Note: All views shared on this blog are my own & not necessarily reflective of my employer or church. Email me with any questions: berg.andrewt@gmail.com.
I was born in Newburgh, New York, in a hospital room overlooking the wide Hudson River and the towering mountains that graced its shores: Mount Beacon, Storm King Mountain, Breakneck Ridge, Black Rock, and others. Mountains figure large in my life, not least because my surname “Berg” literally means “mountain” or “fortress” in the tongue of my Swedish ancestors. Perhaps fittingly, my family enjoys hiking, forests, and clambering up whatever high points we can find to enjoy God’s creation in the Hudson Valley.
My other family name, “Throckmorton,” hails from a noble Catholic family in England, who dipped their toes in infamy when they aided Guy Fawkes in his failed plan to assassinate the oppressive Protestant government in the November 5th Gunpowder Plot. I like to think that, while I am not Catholic, some of their religious zealousness still flow in my veins, willing to strive against against fellow Christians who defame Christ’s name in the pursuit of power.
Besides Sweden and England, my ancestry hails from Italy and Germany/France. My Italian ancestors immigrated to the United States in a time when they faced heavy racism and persecution, to such an extent that my maternal grandmother, June Bellott(i), falsely claimed to be French up until her wedding day, when her half of the chapel made her true culture quite obvious! My German/France side originates, or so it is said, from the Alsace-Lorraine province in modern day France, a culturally mixed region on the border of Germany that has switched owners so many times it has developed its own unique identity.
From these roots, I grew up in a loving, supportive, upper middle-class family with two parents and a younger sister. We attended Trinity Lutheran Church, an enigmatic and wonderful congregation that featured a mix of Lutheran liturgy, modern preaching, and charismatic outpourings of the Spirit, not to mention a dose of more typical right-wing evangelicalism. I attended a Christian private elementary school, and then was homeschooled in middle school. For high school, I attended Newburgh Free Academy, a massive public school with 1,000 students in its freshman class. I enjoyed some level of success on the debate team and tennis team, as well as playing cello in orchestra and even making it to the All-State orchestra (where I sat in last chair–I was nowhere close in ability to my peers from other parts of New York!). I have many more stories from high school, but that’s a tale for another day. Suffice to say that I graduated high school with the ultimate goal of becoming President of the United States-I thought, perhaps then I can make the world a better place! This was inspired by my belief in Jesus, but also by my political persuasions of the time.
In August 2008, I began attending Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. The thought-provoking liberal arts environment suited me well, where I double majored in political science and history but also led a Bible study with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, helped develop a brand-new debate team, and continued to play cello. My junior year I studied abroad in Jerusalem, an immensely wonderful and complicated experience that left me a bit pessimistic about the possibility of peace-building there. Throughout college, I also attended Veritas, an Anabaptist fellowship in Lancaster PA that continued transforming my theology, imagining what the world could look like if Christians took the words of Jesus seriously and actually valued things like community, peace-building, and social justice.
Ultimately, my pessimism about the ability for political leaders to truly change the world for better, coupled with me gaining a bigger picture of what the good news of Jesus actually entails, led me to want to make the world a better place in a way that Jesus would do–through serving others. After graduating from F&M, I served with Teach For America by teaching middle school science in East Baltimore. I still get choked up with emotion as I think about my students and the things that they have already endured in their lifetime (including having me, a completely inexperienced outsider, as their science teacher!). I’m still so grateful for everyone who walked with me through that experience, which I would rank among the most difficult of my life.
In July 2014, I married Elizabeth Albright, who I had begun dating after we met through InterVarsity at F&M. She had joined InterVarsity as a campus staff minister at Dickinson College, and I decided to join her efforts. Since then we have bought a house here in Carlisle, PA, just two blocks from campus and regularly host students, family, and other guests here. We are heavily involved in our church, New Life Community, which is a major community hub for people facing addiction, homelessness, and poverty. Since 2014 our job with InterVarsity has continued to expand, and we now cover four campuses in Central PA, and have traveled to three continents to lead staff and students to further their spiritual and leadership development.
In terms of my personality, I love Star Wars, philosophy, current events, sarcasm, and good beer. (Is that a personality, or just a list of things I like to consume? And in the US, is there really a difference between the two?) I hope that this blog will provide an outlet for my creative energy without sucking me into the absolute maelstrom that is Facebook/Twitter in an election year.
If you’ve made it this far–God bless you. Let’s hang out sometime.
-Andrew Throckmorton Berg