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What Iran, the World Cup, the NBA, and the NHL have in common · The Daily Article

• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Good day and welcome to Denison Forum's Daily Article Podcast.
• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's Monday, June the 15th, 2026.
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Chris Elkins, narrator.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Today's Daily article is authored by Cultural Theologian Dr. Jim Denison.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: The U.S. in Iran announced Sunday that they have agreed on an interim peace deal now said to be signed on Friday.
• 0:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: President Trump said the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened that day and that the U.S. naval blockade on Iran would be simultaneously lifted.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: U.S. stock futures soared this morning in response, while U.S. oil futures dropped.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: As more about the agreement is known, I plan to devote tomorrow's daily article to it.
• 0:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: In other headline news, the US soccer team won its first World Cup match and will now host Australia on June the 19th.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you don't really care about the World Cup, you're decidedly in the global minority.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: As Dr. Ryan Dinnison reported recently, the Super Bowl is seen by 125.6 million people,
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: In more sports news, the New York next defeated the San Antonio Spurs Saturday night to win their first NBA title since 1973.
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the National Hockey League, the Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Vegas Golden Knights last night to win their first Stanley Cup in 20 years.
• 1:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I believe these stories are connected in a way I did not understand until I read a fascinating article over the weekend that opened my eyes to a reality I had missed.
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nile Ferguson is a British and American historian who serves as a senior fellow at both Stanford and Harvard.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: His free press article explains the global popularity of the World Cup, noting that soccer, or football as the rest of the world calls the sport, is a collective experience he shares personally, quoting Ferguson, I grew up in Glasgow, where football is a branch of religion, Rangers for the Protestants, Celtics for the Catholics, Partic Thistle for the atheists.
• 2:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Glass Weagians support their team with a zeal that frequently spills over into violence.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: We do not go to football to much on hot dogs.
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: We go to sing belligerent songs laced with sectarian hatred, pregnant with the possibility of a punch-up.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ferguson writes that soccer fans suffer collectively when their teams lose and celebrate collectively when they win.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unlike American sports, where greater distances between cities makes it more difficult for fans to travel with their teams in large numbers, soccer fans show up in mass when their teams compete.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And unlike American sports, fans of rival teams are usually seated together on opposite sides of the stadium.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: where they can shout derice of chance at each other and experience the joys and agonies of the game with those who share the same emotions.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: A similar collective was strategically on display in New York City Saturday night after the next one the title.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Associated Press reported that Routy fans were clashing with police, smashing windshields, scaling scaffolding, light poles, and a statue,
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: climbing into and atop school buses in Times Square and trying to hit your ride on a moving fire truck.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: A 17-year-old was shot, where people were stabbed or slashed.
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: A school bus was lit on fire.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Carolina fans were jubulent over their team Stanley Cup victory as well, but no violence was reported.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I now see such a collective at work in my personal response to the news regarding Iran.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, I want Iran never to have a nuclear weapon, a straight-of-war must-be open, and the warfare at the end.
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I also realized that after 40 years of conflict with Iran, I want my side to win and their side to lose.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: This quest for relational collectivism is in itself and surprising since we were made for relationship, evident from Genesis 2 verse 18, in the image of our relational God noted in 1st John 4 verse 8, then came the fall, however, and our quest to be like God from Genesis 3 verse 5 by exercising our will to power.
• 4:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: This affects every dimension of our lives, including our relationships with others, referenced by Romans 1 vs 21 through 32.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I knew this already, of course, but what I had not considered is that the fall damaged our relational nature itself.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not just that our sin nature leads us to steel, kill, lie, lust, and so on, our will to power also leads us to a kind of tribalism by which we seek to impose our power collectively on others.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Consider the popularity of team sports over individual competition.
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whereas 74.5% of Americans say they follow football, for example, only 15.5% say the same for tennis.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to be on team Alcarez or Team Jokevic, and unless you're a tennis fan like me, you probably don't even know who they are.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: But most everyone it seems is a fan of some NFL team, whether they live in that team city or not.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I now see a large part of the reason.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want a side to be on and a side to be against.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is attractive in that it simplifies life into the good guys, and the bad guys positions me on the right side and exempt me from having to care about those on the wrong side.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: This impulse can be innocuous when watching baseball on television, but it can be dangerous to society when expressed in street crime and poisonous to democracy when injected into politics.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's an even more fundamental issue here for Christians.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: When we relate to humanity through the prism of tribalism, we grieve the heart of our father and impede the advance of his kingdom.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: He loves Iranians as much as he loves Americans.
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: He
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: He wants us to be his body in the world, acting with his hands of grace and his heart of love as revealed in 1 Corinthians 12 verse 27.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I am praying for the heart of Jesus for those I see on the news and meet personally.
• 6:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm praying to be part of a radical movement of unconditional inclusivity that transforms our culture with redeeming grace.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am praying that people in counter his love in mind so fully that they know I have quoting Acts 4 verse 13, been with Jesus, would you make my prayer yours today?