Why I'm Not Supposed to Like Ted Lasso (and Why I Do Anyway)

As a pastor, I wish I could recommend to you Ted Lasso, the breakout hit from Apple TV+ about an American football coach who move across the pond to coach an ailing Premier League soccer club. More than any show I can remember, it tells compelling stories about inexhaustible hope, the power of compassion over cruelty, and love for your fellow man—the kinds of stories that make sermons sing. The titular protagonist is the sort of fundamentally decent human being that you’d love to have in your church, the kind you could easily imagine teaching middle school Sunday School or quietly picking up trash in the parking lot.

I wish I could recommend Ted Lasso, because on almost a weekly basis it shows people what Christlikneness looks like in 2023, what a radical thing it is to be earnestly good in a cynical and self-serving world. Take, for example, the climactic scene in season 1’s penultimate episode. Here Rebecca, the self-assured owner of the team, reveals a devastating secret to Ted: when she hired him, it was not because she believed in his coaching ability. In reality, she thought him a joke and was trying to sabotage the club’s prospects as an act of revenge against her ex-husband, the club’s former owner. Tearfully confessing the truth, she (not to mention the viewer) has every reason to expect that this man she has come to appreciate, value, and consider a friend will now reject her as a vindictive phony. But instead, Ted rises to his feet, looks her in the eyes, and matter-of-factly says, “I forgive you.” He puts his hand out to shake—she instead wraps him in a hug—and he sincerely affirms, “We’re ok.”

“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.” – Luke 6:37

Take another moment, this one midway through season 2, when we see Jamie Tartt, the club’s entitled, arrogant star, hit his lowest point when his cruel bully of a father strolls into the locker room and berates him in front of the whole club after an embarrassing defeat. Jamie, after trying numerous times to calmly get his father out of his face, finally punches him in the nose, and a coach hustles his dad out of the locker room before things can blow up further. Jamie is left standing in the middle of the locker room utterly broken, humiliated beyond measure, and that’s when Roy Kent stands up.

Roy and Jamie have, to this point, never had a kind word for one another. Roy, first introduced in the show as a past-his-prime former star, resents Jamie’s attitude even as Jamie is jealous of the respect Roy has engendered with the team and the public. Throw in the fact that Jamie’s girlfriend winds up dumping him for Roy and you have a relationship where tension is the rule, not the exception.

So when Roy stands up in that locker room, no one knows what’s about to happen. Jaime’s horrible day is surely about to get worse. But Roy, the living embodiment of the word “gruff,” strides toward Jamie and, without a word, wraps him in a tight, reassuring embrace, holding him until Jamie breaks down sobbing. Their conflicts set aside for the moment, Roy shows his least favorite person in the world the kind of compassion he desperately needs.

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. – Matthew 5:44

One more example, this one from the new season’s premiere. In this episode, Ted and the club are humiliated at a press conference by his onetime assistant coach Nate, who betrayed Ted in the previous season’s finale by rejecting his mentorship and then taking on a role as head coach at the rival club owned by Rebecca’s vengeful ex-husband. Nate publicly mocks Ted in the press conference, adding to the perception that the club is a laughingstock bound for failure.

In the wake of that embarrassment, Rebecca pleads with Ted to fight back and take Nate to task in the same way at his own press conference. But instead, when a reporter sets Ted up for a counterpunch, he sincerely praises Nate’s coaching abilities and responds to the criticisms of his own with joke after joke at his own expense. Given the change to fight fire with fire, Ted instead puts the flames out entirely, sacrificing his pride for peace.

But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. – Matthew 5:39

These are just a few examples of the kinds of scenes that have won me and millions of other people over to Ted Lasso. The show is so often a masterclass in what countercultural kindness looks like, a testimony to what the world might be like if we actually did the things Jesus told us to do.

So as a pastor, I’d love to recommend Ted Lasso to you. But I’m really not supposed to.

Why not? Well, for one thing, it’s not actually a Christian show. While themes of redemption, grace, forgiveness, and compassion are the core of its story, those themes are never explicitly tied to Jesus. Ted is not (as far as we know) a professing believer, and there’s no climactic scene where somebody prays the sinner’s prayer and receives the gift of salvation. Unlike the films that Pureflix puts out each year, Ted Lasso is not part of the machinery of the evangelical industrial complex.

For another thing, sex happens in the show outside the norms laid out by Scripture. Ted has a one-night stand in season 1. Rebecca has a passionate secret relationship with one of the players in season 2. Roy Kent and his girlfriend, Keeley Jones, cohabitate. The show has no nudity and no sex scenes, but neither does it play by the abstinence-only rules of the religious right.

Finally, and most notably, characters in Ted Lasso swear—a lot. Like, seriously, a LOT. George Carlin would be amazed this show is allowed to air. If you counted Roy Kent’s f-words alone, you’d have enough to earn the show its MA rating 500 times over. While Ted himself rarely curses, the show is never afraid to let the profanity fly in the name of a laugh.

For those three reasons—secularity, sex, and swearing—Ted Lasso is a no-no in Evangelical Land. For me, a pastor, to recommend it to a fellow Christian is to risk scandalizing them. I can point them toward Jesus Revolution and The Chosen, but that’s it. All other worldly entertainment is a sign of our nation’s spiritual decline and our world’s fallenness, period.

But I’ve got to wonder—to misquote an old saying, what would Jesus watch? Would the friend of sinners recoil at Roy Kent? Would the man who dined with tax collectors and prostitutes clutch his pearls when sex outside of marriage is broached? Would Jesus refuse to listen to the show’s righteous message because he couldn’t get past its surface sins?

Or would Jesus look beyond the visible shortcomings, as he so often did, and see the heart beneath? Maybe, just maybe, Jesus could use a flawed vessel to carry living water. Maybe Jesus could redeem what we would rather reject. Maybe the one who is making all things new could turn water into wine once again.

I don’t think Ted Lasso is a Christian show. But I do think we too easily miss the forest for the trees when we’re scandalized by profanity and debauchery while shrugging our shoulders at cynicism and idolatry. I do think if we’d stop loudly condemning the world for a second—something Jesus specifically said he didn’t come to do—we might be better witnesses in it. I do think Ted Lasso has something to teach us—if we’ll listen.

Ted Lasso isn’t going to save souls. Ted Lasso isn’t going to bring about revival. Heck, Ted Lasso isn’t even a Christian show. It’s simply an imperfect work that’s trying its darnedest to shine light in the darkness.

Thing is, that sounds a lot like me. So I'm going to keep watching—and pastorally, I recommend you give it a try too.