The popularity of football and “the most infallible sign of the presence of God”

NOTE: A video depicting the Obamas as primates dominated headlines over the weekend. For a biblical and personal response, please see my latest website article.

The Seattle Seahawks won yesterday’s Super Bowl LX over the New England Patriots with a dominant defensive performance. If you’re like the vast majority of us, you don’t live in either team’s media market and thus likely don’t have a personal interest in what I just wrote. But if you’re like more than two hundred million other Americans, you watched the game (or at least part of it) anyway, as did people in over 180 countries in nearly 25 languages.

Perhaps it was the party you attended for which the game was more or less an excuse to go. Perhaps it was gathering with family and friends for this now-annual tradition. Perhaps it was the commercials that interested you more than the game. Those who made them certainly hope you watched, since they spent $8 million on a single thirty-second ad.

Nonetheless, you probably knew the result of the Super Bowl before you read it in my article this morning. I would not necessarily expect the same if I were writing about the World Series, the Kentucky Derby, the Masters, or any other headline sports event. But NFL football and its championship game hold an unrivaled place in our culture.

As I am reflecting on this fact today, I am also wondering why it is so.

And I am wondering if the explanation matters for the rest of the year.

It turns out, the answer to my first question answers the second as well.

“Sentiment, emotion, passion, and allegiance”

Reasons for the popularity of professional football are well known and unsurprising: among other factors, watching the game fosters relationships, tailgating is fun, league parity keeps things interesting, the game is fast-paced, and fantasy football has real stakes.

A game with roots in antiquity, as I noted in my recent website article on the history of the Super Bowl, has become one of the most dominant parts of contemporary culture. Nothing rivals it for viewership, ad revenue, or any other audience metric.

But I think there is another factor at work here, one that is less obvious but even more significant.

The British political philosopher Edmund Burke (1729–1797) is widely considered to be the founder of conservatism. A biographer summarizes his worldview this way:

Human passions are guided by empathy and imagination. Human well-being is grounded in a social order whose values are given by divine providence. Human reason is limited in scope, and insufficient as a basis for public morality. . . .

People cannot reason themselves into a good society, for a good society is rooted not merely in reason but in the sentiments and the emotions.

Burke asserted that “politics ought to be adjusted, not to human reasonings, but to human nature; of which the reason is but a part, and by no means the greatest part.” His biographer therefore notes:

Human reason is a wonderful thing, but Burke insists we are above all creatures of sentiment, emotion, passion, and allegiance, for good or ill. What matters and should matter to us is not abstract liberties, but the liberty to live our lives well alongside others and in our communities.

Burkean philosophy and football

What does Burkean political philosophy have to do with the popularity of the Super Bowl?

“Sentiment, emotion, [and] passion” aptly describe a typical fan’s experience. We feel the highs and lows of the game. We cringe at the physical collisions and marvel at the athletic exploits. None of this is a rational choice or the product of a rational process.

In addition, almost nothing regarding our “allegiance” to our preferred team is the product of reason. I cannot imagine that many fans examine a team’s roster in detail, explore its finances, scrutinize its leadership structure, and then make a rational decision to support it. Our allegiance is the product of where we live and/or other emotional factors that tie us to our team “for good or ill.”

All of this points to the transformational heart of biblical Christianity, a fact that explains its explosive early growth and that compels us to embrace it for ourselves.

“The life was made manifest”

Six decades after he left his father’s fishing boat to follow Jesus (Matthew 4:21–22), John was still not over the experience. He described his relationship with his Lord in these intimate terms:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us (1 John 1:1–2).

After teaching world religions with four seminaries and writing numerous books and articles in the area, I can report that no other religion offers such a personal engagement with the deity it worships. But the living Lord Jesus, God “made manifest to us,” could be “looked upon” and “touched with our hands.” His followers heard his omniscient wisdom, experienced his omnipotent power, and felt his omnibenevolent grace.

Then, when they were “filled with the Holy Spirit” at Pentecost, they were so transformed and empowered that they had to tell “the mighty works of God” and Peter had to preach the glorious gospel of redemption in Christ (Acts 2:4, 11, 14). The movement that resulted worked out its worldview with reasoned brilliance, to be sure, as any reading of the book of Romans will show.

But it was birthed in an intimate engagement with the personal, living Lord Jesus, and never lost its fervor for him.

“The most infallible sign of the presence of God”

The Christians who have made the greatest impact on my life were the believers who were the most passionate about their Lord. Their joy in Jesus was contagious and appealing. Their commitment to Christ, often in the face of great challenges and suffering, made me want what they had.

How can we experience Jesus in such a passionate way?

David said to God, “In your presence there is fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11; note the present tense). If we make time today to meet with the living Lord Jesus, to kneel before him in adoration, hear his voice, feel his touch, and give him our lives in profound gratitude for his astounding grace, how can we be the same?

The brilliant philosopher and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin claimed, “Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.” Julian of Norwich was therefore right to say,

“The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything.”

Will you experience such joy today?

Quote for the day:

“No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.” —C. S. Lewis

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Let’s take a break from bad news around the planet by considering a way to escape the planet altogether.

A California-based startup plans to open a hotel on the moon by 2032. Galactic Resource Utilizations Space launched their booking website last month. Construction is expected to begin in 2029, pending regulatory approval. You can book your spot by putting down a deposit of a mere $1,000,000.

Why 2016 is making a comeback

If you’re looking for a less expensive way to manage the stress of our times, however, you can look to history rather than to the heavens. For example, the Wall Street Journal reports that “a severe bout of nostalgia is spreading in America” as “young adults are yearning for the simple days of 2016.”

In the first two weeks of January, the number of user-generated 2016 playlists on Spotify surged nearly 800 percent. A New York Times columnist points to the surge of people posting online content from ten years ago as well.

Some might blame the 2016 election of Donald Trump, but a history professor responded: “Part of it is that we have lost some hope of the future—that’s true of the right and the left. There’s some consolation in looking back.” According to the Journal article, “Some think the nostalgia stems from a shift in the past decade to a darker period of online life, and that celebrating 2016 brings people back to a less dystopian era of the internet.”

For a different way to escape the news, you can join the 213.1 million US adults who plan to watch the Super Bowl this Sunday. This year, 121.1 million intend to throw or attend a party, while another 18.2 million plan to watch the game at a bar or restaurant.

Of course, the “Sunday scaries” will be waiting for you when the game is over and you have to contemplate the week to come. You might even be experiencing lunaediesophobia: an intense fear or extreme anxiety regarding Mondays.

There’s a better way to redeem the stress of our days. In one sense it will cost you nothing, while in another it will cost you everything, but in the end it will bring you a peace and purpose you will find nowhere else.

“We are trying to fill an existential chasm”

Let’s begin with two book reviews.

First, the humanities professor Samuel Goldman reviews for the Wall Street Journal a book titled The Rise and Fall of Rational Control: The History of Modern Political Philosophy. Based on Harvard professor Harvey C. Mansfield’s signature course, it shows how ancient thinkers viewed reason as an end in itself. However, beginning with Machiavelli (1469–1527), modernity made understanding the world a means to changing it.

In Western context, this quest produced representational government, capitalistic commerce, and a secularized society, all intended to improve our lives by improving our world. But as the current epidemics of depression, loneliness, and “deaths of despair” illustrate, our efforts have been less than successful.

This leads us to our second review, this one in the Telegraph, where the author Stuart Jeffries appraises the latest book by psychoanalyst Adam Phillips. In The Life You Want, Phillips explains why our quest for happiness and fulfillment is so often unfulfilled: we are goaded by our materialistic society and the advertising that engulfs us to make our lives better with things. As Jeffries notes, “We are trying to fill an existential chasm inside ourselves with expensive nonsense.”

This is because, according to Phillips, we do not know what we truly want and thus cannot be truly satisfied. As a result, when we obtain something we think we want, it soon loses its luster. In fact, we often feel worse than before we obtained it.

“As labor pains upon a pregnant woman”

So, if the path to peace and purpose is not to be found within our society or ourselves, where are we to look? I’m sure you know what I’ll suggest, but I’d like to take us there through a route I had not considered before.

In my morning Bible study this week, I came upon 1 Thessalonians 5. Here Paul says of the return of Christ, “While people are saying, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape” (v. 3). Let’s modify his metaphor for our conversation:

1. We are all “pregnant” with regard to ideas, attitudes, character, and our interior lives: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7 KJV).
2. Like a child in their mother’s womb, that which is within us must inevitably come to “birth” in the world: “Nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known” (Matthew 10:26).
3. When it does, what we have been “growing” in the unseen dimensions of our lives will be obvious to ourselves and to others: “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).
4. We must therefore form our interior lives in ways that produce the exterior peace and purpose we were created to seek: “If there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. . . . and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:8–9).

Such formation in God’s plan costs us everything: We must be “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20) as we give our entire selves to the Lord in a “living” and perpetual sacrifice (Romans 12:1) and take up our cross “daily” (Luke 9:23). In another sense, however, this costs us nothing: our holy Father can accept our surrender not because we are worthy but because his Son paid our debt and purchased our salvation (2 Corinthians 5:21).

We can even ask God to help us submit our lives to God, praying with the despairing father of a demon-possessed boy, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). We can pray for the faith to have faith, the strength to have the strength to yield our lives unconditionally to our Lord.

“The one thing that bears fruit in the life”

When we seek to “abide” in Christ in this holistic way, he assures us: “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit” (John 15:5a). However, he also warns us, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (v. 5b).

Our lives can produce “much fruit” with Jesus, or we can produce “nothing” by ourselves. This is a binary choice with a binary result.

In yesterday’s My Utmost for His Highest reading, Oswald Chambers states:

“This abandon to the love of Christ is the one thing that bears fruit in the life, and it will always leave the impression of the holiness and of the power of God.”

Will you choose this “one thing” today?

Quote for the day:

“When I speak of a man ‘growing in grace’ I mean simply this—that his sense of sin is becoming deeper, his faith stronger, his hope brighter, his love more extensive, his spiritual mindedness more marked.” —J. C. Ryle

Our latest website resources:

• Bad Bunny, the Grammys, Super Bowl outrage, Don Lemon arrest & Epstein update
• What does faith have to say about today’s sports culture?
• What does the future look like for Israel, Hamas, and Gaza?
• Should I have watched the Grammys? A reflection on cultural engagement and spiritual purity
• Alex Pretti’s death, immigration tensions & how Christians can respond with Dr. Ryan Denison

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