A Brief Theology of Sport
Several years ago I was a speaker at a youth camp. When it was time for the first group to play, a leader began telling a parable based on Genesis 1-3. He describes the joy of play in the Garden of Eden where the emphasis is on the joy of play. But one day the serpent entered the garden and tempted the inhabitants of Eden with the idea of numbers. They fall into temptation and start keeping score in their own games, and this leads to all kinds of evil—competition, lust for victory, deceit, anger, and fighting. He lost the simple joy of playing.
This parable tells the youth that they will be introduced to non-competitive sports at camp this week. There were no points, no winners or losers, just the joy of playing. But there was one serious problem - the games were completely and utterly boring. Day by day fewer and fewer youngsters showed up to play, so eventually there were only a handful of youngsters.
Is this an accurate depiction of the theology of sports? Obviously I don't think so. I would like to offer a concise and comprehensive theology of sport. If you don't like that headline, you might be thinking, "Why would we watch the Super Bowl!"
History can be summed up in three words: Creation, Fall and Liberation. So when you're looking at a problem theology, you have to ask: What does it have to do with creation, the fall, or redemption? While considering sports, I added two more words to broaden my concept - incarnation and moksha (both of course associated with creation, fall and liberation).
Creation - God can create everything to be gray and useful. Rather, it has produced a great variety of colors, shapes, sizes, smells, textures, sounds and tastes. Why did he do that? He did this so that creation would reflect his personality and especially his beauty. It is a magnum opus of capability and structure. Composition is a work of art.
The arts are sometimes considered a combination of two types: visual arts – such as painting, sculpture, or architecture, and performing arts – such as drama, music, and dance. God included both visual and performing arts in creation. Visual Arts: Flowers, Mountains, Trees; Performing Arts: Oceans and Rivers, Planetary Orbits, Clouds. Something in the universe connects these two.
Sports are a reflection of this creative activity of God. They combine visual arts (painted field/court, team colors and logos) and performing arts (actual drama). Play refers to the act and form of creation. There is excellence in a play that goes for flawlessness, a very much tossed ball, a jumping get, a twofold play turn. These things can bring excitement and joy because they are a reflection of how the world was created. These are displays of art (or artistry, if you prefer).
The Lord also created things in a certain order, not at random, and He laid down the rules of creation or rules by which nature operates. Games also have an order to them and their own rules by which they are governed. Just as there are consequences for rebelling against established order (such as defying gravity), there are consequences for not following the rules in sports. The game reflects the nature and principles of creation. As it is in nature, this reflection, when done well, honors the Lord and delights the admirer.
The Fall - In the fall, man rebelled against sin, and the curse from that fall touched every part of everything - nothing survived. This means that we would expect to see evidence of a decline in games, and of course we would. There is sin of conduct, there is sin of action.
The deadliest of these sins is the idolatry of sport—when it occupies the highest place in the affections of the heart and the thoughts of the mind. When life is planned while the game is being played or when a person's entire outlook is influenced by whether his team will win or lose, he has crossed the line into an unhealthy and sinful passion.
There are other wrong attitudes - when only winning matters when one will do whatever it takes to succeed when personal glory ends - when people are arrogant or angry. These are all fallen sins. This decline is reflected in activities such as steroid use in sports, game fixing, corking bats, bench-emptying brawls and many others.
Avatar – We are embodied beings and avatar ensures that our bodies are more than mere vessels for our souls. Even in our eternal state, we will have bodies – glorified bodies but bodies nonetheless. The Christian life is not about condemning the body but about subduing it to honor the Lord.
Sports are one of the things that help us to do that. Playing a sport requires discipline and the disciplining of the body for sports can carry over into our spiritual lives. Sports require determination, delayed gratification, and a toughening-up of the body. Sports can also teach how to work with a team, how to submit to authority, how to encourage those not as naturally gifted as others, and how to hit hard. And they teach patience. Even time on the bench can be sanctifying.
Sports are one way that we honor the truth and reality of the incarnation and glorify God by using our bodies in God-honoring ways.
Salvation - The history of salvation is a drama. A drama, to be effective, depends at the least on knowledge, motion, and timing. In the drama of salvation, the Lord had a game plan, and knowledge, before the beginning of time. At the creation this game plan was put in motion, what we know as the people and events of unfolding history. And it was all done according to God's timing - Galatians tells us that Christ came in the fullness of time. That drama continues today. It is what C.S. Lewis called the true myth.
Today, actors/actresses in drama need to know their lines (knowledge), they need to know where they are supposed to be in a scene (motion) and they need to know when they are to play their part and say their lines (timing). The great drama also has that sense of being a true myth.
This dramatic notion of knowledge, motion, and time is reflected in sports. The knowledge is seen in the plays and strategies that are a part of sports. The motion is seen in the carrying out of those strategies and they are only successful if the timing of everyone involved is correct. Sports portray drama action and also have that mythic aspect to them. It may be that part of sports appeal comes from the fact that they are universal in being part of human life. Some would say that sports transcend entertainment and take on a meaning that is significant and important in the lives of people who enjoy and devote time to sports.
The heart of our salvation is the saving work of Christ - he gave himself for us, body and blood.
Sports are one of the only arenas in life where you can offer your body for the good of others. Many plays in sports - a block, a diving catch, a physically demanding gymnastic routine - are the giving up of the body for the sake of the team. This is a display of the gospel.
Redemption - Redemption is the delight in restoration. When that redemption is accomplished completely at the consummation it becomes glorification - that will be full of joy and unhindered delight. The joys and delights of this life are gifts of grace. They are never completely satisfying but they give a taste of what that complete satisfaction will be like.
Sports, for the fans, are one of those gifts that bring joy and delight (also at times disappointment so we learn how to deal with that in a healthy and godly way). They are to be enjoyed in themselves for what they are - a gift of grace. The enjoyment never lasts or is total but it is a taste of that complete satisfaction that causes us to long for more. So while a sport can be enjoyed in itself, it points us to more than just this momentary enjoyment; it reveals the longing for everlasting joy. The sports fan who recognizes this greater purpose is viewing that enjoyment from a biblical perspective. Temporal enjoyment is a gift but it is not an end. When treated as an end, it borders on the idolatrous. We must train our joy to be experienced as part of God's purpose.
Like all other things in life, we are to take sports captive and make them obedient to Christ. Sports viewing and sports participation can become transforming activities when we view sports as one of the ways that God is extending to us His grace and in recognizing that it is a means to long for the greater joy that only Christ can give.
There is much more that could be said. I have not even touched on Paul's use of sports language and his use of sports as a metaphor for spiritual life. I have not talked about how sports can be used as an evangelistic tool to spread the gospel. I have not mentioned how sports should blend physical strength and courage with meekness and love. I have not referred to the relationship between sports and our spiritual warfare. But I hope I have given enough to make you think - and perhaps to think of sports a little differently than you have before.
