Utterly Predictable

Whoever digs a pit will fall into it;

And whoever breaks through a wall will be bitten by a snake.

Whoever quarries stone will be hurt by them;

And whoever splits logs will be endangered by them.

-Ecclesiastes 10: 8-9

Before I had that weird dream, I was going to talk about basketball.  On Monday night I watched game seven of the series between the Houston Rockets and the Golden State Warriors.  I was rooting for the Rockets because they were the underdog. Everybody, even Lebron James, is an underdog to the Warriors.  Mike Greenberg on ESPN says that Golden State has "ruined basketball," by simply being so dominant, because it takes all the uncertainty out of it.  For the first half of the game, the Rockets looked like they might actually bring down Goliath, but I noticed that they were bricking an awful number of three point shots.  They actually went on to set a record: 37 missed three pointers, including 27 in a row! But they kept jacking them up anyway.

The well known definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  As it began to dawn on the announcers that something really remarkable was going on, they explained that Houston, as a matter of game strategy, either takes it to the rim or shoots a three, they don't really have what they call a mid-range game.  It can be deadly, as it was during the regular season, when Harden and Paul and the lot are nailing their shots and gliding past defenders to the rack, but when you're tired and your legs are gone, your long distance shots all go clang and the Warriors get to snatch basically uncontested rebounds and do what they do best, move it down the floor and shoot your heart right out.  Golden State can look sluggish and almost inept in the first half of games, but in the third quarter, after you blow your adrenaline and the weariness starts to set in, they have you just where they want you.  That's when Stephen Curry starts to hit those dagger threes from anywhere he wants, making you run in futility.  That's when Kevin Durant starts his spidery infiltration of the upper key and hitting those no-doubt mid-range shots that Houston does not even attempt.  It was absolutely predictable.  The only thing in my lifetime that has been that predictable in sports was Michael Jordan's Bulls in the playoffs, that era felt that way too, and I can't say I liked it then either.

The really frustrating thing is though that Houston really looked like they had a shot, they were one bad Chris Paul hamstring away, but I would say they were even closer than that, because watching that game, they were simply one adjustment away: shoot from closer.  I get that the three ball is tempting and I get that it's naturally a lower percentage shot, so you expect to miss more.  It's basic risk reward, but sometimes you need to know when it's just not working, sometimes you need to see how and where it is just playing into your opponent's hands.

I have the same observation about the church in the world today.  Case in point number one: the Southern Baptist Church and its traditional complementarian approach to gender roles.  Ross Douthat does a pretty good job of summing that up for you here. The general point is that for years a certain strain of evangelical Christianity has adopted essentially the same position towards women that fundamentalist Muslims have: namely that they are to be submissive to their husbands and that their purity is of foremost importance.  There is a complicated range of expressions of this, but you can sniff it out by looking at who their leaders are: are there women preaching? Teaching other adults? Serving on the governing boards and councils? No? Then you're probably dealing with a church, who in the name of tradition, is saying that half of God's children are not as good as the other half.  They will try to cover that stench with all sorts of theological and "biblical" dogma.  They will even trot out many females who they have indoctrinated to believe it, but it is still a pretty hateful anachronism, and it leads to all sorts of malfeasance and dysfunction. Like those threes that kept bricking, insistence on this methodology is eventually going to cost you the game, and they are learning this the hard way.

Case in point number two: the prosperity gospel.  By now you have probably all heard of that "evangelist" who is trying to convince people that he needs a private jet.  Yes, that is as absolutely absurd to the majority of people of faith as it is to an atheist.  But that doesn't stop prosperity preachers from naming and claiming all sorts of materialist swag in the name of Christ.  To me, as a follower of a man who said, "Truly I tell you it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven," health and wealth teaching has nothing to do with the Good News of the Gospel.  Beyond just being bemused, I think anyone who preaches that sort of Gospel is actually doing damage to the name of Jesus.  But this strategy works on people, because of "itching ears," because of the existential desperation of materialism, because people just want to believe that belief will make them rich.  Just like the Rockets believed that somehow those three pointers would start falling.

So, since I have pointed a few fingers, let me pay attention to the ones pointing back at me.  Because, in basketball, I basically have one move: dribble to the right, outside layup, I use my big body to basically bull rush past anyone.  It's predictable and effective, but it is far from unstoppable.  In the ecclesial world I am a Presbyterian, our "game plan" is pretty much the same way, predictable, effective, but far from unstoppable.  We occupy that middle ground somewhere between the high church rituals of the Roman Catholics, Episcopalians and such, and the Pentecostal and Charismatic sorts.  We are a mid-range shot kind of church.  The emotional appeals about salvation and the heart rending personal experiences of the old revival meetings are sort of suspicious to us. We sometimes admire the elegance and art of the high liturgy, like a good three point shooter, it can really give a sense of security.  To some extent, we can dabble in either one of those styles of play, but it's not our main thing.  Our game plan is intellectual engagement, social conscience and constant reformation.  The constant reformation thing is probably the toughest thing, and it was what made me even more sympathetic to the Houston Rockets, to watch them stick to their plan until the bitter end was both familiar and frustrating.  I knew they needed to change their approach, but they also felt like they should just keep working on the thing that got them there in the first place, after all it got them to game 7 of the conference finals, they had the best record in the league and home court advantage. It wasn't for nothing, but all of the sudden it wasn't working, now the only question left to answer is what now?

Yes, indeed, what now?