There’s no doubt that sports captures our attention, if not our hearts. Drew Brees has been featured hugging Oprah, teaching Ellen to hold a football, throwing a pass to David Letterman and headlining a Disney parade. The NBA just held their all-star game at Texas stadium in front of the largest crowd to ever see a basketball game. College basketball is heating up in preparation for March Madness. Hockey is preparing for their Olympic break - which brings us to the Winter Olympics, an epic that occurs every four years. And we’re waiting to see when Tiger comes back. Sports are huge in our culture.
I grew up playing football among other sports and have coached my kids in several sports. I’ve watched my sons play baseball, lacrosse, basketball and football. And we just got back from one of my daughter’s volleyball tournaments. That’s why the cover story in the current issue (February 2010) of Christianity Today has bothered me. The author, Shirl James Hoffman, an athlete and coach himself sees the current paradigm of sports incompatible with Christian living. He said:
“There are simply no easy, straight-faced, intellectually respectable answers for how evangelicals can model the Christian narrative – with its emphasis on servanthood, generosity, and self-subordination – while immersed in a culture that thrives on cut-throat competition, partisanship, and Darwinian struggle.”
I agree there are abuses in sports but is it really incompatible for Christian living? Is there an approach we could take to sports – short of side-to-side competitions like swimming and track – that would honor Jesus?
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