Go, Fight, Win?

I am a sports fan. The two radio stations I most frequently toggle between in my car are KCAL 570 and KSPN 710, which both feature sports talk programs and game broadcasts. While I read many sections of the newspaper, the one I spend the most time in is the sports page. I follow the Lakers avidly, whether online, in print, or on TV. In high school, I played football, basketball, tennis and track. During college, I played nose-tackle for my fraternity team that won the intramurals flag football championship. I have coached my daughters soccer and volleyball teams for many years. For the past 15 years I have emerged as a distance runner and enjoy running races ranging from 5Ks to marathons. With the SuperBowl XLIV taking place today and the Vancouver Olympics starting this Friday, there’s a lot of sporting spectacle I’m excited to watch.

The cover story of Christianity Today this month is titled “What Happened to Play? How Christians have succumbed to the sports culture—and what might be done about it.” The cover package also includes three responses to Shirl James Hoffman’s provocative cover story. For anyone who is a Christian involved in sports at any level, these are well worth careful reading and reflection (go to christianitytoday.com/ct/ and click on “Sports Fanatics”). Hoffman provides examples of both the widespread positive influence of sports as well as of the many negative aspects engendered by the win-at-all-costs ethos of competitive sports today.

Here are some of the provocative questions Hoffman raises for me:
• How does one ensure that intercollegiate sports at Christian universities don’t diminish emphasis upon the schools’ spiritual and academic missions.
• How do Christians reconcile the long-term and permanent physical damage done to athletes through contact sports such as football or hockey with the gospel’s call to servanthood, generosity, and non-violence.
• Believing that our human impulse toward play is God-given, how can organized sports become more of a vehicle to express the joy of faith and appreciation of our bodies as the temple of the Holy Spirit?
• How do leaders at Christian universities resist the pressure to tamper with star athletes’ grades, bend NCAA rules, and conform to the win-at-all-costs mindset that so often lead to ethical indiscretions.
• How can we as parents of athletes steer our children away from the ugly, in-your-face, hyper-competitiveness they see in some professional and college athletes and toward the higher aspects of teamwork, personal discipline, and hard work?
• How do we as parents of athletes avoid morphing into those hateful sideline miscreants who threaten referees, scream at coaches, and berate their own (or other) children and instead serve as models of fairness, encouragement, and self-control?

Because sports are so important in our society, we need to give careful thought to how we as followers of Jesus participate in them and what we are modeling for our children as we watch them compete. May we all (myself included!) enjoy our sports without allowing them to supplant the One who truly is worthy of our hearts’ worship, praise, and adoration.

Love in Christ,


Andy