I'm reading a book called 'Among the Thugs' by Bill Buford, a book about soccer hooliganism in the 1980s and published in 1991. Fascinating account of what it's like to be an extreme sports fan. It makes me not quite sure I want to go and spend some time in England watching soccer matches someday. I don't want exactly want to be knifed or have people pee on me from above because I'm some kind of American wanker.
It makes me think something of sports fandom, how dangerous to the soul it might be. Maybe there is not this kind of extremism or violent mob mentality in American sports, but the sociological questions of what it means to be a true 'fan' are fascinating. Last night we went up to my evangelical Christian university's gymnasium to see the men's and women's basketball teams play basketball against another university. It wasn't a terribly interesting game, but to watch sports fan scream at officials, yell at the opposing team, and act like this is of vital importance makes me think. What are Christians to really think about sports?
For most of the last few centuries sports was held at arms' length by the organized church. It was viewed as being frivolous, as edifying body rather than spirit. But in the late 19th century the YMCA started to appeal to youth with the idea that sports was important for both their body and their mind. Promoting this idea of 'virile manhood', churches and church-related organizations started pushing sports, thinking that it wasn't just enough to preach. Naturally much of the 'religious' element eventually got pushed out...would anybody consider the "Y" a 'Christian' organization now? Probably not. But they certainly have some good waterslides...
Now that my children are getting older, they are starting to play sports. It's not that they are that interested in them yet, but we want them to try things. So Elizabeth is now playing 'Upward' basketball. It's a fascinating operation they have...they teach kids how to post up or execute a good cheer even as they are trying to get them to hear a word of Scripture and teach character. I can't really find anything wrong with it...but over time, will Upward move away from the Christian foundation it is trying to promote? Will its emphasis on outreach eventually mean that it doesn't stand for much at all, so as not to offend?
The idolatry of sports is one of the great dangers to the modern church. We have so much free time, so much discretionary income in our American culture that we have the means to obsess about what a group of men wearing a certain uniform do. In some cultures it turns them into lunatics that go rampaging through European cities. Others have a less dangerous activity, perhaps, but their passion is just as strong. It overcomes churches, it divides families, it makes a mockery of those of us who claim that we are to be serving God first and foremost. Lord help us to keep sports in their rightful place.
