Posted on 09/01/2012 11:43:01 AM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
The start of football season prompted me to visit several sports websites to get an idea of how the putative “experts”expect my favorite college and NFL teams to fare this year.
(Not particularly well).
What struck me is that almost every one of the sites I visited has some sort of photo gallery of cheerleaders, often ranking them not on how well the squads perform their sideline routines, but how “hot” they are.
If that is what cheerleading has come to for many, if not most, male football fans – ogling the young women between plays on the gridiron field – that raises the question:
Can a young woman be, at once, a faithful Christian and a cheerleader?
Ariann Denison believes so.
She was a Miami Dolphins cheerleader from 2005 to 2009, before becoming the squad’s choreographer. She also owns a dance studio that not only offers classes in ballet, jazz, tap, lyrical and “pro cheer,” but also a liturgical class that combines dance with Christian music.
Ariann says that her background as an NFL cheerleader and choregrapher, and her position as owner of a successful dance studio, has given her the opportunity to share the Gospel with young women who may think that cheerleading and following the Lord are mutually exclusive.
“My testimony shocks them,” she told The Good News, a Christian newspaper. “I tell the older girls that I didn’t have my first drink until I was 25. I never went to a club in college. And I kept myself pure until marriage.”
And like the dance students taking Ariann’s “pro cheer” class, there are many young women throughout the country who aspire to be cheerleaders at the high school, college or even professional level, but who refuse to compromise their Christian values.
Indeed, there are more than 500 Christian cheerleading camps and clinics around the country. The girls that attend the camps learn all the yells, the stunts, the acrobatics, the dances that are taught at secular camps.
The difference is that Christian cheerleaders are not about wearing skimpy costumes and performing bump-and-grind dance moves that are more appropriate at a strip club than on a football sideline.
Christian cheerleaders, as Ariann Denison attests, are not offended by male sports fans who think them “hot.” But those young women know they are set apart not by what can be seen on the outside by their male admirers, but what God can see on the inside.
The cheerleading question is an interesting cultural question frankly. Should they be judged on their hotness, which is demonstrated by more revealing outfits? That certainly isn’t consistent with Christian principles.
Then again, isn’t the morphing of cheerleading into their own competitive sport a perversion of what their original purpose is in the first place? Of course it is.
Just some thoughts that have crossed my mind about the growing cheer “industry.”
I’ve always thought sports were invented so we didn’t have to invent Ritalin.
And, cheerleaders were invented because Eve always wants a bite of the apple.
Absolutely! Just like a baseball, football, etc. player can be a good Christian.
If she's hot.. why not?
We are not Muslims, the human body can be a beautiful thing, and I think the answer is a very loud “YES”!
“If that is what cheerleading has come to for many...”
No, that is what cheerleading is.
Competitive team sports are less violent imitations of warriors fighting in battles. Girls who cheer them on are in effect, displaying themselves to be chosen for marriage or at least sexual use by winning warriors or players.
In the good old days of real battles, if their team lost, they might become slaves for the winners.
This is really primitive stuff. And while girls might be biologically compelled to display themselves to desirable males, there is not a whole lot of Christianity going on.
Who is doing the judging? A cheerleader can't be responsible for what other's say/think.
Should a ball player stop playing ball because others think/say he's a hunk?
I don't know, but I wish more of them were pom-pom girls.
Now I have to get all technical. Use to be a given - pom-pom girls were cool. But we live in a weird age now. God invented the feminine nature, beauty, and form. Man, as usual, contemptuously despises what God has created. Man's conscience has become seared with guilt so he has trouble seeing the beauty of God's creation.
God's grace through Jesus Christ has freed us from sin and guilt. We have the gift of righteousness - so come on girls, be yourselves and enjoy who you are - guys too. Unregenerate man and a lot of religious people in their guilty consciences seem to think there's something wrong with healthy expressions of who you are.
Remember: sin shall no longer have dominion over you for you are not under the law but under grace.
Depends on whether she looks good in a cheerleading outfit....
What's a good Christian ?
Either you are a living like a Christian or not...
Of course a cheerleader can be a Christian...once you are asked to violate your christian principles either quit or take a stand...
“But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed ADULTERY with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into HELL.”
............................................................This is a tough one for me. I am 70 and still see women I think are hot coming into Church on Sunday.I would have lost both eyes years ago if I did this.
T&A is what cheerleaders are and anyone who thinks different is telling a fib. The girls know it, you don’t see any 200 lb cheerleaders .Janet Reno never led a Cheer.
Neither did Napolitano, or Hillary.
Doesn’t mean all cheerleaders are sluts, but they know why they are there.
So, what’s the definition of a Christian these days? Plenty of churches out there that have no problem cherry-picking the Bible to validate their personal philosophies.
When men stop ogling women, the reproductive future of the human race is doomed.
Where is that eye wash ?
I didn't ask if they accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour, but coming to visit me in Rehab, in the off season, was Christian enough.
In the old days Daddy still had to approve, not the case these days.
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