"Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing."
Christianity and Leisure
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Paul Heintzman, Glen E.VanAndel, and Thomas L. Visker, eds. Dordt, IO; Dordt College, 1994. ISBN: 0932914292
The book consists of 20 essays on aspects of sport and leisure from a Christian perspective. Two chapters stand out from among them for the student of sports ministry:
Sport, play and leisure in the Christian experience - Shirl Hoffman
The author begins with an assertion that there are two temptations when looking at sport and religion "to make too much of sport and make too little of it. Novak and Prebish, he argues, make too much of sport. Evangelicals tend to make too little of sport. The result has been the promulgation within the Christian community of a rather down-graded view of sport". [Page 139].
The reviewer resonated with his argument that within evangelical thinking "few attempts have been made to integrate the sports experience into a Christian outlook on life. Although the literature abounds with biographies of popular Christian athletes, such works tend to be designed to evangelize and inspire rather than seriously evaluate the role of sport in the Christian life". [Page 139]
If you have ever wondered about the difference between plumbing and sport, Hoffman gives the answer. "Plumbing is a useful and important activity that can be performed to the glory of God...but there is nothing inherent in the experience of fitting pipes together that quickens one's imaginative impulse or sharpens one's spiritual vision". [Page 141]
Hoffman addresses the issue of whether sport develops good or bad values in people. He comments: "Those who seek to justify sport as a facilitator of psychological release are confronted with a growing body of research which suggests that sports stimulate rather than soothe angry passions. Fans are much more likely to leave certain athletic contests more hostile and aggressive than when they walked into the stadium". [Page 144]
He also finds more positive aspects of sport: "At leisure, released from the crushing demands of daily life, time can be set aside to shed the camouflage of natural man, to polish up the imago Dei, to regain spiritual balance, and to show others and themselves, who they really are". [Page 145] and "There is an undeniable playful ingredient in this conception of leisure and the Sabbath, a kind of pretending that we are already in the heavenly country". [Page 148]
He finishes on a very thought-provoking note: "As leisure, athletic contests are not times for giving glory to God as much as they are times for receiving insights from God. They are not worship but they can be occasions for sensing the greatness and goodness of God". [Page 152]
Towards an understanding of Muscular Christianity: religion, sport and culture in the modern world - James A Mathisen
Written five years before his book "Muscular Christianity", this article provides a shortened version of his view of the development of the relationship between sport and Christianity.
He writes of a relationship of "symbiosis or elective affinity" between sport and evangelical Christianity. There is a good summary of the origin of Muscular Christianity in Victorian England.
He suggests that 4 models of Muscular Christianity can be identified:
1 classical
2 Coubertin's Olympicism
3 YMCA's extrinsic view of sport. Its utilization of sport as "a tool for attracting youth". [Page 195]
4 CT Studd's Evangelical Muscular Christianity that was "virtually the opposite of the classical type of Kingsley and Hughes. Studd was intrinsic about sport, viewing it largely as an evangelistic tool for the conversion of souls to an individualistic, salvationist Christianity"[Page 196]
Whether CT Studd ever saw himself as within a Muscular Christianity movement or not, is very much open to question.
Gil Dodds, who ran at Billy Graham evangelistic meetings before giving his testimony in the late 1940s is described as the "modern version of the CT Studd type of evangelical Muscular Christianity". [Page 197]
Mathisen is blessed with a wonderfully analytical mind. He identifies four post-war versions of Muscular Christianity [Page 198-99]
1 Organizational Muscular Christianity, using sport for evangelism and mission (FCA, AIA, YFC)
2 Elite athlete Muscular Christianity (PAO etc)
3 Social action involvement Muscular Christianity (Bill Glass, Cris Stevens)
4 NCCAA Muscular Christianity
He follows this with a summary of the benefits of Muscular Christianity:
1 Served the church's goal of evangelism
2 Aided the cause of mission beyond American borders
3 Aided an overall increasing cultural awareness that the gospel can make a difference in people's lives
and the weaknesses or costs:
1 the degree to which modern Muscular Christianity has taken on and adapted the secular values of American culture
2 American muscular Christians export American values
3 Muscular Christianity has failed to bear a prophetic witness by addressing the corrupt structures of institutional sport - racism, sexism, the whole issue of cheating (often in the name of competition and winning)
4 has tolerated inadequate understandings of Christian church history and theology. [Page 200-1]
Mathisen finishes with a critique of the modern evangelical Muscular Christianity movement with its "inductive folk theology" [Page 202], misuse of the Pauline athletic metaphors to justify sports ministry, arguing that it is as ludicrous to say that Paul's references to sport are an endorsement of modern sports ministry as that his teaching about masters and slaves is an endorsement of a social system of slavery!
Other chapters
* Work and play: a biblical perspective - Robert K Johnston
* Implications for leisure from a review of the biblical concepts of sabbath and rest - Paul Heinzman
* The puritan ethic and Christian leisure for today - Leland Ryken
* Toward a Christian perspective in the leisure sciences - Gordon Spykman
* Leisure science, dominant Paradigms, and philosophy: the expansion of leisure science's Horizon - Paul Heinzman
* Whatever happened to the leisure revolution? - Gordon Dahl
* Leisure and the New Age movement - Glen E Van Andel
* Contemplative leisure within Christian spirituality - Joseph D Teaff
* Leisure at L'Arche: communities of faith of persons of developmental disabilities - Cathy O'Keefe
* Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot - Don deGraaf
* Coming to terms with play, game, sport and athletics - John Byl
* Play, game and sport in a reformed biblical world view - Tom Visker
* Athletics from a Christian perspective - Marvin A Zuidema
* Competition in church sport leagues - Kimberley A Keller, Gary H Naylor and David R Stirling
* Christian ethics in North America sport - Murray W Hall
* From Super Bowl to worship: the roles of story in work and leisure - Quentin J Schultze
* From faith to fun: humor as invisible religion - Russell Heddendorf
* Leisure, and drama and Christianity - Gwen Laurie Wright