Things I Think…
1. The value of the Super Bowl, (whether you like football or not) is in its place as one of the few events left that we watch as a whole country in community…
2. Sports are the only place where Christians celebrate the participation of other Christians without doing a doctrinal exam. I saw a ton of articles talking about the faith of some the Eagles players without mentioning their denominational affiliations. Evidently, all the Patriots were heathens…
3. You can always count on some idiot pastors posting this on Super Bowl Sunday…”I wish Christians got this excited about church”…church isn’t a competing form of entertainment…or shouldn’t be…
4. I still do not understand how burning down the place one lives is an expression of either joy or protest…
5. Fox News has spent a year trying to crush the NFL for allowing players to kneel in protest. Fox Sports just agreed to spend half a billion dollars a year to broadcast a limited schedule of NFL games…we’re all being played…
6. God is still God even when our circumstances don’t meet our expectations…“Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see:the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”” (Matthew 11:2–6 ESV)
7. Professional sports fandom and denominationalism are both ways to form a tribe and be part of something greater than ourselves…and to have someone to hate…
8. “a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;” (Isaiah 42:3 ESV) It’s disheartening to me that so many seem to think that God is ready to both break and quench His children over doctrinal differences…or anything else.
9. I think that some of those players who knelt in protest loved the Lord as much as those who knelt in prayer…
10. My team wasn’t in the Super Bowl so it was an opportunity to practice rejoicing with those who rejoice and mourning with those who mourn…I’ve had lots of practice…
I love #2
I noticed (1) fewer Tweets and Facebook posts condemning anyone who watches the Super Bowl and/or churches that cancel or move the time of the late service; and (2) fewer virtue-signaling “I-couldn’t-care-less-about-the-Super-Bowl-and-don’t-even-know-who’s-playing” Tweets and Facebook posts. Maybe it’s just me, but maybe it’s progress.
Ted,
I think you’re right…I didn’t see as many either.
We have one die hard eagles fan in our family, so it gave me an excuse to pull that much harder for the Eagles. That and I’m tired of the Patriots winning everything.
I have never been an Eagles fan, but for some reason I got emotional when they won yesterday. I guess it was the underdog thing.
#8 – Amen and amen
My church celebrates every week and needs no comparison to the Super Bowl but I get you.
I still think the narrative about the kneeling was pure propaganda war and manipulation. Nothing dishonors the troops more than the politicians who deploy them. The political propaganda that sends soldiers to war is the real affront to personal sacrifice.
The onus of kneeling was purely on the owners, the league and the coaches. All they had to do was declare that anyone who protests would be benched for the game. That would make the protesting costly to the players. Then if they protested their voice would be compelling and everyone would want to know more about why.
Economics is always the driver. The ‘dishonoring the troops’ narrative was completely contrived. However, it was successfully applied and we should think deeply about how responsive we are to pale patriotism rather than real devotion to our nation.
Propaganda has become a desperate problem. It is not rooted in love of the truth.
BD,
I’ll amen #7 loudly.
The problem with propaganda is that it works…
just like Colin Kaepernick’s lack of employment is not collusion on the parts of owners and general managers…the narrative trotted out doesn’t withstand scrutiny.
“Dilly-dilly” to Dread’s comments today. 😉
Dread
Your #7 is spot on!
On another note, but in the same vein, my evangelical Trump loving friends are driving me out of the evangelical camp.
Bob,
Where will you go?
I have a good article on that in tomorrows Linkathon!
I will make sure I read the article.
Evangelical is a theological construct. Leaving the political leanings of majority evangelical voices has nothing to do with leaving evangelicalism.
Evangelical as a category has become rather skewed. Trump has zero to do with being evangelical. That many evangelicals have rallied to him as an ally is a whole other matter and not simple.
“That many evangelicals have rallied to him as an ally is a whole other matter and not simple.”
True.
However, one would be denying American history to say that politics and religion have not often been joined at the hip, always to the detriment of true religion.
Among evangelicals the leaving that I am seeing is rooted in a generation who have decided that God is a certain way and they cannot “believe in a God who ______” fill in the blank. Most of it is rooted in social reconstruction of binary Biblical categories, universalism, and a general morphing of the mindset of the culture. The other part is people who are simply embarrassed by this or that person. Every camp and every family has embarrassing members.
My evangelicalism is rooted in the God’s saving work and ultimate victory in Christ. I’ll die in that house.
BD
I agree with your definition of evangelical. However, I agree with Michael’s “Joined at the hip” reference. It appears now more than ever. There lie my problem.
Bob,
Probably you are leaving Republican politics not evangelicalism. Trump is simply unpalatable to gracious people. He is clownish and inexplicable to people with any modicum of manners. I remain conservative and utterly disdain progressivism. It is hard to find a footing. Hard to manage a place of existence in the public landscape. Trump is not someone I can justify and I understand the repulsion of him.
I think the liberals will rejoice in this small reversal. They will likely achieve a hegemony that only complete incompetence can squander. Trump is really their best friend.
There is life after Republican/Conservative ideology. I left at the beginning of 2000. I decided circa 1976 that I was a rabid Republican. That was probably third grade, and Conservatism was only i initially spreading to ordinary Evangelicals.
The first time i questioned Conservatism was late Winter 1980. On a Saturday morning Reagan radio address. Even to an eigthgrader, how was proposed tax rate changes supposed to change the World? Had i not been raised to beleve the End was nigh, with Commies and depravity at the gates?
It was not a linear change, and many more questions would have to be raised before I rejected it. It was more the just opinions, it helped me define who I was.
I free now.
Meant to say…..I am free now.
Nathan…the beginning of the end for me was sometime in the early 1990s when Bill Clinton was running for President and someone left leaflets on every car in my church’s parking lot one Sunday morning saying “It’s a sin to vote for Bill Clinton”.
The biggest problem with conservatism is the number of Christians. If we were smart we would have encouraged Christians to live the life and peach the gospel no matter you’re political affiliation and our salt would have preserved the working class heritage of the Democratic party and other classic liberals. Without the weight of real Christianity the left has gone to the wolves.
descended @ 21. Honestly our salt was never to preserve the heritage of the democratic party or other classic liberals. That’s a fallacy. This sounds like you are turning a biblical truth into a political one which rarely works. And why is it a problem for conservatism because of the number of Christians?
#20 Dan
Leaflets in the church parking lot? That’s low and equates to littering. The only fliers I have ever observed one Sunday morning were from Seventh Day Adventists.
A funny Superbowl-related item from the Babylon Bee….
http://babylonbee.com/news/nation-finally-unifies-around-hatred-new-england-patriots/
#24
Then you’ll love what they do with Brady here
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3tUCuMSPQwE