Admiration

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  And a tennis court!” My mother took me places black people never went. She refused to be bound by ridiculous ideas of what black people couldn’t or shouldn’t do. She’d take me to the ice rink to go skating. Johannesburg used to have this epic drive-in movie theater, Top Star Drive-In, on top of a massive mine dump outside the city. She’d take me to movies there; we’d get snacks, hang the speaker on our car window. Top Star had a 360-degree view of the city, the suburbs, Soweto. Up there I could see for miles in every direction. I felt like I was on top of the world. My mom raised me as if there were no limitations on where I could go or what I could do. When I look back I realize she raised me like a white kid—not white culturally, but in the sense of believing that the world was my oyster, that I should speak up for myself, that my ideas and thoughts and decisions mattered. We tell people to follow their dreams, but you can only dream of what you can imagine, and, depending on where you come from, your imagination can be quite limited. Growing up in Soweto, our dream was to put another room on our house. Maybe have a driveway. Maybe, someday, a cast-iron gate at the end of the driveway. Because that is all we knew. But the highest rung of what’s possible is far beyond the world you can see. My mother showed me what was possible. The thing that always amazed me about her life was that no one showed her. No one chose her. She did it on her own. She found her way through sheer force of will. Perhaps even more amazing is the fact that my mother started her little project, me, at a time when she could not have known that apartheid would end. There was no reason to think it would end; it had seen generations come and go. I was nearly six when Mandela was released, ten before democracy finally came, yet she was preparing me to live a life of freedom long before we knew freedom would exist. A hard life in the township or a trip to the colored orphanage were the far more likely options on the table. But we never lived that way. We only moved forward and we always moved fast, and by the time the law and everyone else came around we were already miles down the road, flying across the freeway in a bright-orange, piece-of-shit Volkswagen with the windows down and Jimmy Swaggart praising Jesus at the top of his lungs. People thought my mom was crazy. Ice rinks and drive-ins and suburbs, these things were izinto zabelungu—the things of white people. So many black people had internalized the logic of apartheid and made it their own. Why teach a black child white things?

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  329Lecture 33—Prophetic Religion in Modern Africa reason to trust institutions or the rule of law to hand out real justice, so they turned to the more established way of surviving: depending on the men with power and money. õ Many of these corrupt strongmen (and the more genuine democrats too) turned to religious language and alliances with churches as a way to claim authority at a time when so much in their societies was unstable. Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, even took to calling himself the Osagyefo, meaning the Savior. õ In countries where the federal and local governments were often struggling to provide people with basic services, some Africans came to rely on their church to provide education for their kids, healthcare for their families, or justice in feuds with their neighbors. THEOLOGY AND MODERNITY õ An important query is this: Are churches like the Kimbanguists and Mountain of Fire Ministries helping their members build a more stable, prosperous society, or are they holding Africans back? Theologians and politicians are split on this question. õ Many Western Christians want to atone for centuries of imperialism, and that means admitting that European and North American churches don’t get everything right. Marie-Louise Martin, a Swiss theologian, argued that Westerners could learn from African churches: “Salvation means in Africa that which ‘shalom’ meant for the Hebrews: salvation and healing—not only from infirmity, but salvation in the widest sense.” For Martin, that includes a life that is free from pain, poverty, and oppression. õ Another scholar who offers a positive perspective on new religious movements in Africa is the sociologist Peter Berger. Berger has written about the rise of Pentecostalism across the Global South. And he’s

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  329Lecture 33—Prophetic Religion in Modern Africa reason to trust institutions or the rule of law to hand out real justice, so they turned to the more established way of surviving: depending on the men with power and money. õMany of these corrupt strongmen (and the more genuine democrats too) turned to religious language and alliances with churches as a way to claim authority at a time when so much in their societies was unstable. Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, even took to calling himself the Osagyefo, meaning the Savior. õIn countries where the federal and local governments were often struggling to provide people with basic services, some Africans came to rely on their church to provide education for their kids, healthcare for their families, or justice in feuds with their neighbors. THEOLOGY AND MODERNITY õAn important query is this: Are churches like the Kimbanguists and Mountain of Fire Ministries helping their members build a more stable, prosperous society, or are they holding Africans back? Theologians and politicians are split on this question. õMany Western Christians want to atone for centuries of imperialism, and that means admitting that European and North American churches don’t get everything right. Marie-Louise Martin, a Swiss theologian, argued that Westerners could learn from African churches: “Salvation means in Africa that which ‘shalom’ meant for the Hebrews: salvation and healing—not only from infirmity, but salvation in the widest sense.” For Martin, that includes a life that is free from pain, poverty, and oppression. õAnother scholar who offers a positive perspective on new religious movements in Africa is the sociologist Peter Berger. Berger has written about the rise of Pentecostalism across the Global South. And he’s

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  Working for the family in Soweto, my mom had no more freedom than she’d had in Transkei, so she ran away. She ran all the way down to the train station and jumped on a train and disappeared into the city, determined to sleep in public restrooms and rely on the kindness of prostitutes until she could make her own way in the world. — My mother never sat me down and told me the whole story of her life in Transkei. She’d give me little bursts, random details, stories of having to keep her wits about her to avoid getting raped by strange men in the village. She’d tell me these things and I’d be like, Lady, clearly you do not know what kind of stories to be telling a ten-year-old. My mom told me these things so that I’d never take for granted how we got to where we were, but none of it ever came from a place of self-pity. “Learn from your past and be better because of your past,” she would say, “but don’t cry about your past. Life is full of pain. Let the pain sharpen you, but don’t hold on to it. Don’t be bitter.” And she never was. The deprivations of her youth, the betrayals of her parents, she never complained about any of it. Just as she let the past go, she was determined not to repeat it: my childhood would bear no resemblance to hers. She started with my name. The names Xhosa families give their children always have a meaning, and that meaning has a way of becoming self-fulfilling. You have my cousin, Mlungisi. “The Fixer.” That’s who he is. Whenever I got into trouble he was the one trying to help me fix it. He was always the good kid, doing chores, helping around the house. You have my uncle, the unplanned pregnancy, Velile. “He Who Popped Out of Nowhere.” And that’s all he’s done his whole life, disappear and reappear. He’ll go off on a drinking binge and then pop back up out of nowhere a week later. Then you have my mother, Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah. “She Who Gives Back.” That’s what she does. She gives and gives and gives. She did it even as a girl in Soweto. Playing in the streets she would find toddlers, three- and four-year-olds, running around unsupervised all day long. Their fathers were gone and their mothers were drunks. My mom, who was only six or seven herself, used to round up the abandoned kids and form a troop and take them around to the shebeens. They’d collect empties from the men who were passed out and take the bottles to where you could turn them in for a deposit.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  õ She wasn’t baptized—slave owners were often reluctant to baptize slaves. Doing so might force them to admit that they were holding a fellow Christian in bondage, and it might give slaves the idea that one Christian is equal to another. But she didn’t let that stop her from preaching to the other black women who worked with her. õ One day she heard about a Catholic priest who was baptizing black people on the island, and as soon as she could, she went to him for baptism. She’d been studying the Dutch Protestant faith, but the church she joined seemed to make little difference to her. She took a new Christian name for herself: Rebecca. õ We know Rebecca’s story because she pops up here and there in the archives of some of the churches that had missionaries and priests in the West Indies, in histories of the Dutch East India Company, and in reports that traders and sugar planters wrote about slave rebellions around the islands. õ Sensbach, the historian, had to become a detective to piece all of this together, going from archive to archive and looking for any trace of Rebecca. We don’t even know her maiden name. But the story that Sensbach traced is a great way to introduce the big themes in the history of Christianity among enslaved people in the West. õ The first theme is divine authority. Rebecca claimed God had given her the authority to teach the Christian message. This is a theme we see again and again in religious history: women, slaves, and other oppressed people using direct revelation from God himself as a way to get around the restrictions that those in power imposed on them. Their logic was that it doesn’t matter what a church’s rules are if God says differently. õ The second theme relates to pre-slavery religious traditions. When Rebecca was 18, she met a German missionary named Friedrich Martin from an evangelical group called the Moravian Brethren. Martin saw real potential in Rebecca, who began working with the Moravians and as a paid servant for her former owners. Lecture 19—Slave Religion in the Americas 183

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Tydings would naturally assume the chairmanship of the subcommittee, since it would be a great platform for publicity. Johnson approached Tydings with a proposal: Tydings was facing a reelection campaign that year, and Johnson offered to chair the subcommittee only up to the time of the election, allowing Tydings to focus on winning it. Then he would step aside and let Tydings have the position. Tydings, protective of the powers he had accrued, declined Johnson’s offer. But then Dick Russell met with him and said something to cause Tydings to change his mind. Johnson was named the chairman, a stunning coup for a senator who had been on the job for only a year and a half, and he would hold on to the job for quite a while, as Tydings lost his reelection bid. As chairman Johnson was suddenly receiving national public exposure, and journalists covering the Senate discovered that he was a master at handling the press. He carefully guarded the findings of the subcommittee, allowing no leaks to journalists. He surrounded its work with tremendous mystery and drama, giving the impression that the committee was uncovering some real dirt on the military. He doled out information and reports to a select group of powerful journalists who had written articles that he had approved of. The other journalists had to fight for any news crumbs he deigned to offer. The junior senator began to fascinate the press corps—he was tough yet sympathetic to the journalists’ job. And most important, he knew how to give them a good story. Soon some of them were writing about him as a zealous patriot, a future political force to be reckoned with. Now Russell could properly defend his elevation of Johnson—the senator from Texas had done a great job and had finally gotten the Senate some positive publicity. In May and June of 1951, Johnson and Russell worked closely together on the recall of General MacArthur from Korea. Now Russell had a firsthand view of Johnson’s staff, and he was astounded at how efficient it was, larger and better organized than his own. It made Russell feel out of step with the times. But Johnson, as if sensing his thoughts, began to help Russell build his own modern staff. He gave him complete access to the legal and public relations teams he had developed, showing Russell how helpful they could be. As Johnson worked with him on this, the bond between them grew even tighter. One day Russell told a reporter, “That Lyndon Johnson could be president, and would make a good one.” The reporter was flabbergasted. It was so unlike Russell to ever pay such a compliment.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Considering the odds against them, the climate, the impossible terrain, the tiny boats, and their meager resources, it was one of the most remarkable survival stories in history. Slowly word spread of the role that Shackleton’s leadership had played in this. As the explorer Sir Edmund Hillary later summed it up: “For scientific leadership give me Scott; for swift, efficient travel, Amundsen; but when you are in a hopeless situation, when there seems no way out, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.” • • • Interpretation: When Shackleton found himself responsible for the lives of so many men in such desperate circumstances, he understood what would spell the difference between life or death: the men’s attitude. This is not something visible. It is rarely discussed or analyzed in books. There are no training manuals on the subject. And yet it was the most important factor of all. A slight dip in their spirit, some cracks in their unity, and it would become too difficult to make the right decisions under such duress. One attempt at getting free of the floe, taken out of the impatience and pressure from a few, would certainly lead to death. In essence, Shackleton was thrown back into the most elemental and primal condition of the human animal—a group in danger, dependent on one another for survival. It was in just such circumstances that our most distant ancestors evolved superior social skills, the uncanny human ability to read the moods and minds of others, and to cooperate. And in the sunless months on the ice floe, Shackleton himself would rediscover these ancient empathic skills that lie dormant in us all, because he had to. How Shackleton went about this task should serve as the model for all of us. First, he understood the primary role that his own attitude would play in this. The leader infects the group with his mind-set. Much of this occurs on the nonverbal level, as people pick up on the leader’s body language and tone of voice. Shackleton imbued himself with an air of complete confidence and optimism and watched how this infected the men’s spirit. Second, he had to divide his attention almost equally between individuals and the group. With the group he monitored levels of chattiness at mealtimes, the amount of swearing he heard during work, how quickly the mood elevated when some entertainment had begun. With individuals he read their emotional states in their tone of voice, how quickly they ate their food, how slowly they rose out of bed. If he noticed a particular mood of theirs that day, he would try to anticipate what they might do by putting himself in a similar mood. He looked for any signs of frustration or insecurity in their words and gestures. He had to treat each person differently, depending on his particular psychology. He also had to constantly adjust his readings, as people’s moods shifted quickly.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  astounded at how efficient it was, larger and better organized than his own. It made Russell feel out of step with the times. But Johnson, as if sensing his thoughts, began to help Russell build his own modern staff. He gave him complete access to the legal and public relations teams he had developed, showing Russell how helpful they could be. As Johnson worked with him on this, the bond between them grew even tighter. One day Russell told a reporter, “That Lyndon Johnson could be president, and would make a good one.” The reporter was flabbergasted. It was so unlike Russell to ever pay such a compliment. One spring day in 1951, Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota was waiting to catch the subway to the Capitol when Lyndon Johnson suddenly approached him and suggested they ride together and talk. Such words were like music to Humphrey; he almost couldn’t believe Johnson was sincere in the offer. Humphrey had joined the Senate at the same time as Johnson, and he had been considered the bigger star, a charismatic liberal who could be president one day. Humphrey, however, had a problem that had completely impeded his rise to the top: he believed so stridently in liberal causes that he had alienated almost everyone else. In his first speech to the Senate, Humphrey criticized the institution for its slow pace of change and its cozy atmosphere. Soon he was paid back in kind—relegated to the worst committees. The bills he introduced went nowhere. When he would walk into the Senate cloakroom, he would be shunned by almost everyone. As this ostracism got worse, Humphrey felt increasingly depressed and despondent. Sometimes driving home from work, he would pull over and cry. His career had taken a very wrong turn. In the subway car together, Johnson praised him effusively. “Hubert,” he told him, “you have no idea what a wonderful experience it is for me ride to the Senate chamber with you. There are so many ways I envy you. You are articulate, you have such a broad range of knowledge.” Feeling relieved to hear this, Humphrey was then surprised by the vehemence of Johnson’s criticisms that followed. “But goddammit, Hubert, you’re spending so much time making speeches that there is no time left to get anything done.” Humphrey needed to be more pragmatic, fit in better. When they finally parted, Johnson invited Humphrey to stop by his office one day for drinks. Humphrey soon became a regular visitor, and this southern senator, quite loathed by northern liberals as the darling of the conservative Russell, enthralled him. First, Johnson was immensely entertaining. Everything he said was accompanied by some folksy anecdote, often of a bawdy nature but always teaching some wicked lesson. Sitting in his office, the drinks being lavishly poured, he would instigate bouts of laughter that would reverberate through the corridors. It was hard to resist a man who could put you in a good mood. He had incredible presence.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  õ They even Americanized biblical geography: Mormons believe that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri, and Christ will rule there as well as in Jerusalem after the Second Coming. Note that despite the Americanization, they have turned Mormonism into an international faith. SUGGESTED READING Brooke, The Refiner’s Fire. Bushman, Joseph Smith. Shipps, Mormonism. QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER ä What challenges does the founder of a new religion face? Does he or she have any advantages? ä Why did Joseph Smith’s message appeal to so many people? How might religious persecution have shaped their faith? ä Does Mormons’ recent visibility in pop culture and politics signal their acceptance by the American mainstream, or is it a sign that they remain strange to many Americans? 180 The History of Christianity II LECTURE 19 SLAVE RELIGION IN THE AMERICAS This lecture focuses on a subject that is one of the hardest for historians to trace because historians rely so heavily on written records. When historians set out to learn the stories of people who were mostly illiterate and rarely had the means to write down or somehow preserve their experiences—like African slaves in the West—they have to get very lucky, or very creative, or both. 181 REBECCA õ One historian, a professor named Jon Sensbach, showed what luck and creativity can accomplish. He wrote a book called Rebecca’s Revival about a young girl. The child of a white planter and an African slave mother, she was kidnapped from her home on Antigua, taken to the island of St. Thomas, and purchased as a slave by a Dutch creole family in the early 1700s. õ They put her to work as a servant in the family’s mansion, but she somehow learned to read and write, and she got very interested in Christianity. This girl studied the Bible and also became fascinated by the stories of the early martyrs who died for their faith. 182 The History of Christianity II

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  On the battlefield these men were risk takers; they often pushed for military campaigns that they could lead, giving them a chance to gain glory and attention. They advanced their careers by representing some faction in the Assembly—landowners, soldiers, aristocrats—and doing everything they could to further its interests. This led to highly divisive politics. Leaders would rise and fall in cycles of a few years, but the Athenians were fine with this; they mistrusted anyone who lasted long in power. Then Pericles entered public life around 463 BC, and Athenian politics would never be the same. His first move was the most unusual of all. Although he came from an illustrious aristocratic family, he allied himself with the growing lower and middle classes of the city—farmers, oarsmen in the navy, the craftsmen who were the pride of Athens. He worked to increase their voice in the Assembly and give them greater power in the democracy. This was not some small faction he now led but the majority of Athenian citizens. It would seem impossible to control such a large, unruly mob of men, with their varied interests, but he was so fervent in increasing their power that he slowly gained their trust and backing. As his influence grew, he started to assert himself in the Assembly and alter its policies. He argued against expanding Athens’s democratic empire. He feared the Athenians would overreach and lose control. He worked to consolidate the empire and strengthen existing alliances. When it came to war and to serving as a general, he strove to limit campaigns and to win through maneuvers, with minimal loss of lives. To many this seemed unheroic, but as these policies took effect, the city entered a period of unprecedented prosperity. There were no more needless wars to drain the coffers, and the empire was functioning more smoothly than ever. What Pericles did with the growing surplus of money startled and amazed the citizenry: instead of using it to buy political favors, he initiated a massive public building project in Athens. He commissioned temples, theaters, and concert halls, putting all of the Athenian craftsmen to work. Everywhere one looked, the city was becoming more sublimely beautiful. He favored a form of architecture that reflected his personal aesthetics—ordered, highly geometric, monumental yet soothing to the eye. His greatest commission was that of the Parthenon, with its enormous forty-foot statue of Athena. Athena was the guiding spirit of Athens, the goddess of wisdom and practical intelligence. She represented all of the values Pericles wanted to promote. Singlehandedly Pericles had transformed the look and spirit of Athens, and it entered a golden age in all of the arts and sciences. What was perhaps the strangest quality of Pericles was his speaking style—restrained and dignified. He did not go in for the usual flights of rhetoric. Instead, he worked to convince an audience through airtight arguments.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  He had begun his career at Goldman Sachs in 1966, slowly rising through the ranks to become its cohead in 1990. He was one of the key figures who transformed Goldman Sachs into the most powerful investment bank on Wall Street. He was a hard worker and brilliant at finance, but as he became more powerful within Goldman, he also became more deferential in all of his interactions. In meetings in which he was clearly the most knowledgeable person, he would make a point of asking for the opinions of the most junior associate in attendance, and of listening to what he or she had to say with rapt attention. When people who worked for him asked him what should be done in relation to some crisis or problem, he would look at them calmly and ask first, “What do you think?” He would take their answer quite seriously. As one colleague at Goldman later said of him, “There is no one better at the humility shtick than Bob. The line, ‘just one’s man opinion’ was something he would utter a dozen times a day.” What is remarkable is how Rubin earned the admiration of so many people and how few had anything bad to say about him, considering the competitive environment within the company. This reveals the power you have to short-circuit envy by placing attention on other people instead of yourself and engaging with them on a meaningful level. If you find yourself under an envy attack, your best strategy is to control your emotions. It is much easier to do this once you realize that envy is the source. The envier feeds upon your overreaction as material to criticize you, justify their actions, and entangle you in some further drama. At all costs, maintain your composure. If possible, get some physical distance as well—fire them, cut off contact, whatever is possible. Do not imagine you can somehow repair the relationship. Your generosity in trying this will only intensify their feelings of inferiority. They will strike again. By all means defend yourself from any public attacks or gossip that they spread, but do not harbor revenge fantasies. The envier is miserable. The best strategy is let to them stew in their “cold poison” from a distance, without any future means of wounding you, as Mary did to Jane. Their chronic unhappiness is punishment enough. Finally, you might imagine that envy is a somewhat rare occurrence in the modern world. After all, it is a primitive, childish emotion, and we live in such sophisticated times. Furthermore, not many people discuss or analyze envy as a major social factor. But the truth is that envy is more prevalent now than ever before, largely because of social media. Through social media we have a continual window into the lives of friends, pseudofriends, and celebrities. And what we see is not some unvarnished peek into their world but a highly idealized image that they present.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  In the earliest years of their democracy, before Pericles had appeared on the scene, the Athenians had preferred a certain personality type in their leaders—men who could give an inspiring, persuasive speech and had a flair for drama. On the battlefield these men were risk takers; they often pushed for military campaigns that they could lead, giving them a chance to gain glory and attention. They advanced their careers by representing some faction in the Assembly—landowners, soldiers, aristocrats—and doing everything they could to further its interests. This led to highly divisive politics. Leaders would rise and fall in cycles of a few years, but the Athenians were fine with this; they mistrusted anyone who lasted long in power. Then Pericles entered public life around 463 BC, and Athenian politics would never be the same. His first move was the most unusual of all. Although he came from an illustrious aristocratic family, he allied himself with the growing lower and middle classes of the city—farmers, oarsmen in the navy, the craftsmen who were the pride of Athens. He worked to increase their voice in the Assembly and give them greater power in the democracy. This was not some small faction he now led but the majority of Athenian citizens. It would seem impossible to control such a large, unruly mob of men, with their varied interests, but he was so fervent in increasing their power that he slowly gained their trust and backing. As his influence grew, he started to assert himself in the Assembly and alter its policies. He argued against expanding Athens’s democratic empire. He feared the Athenians would overreach and lose control. He worked to consolidate the empire and strengthen existing alliances. When it came to war and to serving as a general, he strove to limit campaigns and to win through maneuvers, with minimal loss of lives. To many this seemed unheroic, but as these policies took effect, the city entered a period of unprecedented prosperity. There were no more needless wars to drain the coffers, and the empire was functioning more smoothly than ever. What Pericles did with the growing surplus of money startled and amazed the citizenry: instead of using it to buy political favors, he initiated a massive public building project in Athens. He commissioned temples, theaters, and concert halls, putting all of the Athenian craftsmen to work. Everywhere one looked, the city was becoming more sublimely beautiful. He favored a form of architecture that reflected his personal aesthetics—ordered, highly geometric, monumental yet soothing to the eye. His greatest commission was that of the Parthenon, with its enormous forty-foot statue of Athena. Athena was the guiding spirit of Athens, the goddess of wisdom and practical intelligence. She represented all of the values Pericles wanted to promote. Singlehandedly Pericles had transformed the look and spirit of Athens, and it entered a golden age in all of the arts and sciences. What was perhaps the strangest quality of Pericles was his

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  He would announce himself to the secretary in the outer office, then patiently wait there until called in, sometimes for an hour. He didn’t seem bothered by this—he busied himself by reading or taking notes. Once inside, he’d ask the senator about his wife and family or his favorite sports team—he had clearly done his homework on the senator in question. He could be quite self-deprecating. He’d often first introduce himself as “Landslide Lyndon,” everyone knowing he had won his Senate seat by the slimmest of margins. Mostly, however, he came to talk business and get advice. He’d ask a question or two about some bill or bit of senatorial procedure and would listen with a focus that was striking and charming, almost like a child. His large brown eyes would stay fixed on the senator in question, and with his chin resting on his hand, he would occasionally nod and every now and then ask another question. The senators could tell he was paying deep attention because invariably he would act on their advice or repeat their very words to someone else, always crediting the senator who had spoken them. He would leave with a gracious thank-you for their time and for the invaluable education they had provided. This was not the spirited hothead they had heard so much about, and the contrast redounded to his credit. The senators saw him most often on the Senate floor, and unlike any other member of the institution, he attended every session and sat almost the whole time at his desk. He took copious notes. He wanted to learn everything about senatorial procedure—a dull affair, but one that seemed to captivate him. He was far, however, from being a dullard. When senators encountered him in the hallway or in the cloakroom, he always had a good joke to tell or some amusing anecdote. He had spent his early years in rural poverty, and although he was well educated, his language had some of the color and biting humor of the Texan farmer and migrant worker. The senators found him amusing. Even Tom Connally had to admit that he had somehow misread him. Older senators, referred to at the time as Old Bulls, particularly came to appreciate Lyndon Johnson. Although they held positions of great authority based on their seniority, they often felt insecure about their age (some were in their eighties) and their physical and mental capacities. But here was Johnson visiting their offices frequently, intent on absorbing their wisdom. One older Democratic senator in particular took to Johnson— Richard Russell of Georgia. He was only eleven years older than Johnson, but he had been serving in the Senate since 1933 and had become one of its most powerful members.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Flannery’s increased empathy and feeling of unity with others, as evidenced by her strong desire to communicate with all types of people, caused her to eventually let go of one of her greatest limitations: the racist sentiments toward African Americans she had internalized from her mother and many others in the South. She saw this clearly in herself and struggled against it, particularly in her work. By the early 1960s she came to embrace the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. And in her later stories she began to express a vision of all the races in America converging one day as equals, moving past this dark stain on our country’s past. For over thirteen years, Flannery O’Connor stared down the barrel of the gun pointed at her, refusing to look away. Certainly her religious faith helped her maintain her spirit, but as Flannery herself knew, so many people who are religious are just as full of illusions and evasions when it comes to their own mortality, and just as capable of complacency and pettiness as anyone else. It was her particular choice to use her fatal disease as the means for living the most intense and fulfilling life possible. Understand: We tend to read stories like Flannery O’Connor’s with some distance. We can’t help but feel some relief that we find ourselves in a much more comfortable position. But we make a grave mistake in doing so. Her fate is our fate—we are all in the process of dying, all facing the same uncertainties. In fact, by having her mortality so present and palpable, she had an advantage over us —she was compelled to confront death and make use of her awareness of it. We, on the other hand, are able to dance around the thought, to envision endless vistas of time ahead of us and dabble our way through life. And then, when reality hits us, when we perhaps receive our own bullet in the side in the form of an unexpected crisis in our career, or a painful breakup in a relationship, or the death of someone close, or even our own life-threatening illness—we are not usually prepared to handle it. Our avoidance of the thought of death has established our pattern for handling other unpleasant realities and adversity. We easily become hysterical and lose our balance, blaming others for our fate, feeling angry and sorry for ourselves, or we opt for distractions and quick ways to dull the pain. This becomes a habit we cannot shake, and we tend to feel the generalized anxiety and emptiness that come from all this avoidance. Before this becomes a lifelong pattern, we must shake ourselves out of this dreamlike state in a real and lasting way. We must come to look at our own mortality without flinching, and without fooling ourselves with some fleeting, abstract meditation on death. We must focus hard on the uncertainty that death represents—it could come

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  LECTURE 27 REBELLION AND REFORM IN LATIN AMERICA In 1753, King Ferdinand VI of Spain bullied the pope into signing a concordat—a special agreement—effectively allowing the Spanish monarch to choose all the bishops and other important church officials throughout the Spanish empire. Later in the century, Charles III saw Catholic education and worship as a way to compel native people to learn Spanish and to keep a close eye on any tribes that might rebel. In short, as these kings consolidated their kingdoms in Europe into something resembling the modern nation state, they aimed to do the same abroad and to turn the church into a bureaucracy to help run the empire. 262 This lecture traces the Catholic Church in Latin America from this time of colonial rule up through the present day. Much has changed, but in some ways, the core themes remain the same: the struggle of religious leaders to assert themselves against worldly powers; the divided loyalties of a church that has always wanted to both protect its flock and protect itself as an institution; and the challenges facing residents of Latin America at the edge of European empire. THE AGE OF INDEPENDENCE õ In 1789, the French Revolution reverberated around the world. Even if it didn’t topple the crowned heads of Europe, it set in motion the beginning of the end of European empire in Latin America. õ In 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte emerged from the turmoil of the French Revolution and crowned himself emperor of France. He invaded Spain and installed his older brother Joseph on the Spanish throne, but most of Spain refused to recognize this foreign usurper. õ In 1810, a national parliament formed in Cádiz, a part of Spain still free from French control. When Ferdinand VII regained his throne in 1814, many Spanish didn’t want to go back to the old days. The church was divided on this; many of the more senior officials appreciated the stability that a strong monarchy brought, but among the lower clergy, there was significant support for a more liberal regime that granted a greater voice to the people. Lecture 27—Rebellion and Reform in Latin America 263 õ This was true in the colonies as well. Take for example Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a priest in Dolores, Mexico. Most of his parishioners were Indians and mestizos, the term traditionally used for people of mixed European and Indian descent. Under the Spanish caste system, these were the groups most vulnerable to oppression and exploitation. õ But Hidalgo cared deeply for his flock, and when royal authorities tried to crack down on local autonomy, he urged the people of Dolores to fight back. When he rang the church bells calling his parishioners to arms, he launched a rebellion that grew to include 80,000 people. 264 The History of Christianity II

• From Paul and Matthew Among Jews and Gentiles: Essays in Honor of Terence L. Donaldson (2021)

  Paul and Matthew among Jews and Gentiles144 144 Canaanite woman begs Jesus repeatedly to heal her daughter, Jesus says to her finally, “O woman, great is your faith” (15:28; Mark 7:29 has simply “For this saying you may go your way,” with no reference to her faith). 52 To the disciples, however, Jesus says repeatedly in Matthew, “ye of little faith” (ὀλιγόπιστοι, 6:30, 8:26, 14:31, 16:8, 17:20) The Canaanite woman, moreover, speaks her faith in her own voice. Whereas Mark merely reports that she speaks, Matthew gives us direct discourse. Twice she cries out to Jesus: “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David”; “Lord, help me” (Matt 15:22, 25). 53 In Mark, she has none of these words. In Matthew, even before her final winning line—“Yes, Lord, but even the dogs” (15:27)—she has twice called Jesus “Lord,” and she has called him “Son of David.” In her own voice, therefore, in Matthew’s gospel, the Canaanite woman proclaims Jesus Lord and King. “O woman, great is your faith,” Jesus says to her at last; in this address—O woman (ὦ γὐναι, a Matthean addition)— Dermience says he uses a title of utmost respect. 54 Second and finally, the women at the tomb. It is perhaps not surprising, in light of the anointing woman and the Canaanite woman, that at the gospel’s end it is women who first see the risen Lord, and women who first proclaim the good news. “Go quickly and tell his disciples that he has been raised from the dead,” the angel says to the women (Matt 28:7). And in Matthew, though not in Mark, the women do go and tell. In light of the earlier contrasts between the anointing woman who announces Jesus’ death and the disciples who do not see it, and the Canaanite woman who has great faith and the disciples who have little faith, the angels’ words are pointed. “Behold, I have told you” (ἰδοὺ εἶπον ὑμῖν, 28:7); you go and tell his disciples. The women see; the women hear the angel’s voice. The disciples are nowhere to be found. And this time, the women speak. The women are bearers of the word now at the tomb as the Canaanite woman was in the presence of Jesus earlier in the gospel. Τhe women are bearers of the word “with fear and great joy” (28:8) to the disciples—the disciples who now again, as before in Matthew’s gospel, find themselves doubting (οἱ δὲ ἐδίστασαν, 28: 17). At the gospel’s end as at its beginning, then, women carry the word of the Lord; it is through their faithfulness that God’s word is heard. The word of God that Mary bears in her body in the gospel’s first chapter, “the other Mary” is given to speak, in the last chapter, in her own voice. In the gospel’s ending we come full circle, back to its beginning. And we find there not only the constancy of God’s word, but Mary. “Behold, I am with you always,” the risen Jesus says in the gospel’s last verse. So Mary’s son speaks in the last verse of the gospel the promise spoken at the gospel’s beginning in Mary herself: God is with us. The women in Matthew’s gospel are few, but they have

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Within months she had become the house expert on mystical theology. She could be seen meditating and praying for hours, more than any other sister. Later that same year the prioress was transferred to another house. Deeply impressed by Jeanne’s behavior and ignoring the advice of others who did not think so highly of her, the prioress recommended Jeanne as her replacement. Suddenly, at the very young age of twenty-five, Jeanne now found herself the head of the Ursuline nuns in Loudun. Several months later, the sisters at Loudun began to hear some very strange stories from Jeanne. She had had a series of dreams, in which a local parish priest, Urbain Grandier, had visited and physically assaulted her. The dreams became increasingly erotic and violent. What was strange was that before these dreams, Jeanne had invited Grandier to become the director of the Ursuline house, but he had politely declined. In Loudun, locals considered Grandier a gallant seducer of young ladies. Was Jeanne merely indulging in her own fantasies? She was so pious that it was hard to believe she was making it all up, and the dreams seemed very real and unusually graphic. Soon after she began telling them to others, several sisters reported having similar dreams. One day the house confessor, Canon Mignon, heard a sister recount such a dream. Mignon, like many others, had long despised Grandier, and he saw in these dreams an opportunity to finally do him in. He called in some exorcists to work on the nuns, and soon almost all of the sisters were reporting nightly visits from Grandier. To the exorcists it was clear— these nuns were possessed by devils under the control of Grandier. For the edification of the citizenry, Mignon and his allies opened the exorcisms up to the public, who now flocked from far and wide to witness a most entertaining scene. The nuns would roll on the ground, writhing, showing their legs, screaming endless obscenities. And of all the sisters, Jeanne seemed the most possessed. Her contortions were more violent, and the demons that spoke through her were more strident in their satanic oaths. It was one of the strongest possessions they had ever seen, and the public clamored to witness her exorcisms above all the others. It now seemed apparent to the exorcists that Grandier, despite never having set foot in the house or having met Jeanne, had somehow bewitched and debauched the good sisters of Loudun. He was soon arrested and charged with sorcery. Based on the evidence, Grandier was condemned to death. After much torture, he was burned at the stake on August 18, 1634, before an enormous crowd. Soon the whole business quieted down. The nuns were suddenly cleared of demons—all except Jeanne.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  More than anyone else, he reminded her of her father. He was handsome, clever, extremely well read, and yet there was a softness to his character. Finally here was a man who was her equal in knowledge, power, and refinement. The admiration was mutual. Soon they were inseparable, and in 1498 they married, uniting two of the most illustrious families in Italy. Now she could finally dream of creating a great regional power, but events beyond her control would spoil her plans. That same year Giovanni died from illness. And before she had time to grieve for him, she had to deal with the latest and most dangerous threat of all to her realm: The new pope, Alexander VI (formerly known as Roderigo Borgia), had his eye on Forlì. He wanted to extend the papal domains through conquest, his son Cesare Borgia serving as the commander of the papal forces. Forlì would be a key acquisition for the pope, and he began to maneuver to politically isolate Caterina from her allies. To prepare for the imminent invasion, Caterina forged a new alliance with the Venetians and built an elaborate series of defenses within Ravaldino. The pope tried to pressure her to surrender her domain, making her all kinds of promises in return. She knew better than to trust a Borgia. But by the fall of 1499, it seemed that the end had finally come. The pope had allied himself with France, and Cesare Borgia had appeared in the region with an army of twelve thousand, fortified by the addition of two thousand experienced French soldiers. They quickly took Imola and easily entered the city of Forlì itself. All that remained was Ravaldino, which by late December was surrounded by Borgia’s troops. On December 26, Cesare Borgia himself rode up to the castle on his white horse, dressed all in black—quite a sight. As Caterina looked down from the ramparts and contemplated the scene, she thought of her father. It was the anniversary of his assassination. He represented everything she valued, and she would not disappoint him. She was the most like him of all his children. As he would have done, she had thought ahead—her plan was to play for time until her remaining allies could come to her defense. She had cleverly fortified Ravaldino in a way that would allow her to keep retreating behind barricades if the walls were breached.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  But in narrowing herself down to the role of the devoted wife, she had to repress her naturally expansive character. She had to expend her energy in placating her husband’s insecurities. In the process she lost all initiative and paid the price, experiencing a deep depression that nearly killed her. She learned her lesson and afterward would remain true to herself for the rest of her life. Perhaps what is most surprising about the story of Caterina Sforza is the effect she had on the men and women of her time. We would expect that people would have condemned her as a witch or virago and shunned her for all her flouting of gender conventions. Instead, she fascinated almost everyone who came in contact with her. Women admired her strength. Isabella d’Este, the ruler of Mantua and her contemporary, found her inspiring and wrote after her capture by Borgia, “If the French criticize the cowardliness of our men, at least they should praise the daring and valor of the Italian woman.” Men of all types—artists, soldiers, priests, nobility, servants —obsessed over her. Even those who wanted to destroy her, like Cesare Borgia, felt an initial attraction and the desire to possess her. Men could talk battle and strategy with her and feel like they were talking to an equal, not like the other women in their lives, with whom they could barely converse. But more important, they sensed a freedom in her that was exciting. They also had to play a gender role, one that was not as constricting as a woman’s role but had its disadvantages. They were expected to be always in control, tough and indomitable. Secretly they were drawn to this dangerous woman with whom they could lose control. She was not a feminine doll, all passive and existing only to please men. She was unrepressed and authentic, which inspired in them the desire to let go as well, to move past their own constricted roles. Understand: You might like to imagine that much has changed when it comes to gender roles, that the world of Caterina Sforza is too distant from our own to be relevant. But in thinking so you would be greatly mistaken. The specific details of gender roles might fluctuate according to culture and time period, but the pattern is essentially the same and is as follows: We are all born as complete beings, with many sides to us. We have qualities of the opposite sex, both genetically and from the influence of the parent of the other gender. Our character has natural depths and dimensions to it. When it comes to boys, studies have shown that an early age they are actually more emotionally reactive than girls.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  what the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche called Mitfreude— “joying with.” As he wrote, “The serpent that stings us means to hurt us and rejoices as it does so; the lowest animal can imagine the pain of others. But to imagine the joy of others and to rejoice at it is the highest privilege of the highest animals.” This means that instead of merely congratulating people on their good fortune, something easy to do and easily forgotten, you must instead actively try to feel their joy, as a form of empathy. This can be somewhat unnatural, as our first tendency is to feel a pang of envy, but we can train ourselves to imagine how it must feel to others to experience their happiness or satisfaction. This not only cleans our brain of ugly envy but also creates an unusual form of rapport. If we are the targets of Mitfreude , we feel the other person’s genuine excitement at our good fortune, instead of just hearing words, and it induces us to feel the same for them. Because it is such a rare occurrence, it contains great power to bond people. And in internalizing other people’s joy, we increase our own capacity to feel this emotion in relation to our own experiences. Transmute envy into emulation. We cannot stop the comparing mechanism in our brains, so it is best to redirect it into something productive and creative. Instead of wanting to hurt or steal from the person who has achieved more, we should desire to raise ourselves up to his or her level. In this way, envy becomes a spur to excellence. We may even try to be around people who will stimulate such competitive desires, people who are slightly above us in skill level. To make this work requires a few psychological shifts. First, we must come to believe that we have the capacity to raise ourselves up. Confidence in our overall abilities to learn and improve will serve as a tremendous antidote to envy. Instead of wishing to have what another has and resorting to sabotage out of helplessness, we feel the urge to get the same for ourselves and believe we have the ability to do so. Second, we must develop a solid work ethic to back this up. If we are rigorous and persistent, we will be able to overcome almost any obstacle and elevate our position. People who are lazy and undisciplined are much more prone to feeling envy. Related to this, having a sense of purpose, a feel for your calling in life, is a great way to immunize yourself against envy. You are focused on your own life and plans, which are clear and invigorating. What gives you satisfaction is realizing your potential, not earning attention from the public, which is fleeting. You have much less need to compare. Your sense of self-worth comes from within, not from without. Admire human greatness. Admiration is the polar opposite of envy—