Posted June 15, 2026
The US and Iran announced Sunday that they have agreed on an interim peace deal, now set to be signed on Friday. President Trump said the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened that day, and that the US naval blockade on Iran would be simultaneously lifted. US stock futures soared this morning in response, while US oil futures dropped. (As more about the agreement is known, I plan to devote tomorrow’s Daily Article to it.)
In other headline news, the US soccer team won its first World Cup match and will now host Australia on June 19. If you don’t really care about the World Cup, you’re decidedly in the global minority. As Dr. Ryan Denison reported recently, the Super Bowl is seen by 125.6 million people; for the 2022 World Cup final, 1.42 billion people tuned in.
In more sports news, the New York Knicks defeated the San Antonio Spurs Saturday night to win their first NBA title since 1973. In the National Hockey League, the Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Vegas Golden Knights last night to win their first Stanley Cup in twenty years.
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.
Niall Ferguson is a British and American historian who serves as a senior fellow at both Stanford and Harvard. 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:
I grew up in Glasgow, where football is a branch of religion: Rangers for the Protestants, Celtic for the Catholics, Partick Thistle for the atheists. Glaswegians support their teams with a zeal that frequently spills over into violence. We do not go to football to munch on hot dogs; we go to sing belligerent songs laced with sectarian hatred, pregnant with the possibility of a punch-up.
Ferguson writes that soccer fans suffer collectively when their teams lose and celebrate collectively when they win. Unlike American sports, where greater distances between cities make it more difficult for fans to travel with their teams in large numbers, soccer fans show up en masse when their teams compete. And unlike American sports, fans of rival teams are usually seated together on opposite sides of the stadium, where they can shout derisive chants at each other and experience the joys and agonies of the game with those who share the same emotions.
A similar collective was tragically on display in New York City Saturday night after the Knicks won the title.
The Associated Press reported that rowdy fans “were clashing with police, smashing windshields, scaling scaffolding, light poles and a statue, climbing into and atop school buses in Times Square, and trying to hitch a ride on a moving fire truck.” A seventeen-year-old was shot; four people were stabbed or slashed; a school bus was lit on fire. Carolina fans were jubilant over their team’s Stanley Cup victory as well, but no violence has been reported.
I now see such a collective at work in my personal response to the news regarding Iran. Of course, I want Iran never to have a nuclear weapon, the Strait of Hormuz to be open, and the warfare to end. But I also realize that after forty-seven years of conflict with Iran, I want my “side” to win and their “side” to lose.
This quest for relational collectivism is in itself unsurprising, since we were made for relationship (Genesis 2:18) in the image of our relational God (1 John 4:8). Then came the Fall, however, and our quest to “be like God” (Genesis 3:5) by exercising our “will to power.” This affects every dimension of our lives, including our relationships with others (cf. Romans 1:21–32).
I knew this already, of course, but what I had not considered is that the Fall damaged our relational nature itself. It’s not just that our sin nature leads us to steal, kill, lie, lust, and so on. Our “will to power” also leads us into a kind of tribalism by which we seek to impose our power collectively on others.
Consider the popularity of team sports over individual competition. Whereas 74.5 percent of Americans say they follow football, for example, only 15.5 percent say the same of tennis. It’s hard to be on “Team Alcaraz” or “Team Djokovic” (unless you’re a tennis fan like me, you probably don’t even know who they are). But most everyone, it seems, is a fan of some NFL team, whether they live in that team’s city or not.
I now see a large part of the reason: I want a “side” to be on and a “side” to be against. This is attractive in that it simplifies life into the “good guys” and the “bad guys,” positions me on the “right side,” and exempts me from having to care about those on the “wrong side.” 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.
There’s an even more fundamental issue here for Christians: When we relate to humanity through the prism of tribalism, we grieve the heart of our Father and impede the advance of his kingdom. He loves Iranians as much as he loves Americans. He wants us to be his “body” in the world acting with his hands of grace and his heart of love (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:27).
So I am praying for the heart of Jesus for those I see on the news and meet personally. I am praying to be part of a radical movement of unconditional inclusivity that transforms our culture with redeeming grace. I am praying that people encounter his love in mine so fully that they know I have “been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).
Will you make my prayer yours today?
“When one has once fully entered the realm of love, the world—no matter how imperfect—becomes rich and beautiful [and] consists solely of opportunities for love” (Søren Kierkegaard).
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