Is Football a Sin? (Author says "yes" because Christians shouldn't try to triumph over others)

press release ^ | unkn | Pangaeus press

[mountaineer]

DALLAS--In the wake of Superbowl XXXVII, there’s the pain of loss, the agony of post-game quarterbacking But the toughest fact to confront on Superbowl Monday may be that the whole business of sport is really a sin, from the Christian point of view, says Kevin Orlin Johnson, Ph.D., author of many best-selling books on Christian beliefs and practices.

In his Rosary: Mysteries, Meditations, and the Telling of the Beads--hailed by National Review’s literary editor Michael Potemra as "the best book I have yet seen on this subject"--Johnson reveals the surprising history of sport to clarify the story of Christ’s "Agony in the Garden" before the Crucifixion, an episode traditionally meditated on as part of the Rosary’s prayers.

The term "agony" is from the Greek word for sport, Johnson says; it’s applied to the internal struggle that Jesus felt before going to his suffering and death. That’s the essential struggle, the "good fight" of every Christian, but struggling with other people in sport is something else entirely. "I hate to be the one to say it, but the Church has always taught, from the Gospels, that any sport--any contention in which you try to triumph over somebody else--is completely opposed to everything that Christ teaches," he says.

It seems obvious when you put it that way, but it’s still a shocker. Sports fans always ask, "Are you serious?" and come up with all kinds of excuses about sportsmanship and teamwork and the like. Sorry, it won’t work, Johnson says, because sport is what it is--obviously--and there’s also a huge body of Christian literature that knocks down every pretext you can think of.

That’s because the Church worked so hard to remind Christians that they’re not supposed to go around hitting, fighting or tackling other people ("Turn the other cheek," remember?) and certainly not to try proving themselves better than others. St. Paul himself used the image of an athlete in his first letter to the Corinthians (9:24-27) when he catalogued everything that a Christian is not supposed to do. All of the Fathers of the Church preached fervently about the sinfulness of sport, and some even wrote whole books about it. Eventually the point got across and the stadiums fell into ruin, but it had taken 600 years. "Evidently the early Christians were even denser about it than we are now," Johnson says.

Of course, those games were often fights to the death, with hundreds of human beings slaughtered in gladiatorial combats or even footraces. But it wasn’t just the bloody murders that the Church objected to. Long before anybody gets killed, the Fathers of the Church said, sport always involves the sins of strife, superstition, sedition, pride, vainglory, contention--"how many ways do we need to prove that not one of the things associated with these sports is pleasing to God?" the 2nd-century convert Tertullian asked. No sport, he said, fails to inflict spiritual damage, because in sport there is always "eagerness, which adds spice to pleasure. Where there’s eagerness there’s the taking of sides. Where there’s the taking of sides, there’s rage, and bile and anger and pain and all the other things that follow from them, which like them are incompatible with spiritual discipline."

After the stadia closed down, sport still erupted informally among the less-educated classes, but the Church was always there to remind them. By the time St. Thomas Aquinas catalogued the vices that sport expresses in his 13th-century Summa, sport was widely understood as a violation of Christian principles of life, and in fact as sin.

[Norman Conquest]

q: Why don't the Amish make love standing up?
a: It might lead to dancing...

[Dan from Michigan]

You can't tell me God isn't a football fan. No football? That would be hell.

[L,TOWM]

No one mentioned that. The author indicates that participating in or watching and enjoying sports is a "sin".

"All things are permissable, few things are profitable." It is that sort of tolerance, and recognition by Paul that the Spirit would lead people to diferrent manifestations of their faith that contributed to the church have a broad appeal 1900 years ago. Pronouncements like this are little more than bloviating by persons long on Law, short on Grace.

Sort of the same the mindset that I have seen other asthetic christians arguing that sex between husband and wife is

a) For making kids
b) To keep each other from "sinning"
c) Definately not to be enjoyed or anticipated, rather thought of as a duty.

I'll pass on asthetic Christianity...

[Rytwyng]

In a nation which is suffering a health crisis in large part due to insufficient physical activity, preaching against sports is the LAST thing we need to be doing. The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (if you're a believer) and letting your body fall apart can't be a good thing. The apostle Paul's "bodily exercise profiteth little" was addressed to a preindustrial culture where nearly everyone got enough exercise just doing their jobs -- clearly, that's not the case for most of us today.

Granted, full impact football isn't an exercise that can be sustained for life. But if 40 or 50 year old football fans would get out and play a game of touch-football or flag-football a couple of times a week, the nation would be a lot healthier, and they'd also enjoy the "spectator" experience a lot more. It's also something they can do with their sons, but that's a whole 'nother issue.

If not football, there's plenty of other sports to choose from. I prefer running, myself -- and when I was younger the occasional race provided a good competitive "push" to improve myself in ways that still benefit me today. So I find it difficult to proclaim competition as "evil" -- I think it's more logical to say that every human instinct is a creation of God and that all of them (including the competitive instinct) are right if they are exercised in the morally right context.

[mountaineer]

I have no idea. I try not to think about ND too much! Here's another pic of "Touchdown Jesus":

[amused]

If defeating an opponent in a game is a sin, wouldn't that make checkers a sin?

It would go farther than that and actually I can see socialist/communist fodder here. You shouldn't get that promotion over Fred as that would be a triumph, you shouldn't send your kids to a better school than Phil, you shouldn't drive a nicer car, have nicer stuff, basically any and all competition in which there is a winner and a loser even when the competition is not formal. After all life itself is a great competition.

[ewing]

T. Jesus probably waiting for the Four Horsemen..

[ewing]

[ewing]

[mountaineer]

This attitude that competition and winning are bad is fairly common. How many youth sports leagues have we heard of where the kids aren't allowed to keep score in the interest of enhancing their self-esteem (but most of them do, anyway, because it matters to them whether they won or lost)?

[Psalm 73]

"Is Football a Sin?"

Probably if you're a Cincinnati Bengals fan...

[JudgemAll]

Is there some way people would consider it a game? Triumph over others is part of competition and christianity. I just hate these moral enuchs trying to turn us into them.

THe key in Christianity is triumph in whose name. If the two teams compete to triumph for God, to please God and spending time for God, then there is no problem about triumph. If one team wants to triumph so that it is to indulge in itself in obsene ways, then it is not good.

Nothing is really bad, so long as truth and God are the beneficiaries.

[JudgemAll]

(but most of them do, anyway, because it matters to them whether they won or lost)?

Poor kids, they want truth and fairness, but liberals take that away from them. No wonder they say Pedophilia is ok. Leftist liberals? Kill'em.

[Terriergal]

That's ridiculous... I can't stand football but to say it's "sinful" because you're trying to triumph over others? Every game in the world would be sinful. I think overprioritizing it can border on being sinful depending on what you allow to suffer, but that is the same as with so many other activities.

[JudgemAll]

Of course the author is not foaming at the mouth in petty evil moralist triumph over those who want fairness. I will keep my scores and the author's unverified triumphalism and superstitions for his sake and lies can go burn in hell after being eaten live by worms!!!!!

[jjm2111]

And thou shall pull the pin on thy Holy Hand Grenade and count to three.

[mountaineer]

I had the same thought, but didn't want to seem "meanspirited"! Ahh, what the heck.

[MEGoody]

I guess the guy missed Paul using sporting events as analogies, e.g. running a race to living the Christian life. The whole point of participating is to do your best, to challenge yourself to continually improve. In the process of a sporting event (and many things in life), if you win, someone else will lose.

Scipture also talks about rewards in heaven - not everyone is going to be getting the same rewards. It isn't about triumphing over another, it's about doing your best, striving for improvement. Even in heaven, someone will be 'triumphed' over. But I would suspect they will be celebrating with the one receiving the reward, not whining about how it isn't fair.

[JudgemAll]

Of course this man allows himself to open or shut the gates of triumph on people wanting freedom and games. I have a hard time gathering the type of evil that would motivate this author's type into such castrating rampage. All I can say is I don't need him to take my time. My time is perfectly well managed in sports. I fight for triumph and for truth. The two go hand in hand.

Maybe this man must stop eating good fruits and eat dung then, if he cares not for triumph, but I doubt this evil author would do so, but only urges others to do so. And what if a good man eats in triumph of the loss of an evil man? Maybe that bothers him. Me, it does not bother me at all.

[11th Earl of Mar]

"[T]he Church has always taught, from the Gospels, that any sport--any contention in which you try to triumph over somebody else--is completely opposed to everything that Christ teaches," he says.

Not to worry. Sounds like he would still allow us to be fans of the Detroit Lions.