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Fri 30 Jan, 2004 10:29 am
SUPERBOWL SUNDAY - FEBRUARY 1, 2004
"... As Super Bowl 2004 approaches, we must ask ourselves: Is it possible for a church to align itself with the Super Bowl in its evangelical efforts without aligning itself with the general godlessness of the event? Can the churches hosting Super Bowl parties effectively screen out the immorality associated with the game? Or, is this inherently an unholy alliance? ..."
SUPERBOWL SUNDAY AND THE CHURCH
A call for the church to influence the world more than the world influences the church
What began as the championship game between two competing football leagues in 1967 has since become an American entertainment extravaganza.
The transition from championship football game to cultural event was engineered by the corporate world as it realized, and continues to realize, the tremendous marketing opportunities afforded by broadening the appeal of the event. With its broadened appeal, many churches saw the Super Bowl as a great opportunity for evangelism and have hosted Super Bowl parties for this purpose.
However, the television event has become, especially in recent years, a spectacle of sin. Half-time shows are increasingly marmarked by the display of overt sexuality. Many advertisements feature the same theme, as well as condone the sexual objectification of women, illicit sexuality, rampant materialism, and indiscriminate alcohol consumption.
The half-time show of Super Bowl 2004 will be hosted by MTV, notorious for its use of filth to appeal to youth. And, as if MTV's filth is not enough, viewers can elect to watch the "Lingerie Bowl" featuring scantily-clad models as they get "down and dirty" for a game of tackle football.
As Super Bowl 2004 approaches, we must ask ourselves: Is it possible for a church to align itself with the Super Bowl in its evangelical efforts without aligning itself with the general godlessness of the event? Can the churches hosting Super Bowl parties effectively screen out the immorality associated with the game? Or, is this inherently an unholy alliance?
As we answer this question one thing is cer-tain. As Christians, we are called to be a "salt" and a "light." We are not called to conformity. It must be different with us. It would be easy to retreat from this difficult world altogether. Many questions and situations would not have to be faced. However, Christ's command to his church is not to leave the world, but to go out into it with the light of the Gospel.
In this approach, which takes so many different forms for so many different churches, one thing is certain: the church must influence the world more than the world influences the church. If the latter occurs, all evangelical efforts, regardless of their good intent, will ultimately fail.
"The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! No man can serve two masters: for he will either love the one and hate the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
[Matthew 6:22-24]
AND LASTLY THREE QUOTES:
THE PURE IN HEART
The pure in heart are happy; for they shall see God. Here holiness and happiness are fully described and put together. The heart must be purified by faith, and kept for God. Create in me such a clean heart, O God. None but the pure are capable of seeing God, nor would heaven be happiness to the impure. As God cannot endure to look upon their iniquity, so they cannot look upon his purity.
Matthew Henry's commentary
RESTORING THE MORAL COMMITMENT?
Restoring the moral commitment of Americans may be the biggest challenge on the horizon for the Church.
Recognizing the nature and magnitude of that challenge is the first step toward solving the problem. The stakes are huge. If the Church fails to rise up and play the role of social reformer, America is likely to adopt forms of hypertolerance that would make the Sodomites blush.
Truth demands confrontation. And now we must ask where we as evangelicals, have been in the battle for truth and morality in our
culture. Have we as evangelicals been on the front lines contending for the faith and confronting the moral breakdown over the last forty to sixty years? Have we even been aware that there is a battle going on? ...
Could you tell me why football is immoral? Can you post a link to where ever it is that you got this bit of text?
Frank- Everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion.
kjvtrue- Now, please tell me, in YOUR words, why you have come to your conclusion.
Oh, dear. There go people having fun--with beer and cholesterol. Naughty, naughty.
Ah yes, Mencken had a good comment on that, he defined a Puritan as someone who has the sneaking suspicion that someone somewhere is having fun.
Phoenix32890 wrote:Frank- Everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion.
How very true.
Including me.
So if my opinion is that the people being discussed in the article are a buncha sick pups -- there should be no problem with it, right?
Re: Church Super Bowl Parties '04
kjvtrue wrote: As Christians, we are called to be a "salt" and a "light." We are not called to conformity. It must be different with us.
This is the clue. This attitude appeals to people who for economic, social, or emotional reasons do not do well in a dynamic culture that is both changing rapidly and requires the acceptance of a diversity of behaviors and view points. The response is to retreat into an idealogy of persecuted superiority. Persons such as kjvtrue do not understand the world but they have an ideology that both confirms their worth, implys their superiority to that world and allows them to judge it, as they feel it is judging, or more likely ignoring them.
I think you're right, Acquiunk. Further, I think many people are attracted to such ideologies because accepting the dogma gives them the certainty of being "right." (as in correct, not political) It's not pretty. It's also not true.
I absolutely agree with your first and second sentences, kjvtrue, but I would have phrased the third in this way..."We must be better." Not "better than non-Christians" (which is very arrogant and judgmental) but "better than we ourselves were before we knew Christ." Can we agree on this?
When I read the New Testament, it always strikes me that whenever people pointed fingers and asked Jesus to condemn others for "bad" behavior, Jesus's typical response was to tell that person to look at himself instead. How different Christianity would be if Christians could learn to do that.
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