The Practicing Progressive

Forgive me.

After thirty some years in the religion biz, it is terribly difficult to turn off the theo-meter when observing current events. After all, here we are in one of the most crucial contests of the modern era, rife with partisan passions and contentious candidates and all the while rich with theological import and religious revelation. It is impossible for we who have been raised up in all things religious not to provide some kind of commentary on these momentous days that have millions of Americans spending their nights glued to the television screens obsessed with who will emerge victorious.

I write, of course, of the World Series. What other national event could evoke such spiritual self-examination as these seven-at-most games in October?

We should begin with the team names, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Philadelphia Phillies. Tampa Bay used to be called the Devil Rays but after much polling of the Florida populace, it was determined that such nomenclature offended the anti-Satan crowd. This focus group, comprised primarily, one can assume, of spiritually sensitive types, was particularly put-off by a baseball team that seemed to celebrate its association with that most unsavory of deities. Perhaps they were envious of other baseball teams who had already claimed God-affiliation with such namesakes as the Padres or the even more heavenly inclined Angels. Religious tradition and biblical scholarship would indicate such pandering to the Supreme Being as having little effect on the outcome of a mere baseball game but the remarkable ascent of the newly christened Rays from cellar to championship in one short season does give one pause to ponder the theological ramifications.

Philadelphia’s team moniker has an even more illustrious religious legacy with its etymological roots in the Greek word philia which is best translated as “friendship”. It is, one must admit, a particularly odd description for a team famous for mixing it up with their fists over the slightest provocation. A high and tight philia-pitched fastball does seem like something of an oxymoron.

It may be additionally helpful to examine the omnipresent ritual baseball practice of expectoration. This strange and somewhat repellant rite has intrigued scholars ever since Abner Doubleday reportedly first hocked a loogie out in left field. Only a few minutes spent watching scenes from this year’s World Series will well acquaint the viewer with this bizarre act that has nearly every participant incessantly spewing streams of spit. Every television close-up, it seems, includes one more true believer discharging the contents of his mouth in what can only be described as a disgusting display of cultic devotion. After years of observation and, somewhat daringly, occasional participation, I have come to a theological dead-end in my hope of determining both the origin and the reason for this odd ritual. I can only presume it has something to do with a latent need to excoriate guilt-inducing memories of adolescent deviance by ridding one’s corporeal entity of the sputum of a sinful past…but that is only an educated guess based primarily on instruction I received in Mrs. Larstad’s Third Grade Sunday School class.

Like many of its religious counterparts, baseball can be an exceedingly boring proposition to the uninitiated. Mystery surrounds both experiences. Priestly gestures and charismatic exaltations are no more confusing to the religious neophyte than the strange sign signaling of a third-base coach. My wife never fails to crack-up when they show a close-up of some sixty year old guy pointing first to his nose then pulling his ear, touching his belt, patting his hair and putting a finger into his left eye in ritual gestures that are as mystifying as a meeting of Free Masons to the Presbyterians. Indeed, one can’t help but deliberate for a moment on the odd baseball practice of having the manager and coaches dress in similar garb as the players. One suspects it may have an egalitarian function with anti-clerical overtones but it does look funny to see some guy with a beer gut the size of Indiana traipsing out to the mound in the uniform of a Little Leaguer. This may be ritually unique to baseball. I can’t ever remember a football coach wearing shoulder pads on the sideline or a basketball coach in baggy shorts. But we are a nation that prides itself on religious diversity so we must honor practices that many of us might find slightly odd or outright loony.

Finally, we need to contemplate the theological consequences inherent in a player’s gesture of gratitude usually displayed by pointing skyward with one or both hands while crossing home plate. Setting aside the obvious cosmological confusion that has God residing somewhere west of Pluto, the insinuation that a divine hand came into play is deeply problematic. What with monumental new problems popping up everywhere from Baghdad to Darfur to Kabul and beyond, it seems more than a little egocentric to assume the outcome of a child’s game would be of even passing interest to The Creator. (Of course, this theological tenet might be severely tested had the Dodgers not eliminated the Cubs from the spiritual equation.) Such a primitive theology does put me in mind of the preacher at Focus on the Family who had his conservative Christian flock praying for “rain of biblical proportions” during Senator Obama’s outdoor acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. The fact that the skies remained clear that night, compounded with the Hurricane Gustav-induced delay of the Republican Convention a week later, does leave one wondering if God may play favorites.

But that’s a column for another day…maybe when something important is happening in politics.