Let’s take a break from the weariness of finding the right strategy for the Mideast and deal with sports. Namely, football.
I
confess that I have — again — grown to love college football. I enjoy
going to TCU games with my 10-year old son, who loves to run the field
before the game and root loudly for the Horned Frogs. In fact, it is
hard getting him out of a TCU T-shirt these days.
I enjoy the
game because it is fast, exciting and strategic. It also is just fun
watching the bands and streamers and frivolity. And, being a fan, I like
to see my team(s) do well. (As a graduate of theUniversity of Texas who
grew up attending TCU games, I spread my cheering around each weekend!)
But
as I watch these games, and see players carted off the field, I often
inwardly wince. Am I participating in some kind of modern
lions-and-Christians blood-lust? And I am doing this at someone else’s
expense? The NFL just settled with retired football players to the tune
of $750 million over the concussions some of them received. For some
players, they have been life-altering concussions.
Related to all
this, I felt sick when I picked up our paper and read that CBS Sports
was putting a “Johnny Cam” to cover every move of A&M’s Johnny
Manziel in his game against Alabama. The guy is a showboat, but he is
still only a kid.
So, are we reaching the point where rooting for
college football teams is too much? In this Christianity Today essay,
Owen Strachan raises the penetrating question: Should Christian fans
step away from such a physically devastating, violent sport?
I would broaden his question to ask this question:
Should people of faith who love college football step away from such a physically devastating, violent sport?
MIKE GHOUSE, President, Foundation for Pluralism and speaker on interfaith affairs
The Abrahamic faiths in particular are run by an amazing group of people. They slap religion onto everything we do.
The
people of other faiths are no different. They also poke into every
aspect of life. The only group of people who seem to be free are
Atheists, Earth-based and perhaps Native American traditions. At one
time, Buddhism was a free-style way of life built on pleasure
principles, but not any more.
My
fellow Muslims are bent on declaring what is acceptable (Halal) and
what is not (Haram) in their daily life. And the Muslim clergy have made
a business out of making those decisions. The Jewish clergy are no
different in nit-picking on the details either. It appears that
conservative religious folks are conditioned to be binary, to see life
in black and white. But, heavens, life is full of colors!
For
a long time, I thought Christianity was free from such routine
pronouncements, but the conservative ones constrict the limits. The
statements made by Rick Santorum, Michelle Bachman, Robert Jeffress and
their likes were beyond common sense during the primaries last year.
Should people of faith who love college football step away from such a physically devastating, violent sport?
If
the violence is intentional or was commercialized to increase the
revenues, I would say, stay away from it, we should not be drawing
pleasure from someone getting beat up, it almost equates with the
Gladiators. Enjoyment at the cost of someone’s pain is not kosher
whether we are religious or not, as it cannot be universalized.
But
that is not the case. There are penalties built in for intentionally
hurting the other player, so what happens is usually accidental. There
is a positive side to it as well, in how players refrain from
reflexively from hurting the other. No matter what the religions says
there will always be people across the family of faiths who will cherish
gore and violence.
Morality
is a product of living with other beings and not necessarily the
exclusive derivative of religions. However, conservative religious folks
find comfort in conforming to their teachings and that is the right
thing to do for them. Each person has a right to the pursuit of his or
her happiness without messing up with others.
Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a
writer on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam, Israel, India, interfaith, and cohesion at work
place. He is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers
pluralistic solutions on issues of the day at www.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in
Standing up for others
and has done that throughout his life as an activist. Mike has a presence on
national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on
Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to
the Texas Faith Column at Dallas
Morning News; fortnightly at Huffington post; and
several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work
through many links.
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