Is Ted Lasso a Pollyanna?

Is Ted Lasso even Possible Without Jesus?

The third and (perhaps) final season of the Ted Lasso (TL) show is in the books. It deserves commentary. So beware: there might be a spoiler or two ahead for those who haven’t finished watching the series.

My Main Thesis is This: The TL Show show smacks of what Christianity is supposed to look like when all is going well. The show is a hypothetical display of the best case scenario for how life as a Christian in the world should work. As such, the show is a stunning contrast to how Christianity actually IS going at the present time in the United States, at least the Christianity making all the headlines. And so the show is hugely popular among (ex)Christians everywhere longing for a Christianity like this, but unable to find it anywhere. Dashed by the continual failures of American church, we find a respite in TL. Christians/post-Christians are longing for a well lived Christianity in their neighborhood and somehow find it on the TL show.

The show is full of Christian themes even though Jesus is never mentioned on the show. We regularly see people challenged to forgive one another, and then actually forgive one another. We see people talk about giving people second chances in life after making huge mistakes, and then people actually getting second chances. We see Nate, assistant coach to Ted, who resents not getting the limelight, seek after power and vengeance. He ascends to be the wonderkid coach of the competing football team with all the perks of power and fame. But then, somehow he sees the light. He sees the brute transactionalism of his boss Rupert’s worldly power, and then walks away from it all. He places relationships above power and wealth. It’s the stuff of “the rich young ruler” if he actually had sold everything and given it to the poor. It couldn’t be a better display of a powerful Christian theme. It’s all part of the TL way: relationship over transactions, relationship over wins, relationship over success. And everything else will work out. And people will grow (like even Roy). People grow into being … shall I say it … more like Jesus. To most Christians, brought up on the sermon on the mount, it is all so heartwarming. We love the show.

Racism is revealed, and somehow overcome, through relationship. Homophobia, and the fear of being rejected as one who is gay, is overcome through relationship. Even authoritarian dictators, and their football agendas from Africa, somehow are undermined, eventually, in an unexpected way, through relationship. It is so incredibly wonderful.

And yet, it is totally, completely, and utterly implausible. Isn’t it? It is one gigantic lovable piece of ‘pollyanna fluff.’ It is unbelievable … dare I say it? ,,, without Jesus.

Take Nate again, the man who gets revealed as a football genius by Ted Lasso’s generous way of making space for him to show his gifts coaching the Richmond football team. But he resents not getting the glory. And so he gets hired by Rupert to coach the rival team. He turns vengeful, spiteful, proud, demeaning of people. He becomes intoxicated with power, privilege and prestige. But he has an awakening. He sees the light. And he renounces the privilege to serve tables at the restaurant of his girlfriend. And he seeks restoration of his friendships on the Richmond team that he so demeaned. And he is invited back with no signs of retribution.

Does this happen in our world today without a severe humbling and crisis? Does this kind of forgiveness and conversion happen apart from the supernatural and apocalyptic work of Jesus (or at least its remnants in a culture). Do you know people who have been transformed like this? under what influences? Am I being too cynical here?

In the midst of all the leaders in this country (including church leaders), intoxicated with their power, going off the rails, wreaking abuse and narcissism on victims, is the kind of transformation displayed in the story of Nate not pollyannish in the worst of ways? This is why I level the “Pollyanna accusation,” not only at the Ted Lasso show itself, but versions of Ted Lasso Christianity that seem to permeate the landscape of North America Christians, as well.

There are three pieces to the Ted Lasso Pollyanna I’d like to add a comment on.

1.The Principles of Jesus Without Jesus: We see again and again the principles of Jesus without Jesus in TL Show. We should forgive. We should show grace and offer second chances to people. Relationships are most important. Everything else will work out. Even be true to yourself, work out your pain. All of these ‘principles’ and more I think I could substantiate as part of the ethic of Jesus. 

And there are many “therapeutic” reasons to live by these principles for a healthy psyche and a better world. Forgiving, rejecting power, narcissism and transactionalism in relationships, is all good for one’s mental health.

But without Jesus, putting these principles into practice is based in human effort. Not empowered by the Holy Spirit, the practice of these principles becomes all about me. And this changes forgiveness, changes grace.The depth of how and why we forgive and under what power and imagination is all different. It all might still be good, or better than the alternative, but it also naturally devolves into “it’s all about me.” And so I ultimately think it turns into moralism or “do gooder” Christianity. It’s a vision of life that is pollyannish without Jesus the source of a way of life under His Lordship that makes all this possible.

2.Lack of an Account of Sin: There is no real accounting for the way sin works in the TL show. There’s no discernment of sin. There’s no account of its raw destructive power to take hold in people’s lives. Having just written a book on power, having just seen the way worldly power wreaks horrific abuse and trauma on people in relationships, the Ted Lasso show lacks realism for how worldly power works to destroy the character of a person and the abuse that person can foist on people. Sure, there’s the evil of Rupert. The selfishness of Jaime. But, by and large, everyone gets along without the brutal effects of the power of sin to destroy. Is this naïve? Is this idealistic. I’ll leave it for you to decide.

Take how sex and sexuality is displayed on the TL Show, I did not expect a Christian account of sexuality in Ted Lasso. Far from it. I did admire the show’s seeming resistance to the exploitation/sexualization of women’s bodies for the most part in the show. But there was something missing here in this secular account of sexuality.

Ted has convenient one night stands while trying to figure out his relationship to his ex-wife. Keila going from one relationship to another, from one heterosexual relationship to another, friends competing with each other for her relationship, to then a lesbian relationship and back to heterosexual. Rebbeca’s flings, seeking love, All of this goes on without a hitch. Any hurt or pain seems transitory. Call me a prude if you like, but I don’t believe it.

I think many who have been protected from the abuses, traumas, of the sexualizations of the culture, can maybe accept the harmlessness of the casual self expressive sexual ethic of TL. But I’ve lived in the secular world in my early years of the financial business. I watched around me all the abuse, sexualization, diminishment, and pain in the sexualized culture of the financial world. There’s simply no recognition in the TL show of how sin works to wreak abuse, trauma, deception, sexualization and deep emptiness on people’s lives. And so this is a naïve secular sexuality at its best. Again I say pollyannish.

3.Just Believe: The ‘Believe’ sign in the locker room. You gotta have belief. But belief in what, whom? The team? Ted Lasso? Yourself? I firmly believe in belief, you gotta have trust in yourself… but when things go wrong, and relationships break down … and hearts are broken, and bad things happen to people, and injustice takes place… how does one persevere through suffering? In what does one believe? A higher power? fate? Myself?

Sorry. But this too is pollyannish? A belief that is empty at it core, which requires you to fill in the lacuna with something to believe in, can’t sustain you through suffering. Unless you’re one of those lucky souls to benefit from the privilege and affluence of a middle class American existence when most things go according to plan, it’s not enough just to believe in yourself. Yep. Sorry. I call this ‘pollyannish’ as well.

In Jesus, who comes to the world as the Son, fulfilling the promise of Messiah, who Himself dies, takes on the sin and violence of the world, and is resurrected, to reign and bring in His Kingdom, there is a story with flesh and blood, a proven God though a proven history, and an invitation into the Story of where God is taking the world. Without such a story, for those among us with out the privilege and affluence to get what we dream of, we cannot know the depths of this God, and His sustaining power and love. It’s pollyannish.

I Receive Your Push Back

In the final episode, Trent, the journalist following the team, finishes his book on the Richmond team’s season. He gives it to Ted and Beard to read. The book is titled ‘The Ted Lasso Way.’ Ted applauds the book in his comments to Trent. But he chides Trent on the title. He says the title is inappropriate, because, for Ted, it was never about him. It’s about a different, better way. Trent renames the book ‘The Richmond Way.’ What a moment! Self-denial for the team kinda thing.

I know there are plenty of self-less people in the world who come by it a different way than Jesus. Shoot, I know of Christians who resent any challenge to deny one’s self. But this display of denying one’s self seems a bit pollyanish without the way of Jesus. Perhaps Ted Lasso realizes there is a therapeutically better way to live your life. Perhaps, as in sports, Ted Lasso realizes that “all for the team” is the only way to win? So surely the Ted Lasso Way is possible on a certain level, with different textures, apart from Jesus Christ. But I don’t believe this life is possible, with the particular depths of experience and transformation of the selfless life, apart from Jesus. Apart from Jesus, it’s pollyannish.

In summary, again, I loved the Ted Lasso show. I think the groundswell love for TL reveals the longing for a better, or should I say truer, Christianity. It reveals, dare I say, a longing for the Kingdom of God in Jesus. In the USA, we have a failed Christianity, accommodated to the consumerism, hedonism, and self-fulfiment values of American culture. Amidst the abuse, trauma, brokenness, sexualization, narcissism of our American culture, and its manifestation in a compromised church, we need a Ted Lasso Christianity.

But is it pollyannish apart from Jesus? Instead the TL show reveals the need for a church that centers our lives in the person work of Jesus who shapes a forgiveness, transformation, unraveling and healing of injustice in the church first, and then brings it into the world.