Hope

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 132 of 216 · 20 per page

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  And hereby, in Thy Word, not the deepness of the sea, but the earth separated from the bitterness of the waters, brings forth, not the moving creature that hath life, but the living soul. For now hath it no more need of baptism, as the heathen have, and as itself had, when it was covered with the waters; (for no other entrance is there into the kingdom of heaven, since Thou hast appointed that this should be the entrance:) nor does it seek after wonderfulness of miracles to work belief; for it is not such, that unless it sees signs and wonders, it will not believe, now that the faithful earth is separated from the waters that were bitter with infidelity; and tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not. Neither then does that earth which Thou hast founded upon the waters, need that flying kind, which at Thy word the waters brought forth. Send Thou Thy word into it by Thy messengers: for we speak of their working, yet it is Thou that workest in them that they may work out a living soul in it. The earth brings it forth, because the earth is the cause that they work this in the soul; as the sea was the cause that they wrought upon the moving creatures that have life, and the fowls that fly under the firmament of heaven, of whom the earth hath no need; although it feeds upon that fish which was taken out of the deep, upon that table which Thou hast prepared in the presence of them that believe. For therefore was He taken out of the deep, that He might feed the dry land; and the fowl, though bred in the sea, is yet multiplied upon the earth. For of the first preachings of the Evangelists, man’s infidelity was the cause; yet are the faithful also exhorted and blessed by them manifoldly, from day to day. But the living soul takes his beginning from the earth: for it profits only those already among the Faithful, to contain themselves from the love of this world, that so their soul may live unto Thee, which was dead while it lived in pleasures; in death-bringing pleasures, Lord, for Thou, Lord, art the life-giving delight of the pure heart.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  I hope so! I think one of the most fundamental things Quiet did for introversion was to give it a name. When I first read Quiet, honestly, I felt like you must have hidden in my kitchen and spied on me to understand me so deeply. And I bet millions of others felt the same way—well, maybe not about the spying part. But my point is that all of a sudden, there was a name for our quiet temperaments—introversion. It was empowering, because now we weren’t alone. In fact, there were so many of us that we had a title and a community—we were INTROVERTS! It was amazingly validating. I think that same type of validation has carried over to social anxiety. I’ve heard from many people who have said they never realized they had social anxiety until they recognized themselves in the book. It’s been affirming and empowering for them to see their experiences or habits or mind-sets in a new light and say, “Oh, that’s why I do that,” and furthermore, “And, apparently, lots of people do that very same thing.” For social anxiety in particular, I think the fact that there’s a name also offers hope. It implies that changing and growing and feeling more at ease is possible. I think introversion and social anxiety diverge, however, when it comes to change. Introversion, as you well know, should be embraced as the normal personality trait that it is. Our lives would suffer if we tried to change who we are on such a fundamental level. Social anxiety, on the other hand, can indeed be challenged, and our lives improve as we grow and stretch and change. I think that’s the fundamental difference. What questions do you get most often from readers and listeners? I’m so glad you asked that. I’m often asked, “How can I help a friend with social anxiety?” which is such a kind, lovely question. And that actually ties in to a misconception about people with social anxiety. You mentioned that the biggest misconception about quiet people is that we’re misanthropic. In my opinion, the biggest misconception about individuals who experience social anxiety is that we’re fragile—that we need to be protected. For instance, when someone discloses a struggle with social anxiety to a friend, the friend often responds by pulling back, expecting less, or ruling out certain activities. For example, the friend might say, “Oh, well, then I guess we can’t do X, Y, or Z,” like go to a party, introduce them to other friends, or explore new places. And while I love the spirit of wanting to make our socially anxious friends comfortable, I think we serve them better by being less of a protector and more of a champion. Therefore, when I’m asked, “How can I support a friend with social anxiety?” I encourage them to ask their socially anxious friend how they can be their champion. What do they want support in doing? What do they want to try?

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

  These were noble and earnest, Romans. What can be expected from the crown of frivolous men of the world who moved within the limits of matter and sense and made present pleasure and enjoyment the chief end of life? The surviving wife of an Epicurean philosopher erected a monument to him, with the inscription "to the eternal sleep."1105 Not a few heathen epitaphs openly profess the doctrine that death ends all; while, in striking contrast with them, the humble Christian inscriptions in the catacombs express the confident hope of future bliss and glory in the uninterrupted communion of the believer with Christ and God. Yet the scepticism of the educated and half-educated could not extinguish the popular belief in the imperial age. The number of cheerless and hopeless materialistic epitaphs is, after all, very small as compared with the many thousands which reveal no such doubt, or express a belief in some kind of existence beyond the grave.1106 Of a resurrection of the body the Greeks and Romans had no conception, except in the form of shades and spectral outlines, which were supposed to surround the disembodied spirits, and to make them to some degree recognizable. Heathen philosophers, like Celsus, ridiculed the resurrection of the body as useless, absurd, and impossible. 2. The Jewish doctrine is far in advance of heathen notions and conjectures, but presents different phases of development. (a) The Mosaic writings are remarkably silent about the future life, and emphasize the present rather than future consequences of the observance or non-observance of the law (because it had a civil or political as well as spiritual import); and hence the Sadducees accepted them, although they denied the resurrection (perhaps also the immortality of the soul). The Pentateuch contains, however, some remote and significant hints of immortality, as in the tree of life with its symbolic import;1107 in the mysterious translation of Enoch as a reward for his piety;1108 in the prohibition of necromancy;1109 in the patriarchal phrase for dying: "to be gathered to his fathers," or "to his people;"1110 and last, though not least, in the self-designation of Jehovah as "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," which implies their immortality, since "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."1111 What has an eternal meaning for God must itself be eternal. (b) In the later writings of the Old Testament, especially during and after the exile, the doctrine of immortality and resurrection comes out plainly.1112 Daniel’s vision reaches out even to the final resurrection of "many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth to everlasting life," and of "some to shame and everlasting contempt," and prophesies that "they that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever."1113

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

  I remembered the strange lightness that had come upon me in the hospital the morning after I had swallowed those sleeping tablets, the feeling that I had nothing to lose. I felt a similar freedom that morning and realized that I too looked a part of this cheerful summer scene. I had washed my hair, slathered on some makeup to hide the ravages left by my tears, and put on a bright pink dress. I could almost feel my mood shifting in my mind. This tentative optimism got a further boost when I arrived at the grimy studio. The team seemed friendly and genuinely pleased to see me, and explained again what they wanted me to do. They were hoping to make a series for Channel 4 called Opinions. Every week, somebody with a strong or interesting viewpoint would discuss an idea in front of the cameras for thirty minutes. There would be no visuals, no interviewer, and no TelePrompTer. The idea was that the speaker would simply explore his opinion with the viewers, and carry through an argument by him- or herself from start to finish. “I mean, how often do you see this on TV?” Nick, the producer, demanded rhetorically. “All we are given these days are bite-sized ideas, everything cut down to size. Channel Four wants to make different kinds of programs, and this will be new! This will be the ultimate talking head! A lot of people think it can’t work, but we’re convinced that it can.” Sometimes, he explained, the person would be a celebrity, sometimes somebody like myself, who was not famous but might have something interesting to say. The thing to do was to go in front of the cameras and enjoy myself. This morning, as this was just a pilot, they weren’t expecting a thirty-minute talk. They would just film me for fifteen to twenty minutes. So into the tiny studio I went, and was told to talk directly into one of the cameras. During the journey, I had hastily concocted a little argument. I remembered that some years ago, while I was still living in Oxford, I had dropped into Blackfriars one evening. The Dominicans had been celebrating the Mass together and had just reached the consecration, pointing toward the Eucharistic bread and saying in unison, “This is my body.” The words had suddenly struck me as horribly ironic. At the time, I weighed about ninety pounds; I was in my anorexic phase, and was doing my best to make my body disappear. I thought of Rebecca; I thought of the way our bodies had rebelled against the religious regime we had endured. Of all the great world religions, Christianity should value the body most. After all, it taught that God had in some sense taken a human body and used it to redeem the world; everything about the physical should have been sacred and sacramental. But that had not happened.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  I wish I could shout that last sentence from the rooftops. With a bullhorn. Over and over again. It’s almost impossible to retreat from the world and reemerge transformed, like a cocoon transforms a caterpillar into a butterfly. Instead, humans learn and change on the job. Put another way, rather than reading about how to ride a bicycle, we have to get on the bicycle. It is wobbly at first. We fall. But eventually our muscles and mind learn. And after that, we never forget. So Jim and I got to work. If this were a movie, this is where we’d expect a transformation montage of sweaty training scenes set to “Eye of the Tiger.” But while working on anxiety takes equal commitment, it looks very different. In our movie, we’d see Jim doing ordinary things like hanging out in the heavily trafficked copy room at work to practice small talk, running on a treadmill to practice feeling his heart race, sitting down for lunch with his co-workers, and walking through the doors to his first ballroom dance lesson. All these things seem mundane but are actually profound. Zoom in on his brain and we’d see radical shifts—a rewiring of the lessons of 1970s Dorchester, newfound faith in himself, and, best of all, the desire and confidence to build a community of friends. To be absolutely clear, Jim’s path to change was not magically conjured up by me—I and other anxiety specialists of today stand squarely on the shoulders of giants. Diligent, dedicated researchers have plugged away for decades—in the lab, in the clinic—and their discoveries change lives. These days, devoted, hardworking scientists, many of whom you’ll meet in the pages ahead, are soldiering through funding crises, ever-increasing regulatory documentation, and a relentless pace of work unrecognizable to the scholars of yesteryear. Despite all this, the newly minted knowledge that comes out of their labs is nothing short of priceless. Neuroscientists, using ever more powerful technology, peer inside socially anxious skulls to watch networks of neurons flare and quell like fireworks. Evolutionary psychologists theorize why social anxiety stretches back over thousands of generations. Developmental psychologists venture everywhere from maternity wards to college dorms and beyond to chart the course of social anxiety over a lifetime. And of course, clinical psychologists continue to discover what to do with our thoughts, our actions, and our bodies to reclaim lives, including Jim’s, one at a time. * * * Back at the Sunday night dance party, Mayumi waited on the dance floor, her hand outstretched. Jim politely shouldered his way through the ring of people and onto the dance floor. A few years ago, Jim wouldn’t have walked through his front door on a Sunday, much less a crowd of people. Not on his life would he have asked unfamiliar women to dance surrounded by studio mirrors and the gazes of others. But this wasn’t a few years ago. This was now.

• From Bold Move

  When I was young, she pushed me out of my comfort zone to ensure that my fears didn’t hold me back from pursuing my dreams. Most of the lessons my grandmother taught me can be summarized into two broad concepts: 1) Approach; don’t avoid (see part III of this book) and 2) Be the water, not the rock (see the Conclusion ). Equipped with my childhood lessons, I came to the United States to pursue the American dream—first as an exchange student and then for higher education. After my doctoral degree, I immersed myself in what is known as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): the gold-standard therapy for mental health challenges.2 I read every published therapy protocol, studied how to deliver treatments in individual and group sessions, researched treatments for different disorders and diverse populations, and was mentored by the world’s leading mental health experts. My early days at HMS/MGH were incredibly valuable and helped me synthesize the science that I now share with you, but they were not sufficient. It was only when I moved into real-life settings and worked with diverse communities that I truly learned to distill what it takes to become bold. It’s one thing to talk about CBT within the walls of the ivory tower (i.e., Harvard) and quite another to teach it to someone when they are facing deportation, prison, poverty, single parenthood, and a variety of real-world situations. And it is yet another thing to apply these concepts to the high-powered executive in the C-suite, whose marriage is about to end while she is leading her team through a major transition. Once my work evolved to address these challenges, I was finally able to integrate the wisdom of my mom and grandmother with evidence-based science, into a method that fits everyone all the time, instead of just some people some of the time. Bold Move is a set of skills, supported by science and infused with lessons from my life, that I created to help anyone overcome obstacles and live their best life. The three skills shared within this book—Shift , Approach , and Align , will equip you to make bold moves when it matters most. Yet, as you embark on the journey of becoming bold, you will encounter bumps.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  The popular superstitious beliefs in demonic agencies have largely been drained off by education. The con- ception of Satan has paled. He has become a theo- logical devil, and that is an attenuated and precarious mode of existence. At the same time belief in original sin is also waning. These two doctrines combined, — the hereditary racial unity of sin, and the supernatural power of evil behind all sinful human action, — created a solidaristic consciousness of sin and evil, which I think is necessary for the religious mind. Take away these two doctrines, and both our sense of sin and our sense of the need of redemption will become much more superficial and will be mainly concerned with the tran- sient acts and vices of individuals. A social conception of the Kingdom of Evil, such as I have tried to sketch, makes a powerful appeal to our growing sense of racial unity. It is modern and grows spontaneously out of our livest interests and ideas. In- stead of appealing to conservatives, who are fond of sitting on antique furniture, it would appeal to the radi- cals. It would contain the political and social protest against oppression and illusion for which the belief in a Satanic kingdom stood in the times of its greatest vitality. The practical insight into the solidarity of all nations in their sin would emphasize the obligation to share with them all every element of salvation we possess, and thus strengthen the appeal for missionary and edu- cational efforts. The doctrine of original sin was meant to bring us all under the sense of guilt. Theology in the past has THE KINGDOM OF EVIL 91

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

  “YOUR KINGDOM COME, YOUR WILL BE DONE” The second line of the Lord’s Prayer says, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” This doesn’t mean that God is not sovereign here on earth. Instead, it is a recognition of the current reality of sin, shame, disease, death, hatred, and a host of other things not found in heaven. And in the midst of that chaos, we are asking God to be just as sovereign, just as powerful, just as triumphant, as if none of those things had any power. Because they don’t. Well, they do and they don’t at the same time. On one hand, the pain and evil of this world have real consequences. We can’t deny that, and prayer should embrace reality, not ignore it. But on the other hand, nothing we face in this life is bigger than God. The “real reality” is that God is more powerful than our circumstances. That’s the point of this line: recognizing the sovereignty of God. Before God, nothing stands. There is no failure, no weakness, no enemy, no problem that lies outside His power and authority. So when we come to God in prayer, it is with a recognition that He has all we need. Notice that up until now, the prayer has not even mentioned our needs, wants, or desires. “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” The prayer begins by recognizing who God is and surrendering our will to His. Now, your prayers don’t always have to start with this lofty, mature perspective. A lot of mine don’t. They go more like this: “Dear Jesus . . . help!” And I’m in good company with that prayer. As we saw earlier, David sent up SOS prayers all the time. Just read the book of Psalms. If you’re not in a crisis moment, though, praying that God’s will would be done before you pull out your list of needs is a good habit. It’s a way of reminding ourselves that we are not the senior partner in this relationship, we aren’t the experts on life, and our wish is not His command.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  ESCHATOLOGY 225 4. As to the way inwhich the Christian ideal of society is to come, we must shift from catastrophe to development. Since the first century the divine Logos has taught us the universality of Law, and wemust ap- ply it to the development of the Kingdom ofGod.Itis the untaught and pagan mindwhichsees God's presence only in miraculous and thundering action; the more Christianour intellect becomes, the morewe seeGod in growth. By insisting on organic development we shall follow the lead of Jesus when, in his parables ofthe sowerand oftheseed growingsecretly, hetried to edu- cate his disciples away from catastrophes toan under- standing of organic growth. Weshall also be follow- ing the lead of the fourth gospel, which translated the terms of eschatology into the operation of presentspir- itualforces. We shall be following thelead ofthe Church in bringing the future hope down from the cloudsand identifying itwiththe Church; except that we donotconfine itto the single institution ofthe Church, but see the coming ofthe Kingdom ofGod in all ethical and spiritual progress of mankind. To convert the catastrophicterminology of the old eschatology into developmental terms is another way of expressing faith inthe immanenceof God and inthe presence of Christ Itismore religious to believe ina present than inan absent andfuture Christ. Jesus saw the Kingdom as present and future. This change from catastrophe to development is the most essential step toenablemodern mento appreciate the Christian hope. 1 1 Pfleiderer, " Grundriss der christlichen Glaubenslehre /' 177, has this fine summary : " The primitive Christian faith in thereturnof

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  It is open to any minister to emphasize thoughts such as these, connecting the Lord’s Supper with the King- dom of God. All who have the new social conscious- ness would feel their appeal. Any person encountering antagonism or loss for the sake of the Kingdom would find comfort and strength in connecting his troubles with the cross of Christ. The Lord’s Supper was instituted by Jesus in full view of his death. We can fully share his spirit only when we too confront the possibility of suffering in the same cause. The emphasis on such thoughts would be the reaction of the social gospel on the religious and theological con- tent of the Lord’s Supper. They would be a challenge to the Church to realize its mission as the social embodi- ment of the Christ-spirit in humanity. They would constitute a spiritual preparation for the actual experi- ence of the Real Presence — that Presence which re- quires a social group of two or three because love and the sense of solidarity are necessary to enable him to be in the midst of us. CHAPTER XVIII ESCHATOLOGY Eschatology raises two questions of profound in- terest to the human mind. First, What is the future of the individual after his brief span of years on earth is over? Second, What is to be the ultimate destiny of the human race? These questions are important to every thoughtful mind, and they are inseparable from religion. Religion is always eschatological. Its characteristic is faith. It lives in and for the future. In all other parts of our life we deal with imperfect things, fluctuating, condi- tioned, relative, and never complete. In religion we seek for the final realities, the absolute values, the things as God sees them, complete, in organic union. All religions of higher development have some mythology about the future. The Christian religion needs a Christian eschatology. To be satisfying to the Christian consciousness any teaching concerning the future life of the individual must express that high valu- ation of the eternal worth of the soul which we have learned from Christ, and must not contradict or sully the revelation of the justice, love, and forgiving mercy of our heavenly Father contained in his words, his life, and his personality. Any doctrine about the future of the race which is to guide our thought and action, must ’ 208 ESCHATOLOGY 209 view it from distinctively Christian, ethical points of view, and must not contradict what is historically and scientifically certain.

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

  employees. Are you a pet owner? Okay, pray for your pets too. Are you a basketball fan? Unless you root for the Lakers, don’t bother praying. In prayer, you’ll start to see others the way God does. The quirks and petty offenses will matter less, and their innate value as children of God will take center place. You’ll start to see their gifts, their contributions, their potential. As you take on God’s perspective toward people, you’ll find yourself developing empathy. Prayer humanizes people. This world could certainly use more of that. Besides those seven things, you can probably think of other areas where a heavenly perspective would be helpful: health, school, work, family, sex, world affairs, racism, leadership, church, and a million things more. Besides these general areas, maybe there are specific situations in your life where you could ask God to see things with His eyes. Take a few moments to think through the things that are worrying you, draining your energy, or causing pain. Then pray about them. Give them to God. Ask Him what He thinks about them. Allow the mind of Christ to become your mind. Let His heart touch your heart. You won’t change your world until you change your mind. SIX The problem with birthdays Prayer and presence Do you have friends who have more money than you? Like, considerably more? No judgment here, either for them or for you. We all know money doesn’t make us happy. (Although it would be nice to prove that firsthand, right?) A couple of my friends are significantly wealthier than I am. And I sort of dread their birthdays. After all, what do you get the person who has two of three of everything, in different colors? Every year, after giving the question deep thought, I give up. I settle for a text message. “Bro, happy birthday! Love you! Let’s celebrate ASAP!” And then I pray to the God of heaven that they don’t buy me anything for my birthday. My wealthy friends don’t need my gifts. They don’t want me to blow up my budget by trying to impress them either. They want my friendship, not gifts. That’s what matters most to them, and it’s what matters most to me. It’s hard enough to buy gifts for the friends who have everything. But what do you give the God who has everything? The answer, of course, is the same. You give Him your friendship. Your love. Your loyalty. Your presence. God isn’t trying to get something from you—He is trying to get you. You are the gift. You are the goal. You are the object of His love.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  We take up now the doctrine of salvation. All that has been said about sin will have to be kept in mind in discussing salvation, for the conceptions of sin and sal- vation are always closely correlated in every theological or religious system. The new thing in the social gospel is the clearness and insistence with which it sets forth the necessity and the possibility of redeeming the historical life of humanity from the social wrongs which now pervade it and which act as temptations and incitements to evil and as forces of resistance to the powers of redemption. Its chief in- terest is concentrated on those manifestations of sin and redemption which lie beyond the individual soul. If our exposition of the superpersonal agents of sin and of the Kingdom of Evil is true, then evidently a salvation con- fined to the soul and its personal interests is an imper- fect and only partly effective salvation. Yet the salvation of the individual is, of course, an essential part of salvation. Every new being is a new problem of salvation. It is always a great and wonder- ful thing when a young spirit enters into voluntary obedi- ence to God and feels the higher freedom with which Christ makes us free. It is one of the miracles of life. The burden of the individual is as heavy now as ever. 95 96 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL The consciousness of wrong-doing, of imperfection, of a wasted life lies on many and they need forgiveness and strength for a new beginning. Modern pessimism drains the finer minds of their confidence in the world and the value of life itself. At present we gasp for air in a crushing and monstrous world. Any return of faith is an experience of salvation. Therefore our discussion can not pass personal salva- tion by. We might possibly begin where the old gospel leaves off, and ask our readers to take all the familiar experiences and truths of personal evangelism and re- ligious nurture for granted in what follows. But our understanding of personal salvation itself is deeply af- fected by the new solidaristic comprehension furnished by the social gospel. The social gospel furnishes new tests for religious ex- perience. We are not disposed to accept the converted souls whom the individualistic evangelism supplies, with- out looking them over. Some who have been saved and perhaps reconsecrated a number of times are worth no more to the Kingdom of God than they were before. Some become worse through their revival experiences, more self-righteous, more opinionated, more steeped in unrealities and stupid over against the most important things, more devoted to emotions and unresponsive to real duties. We have the highest authority for the fact that men may grow worse by getting religion. Jesus says the Pharisees compassed sea and land to make a proselyte, and after they had him, he was twofold more a child of hell than his converters. To one whose mem-

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  all, it becomes a dead burden. The dogmas and theo- logical ideas of the early Church were those ideas which at that time were needed to hold the Church together, to rally its forces, and to give it victorious energy against antagonistic powers. To-day many of those ideas are’ without present significance. Our reverence for them is a kind of ancestor worship. To hold laboriously to a religious belief which does not hold us, is an attenuated form of asceticism; we chastise and starve our intellect to sanctify it by holy beliefs. The social gospel does not need the aid of church authority to get hold of our hearts. It. gets hold in spite of such authority when necessary. It will do for us what the Nicene theology did in the fourth century, and the Reformation theology in the six- teenth. Without it theology will inevitably become more and more a reminiscence.^ The great religious thinkers who created theology were always leaders who were shaping ideas to meet actual situations. The new theology of Paul was a product of fresh religious experience and of practical necessities. His idea that the Jewish law had been abrogated by Christ’s death was worked out in order to set his mission to the Gentiles free from the crippling grip of the past and to make an international religion of Christianity. Luther worked out the doctrine of ‘‘justification by faith ” because he had found by experience that it gave 1 President H. C King’s “ Reconstruction in Theology ” gives an admirable summary of the causes for dissatisfaction with the old doctrinal statements, and of the fundamental moral and spiritual convictions which demand embodiment in theology. See also Prof. Gerald B. Smith’s lucid analysis in his " Social Idealism and the Changing Theology.” 14 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL him a surer and happier way to God than the effort to win merit by his own works. But that doctrine became the foundation of a new theology for whole nations be- cause it proved to be the battle-cry of a great social and religious upheaval and the effective means of breaking down the semi-political power of the clergy, of shutting up monasteries, of secularizing church property, and of increasing the economic and political power of city coun- cils and princes. There is nothing else in sight to-day which has power to rejuvenate theology except the con- sciousness of vast sins and sufferings, and the longing for righteousness and a new life, which are expressed in the social gospel.

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

  about growth. Trials will change you, if you let them. They’ll make you a better, more perfect version of yourself. It might take some blood, sweat, and tears, but the results are worth it. 2. Growth takes time. It takes your whole life, to be precise. I don’t mean that to sound discouraging— what I’m saying is that you will continue to grow for as long as you’re walking this planet. Growth is natural. It’s healthy. And it never stops. Many of us have the false assumption about growth that someday, if we try really hard, we will reach the pinnacle of perfection and never have to change again. That is not going to happen this side of heaven. This is why prayer is such a vital tool. It keeps the lines of communication permanently open with God. Not just during a one-time emergency, but all the time. Sometimes we treat prayer like a tech support request. Have you ever submitted one of those? Maybe you can’t figure out why a program or service you paid for isn’t working, so you contact their support team. They open a case for you, help you solve the problem (if you’re lucky), then close the case. You get a nice email at the end summarizing how helpful they’ve been. And you never speak again. The entire thing is cold, faceless, voiceless. That’s not the point of prayer, though. Prayer is so much more than formally requesting help for a problem you can’t figure out. The Bible is not a list of FAQs that your particular problem has to fit within. And the “case” is never closed. Why? Because God doesn’t treat us like consumers, clients, or customers. We are His children. We are His friends. Prayer is more like an ongoing text thread with a close friend. You text when you feel like it. You answer when you want to. You randomly send each other messages, memes, and inside jokes. You talk about what you’re planning to do that day and how you’re feeling about it. You tell each other what is making you happy, sad, or angry.

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

  That’s a very different understanding of the word perfect than you or I might have. We tend to associate perfection with achieving some ideal state of excellence, performance, or morality. Something that is perfect, in our minds, does not need to change because it doesn’t have any flaws. Perfectionists are people who strive for perfection in every area. The Bible concept of being perfect, though, is less about striving toward some impossible ideal and more about maturity. It’s the idea of becoming more complete, more congruent with the design and purpose God has for us. It’s about becoming more you. Perfection, therefore, is less about the goal and more about the process. It is about growth. Think of how your physical body grew when you were a kid. You couldn’t see the growth, you couldn’t predict the growth, and you couldn’t really control the growth. It just happened. And it was unstoppable. Spiritual growth is similar: slow, natural, inevitable, unstoppable. Remember, our spiritual growth (including sinning less) isn’t connected to our salvation. Salvation is a gift from God by grace. We don’t go to church, pray, worship, fast, avoid sin, love our neighbor, or help the poor in order to be forgiven by God. Rather, we do these things because we are forgiven. It’s the whole “from-not- for” dynamic we talked about earlier. We are free to do good things; and as we do them, we grow in our walk with God. We begin to think, speak, and act more like Jesus. That’s true perfection. We see the word teleion multiple times in the book of James. For example, he writes: Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 1:2–4 NASB, emphasis added

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

  They are an expression of faith. They are heartfelt requests that He delights to fulfill. Jesus is saying that when you pray, don’t assume God won’t answer—assume He will. So ask away! Pray boldly for as long as it takes. God might be on the verge of answering the prayer right now. You never know when it could happen or what it will look like. It would be a tragedy to give up too soon. You might be thinking, You said God wouldn’t hear us just because we use a lot of words. Now you ’re saying we should keep on praying as long as it takes. That’s inconsistent! There is a big difference between trying to be heard because of our “many words,” as Jesus said, and praying without giving up. The first treats God like a vending machine: If you put in enough prayer coins, an answer drops out of some heavenly chute. It’s a transactional approach that treats prayer like a price or a debt that we have to fulfill before we can get what we want. But as we saw earlier, prayer is relational, not transactional. We don’t pray until we’ve paid a debt or earned our answer. We pray because we know God loves us and is listening. Notice how Jesus connected answered prayer to God’s goodness, not our efforts, in Matthew 7:7–11: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! The difference between incessant babbling and persevering prayer is—as in almost every area of prayer—our heart attitude. The former tries to manipulate God into doing what we want by piling fancy phrases higher and higher like a game of spiritual Jenga. The latter patiently trusts God to do what is right and best, confident in His character and unworried by delay. Most of us know the name of Apple’s founder and iconic CEO, Steve Jobs. His partner, Steve Wozniak, is nearly as well known. Both made billions of dollars from the success of Apple. There was a third founder, though, who is nearly always forgotten. When Apple was incorporated on April 2, 1976, an engineer named Ron Wayne owned a 10 percent stake in the company. A mere twelve days later, partly because he felt out of his league next to the two Steves, Ron sold his shares back for eight hundred dollars. Today, those shares would be worth billions.

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

  “I’ve nothing against you personally,” Joel explained, while John was out of the room, “but you have no experience. Nobody knows you—you are not even—” He broke off, gesturing hopelessly at me but saying nothing. “Pretty” was clearly the word that, with a restraint that I would later realize to be quite uncharacteristic, he had managed to bite back. The only thing that gave him any hope at all was that I had once been a nun. “Perhaps we can make some scandal out of that,” he sighed, blowing the blue cigarette smoke out from his nostrils like a disconsolate dragon. In fact, the only person who had any faith in the project was John. “It’s going to be wonderful, darling!” he told me repeatedly. “You’re going to be a big hit. I’m going to make you a star!” I took all that with a pinch of salt. But for some reason, I wanted to make this film. I sensed instinctively that this was what I had been waiting for. It was odd that I should feel this. For years I had wanted nothing to do with religion; the thought of reading anything remotely theological had filled me with visceral disgust. But this was different. The reading I was doing now in preparation for the series was not devotional. It would have no bearing on my life, after all, but would be a purely academic exercise. The slight quickening of spiritual interest that I had experienced while writing Through the Narrow Gate had been submerged. In the robustly secularist atmosphere of Channel 4, any form of faith seemed absurd, and my early life an aberration. Where Nick found religion faintly upsetting, John hated it with the passion of a zealot. This, I was told, was one of the reasons why Jeremy Isaacs, the controller of Channel 4, had put him in charge of religion. This new channel had a remit to be different from the other three. There was to be no “God slot,” no Songs of Praise, no edifying discussions for the devout. “I want to open up religion and discuss it as critically as any other subject,” John was fond of saying. And he did, conducting his mandate as an antireligious crusade. “They’re all bonkers, darling!” he would exclaim incredulously when yet another pious broadcaster came to talk to him about the possibility of a commission. He had also decided to put on a highly provocative series called Jesus: The Evidence, designed to explode the Christian myth once and for all. Indeed, as he gleefully explained, the director actually intended to blow up a statue of Jesus at the very beginning of the first program. “Blast it to smithereens!” John predicted exultantly. “That’ll show the bastards!”

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  The social gospel has an inherent interest in history. Individualistic theology sees everywhere countless sin- ful individuals who must all go through the same process of repentance, faith, justification, and regeneration, and who in due time die and go to heaven or helL The his- torical age in which a person lived, or the social class or race to which he belonged, matters little. This religious point of view is above time and history. On the other hand the social gospel tries to see the progress of the Kingdom of God in the flow of history; not only in the doings of the Church, but in the clash of economic forces and social classes, in the rise and fall of despotisms and forms of enslavement, in the rise of new value- judgments and fresh canons of moral taste and senti- ment, or the elevation or decline of moral standards. Its chief interest is the Kingdom of God ; and the Kingdom of God is history seen in a religious and teleological way. Therefore the social gospel is always historically minded. Its spread goes hand in hand with the spread of the his- torical spirit and method. This dominant interest in the creation and progress of social redemption influences the approach to the theolog- ical problems of the person and work of Christ. We 146 INITIATOR OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 1 47 want to see the Christ who initiated the Kingdom of God. Theologians have always tried to make their christology match with their conception of salvation. If they believed salvation to consist chiefly in the knowl- edge of God, they emphasized the personality and the doctrine of Christ as the complete revelation of God. If they made salvation to consist chiefly in the mystic impartation of divine life and immortality, their christ- ology laid chief stress on the union of the divine and human in the incarnation and in the sacraments. If sal- vation consists above all in the expiation of guilt, the forgiveness of sins, the justification of the sinner, and the remission of his penalties, then we need a Christ who made atonement for our sins, rendered satisfaction to God for our delinquencies, and offset our guilty defects by his infinite merit and divine virtue. Each concep- tion of salvation made a pragmatic selection and con- struction of the facts. Each was fragmentary, but with- out necessarily excluding other series of ideas. So now the social gospel, without excluding other theological con- victions, demands to understand that Christ who set in motion the historical forces of redemption which are to overthrow the Kingdom of Evil. This is surely not an illegitimate interest. It is a re- turn to the earliest messianic theology: whereas some of the other christological interests and ideas are alien importations, part of that wave of Hellenization which nearly swamped the original gospel.

• From Bold Move

  She had me read it because I was struggling with the usual career choices—what to do with my life, what I could become—and as I struggled with these questions, I often worried a lot about resources, both current and future. I never saw myself as “resource restricted” per se, but the reality was, I knew we had financial limitations, and it worried me to the point that I could only dream within that narrow lane and never outside of it. Over coffee one afternoon, my grandmother forcefully insisted that I could become anything that I wanted to be, do whatever I wanted to do, and dream as large as life. The only catch was that if I could dream up something big and bold, it would then be my job to make it happen. This magical reality seemed like nonsense to me. At first, I attributed this “crazy talk” to her strong belief in things like crystals and energy fields. Don’t get me wrong: I cherish the crystals that she gifted me throughout the years and I still have them, although the scientist in me is not sure how much power they actually have. Though I must say, the crystals do make me feel powerful because they remind me of her. Anyway, when she painted this rosy Disney picture for me, that I could do anything I could dream of, I was not having it and still remember arguing with her about the limitations that would always shape my life. And now we can bring our focus back to The Alchemist . She gave the book to me and said, “Read this, and when you finish it, let me know if you still feel the same way.” As I write this chapter, I still have my old Portuguese copy right next to me. If you haven’t read the book, it is a wonderful story about pursuing your personal legend in the world by listening to your heart and following your dreams. It sounds cheesy when I just blurt it out like that, but believe me when I say that as a Harvard scientist, I am still puzzled about how this fictional novel came to change my life. After reading and discussing the book with my grandmother, I experienced the first Shift in my life. As you have learned throughout this book, our views of the world are based on our context, our history, and the lessons we have learned in life, and other experiences.

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

  I started to eat normally again, quite spontaneously and without any real difficulty, which suggests to me that I was never truly anorexic. The pounds came back on and I barely noticed them. That phase was over. I had given up crying for help, because I had given up expecting any. Of course, I was grateful to the Harts and to Jane for their generosity to me during the crisis, but they could not touch the essential problem, nor could they ease my passage back to the world. Only I could do that, and toward the end of my third year of graduate study, I gave up psychiatry. Maybe this therapy could help others, but it had had no effect upon me at all. And besides, I told myself, I had submitted to other people’s programs and agendas for far too long. That, perhaps, was part of my trouble. It was now time to take my life into my own hands, instead of handing it over to other people, no matter how well intentioned. From now on, I was on my own. Thus, during the third year of my doctoral studies and some four and a half years after leaving my order, I turned a corner. I may have imbibed some of the spirit of the time, because during the late sixties and early seventies, laws that had hitherto seemed to be part of the very nature of things were being severely challenged. It was starting to be impossible now to assume that men were superior to women, that homosexuality was a crime, that whites should rule blacks. Women were taking command of their own lives, were campaigning for equal rights—and beginning to get them. In November 1970, the Gay Liberation Front had held its first public demonstration in Britain. In the United States, South Africa, and Europe, an unprecedented racial equality was beginning—slowly and painfully—to overturn centuries of enslavement and oppression. Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King were heroes to students all over the world. People were beginning to think in new ways, to cast aside a discredited past, and were gradually transforming the world. In my own small way, when I left the religious life, I too had faced the unthinkable, broken a taboo, and crossed a frontier that had once seemed impassable. I too was beginning to think differently, and to realize that assumptions that had hitherto held me in thrall were by no means cast in stone. It was even possible that one day I would be able to sing “We Shall Overcome” with the rest of my generation.