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| Be a Goldfish Poster + Ted Lasso |
An older goldfish swishes
past a couple of small fry.
"How's the water, boys?"
he enquires.
"Water?" they ask.
"What's water?"
This little exchange is how the book, The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality by Glen Scrivener begins.
But more credit goes to goldfish being on the rise due to Ted Lasso's famous quote from the wildly popular Apple TV+ show when Lasso says to his beloved player, Sam, who is beating himself up over a mistake that led to a goal by his teammate and rival, Jamie Tartt, in a Richmond scrimmage:
In relation to dwelling on mistakes, this is a good coach's (and a good friend's) advice so that we quickly learn from little failures and then let them go, which will most likely lead to more growth and joy in life. (Similar to another classic Lasso quip is "Be curious, not judgmental.")
But in relation to the world we live in, there are things we probably should remember, including that we are often goldfish who forget the cultural water we swim in every day if we live in the 21st century Western world. And if we are being compared to goldfish in this way, here is what Scrivener proposes about the water we swim in:
If you're a Westerner —
whether you've stepped foot
inside a church building or not,
whether you've clapped eyes on a Bible or not,
whether you consider yourself an atheist ...
— you are a goldfish,
and Christianity is the water
in which you swim.
This provocative statement grabs many a reader's attention, no matter what their spiritual background is, and Scrivener does a thoughtful and thorough job of supporting this hypothesis across his entire book. The Air We Breathe may be the nonfiction book I've recommended most in the past couple years because of its combination of humor and candor in helping consider:
In some ways in life
it may be good to be a goldfish,
it may be good to be a goldfish,
but in perhaps other ways,
maybe we should remember
maybe we should remember
the water we swim in for good reason.
This post provides some brief adapted excerpts from the Introduction and Final Words sections of The Air We Breathe to invite you consider if the bold (and bolded) statement above has some merit to it. If your interest is piqued, I encourage you to purchase the book and read all of it. You may not agree with it all, but I think it will give you some good goldfish food for thought. After all, as one Tom Holland said (the not-yet-Christian historian and author of Dominion, not the actor):
It is not necessary to be a Christian
to appreciate the force of Glen Scrivener's
argument in this punchy, engaging
and entertaining book.
Introduction:
Focus on Your Breathing
I'm going to ask you to focus on your breathing. This is a technique common to so many of the great religious traditions. The spiritual teacher does not invite you to start your breathing. You've got that life skill down pat — 20,000 breaths a day; you're a natural. But there's something centering about noticing your breathing. Are you doing it now? Suddenly you're slowed down. You're aware of your dependence. You're inhabiting your body as a creature with needs and rhythms and physicality. You are mindful of your connection to the world around you and your place within it.
You might consider yourself a total outsider to Christian faith. My first word is: don't be so sure. Goldfish might not know the chemical composition of H2O, but it's still central to their lives. In the same way, I'm guessing that these concerns resonate with you:
equality,
compassion,
consent,
enlightenment,
science,
freedom and
progress.
None of these values are self-evident, nor are they widespread among the civilisations of the world. So where did they come from, and how did they get to become "the air we breathe"?
The extraordinary impact
of Christianity
is seen in the fact that
you don't notice it.
You already hold particularly
"Christian-ish" views,
and the fact that we think
of these values as natural,
obvious or universal
shows how profoundly
the Christian revolution
has shaped us.
If that two-sentence summary strikes you as novel, bizarre, stupid or offensive, that's OK. I don't expect instant agreement (or otherwise).(But) like air, Christianity is so pervasive that we cannot help depending on it, even as we protest against it. We might feel that Christianity is:
unequal,
cruel,
coercive,
ignorant,
cruel,
coercive,
ignorant,
anti-science,
restrictive and
backwards.
That is, in fact, a pretty common list of objections to the Christian faith, and, at points, the shoe fits. But I didn't pick those seven objections at random. I simply reversed the seven core values listed before. The reason why those seven accusations bite is because, deep down, we believe in the seven values. Our problems with Christianity (and we all have problems with it) turn out to be Christian problems.
I want to encourage you to see that what we're witnessing in the world are the ongoing convulsions of the Jesus revolution — a revolution predicted, proclaimed and propelled from the depths of history and experienced in the details of the everyday.
Any notions that our modern, liberal views are obvious, natural or universal must contend with the profoundly alien views taken by the rest of the world and the rest of history. As the writer L.P. Hartley put it, "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." Major landmarks in the development of the Christian story include the exploration and establishment of these seven values:
| 1 |
Equality
We believe in the equal moral status
of every member of the human family,
no matter their rank, race, religion,
gender or sexuality.
| 2 |
Compassion
We believe a society should be judged
by the way it treats its weakest members.
| 3 |
Consent
We believe that the powerful have no right
to force themselves on others.
| 4 |
Enlightenment
We believe in education for all and
its power to transform a society.
| 5 |
Science
We believe in science: its ability
to help us understand the world
and improve our lives.
| 6 |
Freedom
We believe that persons are not property
and that each of us should be in control
of our own lives.
| 7 |
Progress
We believe in moral improvement over time
and that we should continue to reform society
of its former evils.
Introduction:
More than WEIRD
While these values are Western focused, this is not because "West is best." Even the "successes" are mixed. And Christian history is far more global than our telling of it here.
Long before European Christianity
was a force in the world,
the faith had spread south —
Ethiopia was one of the world's
was a force in the world,
the faith had spread south —
Ethiopia was one of the world's
first Christian countries —
and east —
the Byzantine Empire was a
1,000-year Christianised civilization
which, in many ways, outshone its
"younger brother" in the West.
Today, Christianity is the
most diverse sociological phenomenon
the world has ever seen.
About a quarter of Christians live
in Central or South America,
a quarter in Africa and
a quarter in Europe, and
the last quarter is fairly evenly split
between North America and Asia.
What's more, its make-up is set
to continue a shift southwards
and eastwards.
For instance, the rate of
Christian growth in China
has been estimated at 10% per annum
for the last 40 years.
If that rate continues,
there will be more Christians in China
than in the United States
by the year 2030.
Christianity is not
a Western phenomenon.
For example, the average
Christian Anglican in the world today
is a black, teenage girl from Nigeria.
(Nigeria, by the way, contains more
Anglicans than Britain has people.)
WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic) has its roots in the Jesus revolution, but the revolution is global.
Final Words:
History's Great "Leap of Faith"
When people consider a "leap of faith" view of Jesus, most conclude it's not for them. It takes a bold kind of person to wager their life on an invisible saviour.
But that is not what faith is like. And here is a deeper problem: this is not what life is like either. The "leap of faith" view of believing or more likely not believing in spirituality assumes that most of the time we walk around on solid ground — no faith necessary. We simply live by science and reason and what can be proved under laboratory conditions. In this view, most people live a grounded, evidence-based life while a few "religious" folk choose to believe in an unproven higher plane. That's the real problem with the "leap of faith" view.
But the Christianisation of our world has been history's great "leap of faith." In terms of the values that we take for granted, we are all mid-air (ex. leaping with history, swimming like goldfish) ... Our fundamental attitudes and goals assume that we and others are profoundly significant moral beings. We treat each other (or, at least, we feel we ought to treat each other) as bearers of a dignity that cannot be proved or earned. We take it on faith. In philosopher Larry Siedentop's phrase, Christianity has taught us to "wager on the moral equality of humans". In other words, we step out into the world on the basis of prior beliefs about ourselves and others. And it's a gamble because maybe I'll treat the other person as supremely valuable, and maybe they'll treat me like less in return. Nevertheless, I make the wager. I live by faith. And so do you.
We are all believers already.
We do not need to take a
"leap of faith."
Our culture has already
taken an almighty leap.
(And it's not just human rights
and moral equality —
it's all seven WEIRD values.)
But what about the ground
beneath our feet?
You may not believe that Jesus
is your Maker-with-a-capital-M,
but perhaps you've seen that,
through the ebbs and flows of history,
(i.e. read all of The Air We Breathe)
he is the maker of your
moral universe.
Read through the Gospels slowly
— the biographies of Jesus in the Bible
entitled Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
— and see if you don't sense in Jesus
a power truer and deeper than
the values you're standing on:
a Compassion beneath
the compassion you prize,
In all this, the encouragement
is not to "leap";
it's to find your feet.
Jesus Christ has proved himself
to be a foundation for billions.
(In history and around the globe,
with about a quarter in South America,
a quarter in Africa and
a quarter in Europe, and
the last quarter fairly evenly split
between North America and Asia.)
John Dickson uses the analogy
of a song and its singers.
Jesus has given the world
a beautiful song.
His people have often
sung it out of tune —
sometimes we've been
the most discordant voices of all.
But the song remains
good and beautiful.
The kingdom of Christ is unique,
and not just in its unparalleled
size and longevity.
It's different in that while
other empires rise and fall,
Christ's kingdom ...
rises — repeatedly.
"Christianity has died many times
and risen again;
for it had a God who knew
the way out of the grave."
+ G.K. Chesterton
The Air We Breathe
+ pgs. 11-18, 222-226, 231
Other Thoughtful Considerations:
Many blessings of peace and presence,
Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan
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