Church as a Zero-Sum Game

some thoughts on religion, politics, and debate

Last week at my graduate school residency, one of our professors gave a series of lectures that blew my mind. Laurens is teaching a class called “Beyond the Culture Wars Spectrum” in which we are seeking to move from “us versus them” to “we” or “I and thou.”

The culture wars spectrum is really a lazy way to describe people politically, religiously, or culturally because it shoe-horns individuals into a specific place on a graph when in reality humans are far more complicated than that. This happens in religious debates too because someone will say, “Well, that’s just modern-day [insert heresy here]” or “Well, that’s just classic [liberal/ conservative] thinking that’s been debunked over and over".”

What the culture wars spectrum allows us to do is to draw clear lines between good guys and bad guys. We then can scapegoat the bad guys and champion ourselves as good guys who are champions of God, champions of human rights, or champions of champions.

This may even lead us to see all the good that happens in the world as a product of our side and all the bad stuff as a product of the bad guys. I actually heard a politician in an interview recently say something like this, claiming all the good for himself and blaming the bad stuff on his colleague.

Moving beyond the culture wars spectrum isn’t new to me, and it might not be new to you. I think it’s a longing most of us have, and if you’ve read Brian McLaren’s novel A New Kind of Christian (which you absolutely should), then you are familiar with Neo urging Dan to transcend the spectrum to join Jesus far above those petty games and simplistic denouncements and justifications.

In the course of these talks, Laurens blew my mind. He gave me language that I have needed for a long time.

One of the things we discussed in class is the definition of religion and politics. Most of us probably have heard to not talk about either, and while I like talking about the one, I tend to avoid the other.

But Laurens showed us that this is actually rooted in a misunderstanding of these terms. If you break down the word politics, what you really discover is that it simply means community. It’s about how we exist together as humans, or as Merriam-Webster has as the fifth (FIFTH!!) definition “the total complex of relations between people living in society.”

How could we not talk about that?

Wait, you may have read that as “we should be talking about that,” which is great.

But read it again in a different way.

Literally, how could we not talk about that?

Is there a way to talk to other humans that isn’t inherently political? Isn’t everything we say related in some way to how we interact with the human community on a familial, local, national, or global level?

The problem lies in our narrow definition of politics, which is “debate.” The third definition of politics on the same page reads, “Competition between competing interest groups or individuals for power and leadership (as in a government).”

Competition. Debate. Winners and losers.

That’s where the problem lies.

So what about religion?

The source of the word religion is debated, but I kinda dig the definition that sees religion as binding us or tying us together in a web of relationship between humans and God. This comes with obligations to God (love God with all your heart) and with humans (love your neighbor as yourself).

But I think many of us were taught to think of religion as something to be debated. It’s about getting things right. It’s about having the correct interpretation or tradition. It’s about worshipping in the right way.

Competition. Debate. Winners and losers.

Yet how could we not talk about what ties us together in a universal web of love and relationship? (read that both ways)

Okay, now that you’re caught up, I want to share two things with you. The first is an article I wrote for the church bulletin (300 words). The second is a personal journal entry from last week when all of this came together in a way that answered a persistent question on my mind: why am I insecure and struggle with inauthenticity?

In a future article, I want to talk about why 99% of debates are useless because of inherent flaws within the whole idea.

Church as a Zero-Sum Game

A zero-sum game is a game in which no wealth is created or destroyed; that is, if you add up all of the results from the players, you would get “zero” as the answer. To put this in another way, this is a game, like chess, in which the goal is to have a clear winner and a clear loser. One player has everything to gain, and the other player has everything to lose.

In our increasingly divisive world, we will hear more and more issues discussed in these “all or nothing terms.” Elections will be framed as the very last defense of freedom. Every issue becomes the most important issue that is integral to the health of our country. This makes it very easy to draw clear lines between good guys and bad guys.

But we know all of that already.

What we might not recognize is how church can be treated as a zero-sum game. That is, issues are brought to the table, lines are drawn, sides are picked, and each side truly believes that the church will only survive if, and only if, their side wins.

There is no doubt that the leaders of the New Testament churches believed certain issues are non-negotiable. For example, John reduced the faith to two things: belief in Jesus and love for one’s neighbor (1 John 3:23-24). James focused on keeping oneself unspotted from the world and caring for the fatherless and widows in their affliction (James 1:27). Paul famously said that the only thing that counts is faith working through love (Galatians 5:6).

But beyond that, they stressed grace, mercy, tolerance, and patience. They stressed that Christians should look to the needs of others first, which means zero-sum games have no place in the church.

Why I’m Insecure

This has to be the most exciting thing I’ve written in a long time.

In two talks by Stel and Laurens, I realized my inauthenticity stems from a survival mechanism. I keep part of myself down to maintain community because I define politics and religion as debate instead of “community” and “tying together.” This survival mechanism stems from a trauma response to my upbringing and excommunication. This manifests itself in compartmentalization. The path to self-actualization, then, is the unity of all my selves and talents in the integrated self that is my true self. False self is anything that is less than the integrated self because it is not the summation of who I am. The problem, then, lies in the fact that the true self threatens prevailing systems of domination—social imaginary—because it forces stranded souls onto the sea of ontological insecurity.

These souls are put into a fight or flight response. This, in turn, puts me into a survival response in which I either retreat into my inoffensive false self or boldly invite the souls at sea to the horizon of the new creation. The work of the Spirit is to transform us one by one into the firstfruit of the new creation as we come fully into our gifts, into ourselves. This shift from letter to the Spirit is life-giving because words engraved in stones inherently limit who we are to be. When the veil is removed and we see God face to face, we are really looking into the mirror which is our true self, perfectly reflecting God back to us through us. And this is mutual indwelling. And this is resurrection.

The “not yet” of 1 Corinthians 15 is the corporate body of Adam coming into its telos: the integrated Christ, all in all.

I might also publish a commentary on this later. There’s a lot of gems here I’d love to unpack (I’m sorry if this phrase triggers you, church).