The Obsession with Winning
Deconstructing one of Pentecostalism's most enduring towers.
I can remember far enough back to the time when our church would have victory marches. Somehow envisioning Joshua and his people, thirteen centuries before Christ, marching around Jericho's walls shouting victory until those walls came crashing down. Except we marched around the inside of our church meeting place, and to our unspoken relief nothing visibly crashed down and no one was watching from the outside.
We were big on victory, on being on top, on ruling, on winning. It was a mindset, a 'strong tower', and it was baked into our preaching, our praying, our singing and our expectations for life.
Pentecostalism is a modern (120 year old) movement within Christianity that takes the dynamic early years of the New Testament Church of exponential growth and supernatural powers as its template - except the modern pentecostals added mega-church buildings, business management structures, commercial enterprise, theatre-style worship and competitive edge to its model of church.
Winning was baked in. We cherry-picked the victory bits in the Bible for our preaching so everyone could return home on Sunday feeling "great" and that their "victory" was just around the corner. Having faith was almost always about winning, about obtaining and gaining. Rarely was it about holding on through a dark night of the soul, about loosing yet still believing in the goodness of God.
We Pentecostals also prophesied - uttering inspired affirmations and futures for one another or the church. The idea of suffering or defeat was extremely rare in such utterances, even though they were being experienced by all of us at some time and to some degree. No. We were about winning, about living our best life. Jesus suffered, not us, and we were only going to get what he paid for. Except we didn't, not always. Some of us lost loved ones even after the healing evangelist prophesied by quoting Jesus: "this sickness is not unto death".
For the past fifteen years I have been on a significant journey which has included critically examining the tenets, both doctrine and practice, of the Pentecostalism that I had embraced since my late teens, and of the Evangelicalism I had known since an infant. One by one the "towers" of these constructs of my spirituality were falling apart. I was later to learn that there was a widespread phenomena of "deconstruction" taking place, I was not the only one, I was just one among millions! (I tell of that liberating journey in my 2021 book, The Storyteller). It was just a matter of time before I would confront the obsession with winning, that this toxic positivity would also crumble.
In May this year, historian Dr Kristin Du Mez - author of the best selling book "Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation" (2020), wrote an article titled "Preparing for a Long Defeat". The title immediately caught my attention, it seemed in-sync with the critical thinking I was engaged in with the victory culture.
Dr Du Mez was borrowing a line from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings quoting Celeborn and Galadriel saying: “together through the ages of the world we have fought the long defeat.” Tolkien expanded on this in a letter to a friend: “I am a Christian ... so I do not expect history to be anything but a long defeat, though it contains ... some glimpse of final victory.”
As a historian, Dr Du Mez was observing the rise of Christian Nationalism in America - a blend of religion and politics found predominately among white Evangelicals that seeks power in order to assert its morality, worldview and religious dogma by legislation and authoritative force upon the society. Her bestselling book had sounded the alarm. Now, as a Christian, Dr Du Mez was preparing for a long defeat.
J.R.R. Tolkien was living in the shadow of the rise of European nationalism that brought Hitler to power. History is yet to reveal the darkness that may follow the shadow that hangs over Kirstin Du Mez's America. In present day Europe another wave of far-right nationalism is pushing in. In my own country, New Zealand, we feel an encroaching darkness as our country's foundations are being threatened by radical elements in our right-wing government. A transformative treaty signed in 1840 that promised protection, priority and partnership by the colonising power to the Māori tribes they were settling amongst, now being incrementally 'cancelled' by populist nationalism.
Preparing for a long defeat. My old 'religion' would not hear of it.
Every Sunday the church with whom we now gather hear the word "lament". It's part of our liturgy; it is necessarily and healthily woven into our faith. We're positive, affirming and trusting people, yet we embrace the necessity of lament - a passionate expression of grief or sorrow, according to the dictionary.
The third chapter of the Bible's book of lament - Lamentations - begins "I am the man who has seen affliction". Yet as we progress through the chapter, we find an enduring jewel ... (v21-24)
"But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him”
We prepare for a long defeat all the while knowing that God's mercies never fail. We know the prayer of lament, but we also know the Jesus prayer ... "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner". Or in its simplest form, "Lord, have mercy". I am learning to 'breathe' this simple prayer, especially when I see the shadows.
Over the three days I've been writing this Substack post, a dear friend called to tell me her marriage had ended ... "Lord, have mercy". The next day another faithful friend called to tell me of the physical pain that is wracking his body every day ... "Lord, have mercy".
As Dr Du Mez wrote 'Preparing for a long defeat' she included words from her pastor's message during this year's Ascension Day service ...
“What is the calling of the church? You know what that is. Take up your cross and follow me. The church is called to follow its king in self-sacrificing love.”
“Somehow the church tends to pick up the idea that we’re supposed to win. That our place in the world is not one of suffering love, but victorious power ...”
“It’s so easy for the church to forget that Christ did not call us to rule but to serve. He called us, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, to come and die. The church’s role in history is to live the way of the King, the way of the cross, the way of self-giving love.”
Deconstructing the obsession with winning has brought with it a better freedom and a more satisfying rest.
This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t work diligently to protect the good of our nation. Nor does it mean we will cease from praying and caring for those who have been enveloped by a shadow of heartache or pain. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for that which is right." But it also means that we need to be grounded in something deeper than winning the next battle.
I have deconstructed one of Pentecostalism's most enduring and very toxic towers. I've discarded that noisy culture of winning and filled up, instead, from a fountain of quiet hope.