If I had to choose between my wife and my putter... well, I’d miss her.
Christmanship: A theology of competition and sport
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Greg Linville, Canton, Ohio, Oliver House, 2014. ISBN: 978-0-9869250-9-9
I really like Greg Linville’s concept of Christmanship and have referred to it in a published article*. The concept is defined as athletes emulating Jesus Christ in everything they do, including how they compete. Linville continues: “They must step out of the humanistic based ethic of Sportsmanship and the pragmatic based ethic of Gamesmanship to follow the principles of Christmanship. The practical aspects of Christmanship are attained by competing in the image of Jesus Christ”. This is helpful and challenging advice for the competitive sportsperson.
Relating the concept specifically to competition , Linville writes “For the Christian success is one thing only: competing in such a way as to maximize one’s gifts to the fullest and always competing in the image of Jesus Christ…Competition has worth when athletes seek to worship God through sport and they conform themselves to Christ while competing. If athletes can be judged by God as being successful by simply using the gifts given to them by God, sport must not be condemned as being of less importance than any other endeavor…Success is conforming to the image of Christ and worshipping Christ in whatever vocation and avocation He gives a person the ability to do”.
When the story of sports ministry is written, I am sure that Linville’s contribution and the value of Christmanship will be acknowledged. Linville is a thinker and I am sure that he is right that: “most athletes have never really contemplated why they compete”.
Another excellent section is on how Christian players and coaches should encourage officials, an area on which very little has been written**.
Linville starts his analysis of the Biblical material in Genesis, with creation, stating: “All God created is good, including His creation of an order from which sport evolved. This is different from stating that God created sport. Humankind invented sport, but God created a ‘good order’ from which sport (and a myriad of other human activity: music, art, drama, science, etc.) emerges and all is ‘good.’”
The careful exegesis of 1Timothy 5:7-8, over six pages is good and helpful. I was less convinced by argument that sport must be OK as it mentioned in Paul’s letters without condemnation. That argument could also provide a Biblical defence of slavery. I was also not convinced that Paul “understood and modelled how sport was to be redeemed” or that he set out a kind of embryonic form of sports evangelism. I felt the author’s justifying sport’s value for evangelism, arguably diminished sport as a creation gift of intrinsic value.
On the issue of competition, Linville argues that “competition was created good, yet it, along with the entire created order, was undeniably impacted for the worse when ‘sin’ entered the world…[but] competition cannot be condemned because it is sometimes used in immoral ways or for immoral purposes”.
The chapter “A template for determining Biblically defensible sport” is extremely complex with the following concepts advanced:
Biblically based Competing (BBC)
Biblically based Management and Coaching (BBMC)
Biblically based Redemptive Purpose (BBRP)
Biblically based Rule enforcements (BBRE)
Biblically based Rules (BBR)
Biblically based Spectating and Cheering (BBSC)
Biblically based Template for Sports (BBTS).
He sets out six criteria necessary for an Individual sport to be biblically defensible: (a) It must have a redemptive purpose or goal; (b) the governing rules must ensure biblical principles; (c) the governing rules must be enforced properly and fairly by officials, referees, and umpires; (d) both the administrative management and the on-field coaching must adhere to the biblical principles and governing rules;(e) participants must strive to compete according to the governing rules of the sport which are based upon biblical principles; and (f) spectators (including parents of athletes) must strive to conduct themselves within the biblical principles and governing rules of the sport.
That he adds later that athletes must compete biblically in order for sport to be biblically defensible is a reminder that Linville’s default model is Church organized sport while mine would be a Christian playing in a secular team. That emphasizes the difficulty for a UK Christian sportsperson to apply the principles in a different culture.
Greg Linville believes strongly that sport should not be played on Sunday (or The Lord’s Day as he always calls it). That is a reasonable and defensible position to take. What I struggle with is the obsessive dogmatic judgmental way in which the book seeks to impose this view on others, to the point of saying that anyone playing sport on a Sunday is not honouring God. That a 26 page section plus many other references throughout the book are devoted to the Lord’s day issue seems way out of proportion in a book called “Christmanship: A theology of competition and sport.”***
In his excellent section on Christmanship, worshipping God in sports is presented as the aim of sports competition – “athletes seek to worship God through sport” is explicitly stated. Later, however, the author slips into dualism arguing that you must not play sport on Sunday because it is a day set aside for worship. So it seems that you can worship God in sport six ways a week but not on Sunday.
The dogmatism and dualism surface again when he asks the question what should a Christian player do when there is a clash between a church activity and a game or training session. The answer is clear: “choose spiritual commitments over sporting commitments; choose church attendance over sporting activity”. He adds with customary judgemental dogmatism “it is almost never acceptable to miss a corporate church service or misuse the Lord’s Day”.
For me the brilliantly innovative concept of Christmanship is undermined by the dogmatism and attempt to impose views on everyone else.
*Competition, in The Image of God in the Human Body, edited by Donald Deardorff II and John White, Edwin Mellen, 2008
**See Born to Play, Graham Daniels and J Stuart Weir, Bicester, Frampton House Publications, 2004
***Bizarrely, Linville excludes NFL from the Sunday sport ban, writing: “Thus, if football is moved to a weekday occurrence and subsequently loses much of its financial benefits, the result will be the loss of revenue for not only the owner, but also for the players and everyone else who makes a living working in football..It is, therefore, the author’s contention that professional football is the only exception that can even be postulated as fulfilling the Lord’s Day/Sabbath Day mandates”. (Page 206)