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Life at the Crossroads: Perspectives on Some Areas of Public Life Sports and Competition

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Looking for healing ways to allow it again to conform to God's design ... of play, the excitement of total involvement, and the joy of sport' (Zuidema) ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Life at the Crossroads: Perspectives on Some Areas of Public Life Sports and Competition


1
Life at the Crossroads Perspectives on Some
Areas of Public LifeSports and Competition
  • Living at the Crossroads
  • Chapter 9

2
Sports as waste of time
  • World negating gospel leads to a degraded view of
    sport
  • Among the various things we can relax with,
    athletics are low on the scale of demonstrable
    significance (Christianity Today).

3
Sports as creational gift
  • World negating gospel leads to a degraded view of
    sport
  • Gospel of the kingdom leads to
  • Seeing sport as gift of creation
  • To be received with thanksgiving
  • God made me fast. When I run I feel his
    pleasure. . . . its not just fun. To win is to
    honor him (Eric Liddell).

4
Sports Rooted in Creation
  • How created us as human beings
  • Cultural calling He gave to enrich our lives

5
Rooted in who we are . . .
  • As social creatures
  • As imaginative creatures
  • Sport part of our artistic and imaginative
    impulse (Giammatti) or aesthetic potential
    (Holmes).
  • Sports feed a deep hunger (Novak) because
    of the way God made us.

6
Rooted in the task God has given us
  • Genesis 126-28 215
  • Formative power to explore, discover, develop
    potential of creation in diverse ways
  • Sports one cultural product

7
Gods Good Gift of Competition
  • Morally wrong because it pits one . . . against
    another in rivalry . . .
  • Basic ingredient of sport
  • Martin Zuidema

8
Competition is . . .
  • Based on co-operation not rivalry
  • Co-operative agreement on goals, rules, and
    obstacles of game
  • Co-operative agreement to contest one another for
    mutual enjoyment

Obstacles provide hindrances which prevent the
player from using the most efficient way of
accomplishing the goal. The joy in the game is
in creating tactics to overcome the obstacles and
accomplish the goal (Frey et. al.).
9
An opponent is . . .
  • Not first of all a rival
  • Loving neighbor who provides opportunity for more
    delightful experience of sport by providing stiff
    competition

. . . competition can bring out co-operation,
celebration, respect, and even love (Zuidema).
10
Destructive Potential of Competition
  • Very powerful impulse
  • Twisted by sin
  • Need to discern healthy competition
  • Opponent neighbor in image of God
  • Treated with love, dignity, respect, and
    appreciation

11
Unhealthy Competition
  • I dont care who Im playing. I want to win
    more than they do. (Quote in Olympic Tower,
    Sydney)
  • Intimidation is the key. You can have the
    other beaten before they hit the water. (Quote
    in Olympic Tower, Sydney)
  • Winning isnt everything it is the only
    thing. (Vince Lombardi)
  • To play this game you must have fire in you,
    and there is nothing that stokes fire like hate.
    (Vince Lombardi)

12
Two Conditions if Sports is to be Good
  • One sound in the symphony of creation

13
Sports as One Sound in the Symphony of Creation
  • Sports and competition have their own sound
  • One valid (good) God-given activity alongside of
    others

14
One Sound in the Symphony
  • Attempts to justify sports by a more noble
    utilitarian purpose
  • Sports needs no justification
  • Does not need to be justified because it
  • Brings physical fitness
  • Provides refreshment for work
  • Builds character and self-discipline etc.
  • Essentially sport has no purpose at all it is
    an end in itself . . . its possible uses are
    incidental like art, religion, and friendship
    (Edward Shaughnessy).

15
Sports as One Sound in the Symphony of Creation
  • Sports and competition have their own sound
  • Harmony with other sounds in creation
  • Play suffers when other aspects weakened
  • Other aspects weakened when play suffers

16
Two Dangers
  • When sound of play and leisure is too weak
  • May be caused by
  • Sacred/secular dualism
  • Body/soul dualism
  • . . . games are of the body, and thus of a lower
    order than things of the spirit (Wilson).

17
Two Dangers
  • When sound of play and leisure is too weak
  • When sound of play and leisure is too loud
  • Hedonism Sports is the fastest growing religion
    in America (Prebish)
  • Pursuing pleasure we lose the gift of joy (Our
    World Belongs to God)

18
Two Conditions if Athletics is to be Good
  • One part of the symphony of creation
  • Conforming to Gods design

19
Conforming to Gods Creational Design
  • Conforming to Gods creational design
  • Wisdom Divine and human
  • Identifying how sin has corrupted it
  • Looking for healing ways to allow it again to
    conform to Gods design

20
Contribution of Scholarship
  • . . . academic inquiry into what is going on
    during leisure time is both legitimate and
    important. It can be helpful in deepening,
    enriching, and broadening our critical insight
    into recreational practices. . . . it can also
    help in correcting and reforming this dimension
    of life (Spykman).

21
Delighting in Gift of Sports
  • Athletes know the beauty of intensity of
    effort, the motivation of pursuit of goals, the
    feeling and being of fitness, the expressiveness
    of movement, the creativity of play, the
    excitement of total involvement, and the joy of
    sport (Zuidema).

22
Delighting in Gods Good Gift of Competitive
Sports
  • Emotional intensity
  • Thrill of victory, agony of defeat
  • Way out of proportion with importance
  • Absorbed intensely and utterly in serious pursuit
    of non-serious activity (Huizinga, Frey)
  • Joy, emotional vibrancy spills into life
  • Play relativizes our over-seriousness toward
    life, filling us with a spirit of joy and delight
    that carries over into all aspects of our
    existence (Johnstone)

23
Delighting in Gods Good Gift of Competitive
Sports
  • Emotional intensity
  • Physical satisfaction
  • Social bonding
  • Aesthetic enjoyment
  • Religious deepening

24
Sport and Competition Matter
  • Nothing matters but the kingdom ...
  • but because of the kingdom everything matters
  • Treasures of sound, healthy sports
  • The treasures of the nations will go into the
    new Jerusalem. Among those treasures . . . is
    good, sound, healthy leisure (Spykman).
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