This is a topic that I have been wrestling with on a personal level for the past couple years. I have found that we don’t have to look at our “industrial sports complex” for long to notice we are supporting something that runs counter to the redemptive work of Jesus and his inaugurated Kingdom. I appreciate the gnostic connections made in regard to the destroying of our bodies, but further, I believe (and I primarily speak of high paying professional sports) we are supporting systemic corruption which is leading to the oppression of many. Not only does the money we spend on our hot dog, beer, jersey and TV fuel the overly affluent sports players, but it feeds so many of the corporations who act in ways that clearly run counter to the Kingdom of God. I don’t think I need to list all of those corrupt actions…

I love baseball…I fall victim to sports journalism constantly, but if I am serious about aligning fully with the message and way of Jesus, am I fueling a system that seeks to oppress the very people that Jesus came to set free? I mentioned a some of this struggle (including a church who created a Super Bowl commercial) on my blog: http://jonhuckins.blogspot.com/

Cheers! jon

Wonders, nice job trying to get me to see I’m lumped in with the bad guys!

I look back on my life and know that I would have never had the opportunity to see how discipline and hard work pay off unless I played football growing up.

Sports, and even martial arts, teach suburban and urban kids today what the farm taught us when we were agrarian. Hard work, discipline, risk, and foresight are all part of a life we have left behind. Risk and foresight are necessary because a farm is a very dangerous place. No news articles on cows trampling 70 year old farmers, but it happens, just happened to a friend.

So sports could be that agrarian strain that still needs to be used. Maybe Wendell Berry wrote something about that once?

Master of Trinity: Here in Cambridge, we’ve always been proud of our athletic prowess. We believe, we’ve always believed, that our games are indispensable in helping to complete the education of an Englishman. They create character. They foster courage, honesty and leadership. But most of all, an unassailable spirit of loyalty, comradeship and mutual responsibility.

…

Harold Abrahams: Sam Mussabini is the finest, most advanced, clearest-thinking athletics coach in the country. I’m honoured to be worthy of his atention.

Master of Caius: Nevertheless, he’s a professional.

HA: What else would he be? He’s the best.

MT: Ah, but there, Mr Abrahams, I’m afraid our paths diverge. You see, this university believes that the way of the amateur is the only one to provide satisfactory results.

HA: I am an amateur.

MT: You’re being trained by a professional. You’ve adopted a professional atitude. For the past year, you have concentrated on developing your own technique in the headlong pursuit, may I suggest, of individual glory. Not a policy very conducive to the fostering of esprit de corps.

…

Your aim is to win at all costs, is it not?

HA: At all costs, no. But I do aim to win within the rules. Perhaps you would rather I played the gentleman and lost?

MC: To playing the tradesman, yes.

…

HA: You know, gentlemen, you yearn for victory, just as I do. But achieved with the apparent effortlessness of gods. Yours are the archaic values of the prep school playground. You deceive no one but yourselves. I believe in the pursuit of excellence… and I’ll carry the future with me.

…

MT: A different god. A different mountaintop.