SPORTS
By David J.
Montgomery
A successful coach once said that
sports were not a matter of life and
death--they were much more important
than that! The amount of time and
energy expended by participants, the
space given to sports by newspapers
and broadcasters and the money paid
by spectators and sponsors suggests
that sports are among the most
significant areas of human activity.
On the surface, much of the activity
appears inconsequential, even
trivial: running, jumping, lifting or
propelling a ball the length of a
field, into a hole, over a net or
between sticks. But the high level of
interest taken by most people says
much about the relationship of sports
to basic human needs and their
contribution to personal and social
development.
HISTORY
Competitive team sports as we
have them today are largely a legacy
of the late nineteenth century. It
was then that many rules became
codified and games were incorporated
into school curricula. Records in
many of the current major leagues go
back to this period. Horse racing
probably goes back at least as far as
the early sixteenth century,
although, as with archery and
fencing, many sports of this period
are indistinguishable from military
training. Individual athletic
activity, however, was an ancient
phenomenon. The original Olympics
were founded around 776 B.C. The
participants were the aristocracy
with time for leisure, and the prize
was simply a laurel wreath. Gradually
the interests of individual
city-states took over, and rewards in
kind, including tax exemptions and
army deferments, were offered. In a
frighteningly contemporary scenario,
these Olympics folded in A.D. 394
amid cries of bribery, intimidation
and cheating.
The reviver of the Olympics,
Baron de Coubertin, emphasized the
underlying ethic of the games: "“The
most important thing in the Olympic
Games is not to win but to take part,
just as the most important thing in
life is not the triumph but the
struggle."” The ensuing hundred years
have left their mark on sports in
several key areas. Rampant
commercialism and the demand for
success at all costs have made
amateurism increasingly unviable;
Rugby Union, the last bastion,
finally fell in 1995. Vibrant
nationalism has replaced the Olympic
ideal of Jeux sans Frontiers, (Games
Without Borders). The pervasive
influence of the media, which can
dictate the timing and even rules of
some sports--tennis tiebreakers were
introduced because of television
demands. This means that, in many
people's eyes, sports are no longer
their own masters. Sports that were
once the domain of a particular
subcultural group (horse riding,
skiing and boxing, to name three)
increasingly transcend those
groups.
The Christian response to
sports over recent centuries has
often taken its impetus from the
Puritan reaction of the seventeenth
century. To be fair, their opposition
to many sports stemmed from either
the cruelty involved (blood sports),
the sport's association with
gambling, the immorality and
drunkenness among participants or the
fact that much of the sport took
place on the workers' only day off,
Sunday. D. Brailsford is unfair when
he says, "“Puritans saw their mission
to erase all sport and play from
men's lives"” (p. 141). Though some
Puritans believed “any formof play
took on the badge of tim- wasting,
idleness and, therefore, vice
(Brailsford, p. 127), others believed
that enjoyment of good company,
reading good books and appreciating
God's creation were all legitimate
and beneficial exercises. The
contemporary sports scene is
different in many ways from that of
the seventeenth century, and there
has been a welcome recovery of the
doctrine of creation, which
encourages participation and
enjoyment of leisure activities in
moderation as gifts from God.
BIBLICAL DATA
Although sports and sporting
contests were clearly part of life in
the ancient Near East and in the
Greco-Roman world, clear references
to sporting activity are somewhat
lacking in Scripture. Examples
sometimes cited include Jacob's
wrestling with the angel (Gen
32:24-26), the "contest" between
David and Goliath (1 Sam 17),
Jonathan's archery (1 Sam 20:20), the
contest at Helkath Hazzurim (2 Sam
2:14-16), Paul's allusions to the
athletic stadium and boxing ring (1
Cor 9:24-27) and the metaphor of the
race with spectators (Heb 12:1-2).
Most of these are tenuous and cannot
act as a foundation for a theology of
sports.
Jacob's experience was an
earnest struggle, not a recreational
diversion. The references in 1-2
Samuel deal with the realities of war
and military engagement. Even
Jonathan's archery fulfilled a
military purpose and does not support
the idea of archery as a form of
recreation. The New Testament
references allude to the existence of
athletic contests (in Paul's case it
is probably the Isthmian games, which
involved the six basic disciplines of
running, jumping, wrestling, boxing,
javelin and discus), but the purpose
of the illustrations is spiritual,
and not much can be deduced from
these passages about the writers'
views of such sport per se. It is
safe to assume that the biblical
writers' attitude toward sports was
governed by the extent to which core
kingdom values were upheld or
undermined by the activity in
question.
BENEFITS OF SPORTS
A major problem in
generalizing on the theme of sports
is the seemingly limitless variety of
competitive sports. Any comprehensive
encyclopedia of sports will contain
statistics from over one hundred
individual sports--from cricket to
hang-gliding, from skiing to snooker.
It will include geographically
limited sports such as baseball,
bandy, shinty and the American,
Australian and Gaelic codes of
football, as well as minority sports
such as real tennis, fives, pelota
and petanque. While this diversity of
sports and cultures makes generalized
applications unhelpful, if not
impossible, certain benefits and
drawbacks can be highlighted that are
applicable to most, if not all,
sporting activities.
Physical. An obvious
benefit of sports, and the most
quoted reason for involvement, is
physical exercise. The precise
benefits will vary, but solo sports
such as running, swimming and cycling
will improve the participant's
cardiovascular fitness, while other
sports such as the various codes of
football and hockey contribute more
toward body toning, muscular strength
and endurance. Regular participation
in athletic sports maintains the
body, keeping it in good condition
and counterbalancing more
debilitating influences such as
weight and aging. Soccer and running
develop the lower body more than the
upper, while the reverse is true of
some racket sports. Swimming has long
been accepted as the simplest and
most effective way of keeping all the
body's muscles active, while, in
contrast, a golf swing involves a
series of subtle, rapid, unnatural
body movements involving up to
sixty-four muscles and lasting for
less than two seconds. In this case
the physical benefits are accrued
more through the simple activity of
walking than through anything
integral to the game itself.
Mental and emotional.
The possible connection between a
disciplined and healthy body and a
higher degree of mental astuteness
and emotional stability cannot be
ignored. It is common for
psychiatrists to recommend sports for
their emotional and social benefits.
Temporary depressions can be eased
by physical exertion, and many can
testify to receiving light on some
complex problem while running or how
mentally demanding work such as
composition or written examinations
have proved much less taxing after
engaging in some recreation. From a
spectator's perspective the emotions
involved tend to be more extreme,
fleeting and unreliable and, for the
partisan fan, are often completely
dependent on the outcome of the game.
Sports have been regarded
historically as an effective means of
character building. The discipline of
training, playing by the rules,
coping with stiff opposition,
striving to achieve the unthinkable
and rebounding after disappointment
or defeat are all useful attributes
to develop in preparation for life. A
healthy attitude to the above should
result in an altogether more rounded
and complete person.
Social and cultural.
By their very nature team sports
require cooperation and a high degree
of interpersonal understanding and
commitment. The esprit de corps
experienced by team members is due to
a combination of factors: an inherent
enjoyment of the game, shared goals,
a sense of achievement and shared
sacrifices for the sake of the team.
In many Western suburban societies
where neighborhood community is
decreasing, a sports club can become
a prime arena for the social
interaction of like-minded people.
Major spectator sports also play an
important role in a city's or
country's sense of identity. In North
America a city remains inseparably
linked in the popular imagination
with the name of its major-league
team(s). In England the historical
popularity of soccer is largely due
to the loyalty felt by many to their
local town and the sense of
corporate identity provided by its
team. In Gaelic cultures sports such
as hurling and shinty and their
ancient precedents performed an
important role in training young men
of the clan for battle, and the
resultant intertown and intercounty
competition is still strong today.
Over the years some sports have been
unifying agents, bringing together
participants of diverse backgrounds
in places of conflict such as World
War I Europe (with its famous
Christmas Day soccer game), Northern
Ireland, the Middle East and modern
South Africa.
Spiritual.
Organizations such as Athletes in
Action in North America and
Christians in Sport in the United
Kingdom have played a part in
ministering pastorally to those
involved in professional and
high-level sports, as well as giving
the Christian message some street