why soccer? why now? because millennials.

There is a brilliant scene in the Mel Brooks’ western spoof, “Blazing Saddles” that, I believe, helps explain the cultural shift that the United States is experiencing right now. Couldn’t explain the context if I wanted to, but the long and short is that the viewer initially thinks the scene is set in the dusty main street of a typical western town, until, as only Mel Brooks can do, the camera zooms out to reveal that we are actually seeing a movie within a movie. What appeared to be a dusty town in the wild west was actually a soundstage lined with cheap, two-dimensional facades that only look like buildings on the face.

This is what has happened to the myth of American exceptionalism in the time it has taken the millennial generation to come of age. People from all generations but, I suggest, especially Millennials have walked around to the backside of the exceptionalism façade and seen that there is nothing there. If we have seen behind the façade and put the lie to the myth that America is innately more faultless, more inventive, more industrious, and in all ways superior to the rest of the world, it should not be credited to us as some profoundly clever insight. Anyone could have seen it all along. Many chose not to.

Whether one is disposed to believe in American exceptionalism or not has little to do with his or her own talent for critical thought and everything to do with how much he or she stands to gain from believing in it. It is a claim so sweeping and unjustified that it almost begs to be deconstructed with little mental exertion, but one is far more likely to deconstruct it if one is sixty thousand dollars in student debt, has worked two or three unpaid internships to even be considered for a job with a livable salary, and has too much life-expectancy to pretend with the rest of one’s society that ecological choices don’t have consequences.

So it’s not  that Millennials are particularly gifted at seeing through facades. They have simply run out of time to believe that which, deep down, we all knew was a lie but which was too convenient of a lie to reject.

This is why I believe it’s not mere happenstance that America has suddenly embraced soccer. This world cup has drawn more American viewers than either the concurrent NBA finals or the 2013 World Series. And, contrary to the view of naysayers who claim that this spike in popularity is only a quadrennial phase that we go through and that it means nothing, the MLS has grown from 10 to 19 teams in just 18 years with plans to grow to 24 by 2020. That is lightning fast in the world of professional sports. Yet, rather than seeing its talent pool diluted by this expansion, the league continues to lure big name players across the pond closer and closer to their prime while, conversely, seeing it’s own home growns have increasing success in Europe. And I’d venture that far more Americans are familiar with the Ronaldo of Real Madrid in Spain than were familiar with the former Brazilian top player of the same name not ten years ago.

That this seemingly neutral change in entertainment preferences points to a cultural shift that is much larger than itself is attested to not just by those who have joined the global party but by the almost violent reaction of those, like Ann Coulter, who haven’t. Undaunted by the danger of parodying herself, she calls the embrace of soccer a “sign of the nation’s moral decay.”

Few but Ms. Coulter, mind you, would suggest that a sport can carry a certain low moral value that’s not based on its inherent violence, its gratuitous use of resources, and its potential for injury—all things that she considers soundly moral and American. But here is my point: the things that the exceptionalist mindset finds most repulsive have become some of the deepest yearnings for those who have allowed themselves to walk behind the façade—maybe the majority of Millennials.

To the exceptionalist who continues to purposely believe the lie told in the street between wild western facades, it’s a mark of superiority to speak only one language to which the rest of the globalizing world must adapt. But to the one standing in the emptiness behind the façade, being monolingual is a cause for embarrassment.

To the exceptionalist, embracing a game that was first embraced elsewhere would be a capitulation of America’s presumed uniqueness. But behind the façade, it seems more likely that the other seven billion people who love futbol are onto something.

To the exceptionalist, a new sex-symbol for men who is as clean-cut, skinny, and immaculately dressed as your average European footballer is an offense to a commercially crafted image of manliness that is supposed to be drawn to bacon cheeseburgers that require you to "man up" and gas-guzzling trucks that are “built Ford tough.” But behind the façade, one sees the deep insecurities sitting just beneath that type of obsessive masculinity.

For the same reason, to the exceptionalist, a game described as “beautiful” should not be a draw for a purposely misogynistic worldview that is deeply troubled when males show any hint of effeminacy. But behind the façade, one wonders if it’s really our effeminacy that has caused so many problems in the world.

To the exceptionalist, Americans, by definition, cannot and should not learn from or adopt anything that first developed elsewhere. But behind the façade, one wonders if a little more humility and worldliness is such a bad thing.

It’s not accidental that soccer has found its moment in the states. I sense in our culture not just the love of a good party but a deep yearning to not be so exceptional anymore, if it should continue to isolate us from the world community.

That, and I love soccer.

a challenge to millennials from a millennial

Here are some common perceptions about Millenials, their money, and their relationship to the church, followed by what I believe to be the kernel of truth in each and then a challenge to other Millenials who are trying to live faithfully in uncertain times.

1. The church is guilty until proven innocent.

Truth - Every thinking adult 18-118 can recite several scandals and atrocities that have chained themselves to the public image of the church. But where older generations might be able to juxtapose a positive image of their childhood church or a pastor that they remember well, Millenials generally aren’t. Or if they’re lucky enough to at least have that (as I do), it is regularly humiliated by the majority opinion of their peer group.

Challenge – As a generation, we pride ourselves on our ability to keep a conscious check on our biases. But how many of us are paying attention to all the clergy collars anywhere there is a peace protest or a rally for equality? How many of us are thinking of Dorothy Day, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Oscar Romero, Desmond Tutu, or Martin Luther King Jr. when we level our critiques at the church? I’m not saying we have to turn a blind eye to the church when it screws up as our grandparents might have been guilty of doing from time to time. Just be fair. And at least recognize the good with the bad.

               

The Church is not a Millenial’s primary clan

Truth - President Obama was wise to promote his health care law on “Between Two Ferns” with Zach Galifianakis not because it shares any deep resonance with his overall message but because the sardonic irony of its presentation is code for a deeper cultural awareness. The intended message was clear: “You can trust me. I’m one of you.” It's an understatement to say that the church lacks that kind of social cachet. A church meeting in some hipster bar or coffee coop might be short term draw for a few, but it's no Regina Spektor.

Challenge - If you want to follow Jesus but need a community more rooted than “pub theology” and not backward like fundamentalist Christianity, and you don’t believe that your down-to-earth neighborhood church gets you, your worldview, or your cultural mindset; then change it. Millenials are certainly too enlightened to be ageist, no? So give Hazel and Ethel a chance. As a pastor of multiple generations, you’d be amazed how many Hazel and Ethel’s I’ve met who, it turns out, were way ahead of me and the words I had to preach when, previously, I might have written them off as too old to accept what I had to say. Repeatedly, I’ve been all hopped up on my “radical Gospel” only to discover Hazels who are on the no fly list for protesting The School of the Americas in the eighties and Ethels who have spent decades teaching elementary school for almost no compensation in Mali and Columbia. Lesson learned: I’m not that radical. But I can be, if I get some skin in the game and maybe even humble myself to learn from these people.

Millenials don’t want to pay a mortgage and electrical bills for a church when they could be giving directly to a cause that they care about

Truth - Fair enough.

Challenge -  This is not an either/or, and most of us give so little to the “causes” that we say we care about, it would be laughable to claim that it is. Beyond that, how many Millenials realize that Lutheran Services in America is the single biggest charitable organization in America in terms of revenue? Last fall, at the drop of a hat, about 70 people from my congregation raised $45,000 to bring 29 families out of extreme poverty in the central plateau of Haiti. A crowd-funding campaign would have required ten or twenty times as many participants to generate that kind of investment. Why was this possible? Because we had also been paying electric bills and a mortgage so that we could gather week after week as a community, hear stories, and develop a common vision around a God whose heart is always first and foremost with the poor and who suffers no either/or-s when it comes to their sake.    

Millenials have no money

Truth - Millenials have no money, mostly (there is no poverty-by-association).

Challenge - Giving money away faithfully doesn’t require a steady income and sure handle on the future. In fact, the word faithfully implies just the opposite. And no one is asking you to compete with the empty nesters in the fourth pew whose house is paid off, and their one child got a full ride to Yale, and now they’re left with nothing but disposable income. A leap of faith for you might be $5 more per week out of your scarcity where another $100 to them is nothing. The church is the only money handling institution in our society whose president and CEO (forgive the language, Jesus) actually gets more excited about the $5 than the $100 (Mark 12:41-44). So don't worry about trying to impress anyone.

Millenials are anxious about the future

Truth – Delayed careers, student loan debt, housing crash; the whole bit.

Challenge - It’s commonplace in our society for us to entrust our future to our money. The theological term for that to which you entrust your future well-being is “god.” The word for a god that is not the right God is "idol." This nation may have spent centuries going to church on Sunday and writing "In God we trust" on its coinage (kind of ironic, no?), but when it came down to our anxiety about the real business of surviving, Christ has never seriously competed with your run-of-the-mill financial planner for the position of high priest. But money is a particularly unforgiving god whose mercy never overrules his cold, calculating logic. He will repossess your stuff and evict you cold and naked the second you anger him. So Jesus’ challenge to people with money anxieties was both counter-intuitive and elegantly logical, get rid of it. Putting money into the plate is an act of defiance against that copper god. In some sense, we’re literally getting rid of him in hopes of discovering a God who is far more gracious.