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How do we reconcile sport and Christianity? That's the question we've been looking at for the last two team talks. Having set out the issue in the first team talk, last week we answered the objection that Christians shouldn't be involved in sport because of how fallen the world of sport is. In answering this we said that our moral rebellion against God isn't something that we can locate in particular environments, contexts, or activities like ‘sport' or ‘nightclubs', instead its found much closer to home - in our hearts. Consequently sport is as fallen as the people who play it. However Jesus' call isn't so much to withdraw from the world and fallen people, instead he came into the world to redeem the world and now by His Spirit and word he calls His people to do likewise.


As human beings we're not very good at living balanced lives - we tend to extremes. So if one extreme is to think that ‘sport is bad and Christians have no place playing sport' then there's a parallel error that we can swing to on the other side. Let me explain. We understand that it's OK for Christians to be involved in sport, and we see that Christ came into the world to redeem the world so we now see our involvement in sport exclusively in terms of ‘being in it to win it'. We want to win many people for Christ, and so we get stuck in to the world of sport to reach the unreached with the good news of Jesus.


Of course there's nothing wrong with this per se; everyone needs to hear the gospel - it literally is an issue of life and death, but what I'm suggesting is that if we're not careful this view can become ‘unbalanced' in two ways.


1. We can make sport a ‘tool' for evangelism. As we see people's great need to hear the gospel, then all things seem to pale into insignificance and so we start to think that the only thing that matters is evangelism. The world rapidly becomes polarized into that which helps us evangelize and that which distracts us from evangelism. But we need to be clear that whilst sport may be a very effective tool for evangelism it is much more than just a tool for evangelism. God made the world and everything in it and he declared it to be good and sport is part of this original creation. More than this God is redeeming this world and making the ‘new creation'. As such God is affirming the dignity of what he has created and showing that sport is not just a ‘means to an end' but can be an end in itself - a good gift given and redeemed by a loving heavenly Father. We need to be heard loud and clear saying that sport isn't just a tool - sport is good and I'm born to play!


2. We can make evangelism into something that we think earns favor with God. Often when people grasp the significance of the gospel then they kind of start to see Jesus like a coach - on the side of the track, thumb on stopwatch, shouting at you the athlete to try harder and witness to people. So we try as hard as we can to ‘run' hoping that if we do enough then Jesus will be pleased with us. Now this puts us under enormous pressure to perform and ultimately starts to undermine the work of the cross. Nothing we can do can make God love us any more and nothing we can do will make Him love us any less. Someone has said that Jesus is not so much like the coach on the sideline, but he is more like the air in our lungs - as secure in his love for us he empowers us and equips us by His Spirit in us to do his will.


I wonder - how balanced is your outlook as a player living for Christ? Do you tend towards one of these extremes? Do you hear others making this mistake? Or by God's grace are you on a more even keel, living for Christ, loving sport and trying by the power He gives you to tell others this amazing news?


[This article was written by Pete for Christians in Sport dated 17 September 2009]

I wrote last week that given the present significance of sport in our culture this is a big issue, an important issue, and it's a relevant issue. Some claim that Christians shouldn't play sport because it's a morally compromised culture and the recent headlines make a pretty compelling case; blood capsules in rugby to make illegal substitutions, Jamaican sprinter's taking banned substances, diving in football to win penalties, and we could all list many more. How can Christians be involved in such an environment? Shouldn't they be distinctive to the world rather than complicit in the world's godless existence? Won't Christians themselves become morally compromised in this culture?

In answering this question it's important to say upfront that we're considering the issue ‘in general' but I'm not legislating for any individual and their own specific decision. Each person needs to inform his or her conscience and make their own decision before God. However, it is important to see that there's an error in thinking that ‘Christians shouldn't play sport because sport is bad' and primarily the error lies in where we locate the problem of sin.

To believe that Christians should stay separate to the world of sport is most often linked to believing that sin is a matter of environment. It's to divide the world up into immoral places like, sports pitches, bars and nightclubs and moral environments like churches, and the family home. However this is to grossly underestimate how deep rooted our problem before God really is. The problem with the world isn't that there are certain dark corners that need God's divine light, the problem is as Romans 1:21 puts it we have all rejected God and so our ‘foolish hearts are darkened'. That is why Jesus teaches that our moral rebellion against God is located in the very core of our being - our hearts; ‘For from within out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder , adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.' (Mark 7:21-22).

Sport may sometimes look worse than other areas of life, but a careful analysis reveals that it's no worse than what takes place behind the closed front door of our homes. Lying, cheating, hurt, anger, sexual perversion and unfaithfulness - in thought or deed, (to mention but a few), aren't caused by ‘wrong place, wrong time' but occur at all times and all places. If we really were to expect Christians to retreat from every area of life where we saw a failure to live up to God's standards then we'd face the impossible task of having to run away from ourselves.

This is not to say that there aren't some environments where following God's way isn't particularly difficult and so perhaps some contexts that it's wise for Christians to avoid. But we shouldn't forget that Christ was regularly found amongst ‘sinners' in the very context that the so called religious elite would never be seen in and so we must never draw lines between the apparent ‘clean' and ‘unclean'. Sport may be fallen but this is only because fallen people play it - not because there's anything inherently wrong with it.

Christ's call has often been said to be that those who follow him should be ‘in the world but not of the world'. This is tough, and to be honest it's a lot neater and easier to draw lines in the sand than it is to get stuck into the world in all its mess and falleness. But then again we could do a lot worse than ask ‘what did Jesus do'? Didn't he live right in the middle of this fallen world? Didn't he come to the world to tell the world about how it might be reconciled to him - the creator and redeemer? And isn't this now what he calls those who follow him to do as we remember that with this call there's also a promise... ‘and surely I'll be with you until the end of this age'.


[Note: This article was written by Pete for Christians in Sport dated 10 Sept 2009.]

A number of years ago I remember chatting to a good friend about playing rugby, like me he was a Christian and he was perplexed that as a Christian I was still playing. "What's wrong with playing rugby?" I asked. "Well there's so much cheating and aggression in the game isn't there?" he responded. At the time I didn't know quite what to make of this. Perhaps he was right, perhaps I should give it up. But then God had created me with the gifts and a passion to play. So how should I reconcile this tension?

Many people face this dilemma, and at Christians in Sport we are asked this question in different forms hundreds of times each year. Equally the Christian community has ‘answered' this question in many different ways, sometimes it's a thought through response, and more often than not it's a response that has emerged ‘organically' over time. Over the next few weeks I want to work through some of the different responses to help us see some of their pitfalls, and ultimately to help us to understand better how the Bible would have us reconcile this apparent tension. Of course we may have to take a week's break every now and then if something significant happens in the world of sport but barring interruptions we'll try to work this question through in the next few issues of our ‘team talk'.

To start with though let's just notice a few things. First, this is a big issue. As a proportion of the population the number of people playing sport is big (globally and in the UK) and it's getting bigger. Current estimates are that about one third of all adults play sport formally or informally once a week and that number is increasing - particularly in the UK with increased investment around the ‘Golden Decade' of sport.

Secondly it's an important issue. Some people may think ‘look why bother trying to figure it out - aren't there more important issues to get caught up in?' Well, it's an important issue for many people worldwide who feel like they are ‘wired-up' to play sport and yet passionately want to faithfully serve Christ - they long for an answer. But also it's important because as C.S Lewis famously wrote; ‘There is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.'

Thirdly it's a relevant issue. Of course it's relevant for Christians who are passionate about sport, but I'd suggest it's also relevant for everyone else: If we can't understand how sport and Christianity are reconciled then what it really exposes is that we don't understand how our Christian faith engages with the world around us. It means that we have a very limited view of our relationship with God. Of course we may say ‘Christianity's not just for Sunday' but in practice we don't know what difference if any it makes to Monday through Saturday.

Sport isn't more important than other activities we can engage with in God's creation - it just so happens that I love it and have the privilege of working in this specific culture and writing about it. But at least it is no less important than other activities in God's creation, and as such this tension needs to be engaged with.

[Note: This article was written by Pete for Christians in Sport - 3 September 2009.]