Visibility of Pros Souls

How do you feel when you see a basketball player cross themselves prior to making a freethrow? How about when Tim Tebow takes a knee in prayer after a touchdown? Or, when Bubba Watson or Webb Simpson attest to their belief in Jesus as Lord and savior after a win in a golf match? Steward Cink is quoted in Golf Digest, “I’m out here to win souls. I want people to ask me why I’m the same guy if I shoot 64 or 77. So happens, the better I play, the more cameras are on me, the more people can see how I am.” There was as whole article in that November 12^th edition of Golf Digest on the mix of golf and religion (some make no differentiation). They conclude moments like those I described make people uncomfortable and I have to admit I am among them, which may seem to some as an odd reaction from a preacher.

Golf Digest also noted that church attendance between 1990 to 2010 decreased from 42% to 37% and those figures are likely overstated (folk claim the go when they don’t.) Well of course, they’re watching or preparing to watch golf, or car races, football, basketball, tennis, underwater basket weaving etc. Well maybe, but it does seem to me that more people express religious fervor over their favorite sports and are far more knowledgeable about them than they are about religion. We are a nation of biblical illiterates but can quote totally worthless sports statistics until the cows come home (perhaps they are coming home from cow sports.) Frankly, I don’t care if you know all that sports trivia or not, but it does not compare in importance to eternal matters or ethical matters that affect our lives.

I would also like to tell Stewart Cink, who I think is a fine golfer and a good man, that he never saved anyone in his life or ever will; that lies entirely in the work of a savior; evangelicals also seems to get confused on this point.

I also taught school where prayer and scripture reading was done daily between second and third period of each school day. Fortunately, I had a free period then, but I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it because I believe in the separation of church and state, it was in essence a meaningless practice not taken seriously by most students, and not done well. And now we have cheerleaders demanding to right to have their players burst through banners with scripture messages on them; a wee bit obscene in my eyes.

Evangelicals in general make me uncomfortable as they often have the tendency to make discussions combative rather that mutual seeking; where you are wrong and I am right. I like my religion and bit more thoughtful and sympathetic as we are in a common struggle to come to grips with our own spirituality or lack of it.

Then there is that old saw that “you can talk about everything except religion and politics.” That is total hogwash to me, as they are the most important things we can and should be talking about, but we need to learn to talk about them civilly; which seems to be a lost art, yet it is the reason I write this blog, because I believe it.

Politics and especially religion I believe should be part of our normal daily conversation as natural as breathing or at least as common as talking about sports. Assuredly there is more at stake in religious conversation than there is in sports and that may be the reason folk are reluctant to talk about religion, and more comfortable talking about sports (but fights are notorious there as well) but it need not be so.

One fellow clergy member once described me something like this, “
Hugh, you are so comfortable with your religion that when you talk you sound like a heretic.” I liked the sentiment and he meant it kindly. In other words he said was the I have no practically no sense of piety; piety not in the good sense, but in the sense when we put on airs and importance about our religion and our role in it – stuffed shirt piety.

In my opinion God is active in every moment of our lives affecting us in all ways. It just seems reasonable to talk about it regularly and comfortably. If we accept Pascal’s wager, and bet on eternity with God, then it also makes sense we should spend some time on this earthly plane getting ready for conversations there. And if we’ve bet wrong, it has made for some interesting conversation; and I mean conversation not battles of egos.

Aside from that I thought the presidential debates were rather interesting. Now if we could just get rid of the bloody ads and bad conversations there as well.