Putting Golf in Its Place

It only takes a few bars of “Augusta” to confirm that spring is here. There is a promise of new life in the sound of the Masters theme song and the sight of electric green grass at Augusta National. The sun has risen in Georgia on the just and unjust and soon will come our way as well.

The game of golf has tied itself to the beauty of God’s created world like few other competitive pastimes. This is at the heart of the sport’s allure. With no standardized playing area, the designers and groundskeepers are commissioned to nest the course in the splendor of the natural terrain. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” says Psalm 19:1, and the best of links do the same, if you have eyes to see it.

But enjoying creation is one thing, and giving hours on end to playing a game can be quite another. We may be able to drink orange juice to the glory of God, but what about playing golf?  Continue at David Mathis

Destroying the Sacred-Secular Divide

Dancing. Sports. Caffeine. Rock and roll. Food and drink. The college campus is a kind of microcosm of the flashpoints we face “in the real world,” just with the volume turned way up. And lots of video games.

For over a decade, this has been the everyday life and ministry context for Matt Reagan, Campus Outreach director at the University of Minnesota and elder at Bethlehem Baptist Church. Into such potentially contrasting environments, he has sought to bring an old, old story with all its biblical textures and hues and the mind-defying life-change it boasts. It’s emphatically not an easy day-to-day parish for gospel ministry, but some love it. Matt does.

Over the years of laboring to press the gospel deeply into students of increasingly postmodern orientation and sensibilities, Matt has discovered that one of the most important topics to tackle with freshman collegiates and new believers is the so-called “sacred-secular divide.” We all participate in this to certain degrees, and the lessons are relevant far beyond the college campus and this perhaps strangest of life’s seasons. It quickly gets us into realities as central as our hearts and as important as the realization that God is not boring.

With such application far beyond the college campus in view, we sat down with Matt to have him explain what is this sacred-secular divide, and how Christian theology and the biblical gospel takes it head on.    Continue at David Mathis

When Does Sports Become Idolatry?

Evidently, there was a little football game last night. One overpaid, under-educated team defeated another overpaid, under-educated team for a mythical national championship. (Sorry, still bitter about the two most evil forces in college sports playing in the BCS game).  Twitter was atwitter and Facebook was booked solid with comments about the game – mostly the effusions of glee and self-adulation from Bama and SEC fans (sorry, another uncontrollable shot, undermining the point I want to make).

 

Americans love their sports. Athletes get paid extraordinary amounts of money because of our love-affair with sports. We pay hundreds of dollars for tickets to go to games, pay $75 for a $12 t-shirt with our team’s logo on it, rant about referees, and fill social media with our praise or curses concerning our teams’ play.

I am a sports fan. There is a certain 27-time World Series champion team from the Bronx that I like a little bit. My Durango has one sticker on it, a 2009 Yankees championship window sticker. Don’t know how long I will have to wait to add another. My office at the church has a Yankee mouse pad, a Yankee light switch cover, various Yankee paraphernalia and wall hangings, and a shelf full of books about Yankees from the past. I’m a fan.

That leads me to ask a question.    Continue at Dave Miller

Why Boys Shouldn’t Play Football with Girls

I saw this video yesterday that’s going viral on the internet right now. It’s a highlight reel of a 9-year old girl playing football with a bunch of boys. She looks pretty spectacular in the video as she blows past all the defenders and rumbles down the field for some long running plays. My little girls were nearby while I was watching the video, and I confess that I did not want them to see it. What she was doing was impressive, but it is not an aspirational model for little girls.

In the video above, you can see the commentators from ESPN grappling with whether or not it is appropriate for a little girl to play football with boys. Most of the men say no. One of them learned the lesson the hard way after his 15-year old daughter was seriously injured playing on her high school football team. Another one sounds like he has completely succumbed to the feminist spirit of the age and says he would encourage his little girls to play. But the rest of the guys agreed that it’s a bad idea. They aren’t arguing from a Christian perspective, but something in their gut tells them it’s wrong, and they are right.   Continue at Denny Burk

Sports and the Lord’s Day

Note: This is a follow-up to “The Christian and Sports” which I posted on James Faris’ page before I got my own!

 Our love for sports as both participants and spectators can swerve into idolatry in many ways.  Perhaps none is more obvious than the effect that sports can have on the Christian observance of the Lord’s Day.  I suppose I should not have been surprised when I received an email through the Christian-based basketball league one of my daughters was participating in this winter inviting her to come to a basketball clinic hosted by the Indiana University women’s team at 9:30 AM on a Sunday morning.  After all, college athletics misuse the Lord’s Day nearly as much as the professional leagues do today.  Still, I found it hard to believe that the good folks at I.U. would send an invitation to an explicitly Christian basketball league for a Sunday morning clinic.  But, of course, the reason the marketing people at I.U. thought that was a good idea is doubtless because it has worked in the past.  Christians, by and large, show little commitment in honoring the fourth commandment which requires us to cease from our regular work in order to rest and worship for an entire day every week.

My thoughts on this issue have evolved over the last several years, but I have come to the conclusion that participating in or even watching organized athletics is not a good way to honor God on the Lord’s Day.  There is a real danger that efforts to “honor the Sabbath Day” will degenerate into man-made lists of approved and unapproved activities.  This was one of the besetting sins of the Pharisees, and Jesus was not shy about condemning this approach to the fourth commandment.  On the other hand, this does not mean that we are all left to “do our own thing” on the Lord’s Day.  One of the key principles regarding our approach to the Lord’s Day comes from God’s words through the prophet Isaiah: “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the LORD; and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father.  The mouth of the LORD has spoken” (Isaiah 58:13-14, NKJ).  These words challenged me to seriously question the source of my delight on the Lord’s Day.  Is it in the Lord or is it in my own pleasures, words, and soccer games?  Continue at Gentle Reformation

Tebow, Calvin, and the Hand of God in Sports

Two days ago on NBC's "Sunday Night Football" telecast, announcer Bob Costas spent two minutes weighing in on the most exciting---and polarizing---phenomenon in sports right now: the Tim Tebow Magical Fourth-Quarter Show, accompanied by the Denver Broncos players and staff.

Costas, one of the most eloquent and thoughtful voices in sports, suggested that Tebow's recent string of performances was "approaching, okay we'll say it, the miraculous." Many have made similar comments in recent weeks. Costas switched to a more controversial track, however, when he went on to suggest that the God Tebow worships has no interest in influencing the outcome of games. I quote at length from the full transcript:

Again today, Tebow did next to nothing until the waning moments, and then, down 10-0 with two minutes left, he throws a touchdown pass, and the Broncos tie it at the gun on a 59-yard field goal. And then win it in overtime on a 51-yarder. The combination of Denver's continuing late heroics, and today, the Bears' otherwise unexplainable errors, is enough to have some at least suspect divine intervention. Except that Tebow, whose sincere faith cannot be questioned, and should be respected, also has the good sense, and good grace, to make it clear he does not believe God takes a hand in the outcome of games.   Keep Reading >>>

Goodbye 2010! But Here's a Look Back

It is that time of the year when people compile top ten lists reflecting upon the events of the past year.  Here are a few I thought you might find interesting.
 
1).  We begin with a list of significant church/theology events for the past year.  Top 10 Church/Theology Stories

2).  Here's a "list of lists" devoted to the best Christian books released (or read by the list producer) last year.  These lists sure don't match mine.  A List of Christian Book Lists

3).  This one is sad--a list of the top ten crimes of 2010.  Not only is our society filed with personal tragedy, keeping up with it is a cottage industry.  This is the stuff that keeps Geraldo and Nancy Grace on the air.  Is it just me, or does anyone else think Nancy Grace is the most obnoxious person on TV?   Top Ten Crime Stories

4).  Here's the annual list of those celebrities who died this past year.  I'll miss a couple of them.  I won't miss those on this list of whom I've never heard.  Celebs Who Died

5).  Here's a fascinating list of those things Americans hold sacred:  Ten Things We Believe

6).  One of my personal favorites--a list of the top political gaffes of 2010.  Top Ten Political Gaffes

7).  Here's a list of the top sports stories of 2010.  Did Tiger, Farve and LeBron make it?  Not a great year for sports, although my Lakers did beat the Celtics:  Top Ten Sports Stories 

8).  The Pope's trip to London topped the Vatican's top ten for 2010: Top Ten Pope Stories

9).  Finally, here's a top ten list of the most important products from Apple.  I bought an iPhone.  Don't know how I lived without it.  Top Ten Apple Stories

HT: Riddleblog

A Simpler View of Sports

Time to Separate Church and Sports? A New Agenda Takes Shape

Sam Cook has had enough. A sports columnist for the Fort Myers [FL] News-Press, Cook recently referred to quarterback Tim Tebow of the University of Florida Gators and told his readers: "I don't know how many more 'God bless' comments I can stand from the 2007 Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback." Tebow, Cook argued, should play football and forget about his religious beliefs while he is wearing the Gator uniform.

"Somehow, we'll survive without him displaying a 'John 3:16' Bible verse under his eyes," Cook wrote. "We separate church and state. Why not church and sports?"

Sam Cook's column was prompted by a far more prominent essay published in Monday's edition of USA Today. In "And I'd Like to Thank God Almighty," Tom Krattenmaker leveled a comprehensive critique of the evangelical Christian message that, as he laments, permeates so much of the sporting world at both the college and professional levels. Read the rest HERE