Because You Never Asked

     (This essay was written somewhere in the mid 90's, most likely 1994 or 1995. I put it up on my web site just 2 weeks after the Democratic disaster of 2004. In reading it again, its relevance in George W. Bush's America jumped out at me. The reader will soon understand why it is listed in the "politics" and not the "sports" category.)

      Another year has gone by and I again write this dubious philosophical patter from my retreat in the Spanish Mediterranean (see essay "Europe"). My annual stay here always coincides with the world's most prestigious clay court tennis tournament, the French Open at Roland Garros. I am both an avid player and fan of this poetic sport. In fact, I am a proud member of the local "Club de Tenis de San Francisco", which distinguishes itself by having the two worst tennis courts in the world. If you can play here, you can play anywhere. ($40 annual fee)

     In this year's edition of Roland Garros, the great Chinese-American player, Michael Chang, made it all the way to the finals. There is no tennis player whose game I have more respect for. He has methodically taken a defensive, retriever's game, built solely on consistency and foot speed, and built it into a versatile force that shows no weakness in any aspect of the game. He's also one of the game's most intelligent players. He goes into a match with a definite plan and doggedly sticks to it until you can show him it is not working, something that rarely happens.

     What's just been said above is not to be minimized, but there is a more important factor contributing to Chang's professional success. What really separates Michael Chang from the rest is a ferocious, unwavering spirit reminiscent of a religious zealot.

     Which is exactly what Michael Chang is.

     In making it all the way to the final, Chang attracted a lot of media attention. This was especially so in Spain, because he knocked off the local hero and two time defending champ, Sergi Bruguera. Chang has a propensity for mixing his Christian crusade with his crusade to win tennis matches (everything seems to be a "crusade" for Michael Chang). It wasn't long before his religious harping began to stick like a hairball in the throats of the Spanish press.

     Spain is a country whose Christian faith is rooted in almost two thousand years of tumultuous ebb and flow. In Spain, whether you are a believer or not, the Catholic Church is not just a religion; it's something that floats in the air and impregnates the landscape, that's palpably breathing like an invisible organism. Its metaphysical power is as much present in the Spanish reality as the "Quijote", the "tapas" in the bars, or the soccer quinellas on the weekends. In Spain, as in all of Europe, religion is not a frivolous thing. Clerics and anti-clerics have been at each other's jugulars for centuries, and religion was at the core of the horror we know as the Spanish Civil War. When this Chinese "nouveau" Christian tennis player began to regularly talk about "God's designs" and his tennis matches, the Spanish mentality could only see it as something cheap and simple-minded. To their credit, they did not let loose a barrage of negativity towards Chang, who's sincerity they respected. But many of their stories were lightly touched with a sarcasm that kept peeking out from under the covers. 

     For a nation that has lived the Christian experience so intensely for so much time; for those who are the heirs of the Spanish Inquisition and the Catholic tyranny of Francisco Franco, such an attitude is understandable. When Michael Chang mixes God's designs into the sting of his passing shots, the strength of his thighs, or even his flubbed overheads and defeats, he is belittling his religious beliefs. It is a banal treatment of spiritual faith, somewhat akin to a man at a party thinking to himself, "please God, let me get my hands on that blond with the big tits and tight ass tonight."

     Do Michael Chang's victories mean his victims are not in good standing with God? Can a Moslem ever be moral enough to beat him in tennis? If Chang's almost miraculous quickness is something he feels thankful to God for, should a cripple feel guilty for having offended God? Aren't these stupid questions? Of course they are, but Chang's way of presenting his faith leads us to ask them.

     For the time being, people like Michael Chang have become an important force in the United States. They are the "Christian right", and, as I write, it is probably the largest block of voters in the Republican Party. This is a dangerous marriage for the Party of Newt and could eventually be its Waterloo. I say this not just because these "Christians" are too far to the right of America's average voter, but more because they are too uncomfortably to the right of America's most positive and identifiable trademarks --- tolerance, pluralism, equal opportunity in an open society. Indeed, if these people were to truly root themselves in political power for a long period of time, America will have lost its identity. If the United States is to remain that powerful cultural beacon that has made it such an attractive force in the world; if it wants to project itself in the world other than militarily, it will eventually have to reject such provincial thought as the "Christian right".

     Ironically, although the Chang wing of American politics has demonstrated a remarkable degree of acumen in the political arena, they have been total disasters as Christians. A religion sets up a moral framework within which to live. If we look at American culture today, it is obvious that the spiritual teachings of Jesus Christ are having less and less effect on the secular culture it operates in. This secular society has so overwhelmingly insinuated its own idea of morality into our daily lives that we might say, once and for all, that the teachings of Jesus Christ have been rejected. Would Jesus preach the massacre of thousands of people in order to keep the price of oil down? Would he vote for Phil Gramm!?

     Being a Christian in today's America is simply a front for being what any good secular American should be --- an aggressive, excessively consuming, materialistic competitor for the spoils of the pop culture. Quite amazingly, the things that Christ most passionately preached about, that is, who or what is being trampled, deceived, exploited, defrauded or degraded in this process, has very little impact on today's Christian. On the contrary, the "Christian right" seems only concerned for things Christ never preached about --- a revulsion for anything erotic, a sympathy for fetuses that far exceeds anything shown for walking-talking human beings, and that now famous quasi-concept known as "family values", as if mommies and daddies and children living together as a unit were their invention. It is these rabid "Christians" who most side with the wing of American politics that seems to care least about social justice and peace on Earth, ideas that are certainly at the core of Christ's thinking. It is a faith that demands very little from its followers. It's a Walgreen's-K Mart kind of Christianity that is well within the reach of most anyone's spiritual pocket book.

     Jesus would demand a product of higher quality.

     Relevant Material: The speaker is a Nazi war criminal writing from his jail cell: "The world was dieing from Judaism and its sick offspring, the faith of Christ. We taught the world violence and the faith of the sword. (.) Does it matter that England might be the hammer and us the anvil? The important thing is that violence might reign, not the servile timidity of Christianity." From the short story, "Deutches Requiem", by the legendary Argentinean, Jorge Luis Borges.

     "And there can be no doubt that if Christ Our Lord were to return to the world during the days of Don Quijote, or if He might return today, that grave clergyman of then and his successors of today would find themselves amongst the authorities that would call him crazy or would label Him a dangerous agitator, and they'd find a new way to degradingly kill Him." From the book, "Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho" (The Life of Don Quijote and Sancho), by the Spaniard Miguel de Unamuno.