Roger Clemens and Christian Cliches

Roger Clemens

by Ben Howard

This is about sports. This is about sports, sort of.

The first time I heard about Roger Clemens was in 1997 when he was traded from the Boston Red Sox to the Toronto Blue Jays. I was 10 years old and I saw him on the cover of Baseball Weekly alongside Pat Hentgen and Juan Guzman, the Blue Jays other “aces.” This may seem like an innocuous memory, except for two important pieces of information: 1) I started seriously watching baseball in 1994, when I was 7 and 2) in 1997 Roger Clemens was, arguably, the best pitcher in the game.

Somehow, in my young mind, Roger Clemens didn’t exist until he was traded to the Blue Jays. His story wasn’t part of my narrative until that point and as a result, I have no direct awareness of the first 12 years of his career.

This came back to me a few years ago when, after announcing his retirement, Clemens decided to sign with the Houston Astros, a team close to his home. I wondered what it looked like or felt like to kids who were just getting into baseball for the first time, or really, anyone who was new to the game, anyone who hadn’t heard that particular story before.

What about someone who is just encountering Clemens now in this column for the very first time? What would they think about him if they did a little research? Would they see the story of the legendary pitcher or would they see the story of the disgraced former baseball player who’s post-career legacy has been marred by revelations about steroids and myriad court cases?

It reminds me that we always come into a story sideways. We all enter the story halfway through. Nobody starts at the beginning; you start in the present, live into the future, and slowly discover the past.

I bring this up because I think it’s something important to remember, and I think it’s something I need to constantly remind myself about. Not everyone knows the stories I know, not everyone knows the context, nor do I know the background to every story, even though I’m always ready to give an opinion.

Don't get this tattoo.

When I listen to sermons or read books or blog posts, I always stumble across these clichés. Some I’ve heard since I was old enough to remember and some have become more familiar as I’ve matured and sought out different theological spaces. You know them too, the preacher who mentions the four Greek words for love, the Hebrew names for God, people who say the word church means community (you can’t “go” to church), all sorts of trite, churchy things.

There are even new clichés; the friend who posts the Mr. Rogers quote about helping, the one who Jesus-jukes every conversation to starving children in Africa who need help, every single conversation that uses the word “othering.” 

I roll my eyes because I know they all have their flaws, and they all in some way miss some more subtle point that I’m interested in, but now I’m wondering if they’re necessary. I’m wondering that because we all come into the story sideways and maybe these kinds of clichés are the best gateway into a world which allows us to gain a deeper understanding. Someone, somewhere is hearing all of these groan-inducing clichés for the first time, and it’s resonating with them.

I’m part of this small group from my church that meets on Thursday nights. Most of us grew up in Christian homes and we’ve heard every Bible story probably a thousand times, a handful of us have even studied theology in school. As a result, it’s easy to make these snarky inside jokes about how different stories are told, and interpreted, and manipulated.

In the last year, a new girl joined our small group who didn’t have that background. She had never heard the stories in Genesis or the story of the Exodus or any of the stories outside of Jesus for that matter. One night we got to share the basic building blocks of the Old Testament narrative with her, and it was beautiful to watch someone engage with something like that for the first time. Something that felt so familiar and worn to me regained a sense of its awe-inspiring weirdness and beauty.

I wonder sometimes if my cynicism is bred by familiarity, if I’d be more loving, more caring, more accepting and humble if I remembered that people come into stories sideways. Too often I’m ready to dismiss everyone who doesn’t know what I know. That’s arrogance of the worst kind.

Good question

Everyone’s constantly learning, constantly discovering, and there is no honor in discrediting people because they didn’t learn or discover something before you. I mean, I’d never even heard of Roger Clemens.

Peace,

Ben

Ben Howard is an accidental iconoclast and generally curious individual living in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also the editor-in-chief of On Pop Theology and an avid fan of waving at strangers for no reason. You can follow him on Twitter @BenHoward87.

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology.

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Life is Like Baseball (and That Sucks)

by Mitchell Richards

I really don’t care for baseball much. I love sports in general and I stay informed of the headlines with most sports, but when it comes to sitting down and watching an entire baseball game, I can’t say I've done that in years.

Baseball is boring to watch. Not a lot of action spread out over a great deal of time.

Today I realized that life is a lot like baseball, which is probably why I’m not a big fan of either one.
 
Baseball seems like the only job in America where if you succeed about 30% of the time (see batting averages) you’re the best at your job. In my job at the paper, I’d be fired if I only did 30% of an article. Elite baseball players are paid millions of dollars to succeed 30% of the time and often less.  

But then again, baseball is a lot like life. 

I remember playing baseball as a kid and the only thing I enjoyed about it was running the bases and catching pop flies. Unfortunately, to run the bases you had to get on base and that meant batting, which I hated.  

I didn’t really understand as a kid how the odds of getting a hit were not in my favor. I remember crying almost every time I struck out. I just wasn’t used to not being able to succeed at something every time.  

Baseball, like life, is about how you deal with the failures and struggles. Odds to succeed are stacked against you in both things, and I suppose it’s about getting back up to bat and seeing if you’ll strike out again. Baseball is about bouncing back.  

Baseball is a lot like life because the possibility of failure is always there and imminent, and the odds of succeeding are less than the odds of failing. 

I believe that life isn’t as much about succeeding as it is about failing. I don’t think you can truly appreciate success without the inevitability of failure. In fact, I don’t think you can truly have success without failure. Failure is the necessity, the cause and the effect, of desire. I’ve heard the opposite of love isn’t hate, but rather indifference, and accepting failure is the evidence of not being indifferent.  

Baseball is also a lot like life because there is just so much time spent standing around and waiting for things to happen. You never really know when a ball is going to be hit your way and you don’t get to bat every inning, but success is determined by how you respond when these moments come your way. 

In life, we will not always meet these moments and incidents with metaphorical great plays and proverbial spectacular catches, in fact we may fall on our faces, but the beauty of baseball and life is that you’re still in the game. If you drop a pop fly, your job is not done. You still have to make the most of the opportunity that life has dealt you. You still have to throw the ball in. You can still make a play.

I used to cry when I struck out in baseball because I thought I was terrible and striking out was proof of that. From all the years I played baseball I remember two things specifically. First, there was the time when I caught a ball in the outfield that made me flip over, and the other was when I slid into home plate and collided with the catcher, resulting in an injury to my knee that still clicks and cracks on cold days.

 
Like life, we win some and we lose some, but we have stories to tell regardless and an obligation to tell them. Stories of victories come and go and you won’t hit a home run every time you are up to bat. Often times you have tales of pain and hard times, but they are still a part of our story.  

I assume the better we are at going through life, the more opportunities we get to succeed and fail at it. Some days I’m out in right field, looking at the empty seats in the stadium, and other days I’m pitching and my arm is about to fall off, but I have to keep going.  

Life isn’t about hitting a home run every time, it’s about how we deal with it when we don’t. It’s about how we deal with striking out, dropping the ball, and slamming into the catcher. Life is about striking out and batting again when it’s your turn. It’s about dropping the ball and picking it up and still trying to salvage the play. It’s about slamming into the catcher and stomping on the plate because you made it home.



Mitchell writes at mitchellrichards.com. He tweets a lot and has a weird fascination with John Tesh. You can follow him @MitchellWords. He also wrote a book called Definitive Blurs which you can find it here. 

Also, you can subscribe to On Pop Theology via RSS feed or email on the top right corner of the main page. 

Quick Thoughts on Back to the Future

by Ben Howard

So far everything written on this site has been structured like a long form essay.  Those take some time to craft and write, so I wanted to try a few quick thoughts posts from our two most recent Movie Nights.  First, Back to the Future, and hopefully later today, Les Miserables.

Back to the Future places a heavy emphasis on the belief that your present life is eventually at the mercy of your past.  The person you were will eventually become the person you are.  The McFly’s, Doc Brown, and Biff are all the same characters they were in high school.  The only way for the McFly’s family life to improve is a change in the past because in the future they are locked into a life of lower-middle class despair and angst. 

This is really opposed to the Christian notion of an active God and redeemer.  The idea of redemption and the capactity for growth assume the ability to develop and change over time.  Essentially, they assume that, with the Spirit, we are not forever the person we are at any one time.  The movie even makes a somewhat similar point when Marty, an outside agent, forces George to confront his fears, thus enabling him to be the kind of man who becomes “successful” as seen in the return to 1985 at the end of the film.

Other topics of interest:

-Masculinity and bullying in the relationship between George and Biff.  George has to punch Biff to assert himself as the dominant male.

-Stories we tell ourselves and their relative truth. Lorraine tells Marty that she was never “that kind of girl”, but we learn that in the past she truly is.  Why do you avoid telling the truth about who we are/were?

-Success is based on power and monetary wealth.  Marty’s family is portrayed as poor and sad, but then when they are rich and successful later, they are happy.  The assumption is that “good” people overcome their obstacles and become successful.

-The myth of the idyllic society.  The 1950’s are presented as sparkling and clean, but there is the same violence, the same dark motivations, and the same problems as in 1985, only under a shiny veneer.

Peace,
Ben