Sunday, the New England Patriots will face the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl 49. Undoubtedly, in an attempt to motivate their teams, both head coaches will employ a tried-and-true method in their pregame speeches -- "Us against the world."
I am confident Bill Belichick will capitalize on the "deflategate" controversy that has dogged the Patriots for a couple of weeks now, telling his team everyone is rooting against them. "No one wants you to win," he'll chide his players, "You're not just playing the Seahawks; you're playing everyone who thinks we should lose. Go out there, and defeat them all."
His counterpart, Pete Carroll, will remind his players the Seahawks are attempting to do something no team has been able to accomplish in the salary-cap era: Repeat as Super Bowl champions. He'll probably say something along the lines of "No one believes it can be done, so go out there and do it."
I'm familiar with this kind of us-against-the-world rhetoric -- not because I ever was a professional football player, but because I grew up in church.
I grew up in the kind of fundamentalist churches that liked to draw a clear line of distinction between those who were in and those who were out. And those who were out were labeled with a variety of names -- "Unbelievers," "The Unsaved," "Irreligious People," "The World."
Inherent in these labels was the assumption the world was a scary and dangerous place, not to be trusted. Those who were in the world also were not to be trusted. If you got too close to them, they might entice you to backslide or to believe in some "new age" idea. Every day, in every interaction, with every person who wasn't a Christian, your faith was at stake.
Safety was found only in the protected walls of the church and its Christian subculture. We read our Christian books, listened to our Christian music and watched our Christian movies. Our calendars were dominated by church events. And our social circles included fellow believers with whom we could "fellowship."
The only exception to this, of course, was when we were evangelizing. We took evangelism training courses about how to befriend an unbeliever, so we could lead them to faith in Jesus. Friendship with an agenda.
Us versus them.
I've come to believe this kind of fortress mentality has done far more harm than good. I think the idea of having art that is "Christian" has ghettoized the contributions of artistic people who follow Jesus, and conditioned Christians to fail to appreciate amazing art that comes from people with other perspectives. I think labeling certain things as sacred and other things as secular has produced a kind of schizophrenic spirituality that keeps people from living in the moment. I think using the word "world" with a negative connotation has caused many church people to unwittingly abandon their responsibility to the earth and to fellow human beings.
Jesus didn't live this way. He was constantly breaking down the artificial barriers erected by the religious leaders of his day.
He ate meals with tax collectors and prostitutes. He cavorted with the uneducated and the overly zealous. He took time to talk to women and children. He got close to outcasts and the marginalized. He commended the faith of people who were not a part of his religious group. And he stayed friends with people who had doubts.
It doesn't seem to me that Jesus was against the world. Why are we?
Based on the example of Jesus and the overall story of the biblical narrative, I've come to believe God's plan is not something that brings about division and barriers, labels and distrust. Rather, I think God is working to draw people together, to reconcile groups and to restore humanity to an inclusive community by God's grace.
If this is what God is up to, then I think it's what the church should be up to, too.
How different would things be if we put more time and energy into building bridges of understanding rather than walls of division? What if we taught listening skills rather than apologetics? What if we encouraged each other to see everyone as a human being regardless of their political party, sexual orientation, gender identity or religious worldview? What if we abandoned "Us against the world"?
Us-against-the-world rhetoric might motivate us to win, but it doesn't motivate us to love. Victory isn't what Christianity is all about. Love, grace and mercy are. I seem to remember reading somewhere something that went like this: "For God so loved the world that he sent his Son."
NAN Religion on 01/31/2015