A few years ago I was a speaker at a youth camp. When it was time for the first group game, one of the leaders began by telling a parable based on Genesis 1-3. He described the joys of playing in the Garden of Eden, where the emphasis was simply on the joy of playing. But one day the serpent entered the garden and tempted the inhabitants of Eden with the idea of points. They gave in to temptation and began to keep score in their games and this led to all kinds of evils: competition, lust to win, cheating, anger, and fighting. They lost the simple joy of playing.
The leader told this parable so that the youth would know that this week at camp they would be introduced to ESPORTS. There were no points, no winners or losers, just the joy of playing. But there was a serious problem: the games were totally and completely boring. Day after day fewer and fewer young people showed up at game time, so that at the last game there were only a handful of young people there.
Is this an accurate description of a sports theology? Obviously I don't think so. I would like to present a brief and comprehensive theology of sport. If you don't like that title, you can think of it as "Why should we watch the Super Bowl!"
The story can be summed up in three words: creation, fall, redemption. So when you are looking at the theology of an issue, you need to ask yourself: What is its relationship to or reflection of creation, of fall, of redemption? In considering the subject of sports, I have added two more words to broaden our consideration: incarnation and salvation (both, of course, are tied to creation, fall, and redemption).
Creation: God could have created everything to be gray and useful. Rather, it created a great diversity of colors, sizes, shapes, smells, textures, sounds and tastes. Why did you do this? He did it so that creation would be a reflection of His person and, in particular, of His beauty. It is a masterpiece of function and form. Creation is a work of art.
Art is sometimes thought of as consisting of two types: visual art, such as painting, sculpture, architecture, and performing art, such as theater, music, dance. The Lord included both visual and scenic art in creation. Visual art: flowers, mountains, trees; Scenic art: oceans and rivers, planetary orbits, clouds. Some things in creation combine the two.
Sports are a reflection of this creative activity of the Lord. They also combine visual art (painted fields / courts, team colors and logos) and performing arts (the actual work). Sports reflect the function and the way of creation. There is beauty in a perfectly executed play, in a well-thrown ball, in a plummet, in a double play. Those things can bring excitement and happiness because they are a reflection of the way the world was created. They are an art show (or art, if you prefer).
The Lord also created things in a specific order, not haphazardly, and placed within the laws or rules of creation by which nature operates. Sports also have an order and rules by which they operate. Just as there are consequences for rebelling against the created order (such as ignoring gravity), there are also consequences for not following the rules in sports. Sports reflect nature and the principles of creation. As in nature, this reflection, well done, honors the Lord and brings joy to the fan.
Fall - In the fall, man rebelled for sin and the curse that resulted from that fall touches every part of everything - there is nothing to escape. This means that we would expect to see evidence of the decline in sports, and of course we do. There are sins of attitude as well as sins of action.
The most deadly of these sins is the idolatry of sports, when it occupies the highest place in the affection of the heart and in the thought of the mind. When life is planned around when games are played or when a person's whole perspective is affected by whether their team wins or loses, they have crossed the line into an unhealthy and sinful obsession.
