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 History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  He made such progress in learning that he occasionally supplied the place of the professors. He was considered a doctor rather than an auditor.398 Years afterwards, the memory of his prolonged night studies survived in Orleans and Bourges. By his excessive industry he stored his memory with valuable information, but undermined his health, and became a victim to headache, dyspepsia, and insomnia, of which he suffered more or less during his subsequent life.399 While he avoided the noisy excitements and dissipations of student life, he devoted his leisure to the duties and enjoyments of friendship with like-minded fellow-students. Among them were three young lawyers, Duchemin, Connan, and François Daniel, who felt the need of a reformation and favored progress, but remained in the old Church. His letters from that period are brief and terse; they reveal a love of order and punctuality, and a conscientious regard for little as well as great things, but not a trace of opposition to the traditional faith. His principal teacher in Greek and Hebrew was Melchior Volmar (Wolmar), a German humanist of Rottweil, a pupil of Lefèvre, and successively professor in the universities of Orleans and Bourges, and, at last, at Tübingen, where he died in 1561. He openly sympathized with the Lutheran Reformation, and may have exerted some influence upon his pupil in this direction, but we have no authentic information about it.400 Calvin was very intimate with him, and could hardly avoid discussing with him the religious question which was then shaking all Europe. In grateful remembrance of his services he dedicated to him his Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Aug. 1, 1546).401 His teachers in law were the two greatest jurists of the age, Pierre d’Estoile (Petrus Stella) at Orleans, who was conservative, and became President of the Parliament of Paris, and Andrea Alciati at Bourges, a native of Milan, who was progressive and continued his academic career in Bologna and Padua. Calvin took an interest in the controversy of these rivals, and wrote a little preface to the Antapologia of his friend, Nicholas Duchemin, in favor of d’Estoile.402 He acquired the degree of Licentiate or Bachelor of Laws at Orleans, Feb. 14, 1531 (1532).403 On leaving the university he was offered the degree of Doctor of Laws without the usual fees, by the unanimous consent of the professors.404 He was consulted about the divorce question of Henry VIII., when it was proposed to the universities and scholars of the Continent; and he gave his opinion against the lawfulness of marriage with a brother’s widow.405 The study of jurisprudence sharpened his judgment, enlarged his knowledge of human nature, and was of great practical benefit to him in the organization and administration of the Church in Geneva, but may have also increased his legalism and overestimate of logical demonstration.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The patristic literature in general falls considerably below the classical in elegance of form, but far surpasses it in the sterling quality of its matter. It wears the servant form of its master, during the days of his flesh, not the splendid, princely garb of this world. Confidence in the power of the Christian truth made men less careful of the form in which they presented it. Besides, many of the oldest Christian writers lacked early education, and had a certain aversion to art, from its manifold perversion in those days to the service of idolatry and immorality. But some of them, even in the second and third centuries, particularly Clement and Origen, stood at the head of their age in learning and philosophical culture; and in the fourth and fifth centuries, the literary productions of an Athanasius, a Gregory, a Chrysostom, an Augustin, and a Jerome, excelled the contemporaneous heathen literature in every respect. Many fathers, like the two Clements, Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Tertullian, Cyprian, and among the later ones, even Jerome and Augustin, embraced Christianity after attaining adult years; and it is interesting to notice with what enthusiasm, energy, and thankfulness they laid hold upon it. The term "church-father" originated in the primitive custom of transferring the idea of father to spiritual relationships, especially to those of teacher, priest, and bishop. In the case before us the idea necessarily includes that of antiquity, involving a certain degree of general authority for all subsequent periods and single branches of the church. Hence this title of honor is justly limited to the more distinguished teachers of the first five or six centuries, excepting, of course, the apostles, who stand far above them all as the inspired organs of Christ. It applies, therefore, to the period of the oecumenical formation of doctrines, before the separation of Eastern and Western Christendom. The line of the Latin fathers is generally closed with Pope Gregory I. (d. 604), the line of the Greek with John of Damascus (d. about 754). Besides antiquity, or direct connection with the formative age of the whole church, learning, holiness, orthodoxy, and the approbation of the church, or general recognition, are the qualifications for a church father. These qualifications, however, are only relative. At least we cannot apply the scale of fully developed orthodoxy, whether Greek, Roman, or Evangelical, to the ante-Nicene fathers. Their dogmatic conceptions were often very indefinite and uncertain. In fact the Roman church excludes a Tertullian for his Montanism, an Origen for his Platonic and idealistic views, an Eusebius for his semi-Arianism, also Clement of Alexandria, Lactantius, Theodoret, and other distinguished divines, from the list of "fathers" (Patres), and designates them merely "ecclesiastical writers" (Scriptores Ecclastici).

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Donaldson: A Critical Hist. of Christian Liter., etc. Lond., 1866, II 126 sqq. He was inclined to assume that Henry Stephens, the first editor, manufactured the Ep., but gave up the strange hypothesis, which was afterwards reasserted by Cotterill in his Peregrinus Proteus, 1879. Franz Overbeck: Ueber den pseudo-justinischen Brief an Diognet. Basel 1872. And again with additions in his Studien zur Geschichte der alten Kirche (Schloss-Chemnitz, 1875), p. 1–92. He represents the Ep. (like Donaldson) as a post-Constantinian fiction, but has been refuted by Hilgenfeld, Keim, Lipsius, and Dräseke. Joh. Dräseke: Der Brief an Diognetos. Leipz. 1881 (207 pp.). Against Overbeck and Donaldson. The Ep. was known and used by Tertullian, and probably composed in Rome by a Christian Gnostic (perhaps Appelles). Unlikely. Heinr. Kihn (R.C.): Der Ursprung des Briefes an Diognet. Freiburg i. B. 1882 (XV. and 168 pages). Semisch: art. Diognet, in Herzog2 III. 611–615 (and in his Justin der Märt., 1840, vol. I. 172 sqq.); Schaff, in McClintock and Strong, III. 807 sq., and Birks, in Smith and Wace, II. 162–167. The Ep. to D. has also been discussed by Neander, Hefele, Credner, Möhler, Bunsen, Ewald, Dorner, Hilgenfeld, Lechler, Baur, Harnack, Zahn, Funk, Lipsius, Keim (especially in Rom und das Christhum, 460–468). 1. The short but precious document called the Epistle to Diognetus was unknown in Christian literature1310 until Henry Stephens, the learned publisher of Paris, issued it in Greek and Latin in 1592, under the name of Justin Martyr.1311 He gives no account of his sources. The only Codex definitely known is the Strassburg Codex of the thirteenth century, and even this (after having been thoroughly compared by Professor Cunitz for Otto’s edition), was destroyed in the accidental fire at Strassburg during the siege of 1870.1312 So great is the mystery hanging over the origin of this document, that some modern scholars have soberly turned it into a post-Constantinian fiction in imitation of early Christianity, but without being able to agree upon an author, or his age, or his nationality. Yet this most obscure writer of the second century is at the same time the most brilliant; and while his name remains unknown to this day, he shed lustre on the Christian name in times when it was assailed and blasphemed from Jew and Gentile, and could only be professed at the risk of life. He must be ranked with the "great unknown" authors of Job and the Epistle to the Hebrews, who are known only to God.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  "Calvin’s Commentaries, although they too are almost entirely doctrinal and practical, taking little note of critical and philosophical questions, keep much closer to the text [than Luther’s], and make it their one business to bring out the meaning of the words of Scripture with fulness and precision. This they do with the excellence of a master richly endowed with the word of wisdom and with the word of knowledge, and from the exemplary union of a severe masculine understanding with a profound insight into the spiritual depths of the Scriptures, they are especially calculated to be useful in counteracting the erroneous tendencies of an age, when we seem about to be inundated with all that was fantastical and irrational in the exegetical mysticism of the Fathers, and are bid to see divine power in all allegorical cobwebs, and heavenly life in artificial flowers. I do not mean to imply an adoption or approval of all Calvin’s views, whether on doctrinal or other questions. But we may happily owe much gratitude and love, and the deepest intellectual obligations, to those whom at the same time we may, deem to be mistaken on certain points." Thomas H. Dyer. The Life of John Calvin. London, 1850, p. 533 sq. "That Calvin was in some respects a really great man, and that the eloquent panegyric of his friend and disciple Beza contains much that is true, will hardly be denied. In any circumstances his wonderful abilities and extensive learning would have made him a shining light among the doctors of the Reformation; an accidental, or, as his friends and followers would say, a providential and predestinated visit to Geneva, made him the head of a numerous and powerful sect. Naturally deficient in that courage which forms so prominent a trait in Luther’s character, and which prompted him to beard kings and emperors face to face, Calvin arrived at Geneva at a time when the rough and initiatory work of Reform had already been accomplished by his bolder and more active friend Farel. Some peculiar circumstances in the political condition of that place favored the views which he seems to have formed very shortly after his arrival.... "The preceding narrative has already shown how, from that time to the hour of his death, his care and labor were constantly directed to the consolidation of his power, and to the development of his scheme of ecclesiastical polity. In these objects he was so successful that it may be safely affirmed that none of the Reformers, not even Luther himself, attained to so absolute and extensive an influence." Archdeacon Frederic W. Farrar, D. D., F. R. S. History of Interpretation. London, 1886, pp. 342–344.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  In the same year the Elector Frederick made such a manly and noble defence of his faith before the Diet at Augsburg, that even his Lutheran opponents were filled with admiration for his piety, and thought no longer of impeaching him for heresy. The Helvetic Confession is the most widely adopted, and hence the most authoritative of all the Continental Reformed symbols, with the exception of the Heidelberg Catechism. It was sanctioned in Zürich and the Palatinate (1566), Neuchâtel (1568), by the Reformed Churches of France (at the Synod of La Rochelle, 1571), Hungary (at the Synod of Debreczin, 1567), and Poland (1571 and 1578). It was well received also in Holland, England, and Scotland as a sound statement of the Reformed faith. It was translated not only into German, French, and English, but also into Dutch, Magyar, Polish, Italian, Arabic, and Turkish. In Austria and Bohemia the Reformed or Calvinists are officially called "the Church of the Helvetic Confession," "the Lutherans, the Church of the Augsburg Confession." THIRD BOOK.THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND or THE CALVINISTIC MOVEMENT.–––––––––– CHAPTER VII.THE PREPARATORY WORK. FROM 1526 TO 1536. § 58. Literature on Calvin and the Reformation in French Switzerland. Important documents relating to the Reformation in French Switzerland are contained in the Archives of Geneva and Bern. Many documents have been recently published by learned Genevese archaeologists, as Galiffe, father and son, Grénus, Revilliod, E. Mallet, Chaponnière, Fick, and the Society of History and Archaeology of Geneva. The best Calvin libraries are in the University of Geneva, where his MSS. are preserved in excellent order, and in the St. Thomasstift at Strassburg. The latter was collected by Profs. Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, the editors of Calvin’s Works, during half a century, and embraces 274 publications of the Reformer (among them 36 Latin and 18 French editions of the Institutio), many rare contemporary works, and 700 modern books bearing upon Calvin and his Reformation. The Society of the History of French Protestantism in Paris (64 rue des saints pères) has a large collection of printed works. I. Correspondence of the Swiss Reformers and their Friends. Letters took to a large extent the place of modern newspapers and pamphlets; hence their large number and importance. *A. S. Herminjard: Correspondance des réformateurs dans les pays de langue française, etc. Genève et Paris (Fischbacher, 33 rue de Seine), 1866–’86, 7 vols. To be continued. The most complete collection of letters of the Reformers of French Switzerland and their friends, with historical and biographical notes. The editor shows an extraordinary familiarity with the history of the French and Swiss Reformation. The first three volumes embrace the period from 1512 to 1536; vols. IV.–VII. extend from 1536 to 1642, or from the publication of Calvin’s Institutes to the acceptance of the ecclesiastical ordinances at Geneva. For the following years to the death of Calvin (1564) we have the correspondence in the Strassburg-Brunswick edition of Calvin’s works, vols. X.–XX. See below.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  With spiritual exercises manual labor was united, agriculture, boat building, basketmaking, mat and coverlet weaving, by which the monks not only earned their own living, but also supported the poor and the sick. They were divided, according to the grade of their ascetic piety, into four and twenty classes, named by the letters of the Greek alphabet. They lived three in a cell. They ate in common, but in strict silence, and with the face covered. They made known their wants by signs. The sick were treated with special care. On Saturday and Sunday they partook of the communion. Pachomius, as abbot, or archimandrite, took the oversight of the whole; each cloister having a separate superior and a steward. Pachomius also established a cloister of nuns for his sister, whom he never admitted to his presence when she would visit him, sending her word that she should be content to know that he was still alive. In like manner, the sister of Anthony and the wife of Ammon became centres of female cloister life, which spread with great rapidity. Pachomius, after his conversion never ate a full meal, and for fifteen years slept sitting on a stone. Tradition ascribes to him all sorts of miracles, even the gift of tongues and perfect dominion over nature, so that he trod without harm on serpents and scorpions, and crossed the Nile on the backs of crocodiles!333 Soon after Pachomius, fifty monasteries arose on the Nitrian mountain, in no respect inferior to those in the Thebaid. They maintained seven bakeries for the benefit of the anchorets in the neighboring Libyan desert, and gave attention also, at least in later days, to theological studies; as the valuable manuscripts recently discovered there evince. From Egypt the cloister life spread with the rapidity of the irresistible spirit of the age, over the entire Christian East. The most eminent fathers of the Greek church were either themselves monks for a time, or at all events friends and patrons of monasticism. Ephraim propagated it in Mesopotamia; Eustathius of Sebaste in Armenia and Paphlagonia; Basil the Great in Pontus and Cappadocia. The latter provided his monasteries and nunneries with clergy, and gave them an improved rule, which, before his death (379), was accepted by some eighty thousand monks, and translated by Rufinus into Latin. He sought to unite the virtues of the anchorite and coenobite life, and to make the institution useful to the church by promoting the education of youth, and also (as Athanasius designed before him) by combating Arianism among the people.334 He and his friend Gregory Nazianzen were the first to unite scientific theological studies with the ascetic exercises of solitude. Chrysostom wrote three books in praise and vindication of the monastic life, and exhibits it in general in its noblest aspect.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Nevertheless, this forerunner of modern investigation may by common verdict, though unhonored in his own age, come to be placed higher as a benefactor of mankind than the master of metaphysical subtlety, Duns Scotus, who spoke to his age and its immediate successors with authority.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  INITIATOROF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 165 in his life, he would be simply one of a group of brilliant Russian novelists. Since he received something of the mindof Jesus into his mind, he became one of the pro- pheticfigures of our age and noone cantell howmuch he contributed, through others, toenable Russia, newly free, to make the one sincere and penetrating utterance made on behalf of democracy and peace inthe Spring and Summerof 1917. In the same way those religious movements in which the distinctiveideasand spirit of Jesus havebroken forth again, have beenthe fruitful and prophetic movementsin religion. Their power of attack can bestbe measured by the ferocity withwhich the Kingdom of Evil has trampled on them. The Kingdom of God is nota concept nor an ideal merely, but an historical force. It isa vital and organ- izing energy now atwork in humanity. Its capacity to savethe social order depends on its pervasivepresence within the social organism. Every institutional foot- hold gainedgives a purchase for attacking the next van- tage-point. Wherea really Christian type of religious life is created, the intellectand its educationareset free, and this in turn aids religion to emancipate itself from su- perstition and dogmatism. Where religion and intellect combine, the foundation islaid for political democracy. Where the people have the outfit and the spirit of democracy, they can curb econornic exploitation. Where predatory gain andthe resultant inequality are lessened, fraternal feeling and understanding become easier and the sense of solidaritygrows. Where men livein the consciousness of solidarity andinthe actual practice of

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  est is all for a real personality who could set a great historical process in motion; it wants his work interpreted by the purposes which ruled and directed his active life; it would have more interest in basing the divine quality of his personality on free and ethical acts of his will than in dwelling on the passive inheritance of a divine essence. The fundamental first step in the salvation of man- kind was the achievement of the personality of Jesus. Within him the Kingdom of God got its first foothold in humanity. It was by virtue of his personality that he became the initiator of the Kingdom. His personality was an achievement, not an effort- less inheritance. His temptations and struggles were not stage-combats. At every point of his life he had to see his way through the tangle of moral questions which invited to errors and misjudgments ; his clarity of judg- ment was an achievement. Not only in the desert but all the way he had to re-affirm his unity with the will of God and make all aims subservient to the Kingdom of God. The inclination early set in to eliminate the ele- ment of temptation, of effort, of vigorous action and re- action, and to show him calm, majestic, omniscient, the effortless master of all forces. This was supposed to be the proper demonstration of divinity in human form ; in fact it was a demonstration of feeble imagination and of Gnostic tendencies in his interpreters. Possibly God might be revealed in a life wholly placid and complete; certainly the Kingdom of God could not be initiated by such a life, for the Kingdom of God means battle. In 152 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL all Other cases we judge the ethical worth of a man by the character he achieves by will and effort. If he has any unusual outfit of nature we deduct it in our esti- mate. How can we claim high ethical value for the personality and character of Jesus if no effort of will was necessary to achieve it? Jesus lived out his own life. Like every other Ego he existed for himself as well as for others. He was as- serting and defending his right to be himself when he stood up for others. The problems of human life were not simply official problems to him, but personal prob- lems. But unlike others, he did not fall into the sin of selfishness, because he succeeded in uniting the service of the common good with the affirmation of his self- hood.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  INITIATOR OF THE KINGDOM OFGOD 163 redemption of society when they are freefrom theacrid qualities of rebellion. Those who have derived their spiritual freedom and their social spirit from Jesus are most likely tohave the combination of freedom with loveand gentleness. This ought tobethedistinctive markof Christwithin thesocialmovement. Is it true that Jesus has been experienced as aLiberator morefre- quently apart from theology than within it? If so, why? Tothink out any one ofthese convictions, orto achieve any oneof these harmonies, so thatall lifecan become simple, whole-hearted, and divinely intelligible through its truth, is a great achievementfor a life-time. Luther wasone ofthemost dynamic personalities in his- tory, one of the epoch-makingreligious minds. Yetit took him years ofmorbid struggle to emerge from the gloom of religious fear intoChristian assurance, and to cut acrossthe labyrinth ofchurch methods by theshort- cut of simple faith. And after achieving this discovery, he imposed his emancipating faith onothers as asov- ereign formula, and would notlet others advancebe- yond the point hehad reached. With Jesus these great inwardconvictionswere notacademic theory, but life andaction. They werethe reality on which he staked all- They were so muchhis ownthat heacted onthem as amatter of course, with a self-possession which did not have to weigh and consider, butstruck ahead, and struck right. In thecase of biological mutations the question isnot only whether the new type is valuable, butalso whether

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  FIFTEEN Lord, teach us to bowl Jesus’ prayer life was so powerful, so moving, so real, that the ones closest to Him—His disciples—wanted to know how to pray like He did. Luke records the moment in his gospel: “One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples’” (11:1). So Jesus did. He gave them what we now call the Lord’s Prayer. Stop and think about that for a second. Jesus didn’t write manuals or rule books. He rarely made lists. He liked to tell stories, ask tough questions, and ruffle people’s feathers. He particularly seemed to enjoy baiting His disciples—when they came to Him with questions or complaints, He almost never gave them an easy answer. When they asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, though, He did just that. He stopped what He was doing and laid out a simple model to follow. It wasn’t a formula or a ritual prayer to memorize and recite. It wasn’t a checklist. It was a template: an example of how to pray that the disciples could use as they learned to communicate with God through prayer. If you’ve ever used a template to create a PowerPoint presentation or draft a formal letter, you know how templates work. You start with a structure that is purposefully generic, then you personalize it. That’s the point of the Lord’s Prayer. It’s meant to be personalized, not copied- and-pasted verbatim into your prayer life.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  She worked quickly and carefully, but distractedly; and as she rubbed at her face she held my gaze in the glass. She looked at my new hat and said, ‘What a pretty bonnet!’ Then she asked how I knew Tony - was he my beau? I was shocked at that and said, ‘Oh, no! He is courting my sister’; and she laughed. Where did I live? she asked me then. What did I work at?‘I work in an oyster-house,’ I said.‘An oyster-house!’ The idea seemed to tickle her. Still rubbing at her cheeks, she began to hum, and then to sing very low beneath her breath.‘As I was going down Bishopgate Street, An oyster-girl I happened to meet -’A swipe at the crimson of her lip, the black of her lashes.‘Into her basket I happened to peep, To see if she’d got any oysters ...’She sang on; then opened one eye very wide, and leaned close to the glass to remove a stubborn crumb of spit-black - her mouth stretching wide, out of a kind of sympathy with her eyelids, and her breath misting the mirror. For a second she seemed quite to have forgotten me. I studied the skin of her face and her throat. It had emerged from its mask of powder and grease the colour of cream - the colour of the lace on her chemise; but it was darkened at the nose and cheeks - and even, I saw, at the edge of her lip - by freckles, brown as her hair. I had not suspected the existence of the freckles. I found them wonderfully and inexplicably moving.She wiped her breath from the glass, then, and gave me a wink, and asked me more about myself; and because it was somehow easier to talk to her reflection than to her face, I began at last to chat with her quite freely. At first she answered as I thought an actress should - comfortably, rather teasingly, laughing when I blushed or said a foolish thing. Gradually, however - as if she was stripping the paint from her voice, as well as from her face - her tone grew milder, less pert and pressing.

• From Bold Move

  Dr. Luana levels the playing field by speaking as both an expert in the field and as someone who has danced with suffering and learned to lead. Her attention to illustrating how CBT can lead to a more fulfilling and valued life across a broad range of human experiences is remarkable , as is her faith in the potential for change within all of us.” —Corinne Cather, PhD, director of Massachusetts General Hospital Center of Excellence for Psychosocial and Systemic Research and associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School “Dr. Luana has a unique talent for distilling evidence-based mental health interventions into everyday life lessons and valuable skills that any reader can apply to help achieve their personal goals.” —Alex S. Keuroghlian, MD, MPH, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Division of Education and Training at The Fenway Institute “Dr. Luana is a refreshing voice in personal growth, walking the journey of building a bold life with you. Her words encourage, her vulnerability inspires, and her cutting-edge tools work . Bold Move is a must read!” —Jenni Schaefer, author of Goodbye Ed, Hello Me: Recover from Your Eating Disorder and Fall in Love with Life “Dr. Luana takes evidenced-based approaches to reducing anxiety and makes them doable, palpable, and compelling to read. . . . I highly recommend this book to those who suffer from anxiety and/or are avoiding what they know they need to do.” —Steven A. Safren, PhD, ABPP, professor of psychology, University of Miami “Dr. Luana [invites] us to . . . become our best selves through mobilizing courage, developing (and tolerating) introspection, mastering new skills, and grounding these in deliberative, active alignment with our core values. Her voice is personal, engaging, and seemingly casual, as she brilliantly interweaves science with clinical expertise . . . . This is a remarkable book.” —Derri Shtasel, MD, MPH, associate professor, Harvard Medical School “Dr. Luana’s memorable analogies, real-life examples, visuals, and prompts make building new habits totally attainable (and fun!). As someone who struggles with anxiety and works adjacent to the mental health industry, I would highly recommend Bold Move to anyone seeking a better understanding of their emotions . . . as well as any mental health professionals . . . an insightful, witty, and resonant read!” —Delanie Fischer, cohost of the Self-Helpless podcast and business consultant for mental health professionals “Reading Bold Move is like having a conversation with your smartest, most relatable friend —who also happens to be an Ivy League clinical psychologist. Dr. Luana shares practical, relatable tools, backed by science, that will move you toward the life you want to live.” —Torrey A. Creed, PhD, associate professor of psychology in psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania [image "Bookperk sign-up advertisement" file=Image00016.jpg] CopyrightThe names and identifying details of some individuals discussed in this book have been changed to protect their privacy. BOLD MOVE .

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  Every event and saying in the life of Christ has, of course, been scanned intensely and used over and over for edification or theological proof. But in the main the theological significance of the life of Christ has been comprised in the incarnation, the atonement, and the res- urrection. The life in general served mainly to con- nect and lead up to these great events, and to found the Church.^ The things in which Jesus himself was passionately interested and which he strove to accomplish, do not seem to count for much. The impartation of di- vine life and immortality to the race was accomplished when he was a babe. The atonement might actually have been frustrated if the life effort of Jesus had been 1 The treatment of his “ work ” under the three heads of prophet, priest, and king, which is an hereditary scheme in theology, seems antique and far-fetched. Moreover, his kingly office mainly begins with his resurrection. His kingly work in historical life has been treated with neglect. 150 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL successful, for if the Jews had accepted his spiritual leadership, they would not have killed him. The social gospel would interpret all the events of his life, including his death, by the dominant purpose which he consistently followed, the establishment of the King- dom of God. This is the only interpretation which would have appealed to himself. His life was what counted ; his death was part of it. The historic current of salvation which went out from him is the prolonga- tion of that life into which he put his conscious energy. Theology has made the divinity of Christ a question of nature rather than character. His divinity was an inheritance or endowment which he brought with him and which was fixed for him in his pre-existent state. He was divine on account of what took place at one moment in the womb of one Jewish woman rather than on account of all that took place in the inner depths of his spirit when he communed with his Father and fought through the issues of his life. Theology has been on a false trail in seeking the key to his life in the difficult doctrine of the two natures. That doctrine has never been settled. The formula of Chalcedon was a compro- mise. Any attempt to think precisely about the ques- tion results in a caricature; safety lies in vagueness. We shall come closer to the secret of Jesus if we think less of the physical process of conception and more of the spiritual processes of desire, choice, affirmation, and self- surrender within his own will and personality. The mys- teries of the spiritual world take place within the will. To repeat: The social gospel is not primarily inter- ested in metaphysical questions; its christological inter- INITIATOR OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD I5I

• From My People (2022)

  This volume is a clinic for other journalists, but especially for Black journalists, as it is clear from every story, every interview, every voice centered in the work, that Ms. Hunter-Gault centered her work among Black people and saw herself as a Black journalist. Here lies the work of a woman whose destiny would be both to chronicle history and to make it. —Nikole Hannah-Jones Part IToward Justice and Equality, Then and NowThe civil rights movement in Atlanta, Georgia, put me on the path of reporting stories that focused on the promise of liberty and justice for all , a promise that had been so long denied to my people. The lie of separate but equal was still the law of the South, and while not on the books, it was alive and well even up north, commonly referred to as Up South at the time. My effort to make the promise of our democracy and my dream of becoming a journalist a reality at the University of Georgia, an all-white establishment for its 176 years of existence, was working its way through the resistant system, and I had temporarily enrolled at Wayne State University in Detroit, which offered some courses in journalism. But the civil rights movement that had begun on February 1, 1960, with young Black college students sitting in at a lunch counter in Nashville, Tennessee, had now reached Atlanta, and some of my closest friends from our high school days were among those who were taking to the streets demanding that “Dogwood City” fulfill the promise of equal rights to them and all who looked like them. At the same time, the Atlanta student movement was just one of many protest movements taking place all over the South. And I kept my eye on those, albeit from a distance. And so it was in Atlanta that I took my earliest steps on my journalistic journey, steps that led me into the basement of an upstart newspaper called the Atlanta Inquirer . The paper was started by one of the men whose approach to myself and Hamilton Holmes ended with us desegregating the University of Georgia, where I was by this time matriculating. M. Carl Holman was a professor of English at the all-Black Clark College in Atlanta. He was close to many of its students and those from the three other Black colleges—Morehouse, Spelman, and Morris Brown, many of whom were taking part in the civil rights protests. They had organized themselves into what they called the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights, and had created a document that laid out their demands for racial justice, insisting they “did not intend to wait placidly for those rights which are already legally and morally ours to be meted out one at a time. . . .

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  But during the research and writing, something else happened. Rather to my surprise, I found myself as strongly drawn to Muhammad as I had been to Saint Paul. “Your book is a love story,” the Pakistani scholar Akbar Ahmed told me years later. “If you had met the Prophet, you would have consented to be his fifteenth wife!” I am not sure about that, but I did find real pathos in his story. Muhammad lived in a dark and violent time, not dissimilar to our own. Because we know more about him than about the founder of almost any other major tradition, he emerges from the sources as far more human than either Jesus or the Buddha. We see him laughing, carrying his grandchildren on his shoulders, and weeping over the death of his friends. Above all, we see him struggling, sometimes literally sweating with the effort of bringing his people out of an apparently hopeless situation. We see his doubts, his grief, his moments of despair and terror. All this reminded me that religion is born of desperation, horror, and vulnerability as well as from moments of sublime insight. Even though I did not realize it fully at the time, my research was taking on a more “religious” character. I was working at top speed, with one eye on the clock, yet I was approaching my subject in an entirely different spirit. This time, there were no witty, sophisticated friends around telling me that it was all bonkers. I was working entirely on my own. With the plight of poor Rushdie constantly before us, Liz and I were acutely aware that the subject was highly sensitive, even explosive, and must not be approached with anything that could be construed as levity. There must be no slick remarks this time, no witty, biting polemic—as in The First Christian. When I was writing television tie-ins, it had always been essentially “my” show. I was not an established scholar, after all, so my books and programs were always presented as a highly personalized view. “I”—a contentious and hopefully entertaining personality—was very much to the fore. That would not work for Muhammad. In this dangerous climate, “I” had to stay in the background. This was not a policy adopted for idealistic reasons but was an editorial necessity. Yet editing out ego is—I now realize—an essential prerequisite for religious experience. Again, I had unwittingly started to practice one of the most universal religious principles, one that is central to all the world faiths. Further, I had to make a daily, hourly effort to enter into the ghastly conditions of seventh-century Arabia, and that meant that I had to leave my twentieth-century assumptions and predilections behind. I had to penetrate another culture and develop a wholly different way of looking at the world.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track. Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back. And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet-hearts hath burned Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven upturned.^ 1 From James Russell Lowell's “ Present Crisis." This poem is the finest expression I know of the historic function of prophet- hood within the solidarity of mankind and its spiritual progress. THE SOCIAL GOSPEL AND THE ATONEMENT 279 The death of Jesus was the clearest and most con- spicuous case of prophetic suffering. It shed its own clarity across all other, less perfect cases, and interpreted their moral dignity and religious significance. His death comforted and supported all who bore prophetic suffer- ing by the consciousness that they were “ bearing the marks of the Lord Jesus and were cariyfing on what he had borne. The prophet is always more or less cast out by society and profoundly lonely and homeless; con- sequently he reaches out for companionship, for a tribal solidarity of his own, and a chieftainship of the spirit to which he can give his loyalty and from which he can gather strength. Then it is his rightful comfort to re- member that Jesus has suffered before him. Thus the cross of Christ contributes to strengthen the power of prophetic religion, and therewith the redemp- tive forces of the Kingdom of God. Before the Ref- ormation the prophet had only a precarious foothold within the Church and no right to live outside of it. The rise of free religion and political democracy has given him a field and a task. The era of prophetic and demo- cratic Christianity has just begun. This concerns the so- cial gospel, for the social gospel is the voice of prophecy in modem life. PBINTBD IN TIfK UNITED STATES OI* AMEBIOA ^T^HE following pages contain advertisements of * books by the same author or on kindred subjects BY THE SAME AUTHOR Christianity and the Social Crisis Cloth, i2mo., $1.50 APPRECIATION OF THE PRESS ** It is enough to feel that the book was bravely written to free an honest man’s heart; that conscientious scholarship, hard thinking, and the determination to tell the truth as he sees it, have wrought it out and enriched it ; that it is written in a clear, incisive style, and that there is a noble end in view. ... It is a book to like, to learn from, and though the theme be sad and serious, to be charmed with.” — J oseph O’Connor in The N. Y. Times Review, It deserves a wide reading and an unprejudiced study.” — Christian Intelligencer. “ The most illuminating religious book of the century.” — N. Y. American, “ An event of extraordinary significance.” — The Stand- ard,

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  INITIATOR OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 159 who islove and the Kingdom of God which is righteous- ness. Mediaeval Christianity, whichwas mystic, as- cetic, and other-worldly, wasnot builtonhis synthesis. On the other hand the social gospel canbe. Hisaffir- mation of life isthe ideal basisfor thesocial gospel. No religion involving the negation of lifeis really com- patible with it.It remainsto beseenwhether any- thing like thesocial gospel can make headway in Buddhistic countries; and if it does, whetherit will not transform the oldBuddhism. His communionwith God and his devotionto the Kingdom of God set Jesus free and also bound him. They freed him from the conservatism of inherited re- ligion and fromthe coercionofthe socialorder ; they bound him toalife ofobedience andtothe utter ser- viceof men. The harmony of these antinomies is one ofthedistinctive qualities ofhis personality. Hewas a loyal sonofhis nation, a believer in its traditions andits worth, andwe know how deeply he was moved by his foresight ofitsdisaster. His religious lifewas inseparable fromthatofhis nation. Therewere no novel or alien elements in it, as withPaul or Philo, which might have laid the basis for departures. He nevercut loosefromthe religion of his fathers, and nevertold his followersto leavethe synagogue and foundthe Church. He wasno come-outer. But he had a higher lawand allegiance within him. Insofar as the religious customs of Judaism conflicted withhisconsciousnessof God or with the reign of love, he broke with them. Hecontravened the Sabbath regu- I6O A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL lationswhen they inflicted suffering or interfered with actsof mercy. He set asidethe entire principle of cleanandunclean food because it hadno ethicaltruth init.The Sermon on the Mount was adeliberate dec- larationthat the old moral lawwas insufficientand that newethical standards were needed forthenew era.His invective against the scribes and Pharisees repudiated, not only the clerical " system " which was exploiting re- ligion, but the models,definitions, and casuistry of cur- rent theology. Aside from hisaction of cleansing " the house of prayer" from the chatter ofthe market, he scarcely mentionedthe temple and its sacrifices, except to rank thembelowloveandreconciliation.Ceremonial actswere notthe properexpression of his consciousness ofGod. He realized religion in acts expressing loveand fellowship, or in breaking with the Kingdom of Evil. Under his teaching the burden of time, expense and rou- tine through which religious men sought to appease God's anger or courthis favour, dropped away. If God was love, why these doings ? " The Gentilesthink they shallbe heard for their many-worded prayers ; be notlike them; your Father knows." Such a change ofattitudetoward the ritualinstitu- tions of religion, when it has become common, has availed to purge the religion of wholenations ofits non- ethical inheritances; it hasreinforced the progressive elements of society by turning the energies of religion from the maintenance ofconservative institutions to the support of movements for politicalemancipation and so- cial justice. Sucha change in religion inaugurates new eras in history.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  Yet it is a matter of unspeakable difficulty for the Kingdom of God to make headway against the inherent weakness of human nature and the social entrenchments of the Kingdom of Evil. “The risks of temporary dis- aster which great ideals run, appear to be directly propor- tioned to the value of the ideals. Great truths bear long sorrows.” The more we do justice to this fact, the more we shall realize that the initiation and perpetuation of the historical movement of redemption was the essen- tial thing. Jesus was the initiator. To show this more and more clearly is the service the social gospel asks of doctrinal and historical theology. By this avenue of ap- proach we shall appreciate the human dimensions of Jesus. The individualistic theology was the creation of men with little historical training and historical con- sciousness, and to that extent the problems they set were the product of uneducated minds. The full greatness of the problem of Jesus strikes us when we see him in his connection with human history. Our own consciousness of God’s love and forgiveness, our inward freedom, our social feeling, the set of our will toward the achievement of the Kingdom of God, our fellowship with the “ two or three ” in which we have a realization of the higher pres- ence, we owe to our connection with the historical force which Jesus initiated. Where did he himself get what he had ? At what fountain did he drink ? • Royce, “ Problem of Christianity,” I, 54. CHAPTER XV THE SOCIAL GOSPEL AND THE CONCEPTION OF GOD My main purpose in this book has been to show that the social gospel is a vital part of the Christian conception of sin and salvation, and that any teaching on the sinful condition of the race and on its redemption from evil which fails to do justice to the social factors and pro- cesses in sin and redemption, must be incomplete, unreal, and misleading. Also, since the social gospel hence- forth is to be an important part of our Christian mes- sage, its chief convictions must be embodied in these doc- trines in some organic form. Now, the doctrines of sin and salvation are the start- ing-point and goal of Christian theology. Every es- sential change or enlargement in them is bound to affect related doctrines also. It will be the object of the re- maining chapters of the book to indicate how the social gospel would re-act on the doctrine of God, of the Holy Spirit and inspiration, of the sacraments, of eschatology, and of the atonement. The conception of God held by a social group is a so- cial product. Even if it originated in the mind of a solitary thinker or prophet, as soon as it becomes the property of a social group, it takes on the qualities of that group. If, for instance, a high and spiritual idea 167 •

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  The law under which he lived was the mind and will of God; the purpose for which he lived was the Kingdom of God. Jesus had to learn that law and try out that purpose. He had it within him, but the great experiences of his life brought the will of God and the needs of the Kingdom to his consciousness. The events leading up to his death were of the highest educational importance to his spirit. Here he learned fully the divine attitude to- ward malignant sin. He entered into that attitude, made it his own, and thus revealed God at the point where the 262 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL sin of the world and the mind of God were in sharpest antagonism. He was evidently deeply helped by contemplating the life of the prophets before him. The historical prece- dents furnished by them took on the significance of a spiritual law to him. He constantly connected his own work with theirs. His mental contact was not with high- priests and kings, but with the men who bore the living God in their hearts and braved the craft of priests or the yell of the mob to speak his word. He taught his disci- ples to see themselves in the same succession. They were to take opposition as part of their day’s work and not mind it. The consciousness of standing with the pro- phets was so uplifting to him that he made this the cul- mination of the beatitudes, bidding his followers to re- joice and be exceeding glad if they tasted the same scorn and hate. What the death of Jesus now does for us, the death of the prophets did for him. None of the later theories of the atonement are taught, or even touched, in the sayings of Jesus, except perhaps at the Lord’s Supper. The only clear interpretation of his death from his own mind is this, that he ranged his sufferings in line with those of the prophets. This lifts the experiences and functions of the prophets to a very high level in the re- demption of mankind. We said that through his sufferings Jesus came into full understanding of God’s attitude toward malignant sin, and adopted it. God’s attitude is combined of oppo- sition and love. God has always borne the brunt of hu- man sin while loving us. He too has been gagged and cast Out by men. He has borne our sins with a resistance THE SOCIAL GOSPEL AND THE ATONEMENT 263 which never yields and yet is always patient. Within hu- man limits Jesus acted as God acts. The non-resistance of Jesus, so far from being a strange or erratic part of his teaching, is an essential part of his conception of life and of his God-consciousness. When we explain it away or belittle it, we prove that our spirit and his do not coal- esce.