God, Family, and the Green Bay Packers

[richard duncan]

> With Rod Smith, I was also bemused by the fact that sports was not
> "called" as an off-list topic; yet I find this to be true on a number of
> other lists as well.  Although most people don't make a religion of
> sport, I wondered (as a non-historian) whether, say, 17th century people
> talked as regularly and casually about God as we do about sport--whether
> God was a topic that was always appropriate to bring up in the
> conversation, no matter what its major focus was--and when sport replaced
> God as the acceptable topic for creating a community of friendship.  I was
> also wondering about the comparative percentage of people who would
> sacrifice significant time/money/energy to get to the Superbowl compared
> to those who would do the same to get to Christmas/Yom Kippur/etc.
> services.  And why.
_______________________

Actually, probably more men will sacrifice time, money, etc. to travel
to a Promise Keepers rally than to the Super Bowl. Many men and women
will also sacrifice time, money, etc. to go on a short-term missions
trip. My little country church of about 200 people will send over 40
people to Mexicali for a week in April to help a Mexican church
construct a building and to run a Bible School for local children. And
thousands of other churches do similar things every year. This is a
week without indoor plumbing and one which costs each participant
several hundred dollars. I love football as much as the next guy
(maybe more), but I would not spend a week without plumbing for the
opportunity to see the Chiefs in the Superbowl. America may well be
sliding into the gutter, but there is a significant remnant committed
to God and God's work.

I am sure that more money is spent supporting the work of churches
and religious ministries in America than is spent on all professional
sports (I could be wrong about this, but I don't think so). Some
people use football as an idol. Some spend Sundays reading the New
York Times over brunch. But many still love God, and can be found
about His business.

By the way, I wonder if in the 17th Century a guy could be accused of
"religious harassment" for sharing his faith in the workplace? In
this regard, it is also interesting to note that when Thomas Jefferson
was president of the District of Columbia public schools the principal
books used in the curriculum were the Bible and Watts Hymnal. That
might have encouraged children to converse as casually about God as we
do today about sports. As another member of this list once wrote,
today's secular public schools "do not necessarily produce atheists,
but they produce young adults who inevitably think of religion as
extraneous to the real world of intellectual inquiry, if they think of
religion at all."
--
                   ----------
             Rick Duncan (rduncan at unlinfo.unl.edu)

"The only solid hopes for the well-being of my country depend not so
much on her fleets and armies, not so much on the wisdom
of her rulers or the spirit of her people, as on the persuasion
that she still contains many who, in a degenerate age, love
and obey the Gospel of Christ, on the humble trust that the
intercession of these may still be prevalent, that for the sake of
these, Heaven may still look upon us with an eye of favor."
         --William Wilberforce