Kentucky Football and God

by Jonathan Harrison

The world of sports tends to be a bastion of superstition. Many unsuccessful teams blame misfortune on curses. Most teams gets lucky once a every other decade so if you're team doesn't, then they must have pissed off the owner of a goat (The Chicago Cubs), traded Babe Ruth to finance a Broadway show (The Boston Red Sox) or done something else so malicious that supernatural powers continually punish them in the most ironic way.  

While the basketball team of the University of Kentucky has been successful for decades, the SEC has pummeled University of Kentucky football for decades. Since the 1980s Kentucky has owned the second and third longest losing streaks to a single team (Tennessee and Florida respectively). Kentucky snapped the first losing streak at 26 games on November 26, 2011 when they used a wide receiver to play quarterback. The second losing streak still stands, perhaps they should try punting on every down.

During the 26 years that Kentucky lost to Tennessee, Kentucky found every way imaginable to lose: they lost in triple overtime on missed ten-yard field goals and they lost by huge blowouts (59-0 in 1994). Before the streak was snapped in 2011, I had never been alive to witness Kentucky beat Tennessee in a game of football. After 26 years, superstitions reigned supreme. Most Kentucky fans thought that a higher power was punishing Kentucky football for running off Bear Bryant in the 1950s. We didn't deserve to win in football if we couldn't keep the most successful college coach of 20th century. Apparently God really likes houndstooth.

I prayed on the day that Kentucky beat Tennessee. I prayed hard. "Lord. They've won 26 years in a row. Show us grace and mercy by letting us beat them once every 26 years." Of course, I had prayed the same prayer the last weekend in November since I was old enough to understand how football works. God remained silent.  

In the beginning, I figured that God was either cruel or putting off gratification until losing to Kentucky meant Tennessee would miss out on a national championship. Justice would be sweet. By the end of the streak, I came to the conclusion that God didn't care about the outcome of a football game or how it affected the thousands and thousands of people who idolized winning to the extent that it came between them and their relationship with God. Clearly, God has never heard "Rocky Top" sung by 70,000 UT fans after Kentucky lost to Tennessee on the last play of the game or He would smite the city of Knoxville off the map for their idolatry.

In all seriousness, why do casual fans pray more for the outcome of a game than for the people playing the sport? Football is a rather violent sport, so praying for the players would seem intuitive. Why do we care so much about a bunch of people adhering to contrived rules? Why do the actions of a bunch of 18-21 year old males dictate the happiness of so many people? And why do we believe that God has such a big influence on something so arbitrary?

I think we feel that since we care about the outcome of the game, then God must have an overwhelming interest in it as well. I don't know enough about the nature of God to reflect on how much God cares about Kentucky beating Tennessee in football. I assume that the angels sang for a whole week after it happened, but Tennessee fans probably believe that God showered them in love by letting Tennessee continue winning year after year after year. Logically speaking, God can't be partial to one sports team over another. Unless it's the Green Bay Packers, but I digress.

You can apply this same lesson to any competitive arena. Academia, job promotions, etc. We're all built to want to outlast everyone else, which is what makes the gospel so revolutionary. Not only does the most powerful being in the universe care about us, but God, almost paradoxically, seems to care more for the poor and less fortunate (e.g. Kentucky Football). The entire idea of getting ahead or being better doesn't exist in the Kingdom of God. If you want to be great, you must serve. If you're judging your success by wins and losses, then you've failed. Trust me, I know. I'm a fan of Kentucky football, I know something about failure.

Jonathan is a former aspiring librarian who has recently decided to take up farming because Paul Harvey's ghostly voice made it sound so wonderfully noble. He also feels compelled to buy a Dodge pickup. I'm sure the two are unrelated. You can follow him on Twitter @jonateharrison.

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology.

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When It Is Still Not Yet

“But you O LORD, reign forever;
                your throne endures to all generations.
Why have you forgotten us completely?
                Why have you forsaken us these many days?
Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may be restored;
                renew our days as of old–
unless you have utterly rejected us,
                and are angry with us beyond measure.” – Lamentations 5:19-22

by Ben Howard

Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison

More than likely in the next few days, we will have names and suspects. We will have arrests and we will have someone to blame. We will call them evil and they will be our new demons. They will serve as the face of menace and destruction and death.

We will hate them.

They will be the new James Holmes. The new Adam Lanza. The new terrorists.

And then we will fight. We will argue about mental illness or terrorism or who should have known what and when they should have known it. There will be hearings and there will be reports and there will be overpaid men in ties yelling at each other on cable news and using words like “obviously” to preface statements that are far from obvious.

Someone on Facebook will blame Obama. Someone else will blame God.

It is all so tragic, so horrible, yet so familiar, so normal.

Yesterday, after checking around to make sure that my friends were all okay, I thought to myself, “Only 3 died? That’s not bad.” Only?!? Really? That’s what crossed my mind? What kind of monster hears about the death of 3 innocent people, the pain and suffering of hundreds, and the emotional tragedy of thousands and says, “That’s not so bad”?

I am numb. The violence, the tragedies, the death, the brokenness and the desperation of the world just keeps coming. One after another. And they are so loud. They are so ever-present and unwieldy and unmanageable that I can barely do more than let them wash over me in a cacophony of tears and pain and blood.

And I am left cold, and I am ashamed that I do not feel more, that I do not hurt and ache along with those who hurt and ache. I am ashamed that my day was quite pleasant and relatively normal.

Since I am a Christian blogger and I have Christian blogger friends, I will read a bunch of articles about God today. They will talk about lament, and where God is in the tragedies, and how God is working with us to heal this broken world. They will talk about the heroes and the acts of love and truth and justice that happened in the wake of the explosions. They will talk about the Kingdom of God that is coming, the Kingdom that is already here.

And I will remember, bitterly, coldly, painfully, that though it is already, it is still not yet.

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." - Romans 8:26

Peace,

Ben

Ben Howard is an accidental iconoclast and generally curious individual living in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also the editor-in-chief of On Pop Theology and an avid fan of waving at strangers for no reason. You can follow him on Twitter @BenHoward87.

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology.

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What Oppression Looks Like

This is what oppression looks like.

by Ben Howard

About a week ago I found myself listening to an economics podcast on my way home from work. That is a very nerdy sentence, but the relative nerdiness of my iPod isn’t the point of this story. The guest on the show was a sociologist from the University of Washington who studies the prison population.

I’ve heard a lot about the racial and socioeconomic injustices of our ironically named justice system, but I’ve rarely put numbers to the scale of the problem. But as I listened, I learned that on any given day, 1% of the United States population, that’s around 3 million people, is in prison or jail. Even more, 3%, nearly 9 million people, are under court supervision. And here’s the kicker, the numbers show that a black male between the ages of 18 and 25 is more likely to be imprisoned than employed.

This is what oppression looks like.

Of course, this information made me indignant.  What a crisis!  Why is no one talking about this?  Wait, why am I not talking about this?  What would I even do to make this situation better?  Am I not just as likely to demonize and misjudge someone for being a “criminal?”  Where do I get off being the champion for conceptual oppression when I can’t overcome the oppression I perpetrate?

“I love mankind”, he said, “but I find to my amazement that the more I love mankind as a whole, the less I love man in particular.”

Until my senior year of college, I was planning to be a lawyer. I took the LSAT and looked at admissions, and even started a few applications. I don’t really tell people the next part, and I’m certain I’ve never said it in public, but I remember the exact moment that I realized I could never be a lawyer.

I was in my Constitutional Law class and somehow we got onto the topic of statutory rape. As the conversation continued, I became more and more frustrated with the legality of these laws. It didn’t matter if the minor in question lied, had a fake ID, or even signed something saying they were 18 thus committing fraud, the liability always fell on the person who was over 18. The rights of the accused did not matter. It felt wrong.

Let me be clear, I’m not condoning the acts or the life choices that lead to a situation where an adult is (even unwittingly) involved with a minor, but that doesn’t make the process anymore just.

Amen.

The more I’ve explored the situation, the more I’ve discovered that registered sex offenders are a highly marginalized group of people. Many places have basically made it illegal for a registered sex offender to live in their community. We brand and stigmatize these people for an act, that while certainly heinous in nature and worthy of punishment, is not the definition of their humanity.

But this situation undoes me in just the same way as that of prisoners.  I see the concept of oppression and the symbolic nature of the group in question, but on an individual basis it’s something different entirely. Sex offenders make me sick, they make me nervous. I instinctually want to distance myself from them and keep a close eye on my loved ones. I expect the worst.

This is what oppression looks like.

“I love mankind”, he said, “but I find to my amazement that the more I love mankind as a whole, the less I love man in particular.”

There is no place for this oppression in the kingdom of God. I say that unequivocally and I will repeat it. There is no place for this oppression in the kingdom of God, in the kingdom of redemption and resurrection and renewal.

I honestly don’t know what to do about the cases I’ve mentioned above. I don’t know how to untangle the oppressive nature of societal institutions from their pragmatic necessity. I’m open to suggestions. If you know anyone involved with these communities, leave a comment, get in touch with me, I want to know them.

I want to learn from them.

But in the mean time, I’ll keep trying to grow. I’ll keep trying to become a person who sees both the redeemed person who someone can become as well as the broken person they are. I’ll keep trying to be better, to be more loving. I’ll keep trying to love man in particular, instead of the easy love of all mankind.

“Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of anyone. For no one can judge a criminal until he recognizes that he is just such a criminal as the man standing before him, and that he perhaps is more than all men to blame for that crime. When he understands that, he will be able to be a judge.”

Peace,

Ben

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Contact us at onpoptheology [at] gmail.com.

The Election Chronicles: An Introduction

by Ben Howard

I've addressed politics here a few times, usually out of frustration. I've talked about Chick-Fil-A and fear, and I've also talked about the way hatred infiltrates us to the point where we become the very problem we seek to eliminate.

I know I often come across snarky and dismissive about politics. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that I place little if any trust in politicians to do the right thing, and that I'm deeply ambivalent about democracy in general as a functional form of government from a Christian perspective. If you want reasons for that, you can ask me in private, because that's not the reason for this post because today I'm putting on my optimism hat.

In an atmosphere that can only be described as suffocatingly divisive, I want to see if we can have a discussion with some degree of clarity. Today, I'm beginning a series entitled "The Election Chronicles." Starting on Monday, I'll be breaking down the reasons why you should vote for Mitt Romney, Barack Obama (Tuesday), a third party candidate (Wednesday), and finally, why you shouldn't vote at all (Thursday).

However, before I start writing these pieces I want to include you in my thought process. I want to know why you think I, or anyone, should choose one of those four options. 

One rule though: they have to be positive reasons why I should support a candidate/position. Just so you know, a positive answer does not contain the word oppose. I want to know what you are for, not what you are against.

Also, keep in mind that I want this discussion to be from a distinctly Christian perspective. If your reason for voting helps America, but hurts everyone else, that's not a good reason in this conversation. I want to know why supporting this candidate would make humanity better. How would supporting this candidate support the emergence of the kingdom of God?

I know there isn't a perfect answer. That's okay. We'll probably disagree. That's okay too. I promise I'll still love you.

Leave your thoughts in the comments, or you can contact me via Facebook, on Twitter @BenHoward87 or email me at benjamin.howard87 [at] gmail.com.

I look forward to hearing what you have to say and having this discussion with you.

Peace,
Ben

Also, you can subscribe to On Pop Theology via RSS feed or email on the top right corner of the main page.

American Ambivalence

by Ben Howard

I remember Michael Johnson.  Not from 1992 in Barcelona, but from 1996 in Atlanta.  I remember his gold shoes and I remember my 9 year old mind confusing him a few times with Michael Jordan.  I remember getting chills when he won gold in the 200 and 400.  The names Shannon Miller, Dominique Dawes, Dominique Moceanu, and Kerri Strug are engrained in my mind even though I'd never watched gymnastics before the Atlanta Olympics.  I know Strug did something amazing on the vault, though I didn’t understand it when it happened, and I remember having a crush on Moceanu.  9 year old me had a thing for ponytails and bangs apparently.

I’ve always loved the Olympics.  I probably will always love the Olympics and I’m incredibly excited about the Olympics in London (starting July 27^th at 7:30 central time, it’s been in my phone for a few months now).  My affinity is based in the camaraderie, the passion, the spectacle, the dreams, and the destiny of it all.  Everything about it feels so epic, so earned.

In 2008, I had a mini-crisis regarding my enjoyment of the Olympics.  As I’ve matured and learned, I’ve become far more uncomfortable with the feeling of national superiority that is so prevalent in the United States.  I feel a great sense of unease when we celebrate national holidays centered around our national ideas of greatness, independence and military strength.  These ideas entirely contradict the Christian narrative that says we are all exiles in a foreign land, awaiting the Kingdom of God.  This deep sense of ambivalence has led to certain changes in my life.  I do not say the Pledge of Allegiance.  I do not sing or put my hand on my heart during the National Anthem.  I do not vote.  I respect those who do, but deep in my heart this is not my country.

So when the Olympics come around I may seem like a bit of a hypocrite because I will definitely be rooting for the American athletes.  Here’s what I’ve decided, and if you disagree, that’s fine.  I’m comfortable rooting for American athletes because I think the idea of the Olympics and athletics in general can overcome national barriers.  A great story is a great story.  A great achievement is a great achievement.  We can all appreciate athletic genius and dedication and while this may not be my country, they are my neighbors and I want them to succeed.  Maybe that’s why the Olympics are so great.  You can root for success without implicitly having to root for someone's failure.  I can’t wait to feel the chills, I can’t wait to be a fan.

Peace,

Ben

You can contact me on Twitter @BenHoward87, via email or just leave a comment.