“Sportianity”: When Does a Fan Become an Idolater?
ByOn a day when my Ohio State Buckeyes lost out on one of the nation’s top football recruits to UT (and just 100 miles from Columbus, at that), a post like this, written primarily to Texans, might seem like sour grapes. But the truth is, I’m preaching to myself too. I’ve got my OSU national championship banner in my office, my DVR set to record two soccer matches tomorrow (don’t tell my wife!) and I drool every time one of those World Cup 2010 commercials rolls on ESPN.
So here it is: Christianity Today just published online a confrontational article on the culture of sports idolatry that pervades evangelicalism. It’s well worth a read, particularly in light of the idolatry themes in this stage of Pastor Juan’s sermons in 1 Corinthians. Though I’m not affirming all the author’s conclusions, they’re always thought-provoking, often convicting. Here’s a sample:
Big-time sports culture lifts up values in sharp contrast with what Christians for centuries have understood as the embodiment of the gospel. There are simply no easy, straight-faced, intellectually respectable answers for how evangelicals can model the Christian narrative—with its emphases on servanthood, generosity, and self-subordination—while immersed in a culture that thrives on cut-throat competition, partisanship, and Darwinian struggle.
1 Comments
February 4th, 2010 at 11:36 pm
Good article. He seems to believe that striving to keep the proper perspective on sport is not enough, but that Christians should promote a distinctly Christian sort of sport “specifically crafted to express the joy of the faith”. Only the sanctified “sport” he is describing sounds a lot like figure skating, synchronized swimming, and air-boxing.
Perhaps I am just not heavenly minded enough, but it is difficult to imagine sports being played in heaven. Competition, physical struggle, and winning are the essence of what separates sport from other kinds of play. When Christ returns, all these will fade away, but the current temptation is to be so captivated by them that we do not look forward to that Day.
Treating sports as if they are a dress rehearsal for heaven is a noble venture, but an over-realized eschatology won’t cure the idolatry of sport, because it doesn’t replace the idol with Christ. It merely gilds over the ugly exterior of sports with a frosting of religious transcendence. And that only makes for a *more* dangerous idol.