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Andy Crouch’s new book, Culture Making, offers 5 questions that you should ask about cultural artifacts (i.e. cultural goods, things that make up a culture) if you want to understand it better:

1. What does the cultural artifact assume about the way the world is?
2. What does it assume about the way the world should be?
3. What does it make possible?
4. What does it make impossible (or at least more difficult)?
5. What new culture is created in response?

On his website, Andy is asking these questions about the Olympics, and asking others to join the conversation.  (At the very least, you should check it out for the cool response format Andy has set up.)

There was an ad in this morning’s paper that confused me.  It was for Liberty Mutual’s Responsibility Project, and the ad started with this scenario: “Your sons favorite ballplayer just got arrested.” There is then a looping, swooping string of possible advice to give your son - I’m not sure if it’s meant to be a variety of options or a single conversation - that read,

Say he’s an example of how NOT to act -> Athletes aren’t role models -> Keep your opinions to yourself. -> Life’s all about second chances. -> Who am I to judge?

I’m not really sure what “keep your opinions to yourself” is all about; I’m not familiar with any U.S. athletes being arrested as political prisoners.  But it struck me that we talk a lot about athletes being role models or not being role models, either as good citizens or bad seeds, as if a person was one or the other and could never change.  Here in Cincinnati in recent years, we’ve had our share of “bad seed”-type athletes (or so we think - more on that in a second).  Most of the time, they are either written off altogether as too much risk, or their athletic ability earns them a second, third, or fourth chance to be on the team. Our city has also had its share of  “role model” athletes, who are put on such a high pedestal that they seem almost like gods.

We’ve also been fortunate enough to have had a local athlete who has given us a glimpse of true reality: Josh Hamilton. Hamilton was a golden boy, the #1 pick in the baseball draft, who quickly turned into a “bad seed,” complete with drug addictions and scary-looking tattoos.  But then, so far as anyone can tell these types of things, Hamilton was converted to Christ, and, through the power of Christ, his life has been transformed and redeemed.  Praise God.

We tend to lump athletes (all celebrities, really) into “good guys” and “bad guys,” as if life were some sort of action movie or pro wrestling set-up. We tend not to take the time to think about athletes as human beings who happen to be extraordinarily gifted in one area of life, who are made in God’s image, who have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and who are in need of Christ to redeem their lives.

The Liberty Mutual ad was not Christian, did not even suggest what the right way to approach their scenario might be.  (The ad’s tag line is “What’s the responsible point of view? Everyone has one.  Let’s hear yours.”  I don’t think I buy the idea that “everyone” has a “responsible” point of view.)  Yet it motivated me to pray for some of the local athletes who have gotten themselves into trouble.  They are usually young men doing the stupid, destructive things that young men tend to do.  I really don’t care if they get their athletic careers back on track, since the celebrity and wealth that come from those careers seems to be enabling their destructive behavior.  But I confess that, for the first time, I was moved to pray for them and their families, that Christ would redeem their lives, and heal both their wounds and the wound they have inflicted on others.

May God make it so.

To move things in a completely different direction, maybe human beings are the “running animal.”  We’re not used to thinking of human beings as physically superior to other animals - e.g. cheetahs are faster, elephants are stronger - but it turns out that human beings are the best long-distance runners in the world. So says Daniel Lieberman of Harvard and Dennis Bramble of Utah. In another article, Lieberman notes that:

Once humans start running, it only takes a bit more energy for us to run faster, Lieberman said. Other animals, on the other hand, expend a lot more energy as they speed up, particularly when they switch from a trot to a gallop, which most animals cannot maintain over long distances.

They also point out that human beings are the only animals in the world that run long distances - like a marathon - voluntarily.  Which reminds me of the scene from Back to the Future 3 in which some cowboys are laughing at Marty McFly’s “running shoes.”  

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It’s common to hear athletes credit their success to God or thank God for a victory.  Occasionally, sportswriters will question whether God cares about a particular athlete’s success or failure.  After all, whether some player hits a three-pointer or catches a ball does seem far less important than Darfur, North Korea, or Iraq.  Read the rest of this entry »

There is a good review at the NY Times today about “Reel Baseball,” a DVD collection of early baseball films. It includes this remarkable plot summary for “His Last Game,” a movie from 1909:

[T]he story is unusually pointed: a Choctaw Indian, the star pitcher of his local (integrated!) baseball team, is plied with drink by a pair of gamblers who want him to throw the game; in an argument he kills one of them and is immediately sentenced to death by firing squad.

But as he is digging his own grave, the townspeople show up and press him into service for a game. He pitches, wins for the home team and then returns to the open grave, where he is summarily executed.

Wow.

The NY Times is reporting that the NCAA is no longer accepting transcripts from 4 high schools, including Luther Christian Academy in Philadelphia. Some of the key factoids about Luther Christian from the article:

• The basketball coach, Daryl Schofield, is also the only teacher.
• Four students told the NCAA that they are not required to attend class.
• Schofield bragged that the school is adding a library next year (so, up until now, they did not have one).
• The NY Times paraphrases Schofield saying that most of the students have already graduated high school, but “need another year of exposure as players.”
• To come into compliance with the NCAA, Schofield - again, the basketball coach and only teacher - said that he’s planning to attend a conference on Christian education.

This isn’t the only basketball team-disguised-as-a-school that calls itself “Christian.” I’m also reminded of incidents from the past couple of years in which “Christian” high schools used over-age football players in order to win games against rivals.

Are these schools part of a trend of Christians breaking rules and compromising students’ education for the sake of sports success, or is it more of a general societal trend? Does it have anything to do with the idolization of Christian athletes as role models for the faith?

IMHO, Christians need to develop a theology of sports - I’m completely serious about this - that unpacks the meaning of sports and competition within the Christian life. This is an opinion I’ve had for a while. Sports is a HUGE factor in American culture, but there are rarely sermons that address sports as more than a metaphor or example of some other point. Without a theology of sports, which puts sports in the proper perspective and explore how they can be a fruitful part of a Christian’s life, it’s so easy for their importance to become overblown.

It’s quotes like this one, today’s lead sentence from Tom Verducci’s Inside Baseball:

One year after Game of Shadows, one of the most important books of our time…

Well, no, it’s not “one of the most important books of our time,” but in the world of sports, it is. And in the world of sports, nothing matters except sports.

If you hate sports, that’s one more reason to hate everything about sports: the inflated sense of self-importance that takes for granted that hitting a ball with a stick and/or catching said ball with a glove is worth millions of dollars per year.

If you love sports, it’s one more reason to love them: the real problems of the world can be laid aside for a few moments so that we can argue about who’s best at hitting that ball with a stick and/or catching said ball with a glove.