The Arena: Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD
The Arena
As a Christian, I find it difficult to ignore what took place on the White House lawn this past weekend. My concern is not primarily political although politics was apparent in what I saw. My concern is something deeper.
What I saw felt cheap, brutal, and self-aggrandizing. Rather than a celebration of America, it had many of the qualities of a Roman spectacle.
The early Christians understood the danger of spectacle. Rome entertained itself with displays of power, conquest, and violence. The arena was more than amusement. It was a lesson in what society admired. It taught people to cheer domination, celebrate victory, and measure greatness by the ability to command attention. The crowds came not merely to be entertained but to be formed. It is, sad to say, what was played out on the White House lawn yesterday as well.
Christianity stood against that spirit. The Church proclaimed a crucified Messiah rather than a triumphant Caesar. Christians gathered around an altar rather than an imperial throne. Their heroes were martyrs, not conquerors. The faith was built upon sacrifice rather than spectacle.
There is a tradition dating from the fourth century that a monk named Telemachus, at the cost of his own life, entered the arena in Rome in an attempt to stop a gladiatorial contest. Whether every detail of the story is historical matters less than the truth it conveys. Christians were called to denounce and challenge the spectacle, not participate in it, or be entertained by bloodshed.
Augustine understood the temptation well. He warned of what he called the libido dominandi—the lust to dominate. Every society is tempted to glorify power and mistake it for virtue. When that happens, public life becomes theater. The powerful seek applause, and the crowd, when provided with bread and circuses, is more than willing to provide it.
Michael Ramsey made a similar point in a different way. He insisted that the Church must always stand under the judgment of the Cross. The Cross strips away our pretensions. It exposes the emptiness of self-importance and reminds us that God’s power is revealed in humility, not display. Whenever Christians become captivated by spectacles of power, we risk forgetting the One we claim to follow.
That is why events like this leave me uneasy. They remind me how easily power becomes performance and how quickly citizens become spectators. The danger is not confined to one party or one leader. It is a temptation as old as Rome itself.
The Christian vocation is not to applaud power. It is to follow the One who entered Jerusalem on a donkey, washed the feet of his disciples, and was lifted up on a cross.
The arena has not disappeared.
It has simply found a new stage
Can you say bread and circuses? I knew you could. It was rain delayed and only about 4300 attended the event. Per ESPN, fans online were critical, with many suggesting that holding an outdoor, high-stakes fight in D.C. in June was a “dumb idea,” citing potential for a wet octagon, fluke outcomes, and an excessively late finish (main event ended around 3 a.m. Monday). Finally, the head of the UFC said he is never doing this again. They lost like $30 million on this.
Trump is an attention-seeking toddler who will do anything to hold center stage. He made more of this than he did about the settlement of the war with Iran (if it holds). I’m pretty jaded regarding the current presidency. I just hope we make it through!
Linn
That is certainly Trump. What concerns me are the people who enable him and don’t call out his outlandish behavior…
” it had many of the qualities of a Roman spectacle.”
It is all about beating the opponent to a pulp.
However, I too like motor sports and let’s be honest it too is about the danger of life and limb.
So many motor sports and the thrill of watching them is the danger to the participants, we just hide it better there.
As far as the White House Lawn goes, I find men and women, who have cut off their parts and added fake things, who expose themselves on the lawn just as offensive.
TH
I think you have unintentionally reinforced my point.
The issue is not whether danger exists. Human beings have always been drawn to danger, competition, and displays of courage. A Formula One race, a boxing match, or a football game can all contain elements of risk. The Christian question is not simply whether something is dangerous. The question is what virtues it celebrates and what habits of mind it cultivates.
The Roman arena was not objectionable merely because people got hurt. It was objectionable because it transformed power, domination, and humiliation into public entertainment. It taught spectators to admire the spectacle itself.
As for your second point, my criticism is not limited to one form of public exhibitionism while excusing another. Christians should be equally critical whenever public life becomes a stage for self-display, whether that display is sexual, ideological, political, or nationalistic.
My concern is not which tribe is occupying the lawn at a given moment. My concern is the growing tendency of our culture to replace virtue with performance and substance with spectacle.
Augustine would have recognized it immediately. So would the early Christians. The temptation is not that we disagree with the spectacle. The temptation is that we become fascinated by it.
“I think you have unintentionally reinforced my point.”
No not unintentionally at all.
The problem is I was going to write how much I am disgusted by this form of fighting. And then I realized my draw to motor sports is the danger of high speed and possibility of bodily damage and or death. Not to mention the excitement of the machinery which allows people to do this.
I won’t deny I am disgusted with anyone who would support what is medically being done to men and women over the gender issue. Even in a godless world view the drugs and medical procedures are bringing a lifetime of physical grief to people seeking these changes.
Welcome to the dualistic nature of all of us.
Love this, but hate that. Guilty as charged.
Thank you for the article.
TH
Then we may actually agree more than we disagree.
The difference is that I wasn’t writing about a particular cause, ideology, or grievance. I was writing about spectacle itself. Every tribe has one. Every movement has one. Every age has one.
The Christian challenge is not merely to oppose the spectacles we dislike. It is to recognize our attraction to the ones we do.
That is where Augustine’s diagnosis becomes uncomfortable. The problem is never only “them.” It is also us.
The event mirrored its promoter…brutal and garish.
TH, I’m a NASCAR fan…and there hasn’t been a death in NASCAR since Dale Earnhardt died because his death led to all manner of safety improvements.
I wouldn’t have said much more than my first sentence until you decided to throw the gender issue in.
How in the hell you draw an equivalence between a sports event (that I can’t stomach) and gender surgery (that in the case of minors makes me retch) is beyond my comprehension.
The White House should be a place of dignity…as should a president possess the same.
We lost on both counts…
I live with a certain amount of cognitive dissonance and moral hypocrisy.
I should be a vegetarian based on my views of animals…I’m not and it bothers me.
I am a life long fan of the Minnesota Vikings and L.A. Kings, though both sports have a high risk of long term brain injury.
I wrestle with these things as a Christian…and often invite others into a conversation about the realities.
These are things I should wrestle with…
This White House event was objectionable on multiple levels…the most important, the ones Duane highlighted in this article.
A significant difference between other combat exhibitions — I won’t call them sports, and I will acknowledge that I dislike all of them — and UFC/MMA is that when an opponent gets knocked down or out, the aggressor is not only permitted but encouraged by the rules of regulating the exhibition to kick, punch, and otherwise brutalize their prone opponent until the referee steps in. Presumably they would keep attacking their helpless opponent until they were well beyond death if the ref did not step in. What possible honor can there be in such an exhibition of sadism and brutality? What kind of a man or woman keeps attacking until they are told not to attack anymore? What is being modeled by such barbarism, not only for the American people but for children? What does it say about of a leader that he intends such ruthless mercilessness as part of the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the country he leads, and what does it say about the kind of country that allows it?
I can’t even believe we are having this discussion.
Re: “How in the hell you draw an equivalence between a sports event (that I can’t stomach) and gender surgery…”
I think that TH is referring to this: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65898998
I’m all in favor of banning Trump from the White House and its environs for staging his sadistic and obscene UFC fights, just as the topless persons on the White House lawn were banned. Fair is fair.
Michael I’m a NASCAR and Motorsport fan for nearly 60 years.
And it has always been a sport of danger and death. Up until the modern decade F1, NASCAR and other motorsports were full of deaths. I can name them for you.
And as far as comparing, I’m disgusted with anyone who promotes the evil hurt and pain brought on to human beings in this gender encouraged world. And more than one Administration has done such a thing if you are at all interested in politics.
So get off your hypocrisy and care about these people as much as you hate the event on the White House lawn.
You can’t pick and select your evils.
Everstudy
You nailed it. One of the most disgusting disrespect of the Whitehouse Lawn supported by the Administration of the day.
Thank you.
Duane
“That is where Augustine’s diagnosis becomes uncomfortable. The problem is never only “them.” It is also us.”
Absolutely, and I had hoped I had made that clear.
If not thank you for doing so.
Caligula.
“White Trash Bed and Breakfast”
Well said Duane. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
I’m confused. Weren’t the three people referred to in the linked article banned from visiting the White House for future events as a result of their topless stunt? And isn’t it clear that White House officials did not know that the three had posed topless for pictures on the White House grounds until after video of them doing so was posted online, at which point the ban was imposed? How does that compare with officially inviting and authorizing people to do disgusting things on the White House grounds, as Trump did by having the barbaric UFC event on the lawn? Not the same in the least.
It seems clear to me that many Americans would be perfectly fine with having as entertainment on the White House grounds, or anywhere else, a fighting event in which the two — or more — combatants would fight in an enclosed cage until the last man, woman, or person standing, without a referee officiating at all; and that Trump would be one of those people. The comparison with Roman Empire barbarity is perfectly apt; the ridiculousness of calling this a Christian nation is perfectly clear.
It is amazing that the culture war issues surrounding LGBTQ + people have been dragged into the discussion on this board, and it’s sad.
Sometimes the most revealing thing in a conversation is not what is said, but what someone feels compelled to bring into it.
It is sad, but on second thought it is in no way amazing: many people want to drag culture war issues into every conversation about the propriety of this administration’s actions to obscure the matter at hand because all cats are gray in the dark.
Duane, I really do think many Americans who call themselves Christian, and many Americans in general, would be okay with sanctioned public fights in which combatants fought to incapacitation or death of one or more combatants. Furthermore, the predilection for this kind of event would be defended by those who say that, while personally they find such events disgusting and appalling, after all we are all sinners and imperfect and really we should look at ours own sins rather than those of other, provided of course that the combatants consent to participate. Consent is the magic wand that makes all things impermissible permissible in exactly the same way they criticize liberals and progressives for when it comes to gender assignment surgery, for example, and other matters as well.
Duane, And of course such arguments would be advanced with generous use of false equivalences.
Robert F
It is “what-about-ism” taken to a whole new level…
Duane, Robert F
“It is “what-about-ism” taken to a whole new level…”
It’s not about “what-about-ism” and if you actually read the heart is all about us and our dualistic nature. One loves this and hates that.
What does become clear in the thread is the continual hatred and singular focus on one man and huis Administration. And yes, the White House should be “a place of dignity.”
The subject of “cultural wars” isn’t the point at all. It is how anyone can support the brutality of what humans do to others, whether it be for sport and entertainment or to cure a “mental issue” and purposely maim someone for life.
And all too often these disgusting things done as humans to other humans has both financial and personal profit in them.
No I do not support nor find the brutality displayed this past weekend at the White House a good thing. And I feel the very same way about the events of the past Administration.
No what-about-ism at all just the heart of man, and obviously many who post here and refuse to see themselves in the Arena.
The “Arena” doesn’t just stop at the White House, it is in your home and in your life.
TH
I think you have missed the point of the article…
TH,
None of my problems have anything to do with transgender people or the LGBTQ crowd.
Prices have sky rocketed and I’m on a very small fixed income.
I’m concerned about immigrant concentration camps and the medical system crashing around my ears.
I’m concerned about renewed anti- semitism and racism…and a president who has scammed the American people out of billions..while making cruelty a virtue.
To be blunt, what other people do in their bedrooms isn’t something I care about.
Where problems arise, those are pastoral issues. not a culture war.
“I think you have missed the point of the article…”
No I didn’t.
“None of my problems have anything to do with transgender people or the LGBTQ crowd.”
It’s not about those with the mental and or physical issues in this crowd. It is about those who support and perform the brutal and life altering changes, medically and in other ways. And they do such things to children!
The old argument about what people do in the privacy of their own homes doesn’t hold water. The water isn’t just leaking out it has overflowed and evil people are turning the faucet up.
And Michael, all your concerns from inflation, immigration, the cost of medical care and my biggest concern anti-semitism are real and intergenerational.
No I did not miss the point of your article at all, however it seems you missed mine.
Thank you for the article.
Re: “It is “what-about-ism” taken to a whole new level…”
I don’t think it’s ‘what-about-ism’ at all… it’s a ‘Yes, and…’ I think it’s more than fair to condemn the ‘Pride’ events hosted at the White House by the previous administration and the UFC event. They are both celebrations that are inappropriate (at best).
They are both devious in their own way, both openly celebrating that which is evil and debased.
“The temptation is not that we disagree with the spectacle. The temptation is that we become fascinated by it.”
And also, we’re tempted to minimize the evil when it’s our side doing it.
TH
As the author of the article, you did not just miss the point of the article… You missed it by a country mile.
Everstudy
The problem is that you are still trying to turn this into a debate about which spectacle is worse.
My point was not that one side’s spectacle is acceptable and another’s is not. My point was that Christians should be suspicious of spectacle itself.
Once the conversation becomes a competition to identify the greater evil, we have already left the territory of Augustine and entered the territory of partisanship.
The Christian question is not, “Which side is more debased?” The Christian question is, “What kind of people are these spectacles forming us to become?”
We are all quite capable of spotting the sins of our opponents. The harder task is recognizing our own fascination with power, performance, and public display when it appears in forms we happen to like.
Some spectacles are worse than others. Spectacles of state-sponsored violence and glorification of violence are worse than spectacles of individual exhibitionism on the White House lawn. They are not equivalent.
Duane,
I’m not someone who generally supports gender reassignment for children (there are exceptions of course, for instance children born with indeterminate sex organs) or the endless classification and reclassification of gender that have become so popular in academia and popular culture. But, however bad or unwise those things may be, they pale in comparison to the head of state of my country celebrating the birthday of my country with inhumane spectacles of violence as entertainment; they are not equivalent, and I believe it right to distinguish between lesser evils committed by people with less power and influence and greater evils committed by leaders with great influence and power.
Well, at least I got to read Php. 4:8.
Re: “The problem is that you are still trying to turn this into a debate about which spectacle is worse.”
But I’m not. I was merely showing that both sides do things that are evil.
Everstudy
Yes they do, but I would argue against equivalency, especially in this case. There’s a difference between two or three individuals doing something foolish at a White House party and the President of the United States presiding over a gladiatorial game…
That however was not the point of the article. It is the danger of entering into the spectacle and allowing it to form and shape our values and our response… Or, in this case, our lack of response and outrage…
Duane-I was quite distressed about what happened on the White House, including the awful slur about Michelle Obama by someone who claims Jesus as his Lord and Savior. But, I think that those who support Trump are way beyond calling out POTUS on anything at the expense of losing their positions or worse. They will continue to support him until the inevitable occurs (which, when it does, could throw the entire government to go into crisis.
On an individual level, I can speak my peace and continue to support the people most hurt by the current administration-immigrants, people having their benefits cut, etc. By the way, I do understand the point of your article, but this whole “spectacular” is so thoroughly Trumpian that I am sure there will be more of them. He has no shame (and I wasn’t at all sad when I read that the UFC lost $30,000,000 on the fight.)
Linn, Maybe Trump will demolish a wing of the White House so he can have a demolition derby on the lawn. Wouldn’t that be fun.
How did this happen to our Nation?
Muff,
The rot in the history and at the heart of this nation is blooming just like the green algae in the newly renovated reflecting pool. There’s nothing new here, just a national disease that has metastasized by orders of magnitude, which makes it seem qualitatively rather than quantitatively different, but it’s what was always there, only more so. And yes, it involves the diseased leadership of this country along the whole political continuum for generations, not just decades, a diseased leadership that the aggregate population of the country has allowed when not empowering. But it also involves fatal defects left unresolved from the founding of our country.
@ Robert F,
She (the united states) is still the best act to ever hit the world stage and I’ll stand by her.
Not because I’m some right-wing nut-bag, but because I follow the dictates of my conscience.
I guess that I should add that Chuck Smith was an enthusiastic boxing fan, and once in a while he would mention it from the pulpit. This seemed really weird to me at the time, but I didn’t give it much thought.
But now, seeing what is happening now and considering his political views, it’s a little easier to see how, over decades, the Christian nationalism mindset eventually changed into what we have now.
Or maybe I’m just projecting my own prejudices about which sports are noble and which ones are stupid?
Muff,
I understand. As for myself, the only thing my conscience tells me I owe this country is to be a peaceful resident. I do not support almost any of America’s historic wars, including the current one; I do not support its global economic empire; I do not support its intransigent refusal to remediate slavery and slavery’s aftermath; I do not support its refusal to redress even a little of the wrongs done to its original native occupants; I do not support its gun culture, which have turned the streets of this country into battlefields with a degree of daily violence and death like a perpetual low level war; I do not support its civic religion which does all possible to hide the truth of its history behind a facade of freedom and liberty — which it uses to justify horrendous actions abroad; and I do not believe America’s greatness is due to goodness, but only to brute wealth and power.
Have we really come to the point in this country where people are offended by a sporting event that has physical combat where two men test their skills? Have men really lost that much testosterone? Thank God the hippy boomer generation is fading out
Reinaldo
No, I am not offended by physical competition. Human beings have tested strength, courage, and skill for thousands of years.
What concerns me is not masculinity but spectacle. The Romans also celebrated combat, strength, and displays of power. Christians questioned not whether the participants were brave, but what the crowd was being taught to admire.
Testosterone is not a virtue. Courage is. Strength is. Self-control is. Honor is.
The real question is whether we are cultivating those virtues or simply consuming another spectacle. Those are not the same thing.
Muff
The eight years I spent living overseas taught me to value the United States and the goal of a more perfect Union. We have some dark spots in our history. We may be living through one at present, which is all the more reason for us not to abandon hope. Despite it all, I still believe in the promise of America…
Duane,
I have lost all faith, or more likely any desire to believe, in America. I likely never had faith or believed in it, but for a long time I wanted to, I was looking to construct a belief in America. I’ve given up now. I haven’t seen the world as you have, maybe that would make a difference; but then, I know some who traveled abroad extensively and now have left the U.S. in disillusionment. It is an uncomfortable thing to lack patriotism; just about everyone else professes to be patriotic, and one knows that to not profess it is to be viewed as a deficient human being. But my conscience is not burdened by my absence of patriotism; I would be lying if I said I felt or wanted to feel it. I don’t look to any other country or countries as desirable alternatives; I have as little faith in nation-states in general as in the US in particular. Anywhere I might go, if I could afford to go, I would spiritually be a resident alien, as I am here.
In connection with the discussion about violent fight exhibitions, I’ve been thinking about Georges Bernanos, the early twentieth century devout French Catholic novelist and loyalist who lived in a time past the era of loyalists. Bernanos had the code of a Christian knight, and was someone who would gladly have joined violent battle against unrighteous foes if he had not been disabled by a motorcycle accident early in his life; his sons, encouraged by him, joined the Nationalist side in the Spanish Civil war (though he later had regrets of this after personally becoming aware of the atrocities committed by both Nationalists and Republicans while living in Spain). I know he was not afraid of physical or literary combat. I also know that he would’ve viewed an exhibition fight in which one combatant was allowed and encouraged to keep mercilessly attacking a prone/suppine or unconscious adversary as sub-Christian and, almost as important to him, dishonorable and beneath the dignity of an honorable man. MMA/UFC lacks all such sense of honor, which necessarily includes mercy, as Bernanos would’ve avowed.
I’ll say one last thing on this subject, related to my last comment: Bernanos would’ve viewed a fight exhibition contestant who struck his fallen adversary with contempt; and he would’ve viewed the audience who enjoyed such a spectacle of mercilessness with far greater contempt; but no doubt he would’ve held the organizers of such an event in greatest contempt of all — and he would’ve been right on all counts.
Duane,
You have perfectly captured my sadness with this brash spectacle. I have been searching for a way to speak about it at the dinner table. Thank you.
Jerod
“Sadness” is the appropriate word…
All these fans of MMA and professional wrestling are a bunch of incel bullies (cowards really) trying to cosplay a badass. No different than the Proud Boys/Oathkeepers dressing up like GI Joe and cosplaying they are in Seal Team 6. All of these no doubt will run away like scared little girls should the S**t Get Real. It all theatrics and for show, just like TACO bully in-chief (draft-dodging coward) they worship as their god.
This is what I think of their “god” and the god of American Christians: