you’re not alone no matter how much it might feel like you are. God will welcome you back to His side with unfailing arms. Always. And that was something that a global pandemic had to teach me. I don’t think I’d ever value my faith as highly if life was perfect. And for that, for all the struggling and unrest, for all the dissonance,  I’m thankful. ★

Samantha is a sophomore majoring in Psychology and Intercultural Studies, with a minor in Diversity Studies.