Wednesday, Jul 9, 2008
Listen up, jocks: God doesn't care if you score a touchdown. So do your praying in private, not in the end zone.
Sep 28, 2002 | In the second week of the NFL season, Dallas Cowboy quarterback Quincy Carter heaved a 38-yard pass into the end zone. Cowboy receiver Joey Galloway was double-covered, but somehow outfought the defensive players for an amazing touchdown catch. In the middle of the field, in front of 70,000 fans and millions watching on TV, Carter pointed to the heavens in acknowledgment of the Supreme Being's role as touchdown-maker. And in the post-game interview, commenting on his stellar performance, Carter gave "credit to God for giving me the innate ability to perform."
It's kind of funny, but in Week 1 of the NFL season, against the expansion Houston Texans, Carter had the worst performance of his short career. Balls were bouncing at the feet of receivers and there were no touchdown passes, miraculous or not. And in the locker room after the game, God was never mentioned.
In the realm of jock theology, God seems to show himself only to the winners. While many athletes do their own dances or gyrations to gain attention from the fans and TV cameras, many others seek their own spotlight through very public prayer on the field of play. It is a curious trend in the "hey-look-at-me" form of self-promotion that has infected pro sports in recent decades. And it goes beyond making a sign of the cross before taking a few swings at the plate. It's almost as if these jocks are saying: "God thinks I'm special, so you should too."
It is impossible to watch a sporting event these days without some spiritual revival meeting breaking out. There are prayers before the game, prayers of thanksgiving for mighty athletic feats, kneeling in a circle after the game. We have prayers after touchdowns, heaven-pointing after home runs, signs of the cross before free throws. It seems most post-game interviews begin with the "thank the Lord" preamble.
Much of this jock Christianity moves from the simple thanking of the Lord to spiritual showboating. There seems to be a feeling that God is consumed with the outcomes of sporting events, and blesses the believers with victories. Jacksonville Jaguar quarterback Mark Brunell said that the reason his team upset the Denver Broncos in the 1997 playoffs was because "God has blessed this team ... We have a bunch of guys who love the Lord, and he has been with us." This year, the Jags are predicted to stink. Is that because the guys have stopped loving the Lord, or because of the team's salary cap problems?
Athletes often have what might be considered a kindergartner's mentality about religion, treating God as a good-luck charm. "I think that very often athletes seem to have a very simplistic and self-serving view of what God is and does," sportscaster Bob Costas said in an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune. "It makes no sense that a God who, for all human understanding, can appear indifferent to major pain and suffering on a large scale or the illness of a child, would intercede to help get a first down."
The impression is given that the player's success is fused with God's will, and the God of sports games is a micro-managing deity. But even though the God of jocks pays attention to the most minute detail of the game, he doesn't bother with the losers. "If the player were consistent, he would point to skyward to mark the judgment of God after he got his shot blocked or struck out," says Robert Benne, director of the Roanoke College Center for Religion and Society. "I haven't seen that lately." Or as Philadelphia Daily News writer Jim Nolan succinctly put it in a column: "To fumble is human, to catch the winning TD, divine."
So let's do something about this. In the name of metaphysical neutrality, in the quest to stamp out spiritual fakery, I would implore the commissioners of the sports world to ban prayer on the field of play. No kneeling, no heaven-pointing. The sports leagues already ban taunting. What taunt could be worse than saying to your opponent that your God is more powerful than his?
I am not suggesting this on a whim. I know that sports and prayer have been conjoined for thousands of years. The Mayans had a basketball-type of game 4,000 years ago -- played in the temple compound and officiated by temple priests -- that concluded with the losing captain being ritually sacrificed. (You think those captains weren't praying for the ball to go through the hoop?) White Sox baseball player and evangelist Billy Sunday would preach about the evils of drink before games in the late 19th century. Notre Dame hitched its football team to the legend of "Touchdown Jesus," a mosaic built on a campus building in the 1960s that appears as though the Lord is signaling a touchdown. In the '70s, we started seeing a man on TV in a rainbow wig with his John 3:16 banner.
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