c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a pastor, writer and software developer living in Winston-Salem, N.C.)

UNDATED _ The U.S. soccer team’s quiet fade from the World Cup troubled many Americans. “What’s wrong with the U.S.?”asked Yahoo, a leading Web site. Fire the coach. Blame the players. Blame American kids for preferring basketball and football. Who knows, maybe soccer moms and dads deserve some blame, too.

The attitude seems to be: As big and wealthy as we are, the United States ought to win.

Beyond the obvious _ that it’s just a game, not a sign of national identity _ it occurs to me that we ought to rethink our attitudes about winning.

Success, you see, is a poor teacher. Winners may write the history books, but their insights tend to be shallow, mainly concerned with proving the superior virtue they want to believe underlies victory.”We were right, therefore, we won”becomes a mantra for the next war.

Even though Hollywood is abandoning the ambiguities of Vietnam and rediscovering the seeming clarity of World War II, we probably learned more from defeat in Saigon than we did from victory in 1945. Look at the Vietnam memorial we built: a wall of names, each one a life lost.

Abraham Lincoln saw that Gettysburg was a scene of carnage, not grand triumph. The Confederate charge came within 12 feet. But once his anguished voice was stilled and General Lee handed his sword to General Grant, the victors began to extol their superior virtue and to demonize the vanquished foe. This triumphalism perpetuated division.

It is OK not to win. Coach Vince Lombardi’s dictum _”winning is the only thing”_ is simply wrong. Trying is what matters. Taking risks, putting self on the line, striving to excel, testing limits, learning from failure _ those are the pathways to real growth.

I have watched many a child succeed too early and too easily and for that reason never develop the self-confidence that comes from surviving defeat. They prove brittle and fragile in adversity. Witness the meanness that prevails in California politics as the gold rush crashes, or the sour attitudes that lead many corporate managers to blame and punish, rather than accept responsibility.

Talk to a recovering alcoholic. They remember grimly their descent into blaming. Hope began in defeat and accountability. Admitting one is powerless is the first step toward sanity.

If we don’t know failure, how much do we really know? Success distorts our perceptions and makes us arrogant, and then fearful. When Wall Street’s bull market ends, will people take their losses graciously, or will an increasingly mean right-wing movement finally have its blame-hungry constituency?

This is a watershed time for organized religion. With varying degrees of directness, religion in America has been about victory: Grow that church! Double that sanctuary! Boost ratings! Be living proof of God’s favor for winners!

In pursuit of such victory, we spend billions on ourselves, coddle big givers, reward the compliant, and surf the cultural waves as nimbly as a fast-food chain. We try to dodge what Jesus, for one, said would be the hallmark of faith: failure, loss, sacrifice, death. To retain fickle customers, we make the message pleasing, we banish the unpleasing to tract racks, and we serve up shows, scapegoats and the promise of political power.

Society needs more from us now. We need to let go of self-absorption. We are descended from slaves and misfits, whose rescue demanded justice, humility and gratitude. Our more immediate ancestors lusted for throne and crown, a penchant for grandeur that lives in us, too. But in a world marked by famine, inequity and incessant warfare, our grand buildings have come to seem monuments only to ourselves.

We are a people who must depend on grace. Rather than join in the storing up of wealth and in the chorus of meanness that sounds when wealth turns rancid, we should help people find their worth as the beloved of God.

Maybe the U.S. soccer team could lead the way. Rather than shift blame to a coach who didn’t play a single minute on the field, they could set a good example for all of us. They could accept defeat graciously and dare to ask: What can we learn from this?

DEA END EHRICH