In this clip, David Platt makes some good points:
1. He can get away with it because he's such a likable guy. But as a rule, I think it's a mistake for pastors to scold parishioners about sports. They're talking to the wrong audience. They should be grateful that people do attend their church, given all the competition for their attention.
2. A danger with invidious comparisons is that it cuts both ways. What if someone replies that he'd find church more exciting if the pastor didn't make it so boring. Are there things pastors can do to make church legitimately more interesting and engaging?
3. Another issue is recognition that there are things we can change and things we can't. Scolding sports fans won't change minds. It's not likely to make them less fond of sports. Rather, it alienates the from the church.
A better strategy is to take advantage of popular interest in sports. Use that as a vehicle to reach the lost. Don't wait for sports fans to come to church; rather bring church to them! For instance:
Douglas GroothuisAbstract: I argue that football is morally objectionable because it is intrinsically violent and thus is conducive to vice in both its players and its fans. By way of contrast, I argue that baseball is only contingently violent, that it is not based on violence, and that it is, as such, a morally superior sport.1. Football is intrinsically violent. It cannot be played without heavy padding and physical punishment. Professional players typically undergo multiple surgeries for repeated injuries. Many of these injuries are permanently debilitating. The nature of the sport encourages a toleration for, and even promotion of, violence. Players attempt to injure each other to take them out of the game. Many young men are seriously injured while playing football. Why risk the damage to a growing body? If the body is “fearfully and wonderfully made” and the temple of the Holy Spirit for the Christian, why should anyone treat one’s own body and other’s bodies to so much physical abuse? We were not designed for this kind of punishment.
He raises some valid questions and concerns. That said:
i) There's the danger of elitism. Groothuis is a philosophy prof. The fact that football is unappealing to him isn't the benchmark for boys and men who have a passion for football.
ii) Overshadowing all of life is the inexorable specter of human mortality. That prompts us take risks we'd otherwise avoid, because sooner or later we're going to die anyway. Due, moreover, to the aging process, there's an unrepeatable window of opportunity to do certain things. If you wait too long, that's a lost opportunity you never get back. You can be health nut and still die of Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.
iii) There's lots of talk about "racial reconciliation", but few venues are better than a ball field to achieve that objective.
iii) There's lots of talk about "racial reconciliation", but few venues are better than a ball field to achieve that objective.
iv) We live in a society where the cultural elites are making every effort to suppress masculinity. But the predictable result is to make many young men recoil against feminism. It creates a backlash.
If we don't have contact sports with rules and protective equipment, boys will resort to aggressive behavior without the safeguards. The alternative won't be less violence but more violence.
v) Speaking of which, I'm bemused by social commentators who say football is violent. In a very tame, domesticated way that's true, but we've become so spoiled by contact sports that we've forgotten what real male violence looks like. Left to their own devices, males have a propensity for extreme violence. Consider the Iroquois. That was a heathen warrior culture. Here's an example of what men are capable of doing when they lack any cultural Christian restraint:
As they went they saw the Iroquois braves slaughtering the remaining Indians [Hurons] in the village, setting the wigwams afire, and throwing the wounded people and little children into the flames. Both priests were tied to stakes. Mocking baptism, the Iroquois poured boiling water over their heads to scald them. They then cut off the nose, ears, lips, and other body parts of de Brebeuf, smashed his teeth with a club, put red hot hatchet blades on his shoulders, put hot coals on top of his head, and then smashed his skull with a tomahawk. They pulled out the eyes of Lalemont and forced hot coals into the sockets, they sliced open his thighs in the form of a cross and then burned him at the stake. Both priests prayed as long as they could and proclaimed their love and forgiveness for their torturers. (The account of their martyrdom was made public by some of the Indians who had witnessed it and later were converted to the Catholic Faith.) Because de Brebeuf died so stoically without crying out, something the Indians greatly admired, they cut out his heart and liver after his death and ate them raw, so they could, in their belief, obtain his kind of courage and ability to endure pain.
That capacity is always lurking just under the surface. Remove Christian ethics, then watch men revert to unmitigated savagery. Instead of whining about the "violence" of contact sports, we should we grateful for outlets that channel and curb male aggression.
Great points!
ReplyDeleteAlso, short of male aggression, if we don't allow boys to play sports, I wonder if the apparent rise in issues like ADHD in boys, at least in some cases, isn’t due to the fact that many kids today stay indoors rather than go and play outdoors. Kids need to regularly burn off energy, but when kids don’t get that chance, they become like a super energetic border collie that’s trapped inside all day.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteI don't see how you're concluding that Platt is talking to the wrong audience. Attending church is one of the issues involved, but it's not as though missing church over sports is the only way in which sports can be abused. He gave other examples of the abuse of sports in the video you linked, and those other examples are applicable to people who attend church. Besides, part of what Platt is doing, and what sermons in general are meant to do, is preparing us to interact with the rest of the world. Criticism of the sins of our culture is appropriate in a sermon, even though the criticism isn't applicable primarily to the people in that church. And when somebody like Platt knows that he's being filmed and knows that a larger audience is and/or will be listening to him, it would be irresponsible for him to only take the people attending his church at the time into account.
There's a sense in which we should be grateful that people are attending church, but we can also say that we should be grateful for other things they do that are insufficient. People can believe in God's existence and some of his attributes, yet be ignorant of or misdefine other attributes. They can read the Bible, but not often enough or well enough. They can pray, but not the way they ought to. We can be grateful for the good they do while criticizing them for their deficiencies.
There are a lot of men who don't want to be criticized over their abuse of sports. They also don't want to be criticized about other things. We should criticize them anyway. If they're so masculine and don't want an overly feminine church, then they should be man enough to take the criticism. Platt wasn't calling on men to be feminine. He was calling on them to mature as men. If a man confuses the abuse of sports with masculinity, and would do something as absurd as no longer attending a church because of comments like Platt's, then that's evidence that Platt's criticism was warranted.
The idea that "scolding sports fans won't change minds" could be applied to criticizing other groups as well, yet the Bible and pastors for centuries have criticized those groups anyway. Often, a sermon will be one source among others that gradually brings about a change for the better in a person's life. Somebody who initially resists something eventually accepts it. One person or a few may benefit from a sermon, even though most of the audience doesn't benefit from it. Comments like Platt's would get a bad reaction from a lot of men, but we take more than that into account when judging the contents of a sermon.
ReplyDeleteWe can "take advantage of popular interest in sports" while criticizing the absurd amount of time people spend on sports and other ways in which sports are abused in this culture.
Sports are one of the ways in which boys and men can be physically active, but far from the only way. You could spend little or no time on sports, yet be highly active physically (housework, yardwork, exercise, playing games that aren't usually classified as sports, service in the military, jobs that are highly physical, etc.). There are other forms of physical activity that are more productive than sports and don't have nearly as many problematic elements to them.
As far as masculinity is concerned, when we talk about sports, we're talking about playing games. Playing games doesn't make you much of a man. Physical activity is only a portion of what defines masculinity. It's also defined by other elements that are diminished by the abuse of sports. This is a culture in which people have a lot of interest in sports and spend a lot of time on it, yet nearly three-quarters of people can't name the three branches of government, most can't name the four gospels, almost half can't name the current vice president, probably only about 10% attend a healthy church every week, and people typically spend more than five hours a day on sports and leisure while spending about ten minutes a day on religious activities. (Those who are interested can find documentation of those statistics in posts like the ones here.) American men have a lot of sports, but not much masculinity.
"Besides, part of what Platt is doing, and what sermons in general are meant to do, is preparing us to interact with the rest of the world. Criticism of the sins of our culture is appropriate in a sermon, even though the criticism isn't applicable primarily to the people in that church."
DeleteHow are his parishioners or TV audience suppose to use that to interact with the general culture? Are they supposed to tell an unbeliever, "Hey, Christians are really unenthusiastic about going to church compared to sports fans!"
"They also don't want to be criticized about other things. We should criticize them anyway…The idea that 'scolding sports fans won't change minds' could be applied to criticizing other groups as well, yet the Bible and pastors for centuries have criticized those groups anyway."
But there's nothing inherently wrong with sports in moderation.
There are better and worse ways to introduce the Gospel. Attacking sports is counterproductive.
I attended a church where the youth pastor and senior pastor were volunteer coaches at the local high school. That's a great way of reaching and mentoring young men who might not otherwise connect with church.
"Sports are one of the ways in which boys and men can be physically active, but far from the only way. You could spend little or no time on sports, yet be highly active physically (housework, yardwork, exercise, playing games that aren't usually classified as sports, service in the military, jobs that are highly physical, etc.)."
I'm not saying there's a duty to play sports. Some nerdy boys don't care about sports. Fine.
But sports is naturally and enormously popular among many boys and men, so instead of futile attacks, we should treat that as an opportunity to reach the lost and mentor the young.
"As far as masculinity is concerned, when we talk about sports, we're talking about playing games. Playing games doesn't make you much of a man."
Physicality and aggression are natural, stereotypical components of male psychology. There are many boys who find team sports/contact sports tremendously appealing for the physicality, camaraderie, discipline, &c. Instead of railing against what we can't change, we should use that as a point of entry.
"Physical activity is only a portion of what defines masculinity."
The education culture is dominated by women and feminism which makes a tyrannical effort to suppress the natural physical and psychological differences between men and women. Suppress male aggression and competitiveness. Christians should be defending the right of boys to be boys.
There was a thread on Twitter recently about Jordan Peterson and the main complaint from the Christian was how scolding people who feel shame is counter-productive. I'm not really doing justice to his tweets.
DeleteAnyway, there needs to be some sort of balance I think but I'm not sure how to articulate it. Here's the thread if your interested:
https://twitter.com/drantbradley/status/960717197776703489
Steve wrote:
Delete"How are his parishioners or TV audience suppose to use that to interact with the general culture? Are they supposed to tell an unbeliever, 'Hey, Christians are really unenthusiastic about going to church compared to sports fans!'"
Platt was addressing Birmingham as a whole, even though he singles out the church in Birmingham at some points. It's helpful to discuss the context in which Christians are living (such as the city of Birmingham), since that affects how Christians will think about that context, how they'll approach matters like evangelism and apologetics, etc.
You write:
"But there's nothing inherently wrong with sports in moderation."
I don't think Platt suggested that sports are inherently wrong. That's not my position either.
You write:
"Attacking sports is counterproductive."
Platt didn't "attack sports". To the contrary, at 5:55 he refers to "playing to the glory of God". There's text below the video saying "How do we enjoy sports, hobbies, entertainment to the glory of God?"
You write:
"instead of futile attacks"
You're assuming something that's in dispute, namely that comments like Platt's are "futile". A lot of people change their minds over time about subjects like sports. I did. I suspect Platt did as well. So have others. The notion that minds are never changed about this sort of issue is reminiscent of the claim that some people make to the effect that apologetics never works. All they're doing is making a general observation concerning how resistant people typically are to apologetic efforts and portraying that generality as a universal. But it's not a universal, and the exceptions to the rule make the efforts worthwhile.
You write:
Delete"There are many boys who find team sports/contact sports tremendously appealing for the physicality, camaraderie, discipline, &c. Instead of railing against what we can't change"
Platt isn't arguing against sports or finding sports appealing.
You write:
"The education culture is dominated by women and feminism which makes a tyrannical effort to suppress the natural physical and psychological differences between men and women. Suppress male aggression and competitiveness. Christians should be defending the right of boys to be boys."
Platt's video isn't about "boys being boys". And the influence of feminists is counterbalanced by other factors. In addition to being overly influenced by feminism, schools have an interest in getting money, having a certain social status, etc. Schools benefit from sports, so they have motives to keep offering sports even when feminists (and others) object. And sports are available outside the public school system and outside of schools in general. When I was a kid, we'd often play sports in people's yards, in a field, or wherever, on our own initiative. Feminists can't do much about that. They haven't done much about school-affiliated sports either. Children, adolescents, and young adults still have a lot of opportunities to play sports in school-related contexts. In fact, sports have gotten to be far too big a part of many schools.
Proverbs, Paul's letters, and other portions of scripture have a lot to say about masculinity, maturing into manhood, how children were raised in homes with good parents, and other relevant topics. Sports don't have much of a role. The same is true of the ancient Jewish and patristic literature I've read.
When a nation gets to the point of having characteristics like I described earlier (deep ignorance of the Bible, deep ignorance of its own history, etc.), and others could be added (the twenty-trillion-dollar national debt, tens of millions of abortions, etc.), something has to give. The situation is unsustainable. We can't go on with the same priorities and the same time management. It's like living in a time of war as if it's a time of peace. I think I've used trivial television programs and trivial movies as examples of what we should be spending less time on more often than I've used sports as an example. But this thread is about sports, so I've been focused on that subject here. Even if sports aren't the worst triviality we need to reduce in this culture, they are a triviality, and there's a lot of room for reducing our involvement in them.
My bottom line is that instead of waging a losing battle against the inevitable, it's better to use the inevitable as a bridge.
Delete