Vainglory: The Forgotten Vice

by Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung

Julia Roberts on the red carpet at the Oscars. Lady Gaga singing “Applause” to worshipful fans at one of her sold-out concerts. And you and me in our Sunday best in the front row at church. What do we have in common?

Chances are, says Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, that we all suffer from vainglory -- a keen desire for attention and approval. Although contemporary culture has largely forgotten about vainglory, it was on the original list of seven capital vices and is perhaps more dangerous than ever today.

In The Forgotten Vice DeYoung tells the story of this vice, moving from its ancient origins to its modern expressions. She defines vainglory, gives examples from popular culture, explores motivational sources, and discusses other vices associated with it such as hypocrisy and boasting. After exposing the many ways in which vainglory can rear its ugly head, she explores personal spiritual practices that can help us resist it and community practices that can help us handle glory well.

Genres: Theology, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Christian Living, Christian, Spirituality, Christianity

167 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 2014

About the author

Rebecca DeYoung (Ph.D. University of Notre Dame) has enjoyed teaching ethics and the history of ancient and medieval philosophy at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, MI, for over 20 years.

Her research focuses on the seven deadly sins, virtue ethics and spiritual formation, and Thomas Aquinas’s work on the virtues. Her books include Glittering Vices (Brazos, 2009; 2nd edition 2020), Vainglory (Eerdmans, 2014), and a co-authored volume entitled Aquinas’s Ethics (University of Notre Dame Press, 2009).

Recent essays about various vices and virtues—hope, despair, sloth, courage, magnanimity, wrath, and vainglory—appear in Virtues and Their Vices (Oxford), Being Good (Eerdmans), and Cambridge Critical Guide to Aquinas’s De Malo (Cambridge), and the journals Res Philosophica, ACPQ, the Thomist, and Faith and Philosophy.

Awards for her work include the Book and Essay Prize from the Character Project and the C.S. Lewis prize for Glittering Vices.

Dr. DeYoung speaks widely--at universities, churches and spiritual formation groups, and in prison education programs. She and her husband live in Grand Rapids, near the beautiful Lake Michigan shoreline, with their four children.

Reviews

[Connor Leoni · Rating 4 out of 5]

(TL;DR I enjoyed the book and recommend to others.Since joining FOCUS, I’ve felt a bit more susceptible to vainglory in certain ways.)

This book was a pretty comprehensive breakdown of the vice of vainglory, but also a good overview of virtue ethics itself. Turns out vainglory was originally included in St John Cassian’s list of eight vices before the list was narrowed down to seven. After reading this, I do believe that we all should really spend ample time diving into understanding each virtue and its corresponding vice. This past month, I’ve had my eyes opened to the utter depravity of vainglory because I’ve been able to dive into it so thoroughly.

This vice is particularly interesting for me working for FOCUS. I do not say that to call FOCUS a house of vainglory, but I feel like anyone involved would be lying if certain aspects of our life as Missionaries don’t leave us more susceptible to it.

Here’s my experience. I want to spread the Gospel to the most people I possibly can. Part of doing that is presenting a way life that others would desire to imitate. Chances are that someone who is working to evangelize others have some sort of put-togetherness to them. In the most basic level, this is the trust and hope in Christ’s promises that he will provide. But in my experience, I’llalso work to take it a step forward thinking I have to be a master in the social scene. I’ll think “maybe Christ’s message won’t be enough on the surface, but if I’m funny enough, they’ll want to stick around and I’ll share the Gospel.” I remember how charismatic the first missionaries I encountered were. Sure, the Gospel they were sharing was enticing, but also they were super cool. I want to be like them. I want to dress like them. Now, I’ve wasted too much money on Peter Millar polos and lulus part in hopes because I want guys I meet on campus to have that same desire to emulate how I live(somehow in part because what I wear), and because I worry way too much about how I’m viewed by others and buy in to the idea that I’ll win others for Christ by my social abilities & sick masters polo. How do I as a missionary separate sharing Christ & sharing myself?

The book answered a lot of stuff in this regard, but I have been thinking about all this as far as vainglory goes in mission. It’s a thought and this GoodReads review seems to be a fine excuse to air it.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5. There are a few books I come across that beg to be re-read. This is one of them. Before finishing, I knew that despite the short length, it was worth revisiting. DeYoung gives life to the archaic concept of vainglory. Drawing heavily on Thomas Aquinas and the Desert Fathers, DeYoung shows how vainglory is alive and well in contemporary society, especially with the advent of social media and a culture that is always 'on display'. The question "where do I find my value?" begs to be pondered while reading this. It has made me reflect on my role as a parent, friend, and teacher. Highly recommended.

[Olivia Wetzel · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, I rounded up.

Written by a medievalist, this book is full of quotes from St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, St. Gregory the Great, George Herbert, and many other amazing authors. Setting out to remind the modern world of Vainglory, the 'forgotten vice,' DeYoung does a splendid job of writing articulately and grabbing the readers attention.

Possibly a bit of my rating can be attributed to the group I discussed this with as well. Beginning each discussion by sharing commonplace quotes, we had delightful rambles over how this applied to both modern and ancients, Boethius's comments on vainglory, and the example of this that celebrities give us.

Overall a good book. I didn't always agree, but the parts I did agree with made up for any areas I found lacking.

[Amelia Slater · Rating 3 out of 5]

Give glory to others, acknowledge where your glory comes from,

[Lydia Domescik · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most helpful books I have ever read. It is in my top 10 all-time favorites for non-fiction.

[Joey]

As solid as Glittering Vices, in Vainglory DeYoung expands on her previous work to bring a balanced, nuanced, historically informed and ultimately convicting picture of the forgotten vice in modern life. I highly recommend!

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here is a first class exposition of pride, gleaning from reflections on the virtues and vices by the medievals and the Church Fathers.
Helpful and challenging.

[Holy Transfiguration Bookstore · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a vice, pride gets all the publicity. The proud are at once admired and disdained. They are elected to public office, serve as captains of industry, and are elevated to icons of popular culture. When they crash and burn, we revel in the flames. The worldly rewards and dangers of pride are on regular display. But then, we pious good folk, setting ourselves against the powerful and prideful, stand and declaim: “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.” (Luk 18:11) And so, without discernment and repentance, we can wallow in our vainglory and will end having damned ourselves.

Professor DeYoung has written an important book examining this ancient plague, but one especially pernicious for the modern faithful:

The bottom line: Vainglory is a vice for all of us — as tempting now as it was in the fourth century. Love of fame may be the most obvious or extreme form of this, but the truth is, we can all be overly attached to how we appear to others and are acknowledged and approved by them. So philosophers like me can’t get away with mocking celebrities, although that would be easier to write about and certainly a lot more fun. Vainglory is not just other people’s problem; it is our problem. Vainglory is not a sin that specially plagues secular glory-seekers; it is, in an important way, a vice that plagues the Christian life. (6)

DeYoung is one of those modern scholars that I find especially admirable. She weaves together material from the Desert Fathers, Augustine and Aquinas along with thoughtful modern Christian commentators. This gives her writing both breadth and depth.

Her diagnosis is spot on:

“We can’t understand vainglory fully without understanding the way this vice misdirects glory to the wrong end: ourselves. And without that form of vainglory in view, we can’t understand its character as a capital vice — the pursuit of a good that we build our life around instead of God. Augustine argued that this is essentially a spiritual problem. When we are vainglorious in this way, we claim exclusively and independently for ourselves what is God’s right and due. This picture of glory can’t be fixed with a trivial tweak: what this picture misses is nothing less than the root of all the capital vices: pride.” (124)

So it comes back to pride. Vainglory is a sub-species, a slowly suffocating quicksand to those striving for goodness without seeking self-awareness. Vainglory lays out the method of diagnosis and convincingly suggests a method of treatment, always looking towards the grace of the Great Physician.

[Saint Katherine BookstoreVA]

As a vice, pride gets all the publicity. The proud are at once admired and distained. They are elected to public office, serve as captains of industry, and are elevated to icons of popular culture. When they crash and burn, we revel in the flames. The worldly rewards and dangers of pride are on regular display. But then, we pious good folk, setting ourselves against the powerful and prideful, stand and declaim: “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust,
adulterers, or even as this publican” (Luke 18:11). And so, without discernment and repentance, we can wallow in our vainglory and will end having damned ourselves.

Professor DeYoung has written an important book examining this ancient plague, but one especially pernicious for the modern faithful:

"The bottom line: Vainglory is a vice for all of us—as tempting now as it was in the fourth century. Love of fame may be the most obvious or extreme form of this, but the truth is, we can all be overly
attached to how we appear to others and are acknowledged and approved by them. So philosophers like me can’t get away with mocking celebrities, although that would be easier to write about
and certainly a lot more fun. Vainglory is not just other people’s problem; it is our problem. Vainglory is not a sin that specially plagues secular glory-seekers; it is, in an important way, a vice that plagues the Christian life."(6)

DeYoung is one of those modern scholars that I find especially admirable. She weaves together material from the Desert Fathers, Augustine and Aquinas along with thoughtful modern Christian commentators. This gives her writing both breadth and depth.

Her diagnosis is spot on:

"We can’t understand vainglory fully without understanding the way this vice misdirects glory to the wrong end: ourselves. And without that form of vainglory in view, we can’t understand its character as a capital vice—the pursuit of a good that we build our life around instead of God. Augustine argued that this is essentially a spiritual problem. When we are vainglorious in this way, we claim exclusively and independently for ourselves what is God’s right and due. This picture of glory can’t be fixed with a trivial tweak: what this picture misses is nothing less than the root of all the capital vices: pride. "(124)

So it comes back to pride. Vainglory is a sub-species, a slowly suffocating quicksand to those striving for goodness without seeking self-awareness. Vainglory lays out the method of diagnosis and convincingly suggests a method of treatment, always looking towards the grace of the Great Physician.

[Mark Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book and have used it as partial basis for two different studies at our church. The classical definitions of this vice are extremely helpful. I enjoyed Glittering Vices, also by Dr. DeYoung, for the same reasons. Such definitions supplied by ancient scholars of the church are useful for us today when words are so fluid and working definitions are hard to come by. Useful for meditating on one's own behavior and the root causes. The idea that Vainglory "is about attention and acknowledgment" is one that has helped me and other's in our studies to review their own underlying reasons for certain behaviors. It is too easy to say that pride is root of all evil and leave it at that, but closer studies such as this help penetrate such easy glossing over of behaviors and allow the reader to dig deeper into their own motivations.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great Content

There is great value in parsing and examining virtue and vice. Parts of this book are brilliant.
I would give it five stars except for a few nitpicks:
-The book, like most evangelical books, is probably 50% longer than it needed to be. It's quite repetitive in parts.
-Evangelicals need some new cultural heroes besides U2.
-I recognize that English lacks gender neutral singular pronouns, but using feminine singular pronouns intermittently in their place isn't helpful. I find myself constantly looking back for the antecedent because I'm used to reading English. It may be fighting the patriarchy, but it makes writing less clear.

[Jason Kanz · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Vainglory: the forgotten vice, Rebecca DeYoung explores the ancient concept of Vainglory. I had always thought it equivalent to pride though the author very nicely differentiates between them. The vainglorious person seeks attention and notoriety. Drawing from the desert fathers, Augustine, and Aquinas she accessibly deals with this vice, It's consequences, and potential "cures." You're the end of the book, she specifically addresses it's relationship to sole care, something I very much appreciated. This book is a unique contribution to the Christian psychology literature.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helpful little volume on the dangers of vainglory, a form of pride that desires applause and fame. Convicting! She does a good job of unpacking it with the help of some church fathers. However, it is lacking in connecting how we have all that our hearts long for in Christ's benediction extended to us because of the cross, when his shame was displayed and He experienced silence from Heaven, all for our pride and sin.

[Rebecca Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read for book club and really enjoyed it! Definitely heady, but full of wonderful sources and ideas for contemplation. I closed the book feeling convicted, inspired, and educated on the traits of a prevailing but overlooked sin!

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book. It's probably something every Christian living in the "Look at me" world of social media, accomplishments, and seeking glory for oneself should read.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is full of wise insight and counsel about a vice that has seduced the modern world under a suffocating spell.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book to read during Lent.

[Nicole Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This brief book unpacks Vainglory as separate from pride. In our celebrity culture, it is helpful to see the dangers of Vainglory and how they can subtly sneak in

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to read everything Rebecca DeYoung has ever written and move to Michigan to take every Philosophy class she offers.

[Brynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Felt like drinking from a firehose of knowledge about a vice I knew very little about...super informative + I learned a ton!

[Michael Abraham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vainglory is certainly a forgotten vice. DeYoung retrieves Augustine and Aquinas to show us the roots of vainglory and also how to fight it.

[Meredith Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a critical topic for people of our generation. The book is thought-provoking.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an important book. I've long been haunted by the recurring thought that the life I'm occupying is not about me. While it seems obvious written here in front of me; it's really not. It's difficult to navigate life, most especially through the filter of our culture, and not be affected by the super-self and it's constant need for affirmation and attention. I thought, "no, that's not me. I really don't care whether I'm noticed or not." Then I began to read this book and notice all of my shrines to self occupying nearly every corner of life. This was perhaps the last nudge required to kick the Facebook habit that I've thought is kind of strange since it encourages nothing short of some of the noteworthy elements discussed in this book.

Being more aware of these types of super-self traps has allowed me to experiment with what DeYoung calls, "going into the desert." This allows us to "[step] away and double check whom we are relying on for affirmation, how much we want their attention, and what we want attention for" (101). Withdrawing from the cultural madhouse allows us to also see what becomes of us once "the mirror of approval [and] our feelings of being real and important evaporate" (99). Unplugging, silence, and solitude is a time when our unmasked selves become more apparent to us in all of it's fearful insecurities. These "disconcerting feelings can do two things for us. They reveal how much of our identity is embedded in a false sense of self. And they show us how easy it is to avoid solitude because we dislike being unproductive and unapplauded" (99). I would have to say truthfully, I have quite often never had an opportunity to avoid solitude and was often left with fears of being left behind by life unnoticed and forgotten. I have since realized that, really, my life and my body is a rental loaned to me by the Creator himself who knit me together in my mother's womb and knew me before even the world was formed. How then, could I ever be forgotten? There must be another reason for the troubles I encounter in life. It reminds me of the Lady of Fatima's words to a desperate world, "If men knew what eternity is, they would do everything to change their lives."

DeYoung has accomplished a great service to those who will stop for a moment and re-evaluate how are attention is hijacked by life that travels at the speed of light, awash in a constant stream of distractions. Life lived with our eyes fastened securely to our own passions and desires, will ultimately lead to a dead end as the super-self actually doesn't exist. We think we are good as we are. We aren't hurting anyone, we mind our own business, we are not bad people for the most part. This, I've begun to realize, is extremely dangerous thinking and will take our minds off the things that provide eternal value. It is important to realize this super-self focus is in fact rooted in our desire for deep connection and we fan the flames that encourage super-selfishness of the culture we live in: it is full of "films and love songs [that] express our yearning for promises of a lifetime of love, but the reality we live in is littered with shards of shattered commitments. Biblically speaking, we are like Leah, wondering but never knowing how it would feel to be loved like Rachel" (120). Without centering our lives around God, we are left orbiting the dissatisfaction that is the fruit of a God-empty life.

I can't say I've corrected my course; I'm still in the wake of shock at catching a reflection of myself in the mirror and seeing nothing. Life is so short, yet it is full of opportunity to choose God and die to self. It really is the ultimate paradox that to die to self leads to real, true self-fulfillment of a God-centered life. It is also important to realize that reading books like this leads to honest self-reflection.

[Tirzah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first heard of Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung when I listened to her interview with Mars Hill Audio. She was speaking on Vainglory: The Forgotten Vice and at the time, it was her newly released book. The idea of vainglory and how it is heavily infiltrated in our narcissist, materialistic society sparked my interest in pursuing her book.

DeYoung takes one of the most common vices suffered by all people – vainglory – and lays out a clear distinction of what vainglory is by exploring varieties of it and explaining its roots. She talks of vainglory’s power to corrupt everyone if we don’t watch it. In fact, the first part of the book can get downright depressing; however, DeYoung marches on with remedies of how to constantly keep vainglory at bay through grace from God and encouragement through the community. I personally felt the last few chapters inspired me to strive to do more good that reflects God's glory. There are so many good points in this book; I am not going to stuff them all in this review. Instead, I will encourage you to obtain a copy and read it. It especially makes an appropriate guide for those in the ministry and Christian counseling.

[Sean Post · Rating 4 out of 5]

DeYoung has written a great book on a sin that dominates Western culture today: vainglory. Her blend of prose is both in touch with the common temptations of our times and aware of the historical theology relevant to the discussion. She quotes Augustine, Aquinas, and the Desert Fathers heavily while still building on their ideas.

The fundamental concept is that glory is the recognition of goodness but vainglory is the multitude of sinful ways in which do the "glory" thing apart from God. These false motives include glorying in the right things but having motives twisted and glorying in the wrong things altogether. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the book was seeing the dozens of varieties of vainglory. Really, this book is a diagnostic tool. Like an x-ray would do for someone with a broken bone, I walked away actually seeing internal brokenness and motives that were previously hidden to me.

[Andy Brock · Rating 4 out of 5]

As good as Glittering Vices.

This is the second book I've read of this distinguished author. A friend recommended Glittering Vices some time ago. I enjoyed the book and so when I encountered Vainglory I had to read it. Very glad I did. I think it is a good read for every pastor and Christian leader for we all frequently fall into this vice.

[Mark Seeley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deeply penetrating book into a vice (sin) that no one is exempt from. And in many ways, a very modern vice, too, in the age of Facebook and social media.

[Mar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. We don't ponder the vices much anymore, especially the forgotten ones. I liked the content and the writing style.

[Galina Krasskova]

thought provoking.