Disappointment

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 The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  As a result, tragically but predictably, Billy forfeited his chance for a good relationship with a decent man who tried to befriend him. His stepfather essentially remained “the man my mom married, my mom’s husband but nothing for me.” For many children and stepfathers, this is a sad lost opportunity. However, given the difficulty of moving into a family midstream, it may represent the best compromise that the family can reach. Certainly it is a very common solution. This kind of relationship was the outcome in a full half of the remarriages in the study. Many stepfathers have little interest in the new wife’s children and heartily wish that the woman had come unencumbered. Others resent living with or caring for another man’s offspring. It is by no means a given that a man who wants to marry a woman can be expected to embrace her children as well. And in fact, some women recognizing this potential problem sent their children to live with their father when they remarried whether or not the father had indicated that he was eager or able to accept them. There are tensions in remarriage that we did not anticipate. The ChildFROM THE CHILD’S point of view, a stepfather (or live-in lover) is not immediately welcome. After all, he’s a mysterious masked stranger who sweeps onstage in the middle of the second act to seize a commanding position. But the first act of the play, which was the child’s life before the stranger galloped in, had a full cast of characters, including a mother and father and children in well-defined roles. Why is the stranger here? Is he good or bad news for my sibs and me? Will he take my dad’s place at the head of the table and in my mom’s bed? Will he try to usurp my dad’s place with me? Will he take my mom away from me? Most children don’t want the play changed. They certainly don’t want new leading actors. They like the simplicity of the first act. The powerful forces swirling around them make children feel fragmented, not whole. This is a major reason why children hold on to the hope that their parents will reconcile. Mom and Dad together represent the inner sense of wholeness that the child is losing because of divorce. But the stepfather’s arrival is a powerful statement that the divorce is here to stay. This is unwelcome news for the many children who in their heart of hearts cling to the hope that Dad will walk in the door and resume his place at the head of the table.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  I did not believe, though the film insists on it, that the hero (J oel McCrea) turned in the gangster in order to save the children. I had never seen any children saved that way. In my own experience, on the contrary, and not only because I was watching Bill, I had observed that those who really wished to save the chil dren became themselves, immediately, the target of the police. I could beli eve-t hough the film pretends that this consideration never entered the hero's mind-that the hero turned in the gangster in order to collect the reward money: that reward money which will allow the hero and heroine to escape from the stink of the children: tor I had certainly seen attempts at that. Should the hero and heroine take the younger brother with them into that so celebrated American mainstream, the boy, having no friends, and finding, therefore, no resonance, no corroboration of himself any where, will become either a derelict, or the most monstrous of patriots. Or, perhaps {trying to escape and atone, or, per haps, simply trying to live) the boy will become a kind of revolu tionary, a superior and dedicated gangster: for there is a reason that the heroes of the poor resemble so little (and yet so closely resemble!) the heroes of the rich. I do not wish to be misunderstood as suggesting, for example, that the late CHAPTER ONE 4-99 Adam Clayton Powell was in any way whatever a bandit, but that is what the white world called him. Harlem's position, therefore, as concerned Adam, was that Adam might have his faults, but that he was certainly a better man than any of his accusers, his accusers being on our backs: and that is why Harlem never abandoned him. Of course, I could not have said any of that then, either. I knew about Adam only that he was the son of "old" Adam, the pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church, of which ch urch we had been members when I was little; and that he had been instrumental, in the wake of the 1935 Harlem riot, in getting bla ck people hired-f or the first time-in the stores on 12 5th Street where we spent so much of our money-the word, "money," here being meant to con vey the image of black fistfuls of nickels and dimes. In any case, the happy resolution of Dead End could mean nothing to me, since, even with some money, black people could move only into black neighborhoods: which is not to be interpreted as meaning that we wished to move into white neighborhoods. We wished, merely, to be free to move.

• From Best Erotic Romance

  It’s so great that I tricked myself into thinking I had to marry him to keep having these mind-blowing orgasms for the rest of my life. Now I realize that not only can we keep fucking like wild animals without the benefit of a stupid piece of paper, but statistics suggest that we’ll have better sex without it. But trust me, the kind of bonks Justin and I regularly indulge in are well worth celebrating openly with friends and family. So please enjoy the grilled salmon lunch and the salsa dancing and maybe you can snatch a little afternoon delight yourself in the gardener’s shed or the bamboo grove.” Sophie giggled quietly. If only she could be so honest. Honesty was a good thing. Except the kind of honesty she got from her girlfriends at her bachelorette party two nights before. The ladies were on their second pitcher of sangria when her college roommate, Ashlyn, started in on the topic of married sex. “Wedding nights sure aren’t what they used to be. Sean and I were so exhausted after all the festivities, he could barely haul me over the threshold of the honeymoon suite, and then we both fell fast asleep on this great big fancy bed. Of course, the morning after was all the better since we were so well rested. I love daytime sex, but sometimes I wonder if the nap afterward isn’t the best part.” The other women, all except Sophie, chuckled knowingly. Nina, her best friend all through high school, leaned close. “Sex definitely loses its edge once it’s legal, but Jasper and I try to get away for the weekend once a month or so. Then I pretend we’re having an illicit affair, and we don’t get out of bed until we’re chased from the room by the maid.” The other women exchanged sly glances and murmured approval. “You definitely have to work to keep things spicy,” her friend Megan added. “But I really like the closeness, too. Marriage really changed things with Brian. It’s funny but we can get buzzed just lying in each other’s arms and planning home improvements.” “The real change comes after you have kids. We don’t do it nearly as often, and we have to be very quiet, but our bond is deeper, more spiritual,” added her other college friend, Jenny. Sophie’s older sister, Elena, nodded and smiled. Sophie, who had been pleasantly buzzed from the wine until a moment before, slumped down in her chair. “Tell me the truth. Am I giving up hot sex forever by marrying Justin?” “Justin’s a great guy, Sophie, you definitely want a commitment so he doesn’t slip away,” Ashlyn said, her expression solemn. “And there’s more to your relationship than sex, right?” At the time Sophie nodded. Of course there was more to their relationship.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Galeazzo had chosen for her was Girolamo Riario, the thirty-year-old nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, a marriage that would forge a valuable alliance between Rome and Milan. As part of the arrangement, the pope purchased the city of Imola, in Romagna, which the Sforzas had taken decades before, christening the new couple the Count and Countess of Imola. Later the pope would add the nearby town of Forlì to their possessions, giving them control of a very strategically located part of northeastern Italy, just south of Venice. In her initial encounters with him, Caterina’s husband seemed a most unpleasant man. He was moody, self-absorbed, and high- strung. He appeared interested in her only for sex and could not wait for her to come of age. Fortunately, he continued to live in Rome and she stayed in Milan. But a few years later some disgruntled noblemen in Milan murdered her beloved father, and the power of the Sforzas seemed in jeopardy. Her position as the marriage pawn solidifying the partnership with Rome was now more important than ever. She quickly installed herself in Rome. There she would have to play the exemplary wife and keep on the good side of her husband. But the more she saw of Girolamo, the less she respected him. He was a hothead, making enemies wherever he turned. She had not imagined that a man could be so weak, and compared with her father he failed by every measure. She turned her attention to the pope. She worked hard to gain his favor and that of his courtiers. Caterina was now a beautiful young woman with blond hair, a novelty in Rome. She ordered the most elaborate gowns to be sent from Milan. She made sure to never be seen wearing the same outfit twice. If she sported a turban with a long veil, it suddenly became the latest craze. She reveled in the attention she received as the most fashionable woman in Rome, Botticelli using her as a model for some of his greatest paintings. Being so well read and cultivated, she was the delight of the artists and writers in town, and the Romans began to warm up to her. Within a few years, however, everything unraveled. Her husband instigated a feud with one of the leading families in Italy, the Colonnas. Then in 1484 the pope suddenly died, and without his protection Caterina and her husband were in grave danger. The Colonnas were plotting their revenge. The Romans hated Girolamo. And it was almost a certainty that the new pope would be a friend of the Colonnas, in which case Caterina and her husband would lose everything, including the towns of Forlì and Imola. Considering the weak position of her own family in Milan, the situation began to look desperate. Until a new pope was elected, Girolamo was still the captain of the papal armies, now stationed just outside Rome. For days Caterina watched her husband, who was paralyzed with fear and

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  had followed Johnson’s senatorial campaign and had heard him exclaim numerous times that he was a friend of the farmer. Here was his chance to prove it. The Agriculture Committee would be a perfect fit. Johnson could not hide his displeasure and squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. “And then, Lyndon,” Connally concluded, “after you’ve been in the Senate for a while, then you get on the Foreign Relations or Finance Committee, and render a real public service.” And by “for a while” Connally meant a good twelve to twenty years, the usual time it took for any senator to amass enough influence. It was called seniority and that was how the game was played. It had taken Connally himself nearly twenty years to get his plum committee positions. Over the next few weeks, word quickly spread among senators that Johnson was someone to keep an eye on, a potential hothead. And so it was a pleasant surprise when many of them saw and met him for the first time, after he was officially inaugurated. He was not at all what they had expected. He was the picture of politeness, and very deferential. He would often come to visit them in their offices. 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

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  performed that mocked the monarchy in the most brazen manner. And all of those majestic symbols and ceremonies of the monarchy that had remained relatively unchanged were beginning to seem rather empty, masks with nothing behind them. Courtiers no longer really understood what they were doing, or why, when they engaged in their elaborate rituals in company with the king. The paintings, statues, and fountains ornamented with mythological figures were as beautiful as ever, but they were simply seen as surface pieces of art, not as indications of a deep connection to France’s glorious past. All of these signs were subtle and disparate. It was hard to connect them all to any kind of trend, let alone a revolution. They could pass as novelties, new pastimes for a bored nation, without any underlying meaning. But then came the worsening crisis in the late 1780s, and suddenly these separate examples of disenchantment began to combine into an undeniable force. The price of bread had risen, as well as the cost of living, for all French subjects. As the discontent spread, the nobility and the bourgeoisie smelled weakness in the king and demanded more power. Now the king could not ignore what was happening, and at the Estates General the loss of respect and the disenchantment were all too visible to him in the behavior of the Third Estate. Louis, however, could only view these events through the lens of the divine monarchy that he had inherited and clung to so desperately. These French subjects who were disrespecting and disobeying his absolute rule must be godless individuals, and only a noisy minority. To disobey his word was tantamount to sacrilege. If such people could not be persuaded by the symbols of the glorious past, he would have to use force to make the past and the traditions prevail. But once something has lost its spell and no longer enchants, no amount of force can bring it back to life. And as he rode in that carriage in October of 1789 that carried him away forever from Versailles and the past, all he could see were people who were not his subjects but aliens of some sort. He had to include Danton in such a group. At his execution, he addressed the crowd as if he were still the king, forgiving them their sins. The crowd instead saw just a human, stripped of all his previous glory, no better than they were. When Georges-Jacques Danton looked out at the same world as the king, he saw something quite different. Unlike the king, he was not timid or insecure but the opposite. He had no inner need to rely upon the past to prop him up. He had been educated by liberal priests who had instilled in him Enlightenment ideas. And at the age of fifteen, at the coronation he caught a fleeting glimpse of the future, intuiting for a moment how empty the monarchy and its symbols had

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  logo of interlocking C ’s. It looked like nothing else out there. To launch the perfume, she decided upon a subliminal campaign. She began by spraying the scent everywhere in her store in Paris. It filled the air. Women kept asking what it was and she would feign ignorance. She would then slip bottles of the perfume, without labels, into the bags of her wealthiest and best-connected clients. Soon women began to talk of this strange new scent, rather haunting and impossible to identify as any known flower. The word of yet another Chanel creation began to spread like wildfire and women were soon showing up at her store begging to buy the new scent, which she now began to place discreetly on shelves. In the first few weeks they could not stock enough. Nothing like this had ever happened in the industry, and it would go on to become the most successful perfume in history, making her a fortune. Over the next two decades the house of Chanel reigned supreme in the fashion world, but during World War II she flirted with Nazism, staying in Paris during the Nazi occupation and visibly siding with the occupiers. She had closed her store at the beginning of the war, and by the end of the war she had been thoroughly disgraced in the eyes of the French by her political sympathies. Aware and perhaps ashamed, she fled to Switzerland, where she would remain in self-imposed exile. By 1953, however, she felt the need not only for a comeback but for something even greater. Although she was now seventy, she had become disgusted at the latest trends in fashion, which she felt had returned to the old constrictions and fussiness of women’s clothing that she had sought to destroy. Perhaps this also signaled a return to a more subservient role for women. To Chanel it would be the ultimate challenge—after some fourteen years out of business, she was now largely forgotten. No one thought of her anymore as a trendsetter. She would have to start almost completely over. Her first move was to encourage rumors that she was planning a return, but she gave no interviews. She wanted to stimulate talk and excitement but surround herself with mystery. Her new show debuted in 1954, and an enormous crowd filled her store to watch it, mostly out of curiosity. Almost immediately there was a sense of disappointment. The clothes were mostly a rehash of her 1930s styles with a few new touches. The models were all Chanel look- alikes and mimicked her way of walking. To the audience, Chanel seemed a woman hopelessly locked in a past that would never return. The clothes seemed passé and the press pilloried her, dredging up at the same time her Nazi associations during the war. For almost any designer this would have been a devastating blow, but she appeared remarkably unfazed by it all. As always, she had a

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Wanting to cultivate a more public presence, Eisner decided to revive the old The Wonderful World of Disney , an hourlong television show from the fifties and sixties hosted by Walt Disney himself. This time Eisner would be the host. He was not a natural in front of the camera, but he felt audiences would grow to like him. He could be comforting to children, like Walt himself. In fact, he began to feel the two of them were somehow magically connected, as if he were more than just the head of the corporation but rather the natural son and successor to Walt Disney himself. Despite all his success, however, the old restlessness returned. He needed a new venture, a bigger challenge, and soon he found it. The Walt Disney Company had plans to create a new theme park in Europe. The last one to open, Tokyo Disneyland in 1983, had been a success. Those in charge of theme parks had settled upon two potential sites for the new Disneyland—one near Barcelona, Spain, the other near Paris. Although the Barcelona site made more economic sense, since the weather there was much better, Eisner chose the French site. This was going to be more than a theme park. This was going to be a cultural statement. He would hire the best architects in the world. Unlike the usual fiberglass castles at the other theme parks, at Euro Disney—as it came to be known—the castles would be built out of pink stone and feature handcrafted stained-glass windows with scenes from various fairy tales. It would be a place even snobby French elites would be excited to visit. Eisner loved architecture, and here he could be a modern-day Medici. As the years went by, the cost of Euro Disney mounted. Letting go of his usual obsession with the bottom line, Eisner felt that if he built it right, the crowds would come and the park would eventually pay for itself. But when it finally opened as planned in 1992, it quickly became clear that Eisner had not understood French tastes and vacation habits. The French were not so willing to wait in line for rides, particularly in bad weather. As in the other theme parks, no beer or wine was served on the premises, and that seemed like sacrilege to the French. The hotel rooms were too expensive for a family to stay there more than a night. And despite all the attention to detail, the pink stone castles still looked like kitschy versions of the originals. Attendance was only half of what Eisner had anticipated. The debts Disney had incurred in the construction had ballooned, and the money coming in from visitors could not even service the interest on them. It was shaping up to be a disaster, the first ever in his glorious career. As he finally came to terms with this reality, he decided that Frank Wells was to blame. It was his job to oversee the financial

• From Best Erotic Romance

  Now that the moment had finally arrived, he seemed underwhelmed, and I was starting to sweat in the tight-fitting black plastic. He rolled his eyes and sighed, his back collapsing against the bed, his muscles loose. I was starting to get discouraged. But, I pressed on, banging my pink leather riding crop against my open hand. Blake didn’t look scared, and there was absolutely no desire in his eyes. My back, which I had been holding straight in an attempt to look authoritative and sexy, started to droop. None of this was going how I thought it would. “Blake, I thought you were into this, what is the problem?” He squirmed against his ties, but not in the way I was hoping. He tried to sit up but couldn’t, and had to settle for an odd, reclined position that almost made me laugh. “I don’t know Daisy, I just don’t really feel like it tonight.” I sat on the edge of the bed and dropped my fetching whip on the floor. My knee-high patent leather boots were staring to hurt my feet, and I felt more ridiculous than I ever had before. “This is all your fault, you know that Blake!” “I know, baby. I know.” It was an offhand remark after a silly night of playing the game “I Never” with some friends. It wasn’t meant to be an insult, or at least that is what he said after the fact. There was no maliciousness in his words; he’d spoken them matter-of- factly as he pulled the car into the driveway. “I think our sex life has gotten boring.” I didn’t necessarily disagree with him, but I was quick to point out all the crazy things we had done in the past. When we first got together, our nonstop sex sessions were the stuff of legend, and we could hardly keep our hands off each other. I was confident that our sex life was anything but boring. But, Blake was just as quick to point out that our last truly adventurous tryst had been years before. As much as I hated to admit it, the sad fact was, he was right. He stopped short of saying we were in a rut, but I read between the lines. Adventure and lust had been replaced by comfort and our daily routine, which sadly didn’t have much room for sex. I always thought it was just a natural part of being together for a long time. I didn’t want to admit that I wasn’t all that thrilled about our bedroom life either, but in my heart I knew. He didn’t say anything more that night, but his words had sent me on a mission. And, that mission was never to be boring in bed again. Blake didn’t know it then, but he had unleashed a monster. I hit every adult toy and video shop in a nearly fifty-mile radius in search of the ticket to sexy, smutty bliss.

• From Best Erotic Romance

  Blake was stoked at first and happily shared his love of hot girl-on-girl action with me. But, soon he found that he preferred to watch most of it alone, like he always had before. The DVDs now sat in a pile by the small television on the dresser, neither of us watching them at all. Our foray into role-playing took longer and didn’t really take hold until after a particularly good time at a Halloween party. I had never found Dracula sexy before, but Blake convinced me to join him in my sister’s guest room, and he turned me from a sexy kitty to a kitty in heat in no time flat. After that night, I bought more outfits to act out fantasies of all types. I chose the naughty nurse; Blake had a thing for lady cops, which we managed to accomplish with the help of a fake nightstick and the back seat of our car on a deserted dirt road. It had all been passionate and fun and, I thought, completely worth it. There wasn’t a boring night of sex in months, and we both seemed to be enjoying the ride. The dominatrix fantasy was mostly my idea, but Blake seemed more than a little interested. The outfit was the most expensive one yet, but I relished putting it on and the power I felt holding the whip was undeniable. I had hoped that Blake would be a good little submissive, but his willful eyes left me no choice but to reach over and untie him. “I’m sorry, Blakey. I thought this would be fun, but if you don’t want to do it, maybe we can save it for another time.” After I freed him, I felt even more foolish in my getup than I did before. He rubbed his wrists, and I moved off the bed to change out of my new personae. Blake shook his head and grabbed my arm to pull me back down next to him. “Daisy, I’m sorry. I really am. But, I don’t know. Do you think we could just have sex tonight?” “We were going to have sex, Blake. That was the point of this whole thing.” He stared at me until I looked up, embarrassment making my cheeks flush. “No. I mean sex. Like we used to have. Just you and me, on our bed. You know, sex. I hate to use the word normal, but it somehow seems appropriate.” “You mean boring sex?” “God, fuck! I wish I’d never said that. That’s what all this has been about, hasn’t it? Because I said we were boring in bed.” “No.” Blake didn’t say a word, but he made it clear with his eyes that he knew I was lying. “Okay, fine Blake. Fine. Yes. I was trying to make our sex life less boring. You seemed to enjoy it. What’s changed?” “Nothing. And, I did like most of it.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  that are often mysterious later on to person A. When it comes to our behavior in these situations, we never really completely understand what is happening. Too much of our unconscious is at play, and we have no rational access to its processes. But the eminent psychologist Carl Jung—who analyzed over the course of his very long career thousands of men and women with stories of painful love affairs—offered perhaps the most profound explanation for what happens to us when we fall in love. According to Jung, we are actually possessed in such moments. He gave the entity (person B) that takes hold of us the name anima (for the male) and animus (for the female). This entity exists in our unconscious but comes to the surface when a person of the opposite sex fascinates us. The following is the origin of the anima and the animus , and how they operate. We all possess hormones and genes of the opposite sex. These contrasexual traits are in the minority (to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the individual), but they are within us all and they form a part of our character. Equally significant is the influence on our psyche of the parent of the opposite sex, from whom we absorb feminine or masculine traits. In our earliest years we were completely open and susceptible to the influence of others. The parent of the opposite sex was our first encounter with someone dramatically different from us. As we related to their alien nature, much of our personality was formed in response, becoming more dimensional and multifaceted. (With the parent of the same sex there is often a level of comfort and immediate identification that does not require the same adaptive energy). For instance, small boys are often comfortable expressing emotions and traits that they’ve learned from the mother, such as overt affection, empathy, and sensitivity. Small girls, conversely, are often comfortable expressing traits they’ve learned from the father, such as aggression, boldness, intellectual rigor, and physical prowess. Each child may also naturally possess these opposite- gender traits in him- or herself. In addition, each parent will also have a shadow side that the child must assimilate or deal with. For instance, a mother may be narcissistic rather than empathetic, and a father may be domineering or weak rather than protective and strong. Children must adapt to this. In any event, the boy and the girl will internalize the positive and the negative qualities of the parent of the opposite sex in ways that are unconscious and profound. And the association with the parent of the opposite sex will be charged with all kinds of emotions—physical and sensual connections, tremendous feelings of excitement, fascination, or disappointment at what one was not given. Soon, however, comes a critical period in our early lives in which we must separate from our parents and forge our identity. And the simplest and most powerful way to create this identity is around

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  business; she would work harder than all of them; she would reduce expenditures for the court, sacrificing her own income in the process; and all activity was to be directed toward lifting England out of the hole it had fallen into. She showed early on her superior knowledge of the finances of the country and the tough side of herself in any negotiation. Upon occasion, she would flash her anger if a minister seemed to be furthering a personal agenda, and such outbursts could be quite intimidating. Mostly, though, she was warm and empathetic, attuned to the various moods of these men. Soon they wanted to please her and win her approval. To not work hard or smart enough could mean isolation and some coldness, and unconsciously they wanted to avoid this. They respected the fact that she lived up to her own high standards. In this way, she slowly placed these ministers into the same position that she had found herself in: needing to gain her trust and respect through their actions. Now, instead of a cabal of conspiring, selfish ministers, the queen had a team working to further her agenda, and the results soon spoke for themselves. By these methods, Elizabeth acquired the credibility she needed, but she made one major mistake—her handling of Mary, Queen of Scots. Elizabeth had become somewhat entitled herself, feeling in this case that she knew better than her ministers and that her personal qualms about executing a fellow queen trumped everything else. She paid a price for this policy, as she felt the people’s respect for her draining away, and it pained her. Her sense of the greater good was what guided her, but in this case the greater good would be served by having Mary executed. She was violating her own principles. It took some time, but she realized her mistake. She tasked the head of her secret service to lure Mary into her most far-reaching conspiracy to get rid of Elizabeth. Now with solid evidence of Mary’s complicity, Elizabeth could take the dreaded step. In the end, going against her own feelings for the sake of the country, in essence admitting her mistake, gained her even more trust from the English. It was the kind of response to public opinion that almost no rulers of the time were capable of. When it came to her foreign rivals, particularly Philip II, Elizabeth was not naive and understood the situation: Nothing she had done had earned her any respect or respite from their endless conspiracies to get rid of her. They disrespected her as an unmarried queen and as a woman who seemed to fear conflict and warfare. She largely ignored all of this and kept to her mission of securing England’s finances. But when the invasion of England seemed imminent, she knew it was time to finally prove herself as the great strategist that she was. She would play on Philip’s underestimating of her craftiness and her toughness as a leader.

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

  217Lecture 22—The Social Gospel õ Rauschenbusch thought his critique of society was in scripture, and had been there since the beginning. The church had simply forgotten it over the centuries as church leaders cast their lot with kings, wealth, and secular power. This is how they’d gone astray and ended up in the wreck of the 20th century. õ Rauschenbusch threw himself into his community work as well as writing books to articulate the theology of the Social Gospel movement. He was skeptical that any list of policy reforms could capture the essence of Jesus’s message. õ In 1912 he wrote: “It is not this thing or that thing that our nation needs, but a new mind and heart, a new conception of the way we all ought to live together, a new conviction about the worth of a human life and the use God wants us to make of our own lives.” POLITICAL FRUITS õ By the early 20 th century, Christian reformers in Britain were playing a role in the expansion of government-funded social services there, but their American colleagues were not enjoying the same success. õ Social Gospelers worked diligently at the local level, serving their immediate communities. They also wrote books and held international conferences that called for reforming the capitalist system and rethinking basic Christian doctrines. õ In North America, they established a network of churches in cities that offered not just worship but social services, health care, employment guidance, and recreational facilities. They also pushed for changes in state and federal law, limits on the workday, and limits on child labor. õ Echoes of the Social Gospel ethos appeared in some national political movements in the United States. The Populists in the American South and West and the Progressive Party took up a broad vision of

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

  õ Some evangelical writers began interpreting the bows and swords of scripture as metaphors for the latest developments in nuclear technology. They said the United Nations was a tool of the Antichrist, and that he would use these kinds of organizations to seek world dominion. õ Events in Israel and the conflicts of the Middle East have always been of interest to premillennialists. Recall that Darby preached that Jews would establish a sovereign nation in Palestine, only to suffer great persecution at the hands of world leaders, leaving a small number of survivors to accept Christ. õ Darby’s followers got very excited in 1948 when the state of Israel was established, and they’ve followed Israeli affairs closely ever since. Israelis have been understandably ambivalent about this interest in their lives, but in general they’ve been savvy about reaching out to American evangelicals. AMERICAN POLITICS õ What happens when we look for evidence for the role of prophecy in evangelical leaders’ political decisions? The evidence is unclear. Consider the Ronald Reagan presidency, when several administration officials were adherents of this theology. Reagan himself was very interested in prophecy. õ In 1983 he told an Israeli lobbyist: “You know, I turn back to your ancient prophets … and the signs foretelling Armageddon, and I find myself wondering if we’re the generation that’s going to see that come about.” Yet he didn’t initiate nuclear war, nor did he go out of his way to befriend Israel. And we now know that Reagan wanted nuclear weapons eliminated. Lecture 24—Apocalyptic Faith in the 1800s and Beyond 239 õ Belief in the coming apocalypse may have encouraged evangelicals to accept nuclear confrontation as part of God’s plan, but very few wanted to help actually bring on Armageddon. Throughout the Cold War, it seems that a different religious fear—the fear of godless communism— united evangelicals and motivated their political action. SUGGESTED READING Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More. Pagels, Revelations. Rowe, God’s Strange Work. QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER ä Why have scripture’s references to the Apocalypse produced such a wide range of interpretation? ä What explains the appeal of William Miller’s and John Nelson Darby’s messages to their followers? ä How have ideas about the end times influenced politics? 240 The History of Christianity II LECTURE 25 THE CHURCH AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION The Russian Revolution of 1917 is a good candidate for the single most cataclysmic event in the history of religion in the 20th century. When Vladimir Lenin’s Bolsheviks emerged victorious after several years of civil war, their communist propaganda claimed that almost overnight, Russia had gone from one of the most religious civilizations in the world to the atheist state of every Marxist’s dreams. But to understand what the revolution meant for Russian religion, this lecture first backtracks and explores the religious landscape generations earlier, then looks at the state of Russian religion after the revolution. 241

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

  19Lecture 2—Luther and the Dawn of Protestantism õ Luther wasn’t allowed to come because he was an outlaw. Another person had to take charge of getting everyone to agree and drafting the core beliefs of this new Lutheran faith. That person was Philipp Melanchthon, a professor of Greek at the University of Wittenberg who was younger than Luther and his close collaborator. õ He consulted with other Protestants, read over Luther’s writings, and drafted a document that became one of the landmarks of the Reformation: the Augsburg Confession. It laid out the core beliefs of Lutheranism, including justification by faith alone and the importance of the sacraments, even if they are not agents of salvation. It asserted the right of priests to marry and denied that a man can purify his soul through isolation in a monastery. õ Luther’s sympathizers among the German leaders signed onto the Augsburg Confession and demanded a public reading. Despite all this, Luther wasn’t thrilled with the final document. He thought the tone was too polite. Charles V hardly felt that way. In fact, the Confession paved the way for the Protestant princes of Germany to form an alliance against the emperor called the Schmalkaldic League, and they would go to war against him in the 1540s. õ The Augsburg Confession had influence well beyond the Holy Roman Empire. In 1536 it was translated into English, just as Protestant sentiments were beginning to spread throughout England. And Melanchthon’s work helped crystalize the ideas of early English reformers. õ That same year in Scandinavia, the king Christian III marched on Copenhagen, arrested the Catholic bishops, and declared that the Reformation had come to Denmark and Norway. He wanted to bring the churches into line with Lutheran beliefs, and now he also had a handy excuse to confiscate bishops’ valuable properties, which he needed to help pay the cost of the civil war he had just won.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Fangpu had broken this taboo. Had he gone too far? A few days after the appearance of Fangpu’s poster, some strangers arrived on campus from Beijing. They were part of “work teams” sent to schools around China to help supervise and maintain some discipline over the bourgeoning Cultural Revolution. The work team at YMS ordered Fangpu to publicly apologize to Secretary Ding. At the same time, however, they lifted the ban on posters that criticized teachers. As in schools around China, they also suspended all classes and exams at YMS. Students were to devote themselves to making revolution, under their watchful eye. Suddenly feeling free of the yoke of the past and all the habits of obedience drummed into them, the students at YMS began to brazenly attack those teachers who had demonstrated less than revolutionary zeal or had been unkind to students. Jianhua felt compelled to join the campaign, but this was difficult —he happened to like almost all of his teachers. He did not want to seem, however, like a revisionist. Besides, he respected the wisdom and authority of Mao. He decided to make a poster attacking Teacher Wen, who had criticized him once for not being sufficiently interested in politics, which had bothered him at the time. He made his criticism of her as gentle as possible. Others took this up and went further with their attacks on Teacher Wen, and Jianhua felt bad. To satisfy the students’ growing anger, some teachers began to confess to some minor revolutionary sins, but this made the students feel they were hiding even more. They had to apply more pressure to get them to reveal the truth, and a student nicknamed “Little Bawang” (bawang meaning “overseer,” referring to his love of giving orders) had an idea on how to do this. He had read Mao’s description of how during the revolution in the 1940s peasants had captured the most notorious landlords and paraded them through their villages with enormous dunce caps on their heads and heavy wooden boards—with inscriptions describing their crimes—hung around their necks. To avoid such public humiliation, certainly the teachers would come clean and confess. The students agreed to try this, and their first target for such treatment was to be Teacher Li, Jianhua’s favorite. Teacher Li was accused of faking his switch to communism. Stories began to come out of his telling other teachers about his visits to brothels in Shanghai. Clearly he had a secret life, and Jianhua now felt disappointed in Li. China before the communist revolution had been a cruel place, and if Li was working to bring that back, he could only hate him.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  attention. She decides she will seduce him and become the target of his attention. She will play to his fantasies. How can he not want to settle down with her and reform himself? She will bask in his love. But somehow he is not as strong, masculine, or romantic as she had imagined. He is a bit self-absorbed. She does not get the desired attention, or it does not last very long. He cannot be reformed, and leaves her. This is often the projection of women who had rather intense, even flirtatious relationships with the father. Such fathers often find their wives boring, and the young daughter more charming and playful. They turn to the daughter for inspiration; the daughter becomes addicted to their attention and adept at playing the kind of girl that daddy wants. It gives her a sense of power. It becomes her lifelong goal to recapture this attention and the power that goes with it. Any association with the father figure will spark the projecting mechanism, and she will invent or exaggerate the man’s romantic nature. A prime example of this type would be Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Jack Bouvier, her father, adored his two daughters, but Jacqueline was his favorite. Jack was devilishly handsome and dashing. He was a narcissist obsessed with his body and the fine clothes that he wore. He considered himself macho, a real risk taker, but underneath the façade he was in fact quite feminine in his tastes and totally immature. He was also a notorious womanizer. He treated Jackie more like a playmate and lover than a daughter. For Jackie, he could do no wrong. She took perverse pride in his popularity with women. In the frequent fights between her mother and father, she always took his side. Compared to the fun-loving father, the mother was prudish and rigid. Spending so much time in his company, even after her parents divorced, and thinking of him constantly, Jackie deeply absorbed his energy and spirit. As a young woman, she turned all of her attention to older, powerful, and unconventional men, with whom she could re- create the role she had played with her father—always the little girl in need of his love, but also quite flirtatious. And she was continually disappointed in the men she had chosen. John F. Kennedy was the closest to her ideal, for in so many ways he was just like her father in looks and in spirit. Kennedy, however, would never give her the attention she craved. He was too self-absorbed. He was too busy having affairs with other women. He was not really the romantic type. She was continually frustrated in this relationship, but she was trapped in this pattern, later marrying Aristotle Onassis, an older, unconventional man of great power who seemed so dashing and romantic but who would treat her horribly and cheat on her continually. Women in this scenario have become trapped by the early

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  the world in the same way. What we perceive is our personal version of reality, one that is of our own creation. To realize this is a critical step in our understanding of human nature. Imagine the following scenario: A young American must spend a year studying in Paris. He is somewhat timid and cautious, prone to feelings of depression and low self-esteem, but he’s genuinely excited by this opportunity. Once there, he finds it hard to speak the language, and the mistakes he makes and the slightly derisory attitude of the Parisians make it even harder for him to learn. He finds the people not friendly at all. The weather is damp and gloomy. The food is too rich. Even Notre Dame Cathedral seems disappointing, the area around it so crowded with tourists. Although he has pleasurable moments, he generally feels alienated and unhappy. He concludes that Paris is overrated and a rather unpleasant place. Now imagine the same scenario but with a young woman who is more extroverted and has an adventurous spirit. She’s not bothered by making mistakes in French, nor by the occasional snide remark from a Parisian. She finds learning the language a pleasant challenge. Others find her spirit engaging. She makes friends more easily, and with more contacts her knowledge of French improves. She finds the weather romantic and quite suitable to the place. To her, the city represents endless adventures and she finds it enchanting. In this case, two people see and judge the same city in opposite ways. As a matter of objective reality, the weather of Paris has no positive or negative qualities. Clouds simply pass by. The friendliness or unfriendliness of the Parisians is a subjective judgment—it depends on whom you meet and how they compare with the people where you come from. Notre Dame Cathedral is merely an agglomeration of carved pieces of stone. The world simply exists as it is—things or events are not good or bad, right or wrong, ugly or beautiful. It is we with our particular perspectives who add color to or subtract it from things and people. We focus on either the beautiful Gothic architecture or the annoying tourists. We, with our mind-set, can make people respond to us in a friendly or unfriendly manner, depending on our anxiety or openness. We shape much of the reality that we perceive, dictated by our moods and emotions. Understand: Each of us sees the world through a particular lens that colors and shapes our perceptions. Let us call this lens our attitude . The great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung defined this in the following way: “Attitude is a readiness of the psyche to act or react in a certain way. . . . To have an attitude means to be ready for something definite, even though this something is unconscious; for having an attitude is synonymous with an a priori orientation to a definite thing.”

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

  õ The second is the retreat of organized religion from a position of authority in the public square to something that is a person’s private business. Casanova calls this privatization. And the third is what Casanova calls differentiation: Religion comes to be one worldview among many, no longer taken for granted. THE FAITHFUL 1950S õ At first glance, it seems that during the 1950s, the churches of the Western world enjoyed plenty of prestige and influence. This is how it would have seemed to the millions of people who watched the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on television in 1953. That ceremony, administered by the archbishop of Canterbury, was heavy on Christian symbols and rituals. õ The following year, the evangelist Billy Graham led a crusade in London and attracted more than 2 million people; in 1955, more than a million came to hear him in Glasgow. Rates of church attendance weren’t quite what they had been at their peak around the turn of the century, but British churches were still growing in the 1950s. For most Brits, especially women, the church was still the center of social life. õ Church membership and attendance grew even more in the United States than in Britain or elsewhere in Western Europe. Another example: Catholicism ran the show in Quebec, Canada, with 88 percent of Quebeckers attending Mass weekly. In most places in the Western world, churches appeared—at least on the surface—to be thriving. Yet by 1965, rates of church attendance in all these places would start to slowly decline. 284 The History of Christianity II THE SKEPTICAL 1960S õ During the second week of April in 1966, anyone who passed by a newsstand in Manhattan or London or Toronto could not have missed the new issue of Time magazine. The cover was all black except for giant red letters that asked: “Is God Dead?” õ The article was all about the challenges facing modern theologians who sought to defend traditional religious teachings in a world in which the intellectual elite had come to rely on non-religious sources of authority, like the scientific method and the discoveries happening at modern research universities. Over the centuries since the Reformation, scientists and philosophers had challenged more and more of the church’s traditional claims about everything from human origins to life after death. Lecture 29—Secularism and the Death of God 285

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

  Babiki sat in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead, refusing to budge. I was outside the car, pacing, stressed out. A friend of mine had a bottle of brandy that he’d smuggled into the dance. “Here,” he said, “have some of this.” Nothing mattered at that point, so I started drinking. I’d fucked up. The girl didn’t like me. The night was done. Most of the guys eventually wandered back inside. I was sitting on the pavement, taking swigs from the brandy bottle, getting buzzed. At some point Bongani went back over to the car to try one last time to convince Babiki to come in. After a minute his head popped up over the car with this confused look. “Yo, Trevor,” he said, “your date does not speak English.” “What?” “Your date. She does not speak any English.” “That’s not possible.” I got up and walked over to the car. I asked her a question in English and she gave me a blank stare. Bongani looked at me. “How did you not know that your date does not speak English?” “I...I don’t know.” “Have you never spoken to her?” “Of course I have—or, wait...have I?” I started flashing back through all the times I’d been with Babiki, meeting at her flat, hanging out with her friends, introducing her to Abel. Did I talk to her then? No. Did I talk to her then? No. It was like the scene in Fight Club where Ed Norton’s character flashes back and realizes he and Brad Pitt have never been in the same room with Helena Bonham Carter at the same time. He realizes he’s been punching himself the whole time. He’s Tyler Durden. In all the excitement of meeting Babiki, the times we were hanging out and getting to know each other, we were never actually speaking to each other. It was always through Tom. Fucking Tom. Tom had promised he’d get me a beautiful date for the dance, but he hadn’t made any promises about any of her other qualities. Whenever we were together, she was speaking Pedi to Tom, and Tom was speaking English to me. But she didn’t speak English, and I didn’t speak Pedi. Abel spoke Pedi. He’d learned several South African languages in order to deal with his customers, so he’d spoken with her fluently when they met. But in that moment I realized I’d never actually heard her say anything in English other than: “Yes.” “No.” “Hi.” “Bye.” That’s it: “Yes.” “No.” “Hi.” “Bye.” Babiki was so shy that she didn’t talk much to begin with, and I was so inept with women that I didn’t know how to talk to her. I’d never had a girlfriend; I didn’t even know what “girlfriend” meant. Someone put a beautiful woman on my arm and said, “She’s your girlfriend.”