Starring in Your Own Season of House of Cards | Healthy Aging Series: S12 E14
House of Cards: Season “Hell at SBTS”
Starring: Me, The President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
I am by nature, not a protester, but I have protested. And before you get all judgy, how many protests have you participated in? And if you say, yeah, I have, then good on you!
My protest was not dramatic, but it was meaningful. I was a Social Work student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Dean, Diana Garland, had just been fired or forced to resign under duress. She was attempting to hire a new Social Work professor but the President, Al Moeller, refused to accept her candidate, citing that the candidate’s doctrinal views were not consistent with Southern Baptist theology, and more specifically, it was the candidate’s belief that women should be allowed to be pastors in churches.
As an aside, the National Association of Social Workers (CSWE), the agency that accredits SW programs, promotes things like women’s reproductive rights, working for economic equality, which includes equal pay for equal work, and protecting women against domestic and sexual violence.
Dr. Moeller, in an impromptu forum, announced that the seminary’s values were in conflict with Social Work values. He must’ve meant Social Workers’ commitment to social change, focusing on poverty, discrimination, and advocating for equal opportunity, resources, and meaningful participation for all.
He must’ve meant the Social Work profession’s commitment to confronting systematic racism, and working to promote anti-racist approaches in the community.
Diana Garland was fired. We marched through the halls of the Administration Building carrying our Social Work Banner and singing, “We shall overcome.”
A year later, Dr. Moeller announced that The Carver School of Church Social Work was being shut down. It was later sold to Campbellsville University.
What happened during that spring semester of 1995 didn’t happen overnight. It had been percolating for decades.
It started with the election of Reverend Adrien Rogers in 1979, as president of the Southern Baptist convention. Rogers was a Biblical Inerrantist, and the Fundamentalist Pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee.
His election started the Fundamentalist Takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention. During the 40 years prior to Roger’s election, the Southern Baptist Convention had become divided among two camps, the Conservatives and the Moderate.
The Conservatives engineered a process of electing Fundamentalist Presidents, who would in turn appoint conservative members to the various boards, to include the five Seminary Boards, and finally culminating with a purge of all Moderate Professors from those Seminary.
It was a painful process to witness as a young Moderate Minister and Seminary Student. All of my professors were forced out. I was more than discouraged. I was devastated. I felt powerless. The people I cared about and the institution that I dreamed of attending, we’re gone.
So, I bundled up my values, I packed up my love for people, and loaded my moving van with my Dreams, and started a career, a career that hopefully has honored those displaced professors and that long gone institution.
That was my Season of the House of Cards and that’s how I coped.
House of Cards: Season 68AD, “Hell on Earth”
Starring: Nero (Boo!!!), Seneca (Yay!!!)
History is full of “House of Cards” real-life seasons.
One took place during the first century AD and more precisely between 54 and 68 AD, under the rule of Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus. He’s the antagonist.
The protagonist in this Season was Seneca. Honestly, you couldn’t write or make up a better Season for The House of cards.
Nero became emperor at age 16, Seneca became his tutor, and later a co-advisor along with the guy in charge of his security, Burrus.
Nero was a Celebrity Emperor. He was a narcissist. He was a jealous, omnipotent, tyrant.
I read the “Nero” chapter from Barry Strauss’s book, “The Caesars.” In today’s streaming world, what he wrote would have eclipsed the modern scripts of The House of Cards.
There Was Drama and Murder
Nero allowed the city of Rome to burn while he was at his Seaside Villa, south of Rome. You’ve heard the saying, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” It’s probably more a description of how people perceived Nero’s response to a fire that devastated 70% of Rome.
“Anger grew, after the fire,” writes Strauss. “Nero confiscated much of downtown Rome to build an enormous new palace. So far, as far as the Roman people were concerned, not only did Nero fiddle while Rome burned, but also, he turned a profit on the catastrophe.”
Strauss continues, “Before the fire, Nero was wildly popular with the Roman people. They doubted him afterwards, but Nero worked hard to win them back. The great fire was a bad show. Nero knew that, because he lived and died by his showmanship. So, after the fire, he put on another bizarre and ghastly show that turned prisoners into human torches. Better box office, as he no doubt reasoned.”
When he was 21, he had his mother murdered. “By the year 59, when he was 21,” writes Strauss, “Nero was ready to settle down, but first he decided to get rid of his mother. Love, power, and control each played a part in his motivation.”
Nero murdered people willy-nilly. He murdered anyone that he felt threatened by or people who stole his spotlight.
He executed his enemies in the Senate.
He falsely accused his wife, who was Claudius’ daughter, of adultery, banished her, and finally had her executed.
He lost his temper with his second wife Poppaea and kicked her to death. BTW: She was pregnant.
In 67, he ordered the death of his best general, Corbulo, and the General fell on his sword.
I could go on and on. He was a very bad dude.
But… he liked building things.
Let me share a long quote from Strauss’s book.
“First, Nero cleared out 250 acres of prime real estate in the center of Rome for a new palace. It was called the Golden House, but it was actually a complex structure. Working with the best architects and engineers, Nero created something that was elegant, opulent, radical, and greatly influential.
“When he built the Golden House, Nero proclaimed that now at last he could live like a human being. He surely planned to share that new lifestyle with the inhabitants of the city, inviting them from time to time to events on the lake or to stroll in the park.
Strauss sums up Nero’s life: “He was insecure and vain. He wanted to be popular and he tolerated no rivals. As one source put it, “He was carried away, above all, by popularity, and he was jealous of everyone who in any way stirred the feelings of the common people.”
So much for our antagonist. It was Hell on Earth.
What about our protagonist, Seneca?
He did not escape Nero’s wrath, or for that matter, the wrath of the previous Emperors.
At age 43, Caligula wanted to put him to death.
At age 45, Claudius exiled him to Corsica and he lost half of his estate.
At age 53, he became Nero’s tutor, and at age 69, he was ordered to commit suicide.
Seneca lived for nearly 2 decades under a tyrannical cloud and the threat of death. He lost much of his fortune and spent many of his last years in exile.
Seneca’s Script for Surviving Nero’s Hell on Earth
He was a prolific writer. That’s where we get most of our understanding of Stoicism. During his last decade, he wrote 124 letters to Lucilius, a protege, applying Stoic principles while living through this Season. He wrote about living a life of tranquility in the midst of chaos. In his book, “Breakfast with Seneca,” David Fideler writes, “Like other philosophers of the time, the Stoics were intensely concerned with the question, What is needed to live the best possible life? If humans could answer that question, they believed, we could flourish and live happy, tranquil lives, even if the world itself seems to be crazy and out of control.”
Seneca promoted, freeing oneself from passions, facing death with courage, disengaging oneself from political attachments, practicing virtue, and focusing on ways to benefit others.
Fideler explains, “Stoicism’s ultimate and most radical promise is that true happiness is fully within our reach at this very instant. For Stoics, happiness is up to us, and not due to luck, because the person who develops sound character will possess deep inner satisfaction, and the best, most enduring kind of happiness.”
What did Seneca write as he lived out his life during the Hell on Earth Season of House of Cards?
Fideler provides an outline:
- Live in agreement with nature.
- Virtue, or excellence of one’s inner character, is the only true good.
- Some things are “up to us,” or entirely under our control, while other things are not.
- While we can’t control what happens to us in the external world, we can control our inner judgments and how we respond to life’s events.
- When something negative happens, or when we are struck by adversity, we shouldn’t be surprised by it but see it as an opportunity to create a better situation.
- Virtues, or possessing an inner character, is its own reward. But it also results in tranquility or happiness. This is a state of inner joy.
- Real philosophy involves “making progress.”
- It is essential that we, as individuals, contribute to society.
Your Season of House of Cards
I’m wondering if you are feeling a little discombobulated with the current situation in our country, and the situation in our world. Maybe Stoicism can provide you with some strategies and coping practices to get you through.
I often think back on Seneca‘s life. He wrote and experienced much of the craziness of Nero when he was about the age I am right now.
Like Seneca, I believe things are much, much bigger than I am.
So, I focus on what I can change, and I focus on how I want my Season Finale to end.
I’m attempting to write a happy ending as we speak.
