Fear

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.

Page 133 of 529 · 20 per page

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  The prevalence of infant baptism revealed the new ubiquity and universality of Christianity. Nothing in Christian scriptures prepared believers for this eventuality, and it can be argued that Christianity has never really theorized a way to live in such domination. For it could gradually come to seem that Christianity was everywhere (within the sway of Roman dominion) and was believed by everyone (heretics and Jews excepted, while surviving adherents of other old religions were simply declared nonexistent). The fear of persecution would vanish, and no one worried about the tyranny one’s own party might employ. Augustine never theorized a world in which Christians would dominate the secular realm indefinitely and with confidence. Even in City of God, though he praises Christian emperors, he still fails to see what is happening before his eyes. Instead he perilously accepts that imperial military and civil power can be brought to bear in what he still sees as the desperate struggle to bring humankind to its senses. The triumph of Christianity, spoken of transparently in the history textbooks, depended in fact on the brute force of empire and law to bring it about, a force to which Christians were slow in breaking their addiction many, many centuries later, an addiction that still flourishes in some surprising places. Others were slow in seeing that future as well. The bishop of Rome in Augustine’s lifetime was still only a prestigious and sometimes influential figure, but he was not yet “pope” to Christians at a distance from Rome in any meaningful sense; that would take another hundred years. But in that respect and others, the fifth and sixth centuries saw the working out and institutionalization of the religious and social creations of the fourth century. Such institutionalization was probably far from inevitable at the time, but in retrospect, the fundamental choices and alignments were in place by the time Augustine died, and those were, in the main, choices that had been made in his, or even in his parents’, lifetime.382 The homogenization of Christianity into a more or less successfully single international movement and the branding of that movement as “catholic” (in the west) or “orthodox” (in the east) is a further result of this process of invention. Augustine’s part in shaping the catholic identity was the central achievement of his career, and we will pursue that story in the next chapter. Several important conclusions should be drawn from reviewing this history. First, if “Christianity” has any specific historical meaning, it should be thought of as that fourth-century church and its descendants and branches. This observation runs sharply against the theological tradition, common in all denominations, of seeing a linear descent and filiation from Jesus to the present, always culminating in the community of the particular observer—but it does far more justice to the evidence.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Then he woke and looked down and saw that his silver cock was much larger than normal and that it was sticking out at an angle from his body, though subsiding. He was alarmed, and he looked over at her, but her eyes were closed, and she was sleeping. Soon the stiffness went away, and he went back to sleep. Then one day they were jostled greatly and thrown into confusion. They looked at each other with alarm; it was clear that their enclosure was being tossed around on some ocean or tumbled down some steep incline. There was a sudden sharp concussion and an inrush of blinding searing light, which poured in as their fluid suspension slowly leaked away. They lay cupped and sprawling in one half of a silver egg that had cracked apart. After a moment, they stood. Their hands found each other. They were a couple, newly hatched. Loud sounds blossomed from enormous fleshy flushed faces, and Gallanos and Mellinnas were frightened. Moreover, their silver skin began to dry, and as it did they felt an almost unbearable warmth. They held on to each other tightly for protection but also because it soothed the burning of their acclimatizing skin. Gallanos’s penis was swollen and hot, and it seemed almost without their knowing it to slide inside Mellinnas. Then they were tightly embraced, a writhing ball of silver. The huge faces came closer to watch, and the silver couple could hear enormous booming noises, which they later understood were speech. But all they could do was move together to try to adjust to the shock of being exposed to air. Gallanos lay down on the surface of something hard and smooth, with a grain to it—the wooden tabletop—and his eggmate squashed herself to him and moved with amazing flexibility around and around on his molten twig. She opened her mouth, and he opened his, and then as feelings they hardly remembered gushed through them they pushed against the muteness of their throats until finally a series of small cries came out, strange uncertain sounds that increased in volume and pace until, as they reached the final throes of their lovemaking, they became groans of joy. The faces, watching, blinked and smiled. Gallanos and Mellinnas crawled onto a folded washcloth and fell asleep. We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook. Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

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

  “So you don’t think you can be a good stepfather to Kristi’s son?” “You may think that I’m being selfish but I’m afraid that the kid will come between Kristi and me and I’m not sure I can take that. My heart is not in any great shape. I’ve had some really rough years. So did she. But bottom line is that I really need for her to be there for me. I can’t do with a handout now and then.” “And you think that you’ll get less from Kristi after her son moves in.” “Yes, I do. Maybe I’m wrong. I hope that I am. But my whole life I’ve had to divide what I got into neat parcels. After my folks divorced, I always got what was left. I don’t want that to happen to me in my marriage.” Spoken very clearly, I said to myself, and alas utterly realistic. There’s no question that a child has first dibs on the mother, and unless the father can join in the giving there’s serious trouble ahead. As Billy recognizes, he’s not in the giving line. His own long-postponed needs are too great and too pressing. I was finding more and more confirmation for his prophecy of trouble ahead. I wondered if he had other worries and asked, “How stable is your relationship with Kristi?” “Stable relationship?” He snorted his reply. “I’ve never had a stable relationship with a woman, not ever. Even when I think it’s stable, it blows up from under me.” “Billy,” I sighed, settling back in my chair. “You’ve had a hard time with the women in your life. Can you bring me up to date from the start?” “It’s not a happy story and it’s not a short one. But here goes. The truth is that when other guys in high school or later were dating or partying or screwing, I wasn’t. I know you’re going to ask me why so let me tell you short and sweet. I had no confidence that I would find a woman who would like me. Love I never even dreamed about. I figured anyone who went out with me was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Like she was desperate. I figured I was just not in the human race, sort of a mule supposed to pull his load and shut up. And if I ever found someone, she’d end up betraying me anyway, so why try?” I was appalled at his terrible self-image and very distressed by his loneliness. “How did you spend all those years in your early twenties?”

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  Augustine believes in, hopes for, and loves his god. The most sympathetic treatises of Augustine’s later years (Spirit and Letter; Treatise on the Epistle of John; the Enchiridion) bring that Trinitarian image to the fore. What are their opposites? Disbelief (that is to say, the failure of the project to know god and soul), despair arising from disbelief, and isolation and chill—the isolation and chill that some find, or fear to find, in old age, perhaps. And Augustine the polemicist? He attacks ostensibly misdirected faith and hope and love with a vehemence that gives expression to his many fears. He cannot allow that others, others with easier views of the divine and of humankind, can be right, for then not only he but his god would be rendered useless. And that is what, to the end, Augustine hangs on to: the firm conviction that god is not useless. HOMO AUGUSTINIANUS The human person (homo is the gender-neutral word in Latin whose equivalent we lack in English) is the necessary complement to the divine in Augustine’s picture of the universe. If this seems obvious, Augustine is in no small part responsible. The fundamental fact about the human person for him is that it is created “in the image and likeness of god” (Genesis 1.26). Augustine insists on that point relentlessly. Early and late he pursues triadic patterns of behavior in god and man at the same time: being/knowing/loving perhaps the most common of them, as we saw in talking about how the Confessions were put together. The similarities reside fundamentally in the soul of humankind, not the body, and they sharply separate and distinguish human beings from the animal kingdom. (Making that distinction was an old project of ancient philosophy—for example, in Cicero—and not something specially Christian. Human beings are what come between the divine and the bestial. In other words, we know what we are by knowing what we are not.)

• From Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)

  At this juncture family members and those concerned may express why they feel the intervention was necessary and important. They explain in detail, based on their firsthand observations, why involvement with the group seems to be problematic and potentially unsafe or even dangerous. Evidence might include medical neglect, sexual abuse, child abuse and neglect, suspected psychological and emotional damage, criminal conduct, financial exploitation, diminished and increasingly strained communication, escalating isolation, and substandard living conditions. Each person participating in the intervention has an opportunity to present his or her personal point of view and general perspective. This may include both anecdotal examples as well as concerns motivated by gathered historical information. This is often the most volatile, difficult, and emotional phase of the intervention. My role through this process is to keep the discussion focused but with an appropriate level of flexibility. This might include focusing attention on how the cultic group may have caused, contributed to, and/or exacerbated certain personal problems or situations. All those present express their concerns regarding such issues as personal safety, quality of life, family relations, and reasonable expectations for the future. Those present may feel a sense of special urgency due to particular recent events tied to cult involvement. For example, there might be an anticipated marital separation or divorce, critical child custody or visitation dispute, expected bankruptcy or business failure, closely related criminal prosecution, or a serious illness that is not being properly treated. This difficult part of the intervention and must be carefully moderated. Everyone present has been prepared by setting guidelines for this portion of the discussion during the previous preparation process. That is, no one should become punitive, angry, or needlessly emotional or confrontational. Instead, participants are encouraged to stay focused on the facts and connect their concerns to the well-documented details about the group or leader. Everyone is also encouraged to be both candid and precise about his or her concerns while also on balance expressing his or her continuing love and support. Every opportunity is afforded to allow the cult-involved individual a response to each concern. It is crucial for those concerned to participate meaningfully, and everything must be done to encourage that participation within the boundaries previously discussed during the preparation phase. Conclusion As the intervention ends, there should be a review of what has been learned, including the major points of exchange regarding certain concerns. Again this would focus first on the definition of a destructive cult and on how the group in question fits that profile. Second is how the group or leader used specifically identified coercive persuasion techniques to gain undue influence. Third is what we have learned about the particular history of the group or leader and how that demonstrates that further involvement poses a risk and is potentially unsafe, if not dangerous. Finally are the serious concerns that made family and old friends increasingly uncomfortable and ultimately led to the intervention.

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

  At last, in the month of May, A.D. 66, under the last procurator, Gessius Florus (from 65 onward), a wicked and cruel tyrant who, as Josephus says, was placed as a hangman over evil-doers, an organized rebellion broke out against the Romans, but it the same time a terrible civil war also between different parties of the revolters themselves, especially between the Zealots, and the Moderates, or the Radicals and Conservatives. The ferocious party of the Zealots had all the fire and energy which religious and patriotic fanaticism could inspire; they have been justly compared with the Montagnards of the French Revolution. They gained the ascendancy in the progress of the war, took forcible possession of the city and the temple and introduced a reign of terror. They kept up the Messianic expectations of the people and hailed every step towards destruction as a step towards deliverance. Reports of comets, meteors, and all sorts of fearful omens and prodigies were interpreted as signs of the common of the Messiah and his reign over the heathen. The Romans recognized the Messiah in Vespasian and Titus. To defy Rome in that age, without a single ally, was to defy the world in arms; but religious fanaticism, inspired by the recollection of the heroic achievements of the Maccabees, blinded the Jews against the inevitable failure of this mad and desperate revolt. The Roman Invasion. The emperor Nero, informed of the rebellion, sent his most famous general, Vespasian, with a large force to Palestine Vespasian opened the campaign in the year 67 from the Syrian port-town, Ptolemais (Acco), and against a stout resistance overran Galilee with an army of sixty thousand men. But events in Rome hindered him from completing the victory, and required him to return thither. Nero had killed himself. The emperors, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius followed one another in rapid succession. The latter was taken out of a dog’s kennel in Rome while drunk, dragged through the streets, and shamefully put to death. Vespasian, in the year 69, was universally proclaimed emperor, and restored order and prosperity. His son, Titus, who himself ten years after became emperor, and highly distinguished himself by his mildness and philanthropy,543 then undertook the prosecution of the Jewish war, and became the instrument in the hand of God of destroying the holy city and the temple. He had an army of not less than eighty thousand trained soldiers, and planted his camp on Mount Scopus and the adjoining Mount Olivet, in full view of the city and the temple, which from this height show to the best advantage. The valley of the Kedron divided the besiegers from the besieged.

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

  None of the leading apostles remained to record the horrible massacre, except John. He may have heard of it in Ephesus, or he may have accompanied Peter to Rome and escaped a fearful death in the Neronian gardens, if we are to credit the ancient tradition of his miraculous preservation from being burnt alive with his fellow-Christians in that hellish illumination on the Vatican hill.533 At all events he was himself a victim of persecution for the name of Jesus, and depicted its horrors, as an exile on the lonely island of Patmos in the vision of the Apocalypse. This mysterious book—whether written between 68 and 69, or under Domitian in 95—was undoubtedly intended for the church of that age as well as for future ages, and must have been sufficiently adapted to the actual condition and surroundings of its first readers to give them substantial aid and comfort in their fiery trials. Owing to the nearness of events alluded to, they must have understood it even better, for practical purposes, than readers of later generations. John looks, indeed, forward to the final consummation, but he sees the end in the beginning. He takes his standpoint on the historic foundation of the old Roman empire in which he lived, as the visions of the prophets of Israel took their departure from the kingdom of David or the age of the Babylonian captivity. He describes the heathen Rome of his day as "the beast that ascended out of the abyss," as "a beast coming out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads" (or kings, emperors), as "the great harlot that sitteth among many waters," as a "woman sitting upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns," as "Babylon the great, the mother of the harlots and of the abominations of the earth."534 The seer must have in view the Neronian persecution, the most cruel that ever occurred, when he calls the woman seated on seven hills, "drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus,"535 and prophesied her downfall as a matter of rejoicing for the "saints and apostles and prophets."536 Recent commentators discover even a direct allusion to Nero, as expressing in Hebrew letters (Neron Kesar) the mysterious number 666, and as being the fifth of the seven heads of the beast which was slaughtered, but would return again from the abyss as Antichrist. But this interpretation is uncertain, and in no case can we attribute to John the belief that Nero would literally rise from the dead as Antichrist. He meant only that Nero, the persecutor of the Christian church, was (like Antiochus Epiphanes) the forerunner of Antichrist, who would be inspired by the same bloody spirit from the infernal world. In a similar sense Rome was a second Babylon, and John the Baptist another Elijah. Notes. I. The Accounts of the Neronian Persecution. 1. From heathen historians.

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  To this day we cannot say just how much Rome suffered at the hands of Alaric’s mainly Christian troops. The wealthy and well connected had endured more in the years preceding, when they were repeatedly called on to fund the bribes paid to Alaric, but they also inevitably incurred some losses in the siege. The aftereffects of the siege were, on the other hand, insignificant, and order was quickly restored. Death and destruction on a scale unparallelled in the city since the sack of the city by the Gauls exactly 800 years earlier were shocking, but the episode lasted only three days and the city and its inhabitants then went on very much as before. The emotional impact of such an event, as we know today, can run well beyond a cool assessment of the actual damage, aggravated by fears of repetition. “I was so distressed,” wrote Jerome, “that it was like the old proverb: I didn’t even know my own name.”451 Augustine revealed none of the same visceral sense of shock. Indeed, he is so immune at this moment one might think he had never laid eyes on the great city a quarter-century before, on his way to and from his prospects of a great career. On the way north, at least, he must have looked upon the glories of the city with the eyes of a devotee of empire brought up reading Vergil. But even before 410, the horizon could look threatening to Augustine in many directions. In one letter, to Victorianus in 409, he evokes already a “whole world” with no place to hide from violence and barbarism.452 Egypt, Italy, Gaul, Spain—no relief anywhere. To be sure, this picture is designed to help dramatize the Donatist-Caecilianist hostility in Hippo, where the circumcellions make the barbarians look peace-loving in comparison. The circumcellions come across as terrorists, throwing lime and vinegar in the eyes of opposing clerics, burning houses, ploughing up fields, forcing people to accept rebaptism (forty-eight at a time in one place). But such tales of irreligious woe reminded him of others, and he drifted off into the story of a consecrated virgin at Sitifis a few years before who had been taken by the barbarians and then the slave-trader had given her back to her parents. What strikes the reader most in such a catalogue is the inability to see a big picture, the inability to find perspective. But in 410 he would have been ready to respond to the news from Rome with an Eeyorish “I thought as much.” Only with the writing of City of God in the years that followed did he begin to find perspective, and even then it’s not clear that he could really hear what he had to say—and some of his most devoted disciples couldn’t hear him at all, as we shall see.

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  The one category in which that god of Augustine’s would be limited would be, ironically, in how human beings could perceive him. This utterly transcendent and supreme being lay hidden in the world to all but the most discerning eyes. Sin had so far separated people from this god (Augustine argued) that mortal sight had darkened and the “invisible things of god” (Romans 1.20) that should be intuited by all those who looked upon the things he had created were obscure to all but a few—most likely, Augustine thought, those to whom god had chosen to reveal himself. Humankind lived in a world dominated by a supreme and irresistible force that lay maddeningly just beyond its ken. When Christians assert that the divine is knowable, they have to accept that their god is at the same time obscure, difficult, and absent. Human beings facing such a god felt, not unnaturally, fear and anxiety. Throughout his life, Augustine found Christianity for himself and preached it for others as a religion in principle founded on hope, but no one is hopeful who is not also fearful. Not until the last moment of life could one say with assurance whether salvation had been achieved, whether what Augustine came to call the “gift of perseverance” had been among the gifts god had given. He could describe an old man of great piety and chastity who took up with a dancing girl as lacking this ultimate gift.337 The Augustine of the Confessions who can say that he does not know to which temptation he will next submit is the Augustine of that anxiety.338 To be sure, some of Augustine’s contemporary Christians seem to have lived with more settled expectations and a more secure hope in the future. Not surprisingly, most of them were ones to whom Augustine’s ideas about his god, and his conclusions about the implications of that god’s nature for human freedom, were at least unfamiliar and perhaps unwelcome. But the terrifying images of the last judgment from the Book of Revelation found already in Christian art of this period are reminders that some strains of Jesus’s message came through more loudly and clearly than others. If Augustine’s Christianity were unfamiliar to us, one other aspect of his teaching would strike us with a jarring note of dissonance, a doctrine that descends from, and is reinforced by, his idea of god: his notion of a “catholic” church.

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

  But when some delegates of James468 arrived from Jerusalem and remonstrated with him for his conduct, he timidly withdrew from fellowship with the uncircumcised followers of Christ, and thus virtually disowned them. He unwittingly again denied his Lord from the fear of man, but this time in the persons of his Gentile disciples. The inconsistency is characteristic of his impulsive temper, which made him timid or bold according to the nature of the momentary impression. It is not stated whether these delegates simply carried out the instructions of James or went beyond them. The former is more probable from what we know of him, and explains more easily the conduct of Peter, who would scarcely have been influenced by casual and unofficial visitors. They were perhaps officers in the congregation of Jerusalem; at all events men of weight, not Pharisees exactly, yet extremely conservative and cautious, and afraid of miscellaneous company, which might endanger the purity and orthodoxy of the venerable mother church of Christendom. They did, of course, not demand the circumcision of the Gentile Christians, for this would have been in direct opposition to the synodical decree, but they no doubt reminded Peter of the understanding of the Jerusalem compact concerning the duty of Jewish Christians, which he above all others should scrupulously keep. They represented to him that his conduct was at least very hasty and premature, and calculated to hinder the conversion of the Jewish nation, which was still the object of their dearest hopes and most fervent prayers. The pressure must have been very strong, for even Barnabas, who had stood side by side with Paul at Jerusalem in the defence of the rights of the Gentile Christians, was intimidated and carried away by the example of the chief of the apostles. The subsequent separation of Paul from Barnabas and Mark, which the author of Acts frankly relates, was no doubt partly connected with this manifestation of human weakness.469

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  But leave aside his religion and see him only as a figure of the western past, and he is still threatened with misunderstanding and obscurity, and he is not alone. Fundamental assumptions that he made about humankind, assumptions that undergird everything he wrote even before his religious conversion, are on the brink of a historic challenge. He is an heir and a shaper of a long tradition that takes from the Greco-Roman past assumptions about human beings and how they work. The intellectual revolution of Greek antiquity and the cultural revolution of Christian antiquity both made sense within that underlying tradition. If that tradition now gives way, ideas built on them will find the ground shifting precipitously. Whatever becomes of “soul” will determine what becomes of Augustine. Augustine writes and worries at length about the nature of the human soul because that soul is central to his understanding of himself, of humankind, and indeed of his god. If “heart” was always metaphor, “soul” was regularly insisted on as standing for something quite real. Augustine’s soul is a spiritual creature, somehow both coterminous with the body but immortal, whether destined for heaven or for hell, often torn by emotion and distraction but potentially a serene unity at the heart of human existence. Augustine knows his soul well enough to talk to621 and sees his life’s work to reside in soul management. Body will fail, so soul must be saved. Body and soul will be reunited in resurrected life, soul now to dominate body and its impulses. Augustine could never quite say exactly how this would come about. But if there is no soul? If there is no soul substitute called “mind” or “personality”? Contemporary cognitive science challenges our deepest western assumptions about human beings and what they are. Attempt after attempt to locate a mental or spiritual unity in some convincing relation with the brain and body of a mortal human fails, fails increasingly often in our times, to be replaced by a series of competing hypotheses about the loosely coupled functioning of multiple systems distributed throughout the body. Deeply held personal, political, philosophical, social, and religious ideas depend on the view of the human person that they share. Roughly, we all know the broad western view that there exists something spiritual that we might as well call a soul, something that accompanies humankind through life, explains our differences from the animal kingdom, is the locus of solace and grief, love and hate, lust and abashment, and is the object of whatever hopes for a life beyond the visible and the mortal that we may still cherish.

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  The rival bishop of Hippo when Augustine arrived was Proculeianus. Early on, Augustine tried to engage him in public disputation, and Proculeianus professed through intermediaries to be willing, but the promised engagement never came to pass.408 Macrobius succeeded Proculeianus, then fell afoul of an anti-Donatist purge of 405 and lived on the lam for four years, returning around 409 in a swarm of circumcellions bellowing their customary chant, “Deo laudes!” (“God be praised!”). But in a day or so, Macrobius turned on them and rebuked their excesses (through an interpreter who spoke their native Punic), and they left town as quickly as they had come. Augustine wants to appear brave about it all, but at the same time he lets us sense that such bands of rabble were a threat to his own faction and to the public order.409 It was surely an unsettling moment, and Augustine makes the most of it: slaves threatening their masters and running away, Donatist congregations retaking the basilicas that had been seized from them in 405, with the Donatist clergy washing down the floors with salt water to purify them of Caecilianist taint.410 But these reverses led to the approach to imperial power that, in turn, led to the final conflict of 411 and Augustine’s eventual success. If you lived inside the Donatist community, on the other hand, you were quite without what Augustine would think of as the fear of god. From a sermon of his: “You can say to one of them, ‘You are going to perish in that heresy, that schism of yours. God will inevitably punish such evil and you will come to damnation. Don’t flatter yourself, don’t follow a sightless leader; for when the blind lead the blind [Matthew 15.14], both will fall into the pit.’ ‘What’s it to me?’ he replies. ‘I lived this way yesterday, I live this way today. What my parents were, that’s what I am.’”411

• From An Anomalous Jew: Paul Among Jews, Greeks, and Romans (2016)

  The reason for the persecution was probably the perception that the Christians were “lawbreakers, an accusa- tion going back to Jesus’ own ministry (see Mark 2:24; 3:4; Luke 13:14; 14:1- 6), the Hellenistic circle associated with Stephen (Acts 6:13-14), and now exacerbated by the breaking down of the Jew-Gentile divide in Antioch (see Josephus, Ant. 20.200, where James was accused of being a lawbreaker as well). It is notable that, during the Maccabean rebellion, several Hellenized Jews were sallied upon because they were said to have made a covenant with the Gentiles and removed the marks of circumcision (1 Macc 1:11-15). Per- haps Christ-believers, especially the Greek-speaking Jewish Christ-believers in Antioch, were accused of making similar compromises with covenant, circumcision, and Gentiles and became susceptible to zealous violence as a result. So in order to avoid further persecution of the Jerusalem church, James sent a message to Peter in Antioch to adopt a stricter approach to Gen- tiles and meals. In order to prevent further persecutions, James required the Jewish Christ-believers in Antioch to undertake a stricter halakah of Torah- keeping when it came to contact with Gentiles. I take this to mean that they 81. Robert Jewett, “The Agitators and the Galatian Congregation,’ NTS 17 (1971): 198-212; Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Law, 133-36; Bruce, Galatians, 130; Longenecker, Galatians, 74-75; Hengel and Schwemer, Paul between Damascus and Antioch, 244-51; Witherington, Grace in Galatia, 155-56; Bockmuehl, Jewish Law, 73-75; Hays, “Galatians,” 11:232-33; Hengel, Saint Peter, 61-65; Charles, Paul and Politics of Diaspora, 148-49; Moo, Galatians, 148-49; D. A. Carson, “Mirror-Reading with Paul and against Paul: Galatians 2:11-14 as a Test Case,” in Studies in the Pauline Epistles, ed. M. S. Harmon and J. E. Smith (FS Douglas Moo; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 108-12; Gibson, Peter, 262-75. 82. Jewett, “Agitators,” 205. 195 AN ANOMALOUS JEW were to foster a Jewish social space conducive for intimate social intercourse with other Jews but not necessarily commensurable to open fellowship with Gentiles. The delegation sent to Antioch inferred that this meant withdraw- ing from contact with Gentiles at meals, unless of course the Gentiles were circumcised and perhaps observed regulations pertinent to resident aliens (e.g., Gen 15:18; Exod 23:31; Lev 17-18; Num 13:21-22; 34:7-9; Deut 1:7-8; 11:24; Josh 1:4; Ezek 47:15-17; 48:1). Thus, if Jewish Christ-believers were to deflect suspicions of being legally lax or consorting with Gentiles, that would necessitate certain constraints on the fellowship between Jewish and Gentile Christ-believers.

• From An Anomalous Jew: Paul Among Jews, Greeks, and Romans (2016)

  Paul draws a correlation between the Thessalonians’ persecution at the hands of local authorities and the persecution suffered by the Judean churches from the Jews: For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out; they displease God and oppose everyone by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they have constantly been filling up the mea- 5. See John M. G. Barclay, “Who Was Considered an Apostate in the Jewish Diaspora?? in Pauline Churches and Diaspora Jews: Beyond the New Perspective (WUNT 275; Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 141-55 (esp. 151-54). 6. See Brian R. Rosner, Paul and the Law (NSBT; Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013). Paul the Jew . . . of Sorts sure of their sins; but God’s wrath has overtaken them at last. (1 Thess 2:14-16)’ Paul told the Corinthians that his apostolic credentials are validated by his list of travails, including the various persecutions he had received from the Jews. Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent jour- neys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters. (2 Cor 11:24-26; see m. Mak. 3.14) When Paul wrote to the Romans, he was preparing to embark on a return visit to Jerusalem to deliver the collection to the church before setting off for Spain via Rome. In this letter Paul asked the Romans to pray for his safety as he faced great peril by visiting Jerusalem, a peril confirmed by Luke's account in Acts 21:15-26:32. With the following words, he asked the Romans to pray for him: I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in earnest prayer to God on my behalf, that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my ministry to Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, so that by God's will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company.

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

  People who believe that numbers mute the individual child’s suffering have simply not talked to the children. Each child in a classroom half full of children of divorce cries out, “Why me?” Moreover, by following the life of one child of divorce, and then another and another, from early childhood through adolescence and into the challenges of adulthood, I can say without a doubt that they have worries apart from their peers raised in intact homes. These worries are reshaping our society in ways we never dreamt about. That is the subject of this book and a challenge to all of us in coming years. T HE PAGES THAT follow contain many themes that are entirely new to our understanding of the long-term effects of divorce. For example, Karen was the first grown child of divorce who described that she lived with the fear that disaster was always waiting to strike without warning, especially when she was happy. As I soon found out, these fears were common among young adults who grew up in divorced families. If happiness increases one’s odds of experiencing loss, think how dangerous it must be to simply feel happy. Contrary to what we have long thought, the major impact of divorce does not occur during childhood or adolescence. Rather, it rises in adulthood as serious romantic relationships move center stage. When it comes time to choose a life mate and build a new family, the effects of divorce crescendo. A central finding to my research is that children identify not only with their mother and father as separate individuals but with the relationship between them. They carry the template of this relationship into adulthood and use it to seek the image of their new family. The absence of a good image negatively influences their search for love, intimacy, and commitment. Anxiety leads many into making bad choices in relationships, giving up hastily when problems arise, or avoiding relationships altogether. As we will see, the divorced family is not a truncated version of the two-parent family. It is a different kind of family in which children feel less protected and less certain about their future than children in reasonably good intact families. Mothers and fathers who share their beds with different people are not the same as mothers and fathers living under the same roof. The divorced family has an entirely new cast of characters and relationships featuring stepparents and stepsiblings, second marriages and second divorces, and often a series of live-in lovers.

• From An Anomalous Jew: Paul Among Jews, Greeks, and Romans (2016)

  This first act subsequent to his conversion confirms his understanding of his conversion as a commission to preach the gospel among pagans”; Wayne A. Meeks (The First Urban Christians: 87 AN ANOMALOUS JEW or to Jews in the region.’ It is impossible to say for certain. We know that Paul returned to Damascus and had to leave there quickly to avoid capture by the local ruler, King Aretas, sometime around 37 CE. Such disturbances may well imply that his activities in Damascus and Arabia were incendiary or controversial; if so, I think that they were probably evangelistic (Gal 1:17; 2 Cor 11:32-33).*” This idea may partially authenticate the narration of Paul in Acts, where, during his time in Damascus, he lodged with the disciples and was preaching Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God in the synagogues (Acts g:19b-25).** Such activity is perfectly plausible, given the concentration of Jews in the city of Damascus at the time.”” The Social World of the Apostle Paul [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983]): “It is evident that Paul had stirred up this official hostility not by meditating in the desert nor by wandering from village to village, but by preaching in flourishing Hellenistic cities such as Petra, Gerasa, Philadelphia, and Bostra’; Martin Hengel (“The Stance of the Apostle Paul toward the Law in the Unknown Years between Damascus and Antioch, in Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 2, The Paradoxes of Paul [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004], 89): “Why Arabia?’ is simple. As the offspring of Israel the Arabians’ were the genealogically and geographically closest physical relatives of Israel among the ‘Gentiles, since they, too, were descendents of Abraham. The offspring of Esau, the Edomites, had already become Jews under Hyrcanus and were no longer ‘Gentiles” (italics original). Paul Barnett (Jesus and the Rise of Early Christianity: A History of New Testament Times [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999], 255): “While we may reasonably assume that, as in Damascus, Saul preached to Jews in the Nabataean synagogues ... Aretas hostility toward him implies that he had also evangelized indigenous Nabataeans.” Eckhard J. Schnabel (Early Christian Mission, vol. 1, Jesus and the Twelve; vol. 2, Paul and the Early Church [Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2004], 2:1037): “The intervention of Nabatean officials suggests that Paul did not limit his preaching to Jewish audiences, but that he reached pagan Nabateans as well.” More cautious is Riesner (Paul’s Early Period, 260), who wonders whether Paul lived in Arabia “reclusively,’ engaged in a possible “sojourn with a group of Jewish Chris- tians” and perhaps “did mission work under the Jews living in the Nabataean territory.” 46. On Jews in Nabataea, see David Graf, “Nabateans,” ABD 4:972-73; Hengel and Schwemer, Paul between Damascus and Antioch, 112-13. 47. We should also recognize that tensions between the two Roman client-kingdoms of Judea and Nabataea may also have given Paul reason to cut his mission short (see Josephus, Ant. 18.109-26).

• From Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)

  The day has long passed when we can afford to ignore the threat posed by individuals who believe they are subject only to the laws of their god and not those of our government.”88 1996–2002—Hare Krishna (ISKON) Racketeering and Child Abuse In 1996 the International Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) leader Kirtanananda accepted a plea deal from prosecutors for racketeering related to a $10 million fund-raising scam. The charge was tied to the murders of two Krishna devotees. The killer, a follower of Kirtanananda, testified that the guru had ordered the murders.89 The conspiracy to commit murder charge was dropped as part of the plea arrangement. One of the men killed had apparently intended to expose the guru. He reportedly claimed that Kirtanananda “condoned child abuse and sexual molestation.”90 Kirtanananda received a twenty-year prison sentence. Prabhupada, an Indian businessman turned guru founded ISKCON, which has often been called a “cult,” in 1966. We should note that the guru once reportedly said, “The Krishna consciousness movement has nothing to do with the Hindu religion.”91 Keith Hamm, later known as Kirtanananda, became an ISKCON devotee in 1968. During the 1970s he built a lavish temple called “New Vrindaban” in West Virginia, which was to serve as a palace for Prabhupada. The building was lavishly decorated and painted in gold leaf. Tons of imported marble and onyx were used in its construction. It was not completed until 1979, two years after Prabhupada’s death. Kirtanananda was once one of the most powerful gurus within the ISKCON hierarchy; he was released from prison in 2004 after serving eight years of his sentence. ISKCON banned him. The disgraced guru wasn’t allowed to return to the “Palace of Gold,” known as “the crown jewel of the Krishna movement in America,”92 he had built. Kirtanananda died in 2011 at the age of seventy-four. In February 2002 ISKCON declared bankruptcy. This was done in response to a $400 million class-action lawsuit filed in 2000 against the organization. Ninety-two plaintiffs claimed sexual, physical, and emotional abuse during the 1970s and 1980s as children within ISKCON boarding schools.93 The Chapter 11 bankruptcy took place before the scheduled trial and effectively forced the plaintiffs to accept a settlement. The court ordered a settlement plan of $9.5 million, which hundreds of children abused in ISKCON ultimately shared. This settlement included schools the group maintained both in the United States and in India.94 Prabhupada, the founder of ISKCON, wanted all children of his devotees sequestered in boarding schools, beginning at the age of five. This step freed parents to work unencumbered at such things as selling books for the organization and other fund-raising efforts.95 Children were reportedly “terrorized” within Krishna facilities. Young girls were given as “brides” to older men who donated generously to the group.

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

  Mostly she was a very well-behaved, well-dressed, quiet child at home and at school. Her nursery school teacher told me that she often wished Lisa would do something naughty. A year later, her kindergarten teacher, in reply to an inquiry, dropped me a note saying she worried that this bright child showed so little fantasy or creativity in her play. “She’s always on guard, looking around,” the teacher reported. At home, Lisa’s upset, which she did not show in her parents’ homes or in school, seeped through as fears—of the dark, of scary dreams, of fire, of sleeping alone. Lisa was frightened when her mother left town, even if she could stay at her dad’s house. She was embarrassed to tell her father and stepmother how frightened she was at night. “I’m scared to tell Daddy that I’m scared. I’d like them to leave a light on in the bathroom like my mom does but I’m too scared to ask them,” she told me at our second meeting. Gradually her fears became more acute and she began to grind her teeth at night. Nevertheless, Lisa’s mom, in trying to put her own life back together, went to visit her sister in Santa Fe for several weeks shortly after the breakup. She needed “space to think.” Neither parent was aware of the extent of Lisa’s grief and pain over the divorce. She seemed so self-controlled, so calm. Surely, they told themselves, her fears will disappear in time. Actually, they lasted for several years and worsened again when her mother took on a heavier work schedule. That’s when Lisa began to worry daily that her mother would die. In many divorces, one of the partners does not see the breakup coming and in fact has only a minor inkling that the other person is dissatisfied with the marriage. And tragically, the abandoned partner may be deeply in love with the spouse who wants out. When this happens, a sense of shock, betrayal, and rage can last for many years, if not forever. Lisa’s mother was stunned when her husband asked her for a divorce. She knew that he had minor complaints about the marriage but divorce had never crossed her mind. The fact that he remarried the day after their divorce was final compounded the blow. She was badly hurt, bewildered, and humiliated. She was, and still is, a very attractive professional woman who had no trouble finding dates, but casual liaisons depressed her. Tragically, she did not, despite many efforts, find a suitable partner. As Lisa told me, “She’s an independent, strong woman, but I feel a lot of guilt, a lot of pity, and a lot of worry when I think of her.” Lisa’s father was not happy being married to Lisa’s mother. He complained that she was demanding, edgy, and uncaring. He wanted love and tenderness and, indeed, he quickly found a woman similar to his wife in age and education.

• From An Anomalous Jew: Paul Among Jews, Greeks, and Romans (2016)

  This parting “in” the ways rather than “of” the ways meant that the break with the Jerusalem church was not absolute. There seems to have remained a genuine but uneasy relationship between the two parties. Paul's only genuine adversaries were the false brothers who caused divisions in Antioch and who finally found a way to gain a concession from the Jerusalem church for their circumcision view by playing on the fears that Jewish fraternizing with uncir- cumcised Gentiles would lead to further pogroms in Jerusalem. It was most likely persons from this faction who entered Galatia, but as far as can be ascer- tained from Galatians, they were not authorized by the Jerusalem church. The enduring but cagey relationship that Paul had with the Jerusalem church is evi- denced by Paul's affirmation of Barnabas’s and Peter’s ministry (1 Cor 1:12; 9:6), Paul’s affirmation of acommon gospel shared with the Jerusalem church (1 Cor 15:1-8), his sense of continuing solidarity with the Judean churches in their persecution (1 Thess 2:15-16), at least one visit to Antioch after the hurtful inci- dent sometime around 52 CE (Acts 18:22), Paul’s reconciliation with John Mark probably during his time in Ephesus (Phlm 24; Col 4:11), and his collection for the needy saints in Jerusalem, which was an olive branch in search of cordial relations (1 Cor 16:1-7; Rom 15:25-28). Paul's fear in going to Jerusalem was pri- marily from unbelieving Jews (Rom 15:31), and James's response to Paul's visit to Jerusalem in Acts 21:20-25 is realistic by afhrming Paul’s ministry to Gentiles, urging Paul to address the matter of his antinomian reputation, and reaffirming the requirement of the apostolic decree as a minimal law for Gentiles. Paul was ultimately trying to stay true to the revelation that he had received on the Damascus road, and he was endeavoring to stand firm on the principles agreed on at the Jerusalem council. As Hengel wrote, “If the community in Jerusalem now—contrary to an earlier attitude—called for the circumcision of the ‘Gentiles; Paul’s whole proclamation of the gospel to the ‘Gentiles’ since his call, i.e., since Damascus, would have been in vain, as his message and the faith brought about by it would be ‘nothing’ if Christ had not risen from the dead (I Cor. 15:14). For Paul, a separated Gentile Christian Church which alone was orthodox, i.e., a divided body of Christ, was an impossible idea.”’®* Paul remained an activist for the “old Antioch” position on Christ, Torah, and Gen- tiles before the Jerusalem church apparently caved in to political pressure from zealous Judeans. James and Peter probably saw their position as fair in that it did not strictly advocate the circumcision of Gentiles (unless they wanted to 105. Hengel and Schwemer, Paul between Damascus and Antioch, 208.

• From Sense and Sensibility (1811)

  He had nothing to urge against it, but still resisted the idea of a letter of proper submission; and therefore, to make it easier to him, as he declared a much greater willingness to make mean concessions by word of mouth than on paper, it was resolved that, instead of writing to Fanny, he should go to London, and personally intreat her good offices in his favour. “And if they really _do_ interest themselves,” said Marianne, in her new character of candour, “in bringing about a reconciliation, I shall think that even John and Fanny are not entirely without merit.” After a visit on Colonel Brandon’s side of only three or four days, the two gentlemen quitted Barton together. They were to go immediately to Delaford, that Edward might have some personal knowledge of his future home, and assist his patron and friend in deciding on what improvements were needed to it; and from thence, after staying there a couple of nights, he was to proceed on his journey to town. CHAPTER L. After a proper resistance on the part of Mrs. Ferrars, just so violent and so steady as to preserve her from that reproach which she always seemed fearful of incurring, the reproach of being too amiable, Edward was admitted to her presence, and pronounced to be again her son. Her family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the resuscitation of Edward, she had one again. In spite of his being allowed once more to live, however, he did not feel the continuance of his existence secure, till he had revealed his present engagement; for the publication of that circumstance, he feared, might give a sudden turn to his constitution, and carry him off as rapidly as before. With apprehensive caution therefore it was revealed, and he was listened to with unexpected calmness. Mrs. Ferrars at first reasonably endeavoured to dissuade him from marrying Miss Dashwood, by every argument in her power;—told him, that in Miss Morton he would have a woman of higher rank and larger fortune;—and enforced the assertion, by observing that Miss Morton was the daughter of a nobleman with thirty thousand pounds, while Miss Dashwood was only the daughter of a private gentleman with no more than _three;_ but when she found that, though perfectly admitting the truth of her representation, he was by no means inclined to be guided by it, she judged it wisest, from the experience of the past, to submit—and therefore, after such an ungracious delay as she owed to her own dignity, and as served to prevent every suspicion of good-will, she issued her decree of consent to the marriage of Edward and Elinor.