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
credibility among sports-obsessed
youth. However, the spiritual
dimension of sports is not limited to
their usefulness as a medium for
evangelism but concerns the extent
to which values and morals are
developed within the sporting arena.
In particular, the Christian will be
marked out by the way in which he or
she responds to the clearly negative
influences in contemporary sports,
which are outlined below. Clear
spiritual benefits can accrue from
participation in sports as the
Christian competitor grapples with
the major issues of priorities,
ambition, temptation and
discipleship.
PROBLEM AREAS IN SPORTS
Physical, emotional, cultural
and spiritual abuses. Each of the
benefits mentioned above can be lost
through overindulgence or abuse. It
could be argued that in some cases
the physical benefits are nonexistent
or even negative. Most notably there
is the case of boxing: a sport whose
sole object is to inflict physical
injury and where the physical
benefits by way of general fitness
are clearly outweighed by the
inherent danger. Furthermore, the
body could be prematurely damaged if,
in pursuit of commercial gain or
fame, an athlete pushes too hard,
indulges in performance-enhancing
drugs, or competes while
injured--witness the common use of
painkillers among American football
players and the allegations of
puberty-postponing steroids among
East European gymnasts.
Similarly the emotional
benefits of participation will be
lost if the sport becomes an
obsession and no comfort is derived
simply from playing or achieving a
“moral victory.” During each World
Cup there seems to be a report from
some part of the globe about the
suicide of a soccer fan whose country
has just been eliminated. This took a
shocking turn in Colombia in 1994,
when the defender Andr&eacut;s
Escobar was murdered because of an
unfortunate score on his own goal.
The natural extremes of joy and
disappointment must be kept in
perspective, or all balance has been
lost. It is worth noting that the
demands of fame and success have not
always been kind to those who have
reached the top. O. J. Simpson is the
most celebrated example of a gifted
sportsman with extreme domestic
problems, but he is by no means
alone. There is, sadly, the
all-too-familiar sight of a gifted
but socially inept and lonely
"personality" who has sacrificed many
of the normal activities of life in
order to achieve a particular
"corruptible corwn" (1 Cor 9:25
KJV).
Socially, sport can also be
used to reinforce boundaries. The
Gaelic sports in Ireland were
deliberately developed in ways that
excluded the Protestant population,
and the two codes of rugby derive
from the late nineteenth-century
class conflict in England. Issues of
identity, loyalty and rivalry can
also be overemphasized and corrupted
and lead to intercommunity violence.
The Stanley Cup riots in Montreal and
Vancouver, hooliganism in Europe and
the Honduras-El Salvadoran war of
1969 (sparked off by a soccer result)
are extreme examples of the darker
side of sport's appeal to
nationalistic or tribal instincts.
Nor should we be blind to the
mixed motives of even the most
well-intentioned marriages of sports
and spirituality. One commentator has
remarked that the American athletic
subculture is probably the most
ministered-to segment in the world.
Is such ministry undertaken purely
out of need or because of its
propaganda potential? Are lesser
sports valued as much as high-profile
ones? Are the big-name and
less-famous stars treated equally?
Are the theological opinions of
sports personalities given greater
authority than those of proven Bible
teachers? How easily do worldly
values creep into our assessments?
Commercialism. Increasing
transfer fees, ludicrous wages, the
advent of the player's agent, the
high cost of admission to games, and
strikes in ice hockey and baseball
have all contributed to fan
dissatisfaction and alienation. While
it is partly true that the public's
desire for success has contributed to
the million-dollar merry-go-round,
there is a limit to how much
commercial exploitation even the most
die-hard fan will tolerate. How
ethical is it for soccer teams to
exploit the loyalty of their millions
of young (and often relatively poor)
fans by bringing out a new
uniform/strip every few months? How
right is it that (in 1993) an NBA
basketball star earned on average
thirteen times the wage of a
physician? What does it say about
society when the U.S. Senate
constitutes baseball an essential
service by legislating the strikers
back to work? Where is the morality
in Mexico's spending millions on
staging the Olympics when many of its
inhabitants were starving? Or in
Formula One motor racing, what are
the ethics behind spending millions
of dollars manufacturing machines
that have no function outside the
racetrack but burn up the earth's
natural resources, pollute the
atmosphere and endanger the lives of
the participants?
All these have implications for the
Christian, not least in the area of
attachment to and stewardship of
money. Christian professionals must
constantly examine their motives for
being involved in a high-paying sport
and seek to find ways in which their
privileged financial situation can be
turned to the advantage of others. If
it is within their power to do so,
will they remain loyal to one team
and concentrate on building
relationships within that community
rather than seeking or accepting a
more lucrative move elsewhere? How
often do Christians witness to
kingdom values by taking the less
financially rewarding option?
Christian fans also must continually
assess the morality of paying upwards
of $1000 for a good season ticket.
Can the benefits of sports be enjoyed
equally through supporting a Triple-A
baseball or nonleague soccer team and
keeping in touch with the
professional scene through the
more-than-adequate television
coverage? Christians can play a
strategic role in demonstrating that
neither money nor sports dominate
them and that if the whole edifice of
the professional-sports scene were to
collapse, life would continue.
Violence. All
competitive sports require an element
of mental or physical aggression, and
most team sports require physical
contact. The dilemma concerns the
point at which such aggression is
excessive, dangerous to the welfare
of other players and damaging to the
aggressor's own character and psyche.
Should not Christians who regularly
get red-carded in soccer recognize
their weakness and take appropriate
steps toward counseling and
accountability? The New Zealand haka
is a famous rugby ritual, but how
many other pregame rugby and NFL
warm-ups pander to an innately
violent machismo and contribute to
on-field violence? In high-contact
sports the potential for fighting and
brawling is ever-present, but
Christianity aside, the true
professional has always been regarded
as the one who is able to take the
knocks without retaliation (see Prov
14:29 GNB).
In ice hockey, fights by the
players are expected at every venue,
are treated by commentators as an
interesting aspect of game strategy
and are cheered by the crowd.
Christians surely must go against the
stream on this issue and refuse to
accept that this form of aggression
is essential to either the game or
its entertainment. In what way would
this immensely skillful, exciting and
highly physical sport be diminished
by outlawing such fights? Since
ring-related deaths in boxing
continue at an alarming rate,
Christian involvement in this sport
is becoming harder to justify. It is
difficult to understand how an
activity that would be a serious
criminal offense outside the ring can
be regarded as sport. It is argued
that boxing is a way for the
ghettoized to improve financially and
socially. But at what price comes the
improvement, and since when was
social advancement more important
than opposing institutionalized
violence? The skill, fitness and
opportunity to escape the ghetto that
boxing offers are equally available
through other sports. While, for
example, motor racing and
mountaineering can also be dangerous,
the object of these sports is to
conquer the danger through skill and
technique. Of course, not all
sport-related violence is even
indirectly connected with the sport
itself. Soccer hooliganism is a
social malaise that would be
unaffected by banning or changing the
rules governing the game.
Competition. Many
Christians struggle with
competitiveness. They regard
competitive instincts as part of
their fallen human nature--a sympton
of the desire to be best and to
succeed at the expense of others.
Some authors, such as A. Kohn, have
put forward a radical case against
competition. This inevitably leads
to a crisis of conscience when it
comes to sports, for competitiveness
is intrinsic to sports as
participants compete against others,
themselves, the clock or nature. The
spur to improve and achieve is what
motivates the participant, and the
consequent excitement of the battle
turns a sport into a spectacle worth
watching. Removing the competitive
element from sports emasculates them,
stripping them of many of the
benefits outlined above. The cut and
thrust of competition and the
discipline of performing within the
confines of a strict code of rules
sharpen the mental faculties, bond
the members of a team together and
lead to a higher level of physical
achievement.
The problem is not the desire
to compete but a temptation to win at
all costs and to bend the rules and a
distorted perspective that views all
of life in terms of winners and
losers. Competitiveness becomes
tainted when it seeps into other
areas, such as family life, church
or the workplace. Competing for the
affections of others, for status or
power, springs from pride, and such
jostling for position is explicitly
condemned by Christ (Mk 10:35-45; Lk
9:46-50), who took the form of a
servant (Jn 13:1-5; Phil 2:6-7) and
submitted himself even to death.
Professional sportspeople are usually
gracious in victory, for every winner
has experienced defeat, and it is
accepted that the losers will have
other chances to fight back. In other
contexts, however, competitiveness
can result in the systematic
suppression of the disadvantaged and
powerless. Competitive desires are no
more sinful than sexual desires. To
one God has given the gift of sports,
to the other the gift of marriage, as
the proper context for their
expression. To cross the boundaries
in either case is to court
disaster.
Idolatry. Idolatry is
the most common sin condemned in the
Bible. The temptation to break the
first command of the Decalogue (Ex
20:3) is so pervasive that every area
of human activity has the potential
to become an idol. It is not
surprising, therefore, that something
as fundamental to modern society as
sport is vulnerable to it. For the
spectator, the excitement of
media-hyped events can be as
seductive as any materialistic or
sexual temptation. There is grave
potential for addiction, and we can
become preoccupied with
entertainment, which demands nothing
of us physically, mentally or
spiritually. For the professional
participant, the quest for fame,
money and social status, together
with the increasing demands of
coaches, sponsors, clubs and the
general public, mean that 100 percent
commitment to sports will lead to the
exclusion of other relationships and
the erosion of other loyalties. The
Christian, in any field of life, has
to work out the vocational
implications of being totally
committed to Christ alone. In the
sports world where it is common to
hear team owners speaking of
“possessing” the players, these
implications are particularly
relevant.
One area where some prominent
Christian sportspeople have displayed
their priorities is Sunday sports.
The infamous case of Eric Liddell in
the 1924 Olympic Games, popularized
by the film Chariots of Fire, has
bolstered the sabbatarians'
abstentionist case. However, the
impressive list of Christian
sportspeople who do compete on Sunday
illustrates that it is not just
biblical scholars who are divided on
whether the strict requirements of
the Jewish sabbath can be applied to
the Christian community and would
lead to the conclusion that this is a
case of personal conscience. On one
hand, the action of Liddell and Jones
demonstrated in a powerful and
tangible way that there was something
more important in their lives than
sports, and Sunday participants must
decide what alternative ways are
available for them to make similar
proclamations. (German golfer
Bernhard Langer's worship services
for those on tour is one example.) On
the other hand, it is symptomatic of
a particularly introspective, myopic
and almost pharisaic Christianity
that more importance is attached to
this legal issue than to many of the
broader theological implications of
sports (see Mt 23:23-24).
For those who are called to
exercise their God given gifts as
professional athletes in a secular
world, Sunday participation is
probably inevitable, but alternative
opportunities for worship and sabbath
rest must be sought. For spectators
and amateur participants who have
more control over when and how often
they play, enough opportunities
exist to participate on Saturdays and
midweek, and Sunday participation
could prove to be an unhelpful
intrusion into time allocated for
worship. Furthermore, the
all-consuming nature of a competitive
event physically and psychologically,
with travel, emotional buildup,
participation, unwinding and
reflection all built into the
experience, means that although the
activity may in itself be
recreational, participation may leave
the player more drained than
refreshed, and thus an essential
benefit of sabbath has been lost.
CONCLUSION
Christian professionals need
to understand that a calling to
compete as an athlete is as high a
calling as any other. Unique
opportunities and unique difficulties
will be theirs, but their gifts are
God-given. Sports are to be enjoyed,
and they must accept the consequent
privileges and responsibilities. The
church should encourage and support
them in their calling and not hinder
them through advocating a hierarchy
of callings, perpetuating a
disrespect for creative leisure or
being sidetracked on minor issues
such as sabbatarianism.
Christian sportspeople at all
levels must also (1) refuse to be
drawn into a win-at-all-costs
philosophy, regardless of the demands
of coaches, owners or the general
public, thus obeying God rather than
humans (Acts 4:19); (2) recognize the
potential of fair play, sporting
behavior and honesty (especially when
infringements have gone unnoticed by
the umpire) as a powerful witness to
kingdom values, thus exhibiting
Christian integrity (Tit 2:6-7); (3)
constantly evaluate the time spent on
training and participation,
determining whether it is
proportionate to time spent on their
other callings of family, church and
community (Eph 5:15-16); (4)
recognize the essential transience of
sporting pursuits, that is, athletic
records rarely last more than a year,
and trophy winners are often
forgotten within a decade; (5) ensure
that they experience the physical,
emotional, social and spiritual
benefits of sports and avoid the
temptations of body abuse,
obsessiveness and idolatry.
Likewise Christian spectators
should (1) keep their sporting
interests in perspective and avoid
allowing the understandable and human
responses of jubilation or
disappointment to adversely affect
other pursuits and relationships; (2)
regularly reassess the money and time
spent on sports events, determining
whether they encourage the greed of
players or owners, are being
irresponsible in their personal
budgeting regarding travel to
overseas events, mindlessly buy the
commercial products put out ad
infinitum by the promoters, are
passing on essentially materialistic
values to their children and organize
their lives around sporting
schedules; (3) avoid adherence to the
media-supported personality cult,
recognizing that these people are
sports stars and not role models; (4)
ensure that their loyalty to city or
country does not lead to racism or
ethnocentricity; (5) enjoy sports
for their own sake, appreciating the
beauty and skill involved, while
recognizing their transience and the
relative unimportance of what is at
stake. This too shall pass (Eccles
3:20). It is not a matter of life and
death.
REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
P. Ballantine, Sport--The
Opiate of the People, Grove
Ethical Studies 70 (Bramcote, U.K.:
Grove Books, 1988); D. Brailsford,
Sport and Society: Elizabeth to
Anne (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1969); F. Inglis,
The Name of the Game (London:
Heinemann Educational Books, 1977);
S. J. Hoffman, Sport and Religion
(Champaign, Ill.: Human
Kinetics, 1992); A. Kohn, No Contest:
The Case Against Competition
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992); J.
W. Loy and G. S. Kenyon, eds.,
Sport, Culture and Society
(New York: Macmillan, 1969); R. D.
Mandell, Sport: A Cultural History
(New York: Columbia University
Press, 1984); M. Novak, The Joy of
Sports: End Zones, Bases, Baskets,
Balls and the Celebration of the
American Spirit (New York:
Lanham, 1988).
Taken from The
Complete Book of Everyday
Christianity. Edited by Robert Banks
and R. Paul Stevens. Article by
David J. Montgomery, assistant
minister, Stormont Presbyterian
Church, rmission kindly granted to
Faith and Reason Forum by
InterVarsity Press.