Congratulations to the South Carolina Gamecocks for their glorious 31-30 victory over the Clemson Tigers!
Soccer, Well, Football
The World Cup is underway. Count me in!
The United States has never been known as a soccer giant. After all, we call it soccer, not football like the rest of the world. However, soccer has become quite a force in adolescent life in the last few decades. Whether it’s the perception of football as being dangerous, or soccer’s continuous action and relative affordability, it seems that every other parent I know has a child (male or female) in a soccer league.
The first time I was exposed to the sport was as a younger teen. I had a cousin from North Carolina who played soccer. On his rare visits, he’d sometimes bring a ball and bounce it around in the yard. He was older and taller, so I was impressed by anything physical he did. But for farm-boys like my brother and me, it was just odd to kick around something besides a can or a kickball.
Fast-forward many years later to 2014, and my wife and I both were drawn in by the drama of the World Cup in Brazil. We had dear friends in the States from Brazil, so it was an experience we could share together. While USA wasn’t on the level of countries like Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, etc., it was exciting to watch something that hundreds of millions of people were invested in. I’m sure national pride was part of the equation, but there were other factors, too.
First, a soccer match doesn’t consume an entire half a day like a baseball game often does. Second, the players are all constantly in motion. Third, because goals come at such a premium, you feel like you must stay glued to the television lest you miss the rare score. Finally, perhaps there’s something about the commentators’ accents that I just like.
Now I realize there has been some controversy around this year’s event due to the host country Qatar. As a Muslim-majority country, Qatar has a very different social, cultural, and legal environment than most Westerners are accustomed to. Some of the controversy stems from the banning of alcohol sales. Some stems from anti-LBGTQ customs and attitudes in the region. But surprise surprise, countries around the world converge on a random, insufficiently WEIRD country, and people are up in arms.
A reasonable person would ask, isn’t it unavoidable that if 32 teams from every corner of the globe are going to participate in a sports tournament, it’ll be a lowest-common denominator gathering? Don’t misunderstand me. I think it’s a legitimate question as to whether countries with certain kinds of laws and policies, including in the area of human rights, should be permitted to host or participate in global events. However, these sites are selected well ahead of time. Short of Qatar launching a nuclear attack on a neighboring nation, what should we reasonably expect to cause teams and their supporters to stay home?
USA will play Iran on Tuesday. It will decide whether they advance to the next round or not. Maybe countries who think their values are superior represent those values best by showing up and being successful. Maybe. Or maybe it’s acceptable for diverse nations to compete every few years, and show civility and cooperation while doing so. Might the soccer enthusiasts of the world be doing their part simply by living out their values, and keeping this global effort alive?
No doubt everything is political in some way. But perhaps not everyone is called to be an activist on every field of life.
Snippets from Denver
I mentioned in last week’s newsletter that I had presented a paper at the National Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. Below are a few excerpts from my presentation:
In his book Culture, the literary critic Terry Eagleton offers four possible definitions of culture: “(1) a body of artistic and intellectual work; (2) a process of spiritual and intellectual development; (3) the values, customs, beliefs and symbolic practices by which men and women live; or (4) a whole way of life.”[1] Evangelicals can be found using all definitions of culture in books on cultural engagement or the Christian worldview. In fact, one can just as frequently read an evangelical author refer to “transforming culture” as “transforming the culture.” Identifying the exact referent of “culture” must be determined by carefully studying its usage in the context of an author’s work. Yet even these meanings can vary within the same work, making the linguistic choice that describes the precise type of engagement even more significant.
The ambiguity created by the range of cultural rhetoric raises several questions for students of cultural engagement. How, for example, could one speak meaningfully about “engaging” a body of aesthetics, a process of development, values and practices, and “a whole way of life?”[2] What would it mean to “transform” each of these in a distinctly Christian sense? As a matter of preliminary judgment, we must observe that one word (culture) is being used to span a significant conceptual range. Additionally, one imperative or action (transform) is being used to define a substantial albeit unclear effect on an entire range of phenomena. Such is one of the challenges which attend evangelical cultural engagement. Indeed, we might describe this as the linguistic dilemma of cultural engagement. That is, the continued output of books on this topic suggests that there is something to be said about cultural engagement that previous proposals have been inadequate to convey. At the very least, this implies that the ways evangelicals have presented their views previously have lacked a definitive and fully persuasive account of cultural engagement. This owes significantly to the lack of attention given to the multi-dimensional qualities of language that are employed in explaining what proper cultural engagement requires and entails. . .
To be clear, then, there is a four-fold linguistic-conceptual dynamic at work. First, there’s a need for precision when referring to something as consequential (and potentially comprehensive) as the role of Christians in the world around them. One thinks here of how careful Christians have been through the centuries to distinguish between imputation or infusion and begotten or made. Think of the care used with words like procession, ousia (essence), and even how to speak about the phrase “This is my body” and “This is my blood.” In many cases these efforts have gone beyond the realm of Scriptural terminology in order to find faithful ways of expressing Scriptural subjects, relationships, and roles. Should we be any less careful when speaking of how holiness and obedience in the world (“culture”) should primarily express themselves?
Second, because “transform” and “culture” both are open to such a wide field of meaning, and in turn an entire range of grammatical constructions, significant or exclusive dependence on the “transformationalist” model or picture of cultural engagement seems unwise at best, and altogether misguided at worst. In a related way, these ambiguous terms seem especially prone to muddying the relationship between the object and subject. Where does the individual end and the culture begin? This tendency towards abstraction isn’t new. Stanley Hauerwas and others raised this concern decades ago. Still, it deserves consideration since Christians can no less stand above, beyond, or outside of their culture even as they engage it. To paraphrase former President Clinton, it all depends on what the word “it” is. This is the type of imprecision we can expect when we use words prone to inflationary tendencies.
Third, cultural transformationalism is especially subject to confusing means with ends, or efforts with outcomes. Consider how the apostles may have answered the question: What is the obligation of Christ’s followers to their social environment? We must answer this given what we know about the teachings of Jesus, the teaching they had access to and which we also have access to. Is it more likely that they would say, “We are called to transform the culture in Jesus’ name,” or, “If we’re faithful to obey the teachings of Jesus, there may be some transformational outcomes in some lives and situations”? The distinction between these two statements lies in the distinction between seeing transformation as a desired, albeit not always achievable end versus seeing transformation as an actual effort one undertakes, in which cases the proper means can easily be obscured.
Fourth, focusing on transformation as a term and concept has the unfortunate effect of sometimes excluding other helpful, biblical terms. Indeed, one can just as easily find the notions of regeneration, repentance, renewal, reform, and revival in the New Testament as they can transformation. Now in fact, I would argue that transformation constitutes a type of grammar that can work alongside these other ways of seeing and speaking about the relationship between Christians and cultural phenomena. While this isn’t my principal argument here, I mention it in passing to remind my transformationalist brothers and sisters that taking the main argument here seriously will not require we abandon it altogether. Rather, we will move beyond it sufficiently to embrace the full range of redemptive language and images found within and consistent with Scripture.”
Follow-Up (New!)
In this new feature, I’ll circle back to something addressed in an earlier newsletter. This is a chance to go deeper as a reader, or even to just hold me accountable in what I say.
In today’s Follow-Up, check out this brief article from Axios: Baby boomers face a unique caregiving crisis (axios.com). If you compare these concerns with the thoughts I raise about social capital in Newsletter #44, it’s clear that we need to be discussing the central role of family, friends, and community—mediating relationships and institutions. There’s not a statist solution for all our problems!
Currently Reading:
A. Craig Troxel, With All Your Heart: Orienting Your Mind, Desires, and Will Toward Christ
Quote of the Week:
Eighteen years is not enough. A crib is bought. Christmas trees get picked out. There is the park and lullabies and a little help with homework. The days pass uncounted, until they end.
[1] Terry Eagleton, Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 1.
[2] It should be noted that “engagement” is not a word used by conservative evangelicals alone. It has come to see mainstream religious usage and mainstream social usage as well. For non-evangelical examples, see Miroslav Volf, A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011). For secular examples, consider the common refrain of politicians and journalists who speak of the need for America to be “engaged with the world,” referring to a particular orientation toward foreign policy and/or diplomacy. The roots of “engagement” are interesting in and of themselves, and though this term will be considered, it will not be the principal focus here.