As a long-suffering Mets fan, and a happy NY Giants fan, this is one that I will have to give some thought!

Thanks...

Frank

First I would like to try to define sports. Sports are a derivative of competition. Competition is a means of proving superiority, by performance, rather than by reason (words, talk). Sports are a derivative competition because of the nature of the risk. Sports limit the risk. When any risk is acceptable a person’s pride, money or life may be put at risk on the outcome of the performance. War or gladiatorial combat is the ultimate competition.

I think pastors should understand competition because God invented it. The Great Controversy story may be restated as the Great Ultimate Competition between Christ and Satan. Deception cannot be defeated by brute force, when other intelligent people are witnessing the results. The best way to defeat deception is by competition.

Competition is a fair means of allowing opponents to bring forth their best performance to determine superiority. The new Nike commercial where LT says,” my better, is better than your better”, is a good example.

Competition is observed throughout nature. Plants and animals compete for position. Evolutionist rephrases it in terms of “survival of the fittest”. It is an educational tool for the human race that we may better appraise our situation.

Alexander:

To which campus are you referring? Where are you at these days?

JB:

Isn't reason also a matter of performance, intellectual as opposed to athletic?

Your comments lead me to ask what is the role of cooperation in competition? Cooperation seems to be competition's opposite, yet competition almost always necessitates some form of cooperation (even in so-called individual sports--unless you are able to be your own coach and equipment manufacturer). Does not cooperation elicit ones best performance (e.g. a group of musicians)? And does cooperation also necessitate some level of competition (e.g. first and second chair musicians, Harrison v. Lennon and McCartney)? Finally, will competition be present in Heaven when sin is defeated?

And Lennon vs. McCartney while they were still working together as Lennon/McCartney!

Frank

Alex,

I like the Atlanta Braves and the Georgia Bulldogs college football team. I play senior's over 60 softball twice a week and our best can often beat many 40-50's teams...play smart!

Competition is a fact of life. With our system of "division of labor" both competition and conflict is inevitable vs. a "land based" economy such as designed in the OT where personal productivity was still necesary for personal prosperity.

Competition is harmful when it functions under unequal law conditions. Large Corporations and Labor Unions utilize legislation in their favor when possible to the detrimate of fair competition and the rest of us. Usually the government ends up making things worse by intervention from "special interest" concerns that also impedes "fair" competition...such is life.

Hopefully the more sucessful monetarily will have compassion on the less fortunate starting first at home.To impede the "more talented" is but to reduce the wealth of a society.

David, "will competition be in heaven"? Isa.65:21-23.
That does not preclude it's necessity in the present age because likewise there will be no marriage in heaven so we won't be competing either for that "significant other" that caught our eye!!

:~)

pat

• Are sports competing with church in US society? How so? Is that a bad thing?

The culture of professional sports has helped to turn Americans into a society of observers and fans, rather than players. And while there is much for the religious community to learn about teamwork and how much we need each other from playing sports, there are also issues to discuss about being a sports fans. To some, their church is like their professional team, and if the church has a bad season for some reason or another, they feel that they can no longer support the team. Sports fans critique their teams endlessly. And while many dream about playing sports at a professional level, fans do not confuse themselves with players.

However, the church is the people. Simply critiquing the actions of the church pastor, or conference officials is not all there is to being involved in a religious community. We have to participate, too. And unless you are participating in a very specific way, you lose the right to criticize (in my mind). In other words, calling attention to a problem should be followed by what can we do to make things better.

So rather than competing with religion, I see sports giving us ways to compare and contrast how we come together within religious communities. And that is a good thing.

I think sports play an important role in letting off some steam in the pressure cooker of tribalism. We humans seem to have such a need to identify with a group and then to guard carefully who is in and out of that group. Maybe sports provide a slightly healthier way of channeling that need as opposed to warfare and/or religion. Note I am not saying sports are healthier than religion, just that it would be good for religion to have less tribalism which could be better channeled into sports. The downside is, it can encourage the very thing we would hope to move beyond - nasty partisanship. So do we see this tribalism thing as something that is inevitable in our world and try and find reasonable outlets, or do we see it as a blemish and try and suppress it in any form? Maybe if we could at least acknowledge that need in ourselves then we could take it a little less seriously and stop rioting after sports games.

I have a son who loves sports and I have found that organized sports can teach really good and important life lessons about cooperation, hard work, empathy for others and values clarification. All these teachable moments come up for us to discuss things in a framework that he cares deeply about and so can really understand.

Oh and my absolute favorite sports to watch are March Madness basketball (wasn't Davidson wonderful?) and football.

Interesting questions thus far.

David, by campus, I mean, the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA.

And on your point about cooperation and competition, might I recommend a favorite book of mine on the topic: Nonzero. It helped me to rethink what balance means between cooperation and competition in my personal, political and religious thinking and actions. It relies on game theory's prisoner's dilemma.

A summary:

At the beginning of this book, Robert Wright sets out to "define the arrow of the history of life, from the primordial ooze to the World Wide Web." Twenty two chapters later, after a sweeping and vivid narrative of the human past, he has succeeded--and has mounted a powerful challenge to the conventional view that evolution and human history are aimless.

Ingeniously employing game theory—the logic of "zero-sum" and "non-zero-sum" games—Wright isolates the impetus behind life’s basic direction: the impetus that, via biological evolution, created complex, intelligent animals; and then, via cultural evolution, pushed the human species toward deeper and vaster social complexity. In this view, the coming of today’s interdependent global society was "in the cards"—not quite inevitable, perhaps, but, as Wright puts it, "so probable as to inspire wonder." So probable, indeed, as to invite speculation about higher purpose—especially in light of "the phase of history that seems to lie immediately ahead: a social, political, and even moral culmination of sorts."

In a work of vast erudition and pungent wit, Wright takes on some of the past century’s most prominent thinkers, including Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, Stephen Jay Gould, and Richard Dawkins. He finds evidence for his position in unexpected corners, from native American hunter-gatherer societies and Polynesian chiefdoms to Medieval Islamic commerce and precocious Chinese technology; from conflicts of interest among a cell’s genes to discord at the World Trade Organization.

Wright argues that a coolly scientific appraisal of humanity’s three-billion-year past can give new spiritual meaning to the present and even offer political guidance for the future. Nonzero will change the way people think about the human prospect.

Not to get off the topic of sports, or anything. . .March Madness, good times, indeed. Anyone win their pool?

Alex:

Haven't yet read Wright's book, but I've watched all his interviews on meaningoflife.tv. Interesting fellow.

What I have found especially interesting about the history of programs developed to play Prisoner's Dilemma (as is pointed out in your reference) is that Tit-For-Tat quickly came to dominate and has showed continuing dominance in the face of later programmatic attempts containing lots of fancy heuristics. One could view Tit-For-Tat as an expression of the Golden (or at least Silver) Rule. And various expressions of the Golden Rule seem to be a significant common thread between the world's major religions, not to mention secular humanism.

There seems to be something almost hard-wired in us that makes the Golden Rule axiomatic and it is the closest thing to a universal that might ground ethics (not to mention morality). I wonder if Wright would think ethics have evolved from a primitive 'if you help me I'll help you, but if you hit me I'll hit back'?

If one defines religion as as set of behaviors to which a person is devoted then sports are a religion. Few sports have anything more than a passing nod to social justice. Less than a tithe. Never-the-less, the final Sunday of Masters week in Augusta, the early service is full and the 11:00 o'clock service a hand-full. That is why college football is played on Saturday--11-13 weeks of low attendance such a church would demoralize any pastor--ours would be a no-show! (He has season tickets on the 50 yd line in Athens.)

Seems that if Christians were true to history they would all be sport fishermen.

Other than golf--sitting and watching is not a sport it is an amusement. Tom

David

By, “words or symbols”, I meant, determining superiority by designation rather than by competition. Sorry, I should have been more precise.

Cooperation is another element in social organization. I think of it as two or more individuals linking together to achieve an objective. Competition, on the other hand, concerns the vertical. Whatever elements are present in the organization which one is numero uno. It defines the value system. Notice the first commandment of the Decalogue is “I must be numero uno.”

Competition is a secondary means of determining superiority. (It is really a waste of resources.) The primary means should be done by the designer or creator of the organization. God allows competition because ignorant beings will not listen to His good advice.

Sports have an upside and a down side. The upside: it can be used as a tool to teach important lessons about organization and fair play. The down side: it fosters idleness, ambition, gambling and it adds no value to society.

To those interested:

March madness, my brackets show my won lost record at 34-26(I do not bet on sports). I picked two of the final four, NC and Memphis. In the championship game I have NC against Memphis, with Memphis: numero uno.

Somebody has to mention soccer!!

In my church we use sports by giving Yankee shirts to everyone who moves away (one reason why I am not planning to move!).

As a Met fan, I wouldn't plan to move either if that's the parting gift!!

Enjoy...

Frank

Sport is one of the few things in common with most of society right now, so I think pastors who want to connect with the congregation should follow sports and use the analogies in their sermons. I think Ed Young, the Dallas Pastor, uses sport perfectly. He will title his sermons based on a sport theme, then start off talking about sport to pick up interest, then connect it to the gospel and spend the last half of his sermon there.

Hey Alex,

Moved to Boston in 2004. Even coming from NYC I had never seen sport as religion the way Boston worships it's SAWX. Out here the Red Sox consistently headline the evening news, even in the off season. Fenway park is New England's own Sistene Chapel.
This past September I took my wife to our first Fenway experience. As soon as you enter you know you are an outsider in a community of "believers" more devout and pious than your favorite head deacon.
Sure there's the familiar hymns (National Anthem, Take me Out..etc) But who knew of the eighth inning rendition of "Sweet Caroline, oh oh oh" sung in perfect pitch and unison even after the music's stopped and well into the first at bat of the inning. Or Peske's pole, or that one red seat in a sea of green out in right field.(don't ask me why it's there)
These are the fans who a few years ago gave their center fielder the nick name Jesus!
Disturbing? A bit. I felt as uncomfortable as an Adventist at pig roast.
But then something strange happened. This kid named Clay took a no hitter into the seventh. I began standing more and cheering louder. By the eighth I was yelling at the top of my lungs and high fiving a bunch of crazed drunkards all around me. And by the time he finished off the no hitter by striking out the last batter...Pentecost.

I have since repented.

AG

Angelo, glad to see an evangelism expert such as yourself knows how to ward off the allure of the red hoards of Babylon.

Good to hear from you!

Our eldest son and his wife bought a home overlooking the 11th Green at Bella Aire Country Club in Thomson, Ga. They bought a used golf cart to tool around the in. One day, our son was teaching his six year old how to drive the cart.

Our grandson turned too sharply and nearly turned the cart over. The boy said a very bad word. His dad reproved the boy.
To which the son replied. "Its all right dad, we're on the golf course!"

Why do competitive sports bring human beings to their lowest common denominator in language, indulgence, anger, and a host of other unsavory behaviors?

After all it is just a game, isn't it? Tom

Every round of golf is based on playing a number of holes in a given order. A round typically consists of 18 holes that are played in the order determined by the course layout