The BEMA Podcast

Episode 475: Vice & Virtue — Vainglory
October 9, 2025
Host: Marty Solomon | Co-host: Brent Billings | Guest: Reed Dent

Overview

This episode of The BEMA Podcast explores "vainglory" as part of an ongoing series on the classical vices and virtues. The hosts dig into the distinction between vainglory and its cousins—pride and ambition—unpacking its historical, biblical, and cultural context, and how it manifests today, particularly in the age of social media. Drawing from stories, ancient thinkers, and Jesus' teachings, they invite listeners to self-examination about motivation and the desire for recognition.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Defining Vainglory

• Lost Nuances: Reed opens the discussion by lamenting that terms like "vainglory" have faded from common language, losing important distinctions in our understanding of vices.

  "The nuances of the vices have been lost largely because of language shifts. And pride is a thing, but it is different and importantly different." – Reed [00:35]

• Vainglory vs. Pride & Ambition:
  • Pride: The desire to be ultimate or central; “preeminence itself is the thing.”
  • Ambition: The drive to achieve excellence.
  • Vainglory: An inordinate desire to be recognized, applauded, or seen—regardless of merit or substance.

    "Vainglory is being so hungry for acclaim, for people recognizing you and saying your name, that you will take that even if it's for something totally hollow, right? Totally empty." – Reed [06:46] "Vainglory doesn't need excellence, and it simply doesn't care about preeminence. It only wants the image." – Marty [11:06]

2. Illustrative Stories & Examples

• Cinema as Analogy:
  • Pride: "There Will Be Blood" – ultimate dominance.
  • Ambition: "Whiplash" – achieving the best in one’s craft.
  • Vainglory: "The King of Comedy" – seeking fame regardless of talent or virtue.

    "Rupert is like in a bar room watching himself on tv and he is his own biggest fan...This is what the essence of vainglory is." – Reed [03:14]

• Historic Anecdotes: A monk who weaves baskets all year, only to burn them, resisting the lure of recognition.

  "It is maybe worth doing it in some cases in a way that people don't see or that you don't draw attention to." – Reed [18:13]

3. Vainglory and the Spiritual Life

• Biblical Reflection:
  • Beechner on Pride:

    "Self love or pride is a sin when instead of leading you to share with others the self you love, it leads you to keep yourself in perpetual safe deposit." – Fredrick Buechner (read by Reed) [04:31]

  • Jesus on Vainglory:

    "Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them...for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven." – Brent (quoting Matthew 6) [46:06]

  • Hypocrite as Actor:

    "That word for actor is upokrita...Jesus's point seems to be we do our spiritual lives that way. We do it to be seen." – Marty [47:31]

4. The 'Foot Soldiers' of Vainglory (from Aquinas)

• Manifestations:
  • Boastfulness – exaggerating achievements
  • Hypocrisy – putting on a mask of virtue
  • Eccentricity/Novelty – seeking attention by being flashy or different
  • Obstinacy/Contention/Discord – arguing or refusing to admit wrong

    "This is dangerous territory for me...the foot soldiers, this is dangerous territory for me." – Brent [27:08]

5. Vainglory in Modern Culture

• Social Media as a Breeding Ground:

  "We see our lives as an Instagram reel. Like, we subconsciously see all. We envision ourselves being seen...social media just feeds on this." – Marty [32:54] "It's like we have found a way to quantify something that used to be more qualitative, I guess...you post and then you check, how many likes am I at?...That feeling that we get where we want to see that number climb higher, that is vainglory." – Reed [33:43]

• The Value System is Off:

  "I just want to have, like, a shared experience with somebody...But then it's like, I post anything about my wife, and it gets four times as many likes as anything else I do, and I'm like, okay, I give up." – Brent [37:06]

6. The Root Desire & The Real Danger

• Underlying Goodness:
  • The drive to be seen comes from a desire to be valued and known—legitimate human needs. The problem is disordered focus, when recognition becomes the only value attached to good things.

    "...the desire to be loved and desire to be known. The desire to let our goodness be seen is not a bad thing. That is actually inherently a good thing, but just has to be properly ordered." – Reed [31:48]

• Counterfeit Fulfillment:
  • Vainglory is a hollow or counterfeit good, robbing us of true flourishing.

    "Vainglory is hollow. Vainglory is a cheap knockoff...it's not the real thing, it's fake. It's a counterfeit. And therefore, it's not that it's unethical because it's directly harmful. It's that it's harmful because it takes up valuable space." – Marty [40:36]

• Insecurity Perpetuated:

  "The more you worship intelligence, the more a fraud you come to feel...when we find our sense of value in the hollow piece of these accomplishments, it diminishes us even in our...the damage that is done is like directly inverse to the amount of significance that we give it." – Reed [41:54]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Reed, on the hollowness of celebrity culture:

  “Vainglory is the ethos of celebrity, and we live in, like, a ubiquitous celebrity culture. Like, everybody's got a chance to be celebrity now...And it just. It is. It is empty. It's empty. It’s empty.” [36:14]

• Marty, on shifted self-perception:

  “Even if it's not given to foolish things that have no glory, even if it's given to really good, substantive things, ultimately the glory is not mine. And vainglory tries to make it mine. Even when it's good, substantive stuff.” [20:12]

• Rebecca DeYoung (quoted by Reed):

  “The art of impressing others and gaining applause involves carefully hiding ourselves just as much as it involves showing ourselves off.” [44:35]

• Beechner on humility (read by Reed):

  "True humility doesn't consist of thinking ill of yourself, but of not thinking of yourself much differently from the way you'd be apt to think of anybody else. It is the capacity for being no more and no less pleased when you play your own hand well than when your opponents do." [58:58]

Important Timestamps by Segment

• Introduction + Why talk about Vainglory?
  [00:06–06:14]
• Distinctions between Pride, Ambition, Vainglory
  [06:46–13:24]
• Examples from Cinema and Life
  [13:24–18:12]
• Manifestation in Everyday Life (not just for the 'famous')
  [14:17–15:15]
• Stories: Monks & Baskets, Sermon Burning
  [18:12–21:18]
• Glory, Doership, and the Deuteronomy Warning
  [21:18–22:35]
• Aquinas & Vainglory’s ‘Foot Soldiers’
  [22:43–29:02]
• Culture: Social Media & Quantification of Applause
  [32:54–36:16]
• Root Desires & Where Vainglory Goes Wrong
  [40:36–43:27]
• Biblical Case Study: Matthew 6
  [46:06–49:38]
• Refracting vs. Absorbing Glory: Diamond/Black Hole Metaphor
  [51:27–57:06]
• True Humility vs. False Humility
  [58:58–59:59]
• Self-Examination Questions
  [60:06–61:07]

Self-Examination Questions

1. What is my response internally and externally when someone praises me?
2. What do I do—even subtly—to make sure my virtue is at least a little more recognizable?
3. How do I respond when someone else gets the credit I deserve?
4. What would it look like for me to pursue and achieve excellence as unto the Lord?

Final Takeaways

• Vainglory is about image, not substance. Centering our worth on recognition—whether for true accomplishments or hollow ones—robs us of deeper, truer rewards.
• True humility is honest stewardship, not self-abasement; it involves embracing our role as recipients and stewards of God's gifts, giving glory where it is due, and finding satisfaction in genuine, often unseen, goodness.
• Practical Challenge: Intensely examine your motives, particularly in a culture inundated with ways to seek affirmation and applause (social media, public recognition). Seek the secret reward—joy of doing good, being known and loved by God, apart from the eyes of others.

For links to referenced materials, further reading, and discussion guides, see the episode show notes at bema discipleship.com.