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• Musing about relative truth, exclusive claims, Messiah soccer
• On worldviews, ‘reasonable disagreement’ and Messiah soccer
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This blog post completes a five-part series on Messiah College soccer and related life-and-faith motifs. If you’re just joining us, no worries — while this post caps the series, it can also stand alone.
ALLOW ME TO NOTE once more, in the interest of full disclosure: I’m a Messiah College soccer parent. My daughter Kayla completed her Messiah career this past fall and graduated this May.
Her class produced a four-year record of 86-6-7, back-to-back Final Fours, and a run to the 2016 national championship game after a rocky start to the season. Yet after that 2-2 start — yes, by Messiah’s standards, 2-2 is a rocky beginning — the Messiah women didn’t lose another match, until the championship game.
In the title game, they fell 5-4 on penalty kicks despite outplaying their opponent (in my view) throughout regulation and overtime. Of course, that’s how soccer works sometimes.
Speaking of Messiah’s standards: 12 Final Fours and five national championships (NCAA Division III) and an undefeated regular-season conference record in 17 seasons under coach Scott Frey.
Messiah’s overall record in that time frame — regular season and postseason — is 362-20-20. I’m no math whiz, so correct me if I’m wrong: That’s an average of barely more than one loss per season. Wow.
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Naturally, such success has resulted in media coverage, and that’s where I left off last post. We’ve examined a philosophical reference to reasonable disagreement by an ESPN.com/espnW reporter in his outstanding story on the Messiah women’s soccer program and what sets it apart on and off the field.
Essentially, the context is the ever-present disagreement about the meaning of life.
When human beings consider the meaning of life, it seems there are as many faiths, worldviews and philosophies to choose from as there are eateries in New York City. Clearly, consensus is elusive if not impossible. Given the numerous menu options in this surging sea of worldview rumination, how can we discern the truth?
Apparently, we need to search, investigate, discuss, mull, and hope and pray we arrive at the right conclusions about matters as weighty as life’s meaning — especially, the origin and identity and destiny of human beings. In other words: Where did we come from? Who are we? And where are we going?
Every worldview addresses these questions, and everyone must answer the question of which worldview is truly on track.
Which brings us back to — how can we ascertain whether something is true? We consider evidence, we contemplate, we seek to verify … and ultimately, we must decide what to believe. And take steps based on that decision.
Another option: We can decide that the worldview question is impossible to answer, a la agnosticism, which maintains that big-picture truth can’t be known. But note the contradiction: The agnostic says we can know that truth can’t be known. In other words, it’s true that we can’t know truth.
I confess, I don’t exactly like the elusiveness of the truth-seeking process.
I tend to prefer that these life-and-faith issues (especially the life-and-death ones) be crystal-clear and so self-evident that we all agree — like the basketball scouts who found and followed LeBron James. Given the uncertainty of the age, I see the appeal of agnosticism.
Yet besides its inherent contradiction, I sense that agnosticism misses out on the necessity of commitment, and when we’re commitment-shy, we miss out on … love.
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The Christian worldview proclaims that truth can be known — not fully because humans are finite, but known nonetheless. In fact, Truth and Love are embodied in a Person: Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God and the Son of Man.
This worldview infuses the ethos of Messiah College and the Messiah soccer program.
In a speech my daughter gave at the 2016 Division III Final Four banquet, she spoke of her Messiah soccer experience: “I saw friendships that were marked by a willingness to care for the other in radical, sacrificial ways. Most importantly, what I found was the foundation from which all these actions stemmed — the desire to love God and love others. Although soccer is what brought our team together, that is not the foundation of our program. Our goal is to point back to God.”
Kayla’s teammate and classmate, Erin Sollenberger, likewise spoke about Messiah women’s soccer (or MWS) at the team banquet that closed the 2016 season: “I know my life wouldn’t be what it is now without the caring hearts of my best friends who … showed me what the unconditional grace and love of Christ looks like. MWS is so not about soccer. Sure, it brings us together, but our God is at the root of it all.”
Compare those quotes with a comment by Phoenix Suns coach Earl Watson, who previously coached in the San Antonio Spurs organization. In an ESPN.com story, he discussed his coaching journey, including his interview with the Spurs — which took place in the immediate wake of his brother’s death.
Watson expressed gratitude to the Spurs for hiring him “at a time when I was very fragile in my life.”
“I went to [my brother’s] funeral on a Saturday, and [met] with the Spurs on Monday. Three days,” Watson says. “I guess you could say I got lucky because I ended up in a place that wasn’t about basketball — it was about family and love.”
Sound familiar? Sure does. That comment could readily be applied to … Messiah soccer.
Under coach Gregg Popovich, the Spurs are known for their selfless, team-first, play-the-right-way culture — which has resulted in the most NBA titles of the past two decades (five, tied with the L.A. Lakers in that time span).
Let’s place Watson’s quote side by side with excerpts from the two Messiah teammates above.
• Suns coach Earl Watson
“I ended up in a place that wasn’t about basketball — it was about family and love.”
• Messiah wing Erin Sollenberger
“MWS is so not about soccer. Sure, it brings us together, but our God is at the root of it all. … My best friends … showed me … the unconditional grace and love of Christ.”
• Messiah defender Kayla Deckert
“I saw … a willingness to care for the other in radical, sacrificial ways … [and] the foundation from which all these actions stemmed — the desire to love God and love others. Although soccer is what brought our team together, that is not the foundation of our program. Our goal is to point back to God.”
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To me, the symmetry of these sentiments is exquisite. One significant difference, though, is that the two soccer players credit God outright as the source of such love, while Watson doesn’t mention God (though he reportedly believes in God).
This brings us full circle … back to a comment, cited in a previous post, by Messiah forward Marisa Weaver: “It’s just kind of impossible to love someone else unless you have the love of Christ in you.” Which prompted this remark by the ESPN.com/espnW reporter: There is ample room for reasonable disagreement on the exclusivity of such sentiment…
So, yes, a skeptic might say: Look, a secular pro team like the Spurs has the same culture as a Christian college team like Messiah … that proves you don’t need God — in fact, it might even prove God doesn’t exist.
But that critique has a counterargument: What if the unseen God of the universe — unseen like oxygen, perhaps — is the lone source of the selfless love that causes people and teams to flourish … whether they believe in Him or not?
What if knowing Jesus Christ — connecting with Him and receiving his heart, like a transplant patient who would die otherwise — is the only way to secure the well-being offered by the Giver of love and life?
And what if growing in the Creator of the cosmos — like a grafted branch on an apple tree — is the sole means of bearing the fruit of love that keeps us from withering away?
Can this counterargument be verified? In this life, I guess not. And in some ways that drives me crazy, because I’d prefer a here-and-now guarantee that erases all questions and avoids all discord. Instead, we’re left with plenty of disagreement and uncertainty in the worldview realm.
Yes, this can drive me crazy — but maybe I shouldn’t be surprised … because sometimes true love does that too.
So I suppose no worldview, faith or philosophy can be proved in a manner that removes all dispute. It appears that disagreements and doubts are an ongoing component of human experience — and healthy doubt can detect error, like a TSA airport scanner, in the pursuit of truth.
Perhaps no worldview can be proved beyond reasonable disagreement, but maybe the worldview that’s true can be known beyond reasonable doubt.
© Bruce William Deckert 2017
A Slow Life in the FAST Lane 