The Idolatry of Sports: That sounds like a fairly predictable subject, doesn’t it? The world is saturated with sports. College football consumes entire Saturdays. Professional leagues dominate television schedules. Children begin playing organized sports almost as soon as they can run, while adults spend enormous amounts of time, money, and emotion following teams they may never see in person. Surely there must be something spiritually suspicious about all of that? And perhaps sometimes there is. But before we begin measuring how loudly someone cheers, how many games he watches, or whether his Saturday afternoon enthusiasm reveals idolatry in his heart, I wonder whether we ought to ask a different question. Why are believers so quick to become suspicious of ordinary enjoyment in the first place?
Christians have always had a remarkable ability to spiritualize the things they already enjoy while becoming suspicious of the things they do not. In some circles, going to a movie theater is considered worldly. Playing cards is worldly. Secular music is worldly. Certain forms of dancing, recreation, and entertainment immediately raise questions about a person’s spiritual condition. But somehow college football can occupy six or eight hours of Saturday without much concern at all. We might even find a way to attach Scripture to it – after all, the Apostle Paul spoke of running a race, striving for mastery, and competing for a prize.
And I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with watching football. Quite the opposite. I wonder whether the problem is that we have sometimes felt the need to make our pleasures spiritual before allowing ourselves to enjoy them, rather than simply receiving recreation, competition, laughter, and a few hours of diversion as ordinary mercies from the hand of God. I Timothy 4:4-5.
Perhaps we have underestimated how much mercy there can be in ordinary diversion. Life is often heavy. People carry responsibilities, disappointments, physical weariness, family concerns, financial pressures, griefs, and anxieties that do not simply disappear because they are believers. And sometimes there is real mercy in being able to sit down for a few hours, watch a game, laugh, complain about a terrible call, enjoy the competition, and allow the mind to rest from everything else for a little while. Not every good gift has to announce itself as spiritual in order to be received with thanksgiving. Sometimes the kindness of God is found simply in being given something enjoyable, without immediately feeling the need to turn it into either a spiritual achievement or a spiritual liability.
This also raises the question of what we actually mean when we call something an idol. The word can become remarkably elastic. If spending several hours on something, becoming emotionally invested in it, or looking forward to it with great anticipation is enough to establish idolatry, then the category quickly becomes almost limitless. Gardening can become idolatry. Music can become idolatry. Reading can become idolatry. Work, family, travel, hobbies, and even theological study can all be placed under suspicion. At some point we have to ask whether we are identifying actual idolatry or simply becoming uncomfortable with the fact that human beings are capable of enjoying created things very deeply.
And maybe part of the difficulty is that we have learned to confuse gratitude with spiritualization. I can thank God for a Saturday afternoon football game without pretending that watching it is some distinctly spiritual exercise. I do not need to find an apostolic sports metaphor to make it permissible. The goodness of an ordinary pleasure does not depend upon our ability to attach religious language to it. Sometimes it is enough to receive it, enjoy it, and give thanks.
That may also explain some of the inconsistency in the way Christians have treated different forms of recreation. We tend to be much more comfortable with the pleasures our own circles have already approved. Football feels ordinary because we grew up around it. Other forms of entertainment may feel suspect simply because they never received the same religious permission. But familiarity is not the same thing as acceptability, and unfamiliarity is not the same thing as worldliness. Perhaps some of our judgments have told us as much about our traditions and preferences as they have about the things we were judging.
None of this means that sports, or any other pleasure, can never become excessive, controlling, or misplaced. Of course they can. But perhaps we should be slower to call something idolatry simply because someone enjoys it deeply, talks about it often, or spends a good deal of time doing it. The Christian life is not meant to be lived under constant suspicion of every ordinary pleasure. There is room to enjoy what God has given, to receive it with thanksgiving, and then to let it remain what it is – a game, a hobby, a pastime, a little rest along the way. Sometimes the most faithful response to a good gift is simply to enjoy it with thanksgiving. And perhaps that really is enough. Ecclesiastes 3:13. MPJ