On our first Sunday trying out a new church, the pastor made a compelling statement and included a visual on the projection slide: a photo of Jesus wearing a Vikings jersey.
“You end up with a sports Jesus who justifies your missing church for the Vikings game. And we craft these images of who we think God is. Like a build-a-God workshop.”
He was making a point.
Perhaps this is one of the largest reasons we chose to return to this new church. For me, the issue of football in the Church runs deep. If you’re a football lover, this will be triggering, and I welcome discussion. Now, here is where I won’t rain on your parade. While I don’t care for the sport or most sports in general, I still believe God can use football games and the players to further His will. One of my favorite films of all time is Facing the Giants, though that involved high school football. Not the NFL.
Should Christians watch NFL games?
Here are my personal reasons why my answer is no.
1. Idolatry. The Church in America today looks much like the Church of Corinth or the Church of Rome. Bread and circuses. I have been to small groups where football was the dominant subject of conversation. Not Jesus. I’ve been to ministry events where the flat screen was tuned to the football game the whole time. Churches where preachers sported jerseys from the pulpit and waged bets with elders over which team would win and the loser wore the opposite team’s jersey. Churches where the entire congregation shouted team cheers in the sanctuary with the team’s symbol on the wall, even involving children. in-fighting from passive-aggressive grudges over a game loss or gloating over a game win has been played out at every church we’ve attended.
Church, this is the Exodus golden calf all over again. Yes, anything can be turned into an idol. But within the Church, the sport is glorified, cleaned up neat and tidy, and wrapped in a bow of masculine identities and sportsmanship and good competition. The Church has made football a safe idol.
The next reasons are where any logic of pros outweighing cons breaks down.
2. Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. If you don’t know anything about the type of trauma players withstand from this sport or about CTE, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, watch the film starring Will Smith, Concussion. The NFL tried to discredit the researcher Omalu who discovered how dangerous football is and how the repeated blows to the head impact the brain, which causes memory related diseases, impair moods and cognitive function. Now, Omalu works as a chief medical examiner in California and as a professor at UC Davis Department of Medical Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.
High-paying salaries for players not withstanding, is this the kind of impact we, as Christians, should want when it comes to sports? For someone who watched the Olympics every time growing up as a child, I know injuries are common in sports. But injuries which cause damage to brain function due to prominent violence in a sport is not what Christians should celebrate. Especially if those brain injuries are causing impaired function which contribute to crimes involving harm to others. Scientists have only begun this research. The NFL doesn’t want it out there.
3. Sexual objectification and exploitation: (Come on, you knew it was coming!) The NFL has a long standing history of covering up domestic abuse as well as other crimes their players have committed. A list of links follows.
https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1051&context=bjesl
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-nfl-sexual-assault-violence-20170502-story.html
https://www.ranker.com/list/nfl-players-domestic-violence/ranker-nfl
http://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/nfl-draft-picks-domestic-violence-joe-mixon-conley-westbrook-brantley/ff1hhe4ypm6g18gv2tdv6zv58
Vikings Lead NFL In Number Of Player Arrests
https://www.usatoday.com/sports/nfl/arrests/
This doesn’t even account for all the other incidences of NFL male violence targeting NFL female employees. Nor does it address cheerleaders. Every time I see the Vikings cheerleaders in the Mall of America in their cheer garb surrounded by drooling males, I want to give them a hug because I imagine it’s one of few times during their working hours where they receive positive attention vs objectification. An anti trafficking advocate opened up to me recently and quoted, “As far as the NFL goes, they are glorified strippers.”
We also know what NFL parties look like. Even ten years after the sex boat scandal that rocked the Vikings (none of them were punished), one player tried to downplay the wildness despite all the evidence and testimonies of sexual exploitation and assault and he went onto state that it was “like going to any other gentlemen’s club in the city” and that “cities like New York, D.C., Miami, Atlanta, this type of stuff happens every day.”
If this were any other business in America where customers discovered the managers were hiring employees with a background of domestic abuse, DWI’s, DUI’s, assault, and other crimes, that business would be shut down. Or if employees were caught committing these sort of obscenities and atrocities toward customers or employees, they would be fired and lawsuits would ensue. And any Christian would agree with such. But for the NFL, the Church gives a pass.
What should be the common response from Christians? Excitement, arguments, and wagers about a game or seeking opportunities to combat the exploitation, abuse, and trafficking within and surrounding it? We can apply the last to any sport. But for the NFL, if believers are called to seek justice, then we cannot support an industry, a corporation that so blatantly spits in the face of justice and degrades women. At the very least, the accounts of beaten and battered and exploited women should cause believers to grieve and to pause.
So, in the middle of the crazed cheers of hundreds in the stands or the uproar in your own home, remember the scars and wounds that lurk beyond the high-res spotlights and the jumbo tron. Pray for them. And pray for justice for the NFL and their convicted players and mercy and healing for their victims and for all the silent victims and survivors who remain invisible.