Man, they're all poseurs - all of them!

"Man, they're all poseurs - all of them!"

In 2006, my family went to Taiwan.  It was the same Taiwan that we were used to, no doubt, but this time something's different.  The usually politically-charged newswaves were surprisingly dominated by a man from my ancestral hometown (paternal side) of Tainan.  Yes, for once in a long time, the Taiwanese news focused their attention on the national pride, a country boy who moved to America and made it big - Wang Chien-Ming.  Indeed, New York Yankees jerseys and hats were everywhere.  I had to doubly confirm that I was actually in Taiwan, not in one of New York's Chinatowns.  Just as Chicago television is fixated on the Cubs or White Sox when they play, the only sports coverage in Taiwan focused on the New York Yankees.  It almost seemed that the entire country was a Yankees fan.

In all honesty, I don't really care much for Wang Chien-Ming.  I mean, he was a Yankees pitcher - whoopee-doo.  But baseball is not about one person, but the story of a team.  To identify with the Yankees (or perhaps the Mets, too?) is paramount to identifying as a bona fide New Yorker.  It's not enough to be born in New York - one must enjoy what New Yorkers like.  Barring allergies, I suppose, no self-respecting New Yorker utterly dislikes pastrami on rye at Katz's Delicatessen on Houston.  And no New Yorker puts down the hometown Yankees (or perhaps, the Mets).   Those of you from Chicago know what I talk about - what kind of Chicagoan disses the Bears, the Cubs or the White Sox?  They say that you can take a Chicagoan out of Chicago, but you cannot take the Bears/Cubs/White Sox out of them.  And even though the Cubs have not won in a century, the Chicagoans still love their Cubs.

I do not follow baseball closely, but I know that baseball is not just a sport.  It is an identity marker.  You wear the Yankees jersey proudly to Fenway Park, and though the earth quake and the mountains fall into the sea, and although the Bostonian army of the Red Sox come armed and ready, you wear that jersey because you, unlike the unfortunate Bostonians, are a freakin' New Yorker, and are proud of it!  (And the same can be said of the Red Sox, by the way...).  It is a culture clash, a war of identities, Boston vs. New York.  My economics professor from UIC once went, at the invitation of his friend (a Yankees adherent), to a Red Sox vs. Yankees game.  He went.  His neighbor on the stands welcomed him to Fenway Park and asked, "So which side are you on?"  My professor responded, "I'm from Chicago."

"What are you doing here?!" was the curt response, as if this was a Boston/New York thing, Chicago go away.

So with all this, it is quite befuddling to me and my brothers that one entire island on the western edge of the Pacific suddenly rallied behind New York.  It is a cultural oddity.  Taiwan ain't New York.  There are lots of Chinese in New York, indeed, but since they are a part of the fabric of New York life, it makes more sense for them to be Yankees fans than the people of Taiwan.  So, sufficiently befuddled, I brought this up to my brothers.  One of them (who really is a New Yorker in temperament, although he forswears any allegiance to the city) responded, "Henry, it's really obvious - they're all poseurs!  If Chien-Ming Wang went to the Cubs, then Taiwan becomes a Cubs territory.  They're all poseurs!!!"

An interesting theory indeed.  My hesitance to agree completely came from the fact that there is a small tradition of baseball in Taiwan, although they lean towards the Japanese in valuing team strategy over individual performance.  But baseball ain't no national pastime.  I, for crying out loud, have no idea who the teams are (yet, I know that Osaka, Japan is home to the Osaka Tigers).  But when our family reconvened there last year, Wang Chien-Ming has moved on to the Nationals.  And guess what we saw?  Coverage of the Nationals' games.

This long cultural hermeneutic of baseball has a theological point to it (sorry for making it super-boring all of a sudden).  An interesting facet of American baseball is that you can't just one day declare that you're a Yankees fan or a Cubs fan.  I've lived in the land of the Red Sox, Twins, Brewers, Cubs, White Sox, and Dodgers, and unfortunately (I apologize to all my friends from those wonderful states) I do not identify with any of them.  And so to avoid ridicule, discrimination, and possible excommunication, I became a baseball remora, attaching myself to the cultural identities without really being a part of them.  I never went to a baseball game (never will).  I can barely sit past an inning, and for crying out loud, I have to put up with the whole tsunami of people when the game is over?! 

But true Chicagoans (New Yorkers) don't mind that.  Oh, they assert their identities.  They wear their jerseys proud.  They sit through rain, snow, sleet, hail, fire and brimstone, in the hope that their team will triumph over the rest and claim victory in the World Series (for the Cubs, one must add a wing and a prayer).  When the Bears make an impossible touchdown, you stand up and go "HECK YES!!!!!" no matter where you are, because you are one real Chicagoan! (New Yorkers would ostensibly do the same for the Giants/Jets).  You can't do what I do and just fist pump for the Cubs and say, "Yeah, they're awesome" and walk home unchanged.  Just like what the Taiwanese do.  Baseball is not about the person, it's about the team and the city it represents.

Christianity is similar.  Now, I'm not saying we should be riled up about Jesus, as if he were a sports team.  In fact, I'm saying that Christianity is like a sports team in the ontological fashion.  In other words, Christianity is like being a Chicagoan/New Yorker/Bostonian, and rooting for the Cubs-White Sox/Yankees-Mets/Red Sox is part of that identity.  We identify with everyone who plays on our team, and no matter what role we play, from the coach to the owner to the people paying big bucks for seats to the concession stand operators, we uphold not just the franchise, but we uphold an important institution of our city's identity.  Christians need to support those who uphold the Christian identity.  We need to cheer when we do well, cry whenever our witness goes south.  That we have shining witnesses like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Billy Graham, Pope John Paul II, etc. is something we can be justifiably proud of, Christians who by the grace of God have shown the world how high, wide, deep, and long the love of God is.  Some of them have paid dearly with their lives.  But when Christians fail, we need to mourn it.  When Roman Catholic priests sexually abuse children, we need to be crying that these priests have sullied the name of Christianity.  When huge churches like Garden Grove Community Church (Crystal Cathedral) are declaring bankruptcy, we mourn when we see the unstewardly attitude they have towards their financial resources.

But we don't do that, do we.  Many churches are like me - we are ecclesiological remoras.  We really are our own church, and maybe partner with others if there's an advantage to doing so.  We partner with this church in doing something, but oh the recession hit, and we need to stop doing so.  Their building is destroyed by Hurricane Irene, but they have the money and they'll be fine.  We'll just sit smug.  If that's the case, then we are really carried by the currents of our time.  We have no roots and are just washed along.  Some theological fad comes, and we'll go along with it.  Another theological fad blows by, and we'll go along with that.  One day, liturgical services are cool, but the next day - oh wait, why not a totally spontaneous contemporary worship, and the third day - ooooh, Francis Chan came out with a new book.

Not that liturgical services, spontaneous contemporary worship, or Francis Chan are bad.  They are important because they are resources for forming our identities in Christ.  They cannot be theological fads, to be replaced by the next big and neat, cool theological idea that blows by.  If they do not form us, change us, indeed reform us, then it is just a matter of coolness.  We need to be less like ecclesiological remoras and really wear the Christian jersey.  And not just wear them - we live boldly our Christian identities.  The Church cannot be like me, putting on our jerseys only when it is opportune, and doffing them when the situation becomes testy.  No - we wear them no matter where we are.  Even if we are Bostonians living in New York (or vice-versa), we keep wearing our Red Sox (Yankees) jerseys.

If we're not willing to do so, my brother has something to say to that:

"Man, they're all poseurs - all of them!!"