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I’ve got an article featured over at the Burnside Writers Collective this week. It’s called “The ABCs of Summer Sports”, and as you can probably guess, it’s a gimmicky attempt at covering everything that’s going on this summer in the world of sports. I only had a few days to write it, but it was fun to put together. Love to hear your thoughts on it, positive or negative…
I got an email from MCBias the other day asking me if I had seen the Charles Barkley video yet (click over and watch it if you haven’t yet - it’s a political interview Barkley is doing on TV in which he rails against conservatives and has harsh words for Christians). I told MCBias I hadn’t seen it yet, and after watching it I asked him what he had thought of it. This is the exchange that followed:
PFB: I’m watching the video now. What were your thoughts on it?
MCB: My initial reaction to the video was disinterest. I read its description as Barkley calling conservatives “fake Christians”, and to me personally, that didn’t seem to be that inflammatory. At times, it does seem like conservative politicians wave the flag and Bible around election time, and then desert those constituencies later on. I thought that was all Barkley meant by that statement. But then, I watched the entire video when I had more time, and I was a little angry. Sure, Chuck looks awkward and somewhat pitiable on that broadcast. But I’m sure it would come as a shock to historical saints if “not judging” is the pinnacle of morality! All Christians should vote Libertarian by Chuck’s logic. What did you think about what Barkley said when you watched the video? Was it truly offensive, or do you think he just spoke without thinking?
PFB: Maybe I was just really confused, but it seemed to me like he was calling out two separate groups. Was he calling out non-Christian conservatives for pretending to be Christians or was he calling out Christian conservatives for being hypocrites? Or both? I guess that’s why I wasn’t very offended by it, because I was more confused than anything else.
As far as Christians being hypocrites, yes they are. We all are. I don’t think any of us live up to the standard of morality, ethics, and holiness that we’d like to. The problem has always been that Christians (and most folks, for that matter) find it easier to point the finger at someone else than at themselves. Personally, I’m trying to get better at that.
On the other hand, if Charles is ticked off at the way some conservatives and Christians have tried to marry the Republican party with Jesus, then I’ll join in with him on that. I think it’s an affront to Jesus to say that He would have voted along Republican party lines, or any party lines, for that matter.
I don’t think Charles spoke without thinking, I’m just not sure what, exactly, he was thinking. Do you think it will hurt his public perception (and eventually his chances of running for office) or will people just chalk it up to Charles being Charles?
MCB: I have to agree with you that I too was confused at first as to what he really was saying. I believe he was calling out Christian conservatives for being hypocrites. At first, I agreed with his statements; certainly Christians should not be both “judge and jury”, and Christians can’t be hypocrites the way we have been at times. I agree!
But the end of his comments ruined for me. Saying that Christians are the most hypocritical people in this country? That we’re not forgiving at all? And he certainly doesn’t understand the full meaning of that judging verse. Christians can say that the actions of another person are sinful; there are some common standards of sin that we can agree on. Without that, we can have no law in society or religion, because there are no common standards that we can agree on. Now, of course, it’s a matter of vigorous debate if those standards exist in reproductive processes or sexuality, and if so what those standards are. But he sounded too much like he resisted any common standards whatsoever. Plus, I thought that the “they can’t do anything to me, I don’t work for them” line showed that Charles’ brand of “not judging” is not based on a concern for the feelings of others, but more out of a desire for independence from outside interference.
I think it will hurt his political chances, because it’s too easy to lift the “conservatives are fake Christians” soundbite and use it in negative attack ads. I think that Charles does have some good things to say, but that he unfortunately doesn’t have an “off” button once he has said those good things. Then he keeps on speaking and reveals himself to be just as biased as those he is trying to correct. What do you think the proper Christian response is to this type of critique from outsiders?
PFB: Whatever our response is to something like this, it has to be in love. If we put up a blog post about it, let’s not rip Chaz a new one and call him names. Let’s argue our points with humility and sincerity. Let’s see if there is any truth to what he said, and see if we can apply it to ourselves.
Same goes for conversations you might have with friends or co-workers over the comments. It’s a great opportunity to show that following Jesus is about admitting our inadequacies, which reinforces our need for Jesus. Yes, we should defend ourselves when other people speak things that aren’t true, but truth without love is just a lot of noise. There is some truth in what Charles was saying, but i think he took it way too far.
If you were offended by it, forgive him and move on. If you want to counter his points, do so with the right attitude.
What about you, and final thoughts?
MCB: I think that Christians need to take criticism well, because you never know if God can be using someone else to speak to you. Before Charles went too far, he had good points about avoiding hypocrisy and not being judge and jury. Also, it’s not loving your neighbor if you ignore him. However, sometimes Christians can be a little too eager to absorb criticism from people whose only goal is to stir up trouble. The tough part is identifying the motives of the person challenging us; the words themselves mean little in some ways compared to the heart attitude.
In the end, watching other blogs cover this story, I think I learned a little about the hearts and beliefs of my fellow bloggers, ha. That teasing aside, this was good practice in our constant need to filter the good out of our encounters with those who don’t agree with us, while ignoring/forgiving the evil or offensive part of the interaction.
I stumbled onto this today and couldn’t believe I had never heard of it.
It’s an organization called “In the Zone”, whose mission (”To help men discover and maximize their Godly potential.”) lines up with just about every other Christian Men’s organization ever formed. While there “Who We Are” page mentions nothing about sports, most of the folks who are involved have some sort of sports background. In fact, their banner image on their website has rotating quotes from Roger Staubach, Lou Holtz, Mike Ditka (picture circa 1985), Mark Richt, Loren Roberts, Tom Osborne, and Spencer Tillman.
Founded by Dr. Joe Pettigrew and Kyle Rote Jr. (who was an outstanding soccer player and now owns a successful sports agency), In the Zone held 5 Events in the Southern U.S. in 2007, but has yet to schedule any dates for 2008. They are partners with teh Fellowship of Christian Athletes, among others.
I found the organization through this article, which lists sports personalities that were expected to appear at some of the events held last year. Among them were NFL players Mike Minter and Patrick Ramsey, ESPN personalities Chris Mortenson and Mike Gottfried, and Illinois football coach Ron Zook. The article quotes Mortenson as saying:
“When I first heard about In The Zone, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear more - commitments scare me. I’m glad I got over the fear – there’s no question God quickened my heart and opened my eyes to a great opportunity. We get to talk about our real Christian life in a sports-like setting? That’s too good to be true for a guy like me. Sign me up.”
Raise your hand if you had any idea that Chris Mortenson was a Christian. Yeah, I had no idea either.
If you’ve ever been to one of these events, or know anything about the organization, I’d love to hear more about it. One thing’s for sure though, they need a new video on their front page. Those NFL clips are over ten years old. The Buccaneers in those Orange uniforms? Yikes.
Perhaps you’ve seen the videos of ESPN’s Chris Berman that have been all over the internet for the past week? They all seem to be about 5-7 years old, and feature Berman off camera (or so he thought) using language that your pastor would not use from the pulpit.
I don’t want you to get in trouble searching for them all over the scary internets, so here they are if you’re interested. Just so you know, clips 1,3, and 4 contain cussing and clip 4 contains Chris taking God’s name in vain a few times (7, actually). If you’d rather not hear any of that, skip over the links.
“The Christian Defense Coalition will be calling on ESPN to take three positive steps toward building a culture of religious tolerance in their workplace:
*Discipline or terminate any employee that uses religiously intolerant and hateful language such as “Goddamn” or the negative use of “Jesus Christ” in the workplace.
*Sponsor a workplace seminar and dialogue on religious tolerance and discrimination in the workplace. ESPN has held similar seminars on race and gender but never on religion.
*Host a discussion on one of their programs featuring the topic of the offensive use of “Goddamn” and “Jesus Christ” within the sports world.
It is the goal of the Christian Defense Coalition to help ESPN realize the negative use of “Jesus Christ” and “Goddamn” in the workplace is as offense and hateful as using the term “nigger” in the workplace.
The Coalition will be demonstrating today at high noon in front of ESPN (across the street from the McDonald’s) in hopes that “…ESPN will take a positive first step toward ending workplace religious intolerance by implementing our three recommendations. ”
These videos were obviously recorded and saved without anyone knowing about it. Suddenly they are being put on the internet 7 years later, probably because whoever published them has since moved on from ESPN.
What do you think? Does Berman, at the very least, owe folks an apology for the language he used? Should ESPN take action against him? Would you be ok with comments you made 7 years ago in private showing up on YouTube? Is picketing ESPN a good idea?
It’s true that Berman wasn’t on the air when he said all this, but he was at work, and as such, ESPN should have the right to take action against him if they wanted to. Does anyone know what the statute of limitations are on cussing?
The following post was written for PFB by Jason Boyett, author of the Pocket Guides to the Bible, the Apocalypse, and Adulthood (amongothers). Jason is our resident expert on the frequent collisions of crass sports blogs and hilarious sitcoms.
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The sporting world has always been enamored of multitaskers. Bo Jackson (Baseball, Football), Joe Gibbs (Football, NASCAR), Bill Belichick (Football, Videography, Fashion). We learned this week that the world of sports blogging also has a few notable multitaskers. And no, it’s not Curt Schilling (Pitching, Blogging).
The anonymous guys at Fire Joe Morgan — an always caustic, frequently vulgar, and consistently hilarious blog dedicated to the art of exposing the inanities of sportswriters and announcers — have finally pulled back the curtain and revealed who they really are. Turns out Ken Tremendous isn’t some hack pushing papers at Fremulon Insurance in Kansas. He’s none other than Michael Schur, a former SNL scribe and now a writer and producer for “The Office.” (He also plays the beloved Mose from Schrute Farms.) Junior is Alan Yang (a writer for “Last Call with Carson Daly“) and dak is Dave King (also a writer for Daly).
Writing for TV and writing stats-obsessed baseball blogs are two pretty different things, but these guys excel at both (at least Schur does…I can’t say I’ve watched a whole lot of Carson Daly). It brings up some big questions, though. Will FJM stay just as good now that its devoted fans know they’re dealing with people in the entertainment biz? Will Schur and company continue to pile on lazy journalists and bad announcers now that they’ve dropped their masks of anonymity? Will the producers of “The Office” have to drop their dream of that Joe Morgan cameo? Will Mose and Dwight ever get into a wrestling match about the relative usefulness of VORP in determining a player’s value? Stay tuned…
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Jason, a multi-tasker himself, contributes to PFB when he’s not up to his waist in immersion journalism. Regardless of what type of church you attend, you really should be subscribed to our feed.
Here’s a few small stories circulating around the interwebs…
+ It’s hard not to like Heisman Winner Tim Tebow after reading this BreakawayTV.com piece about the son of missionary parents who ran an orphanage in the Philippines.
+ Art Stricklin, writing for the Baptist Press, quotes a few NFL Team chaplains in regards to the strict conduct policies that Roger Goodell is enacting in the NFL. While the NFL claims that the policies have nothing to do with Christianity, some chaplains think otherwise. Interesting read, though i don’t think the policies have anything to do with religion. like someone says in the article, bad behavior is bad business for the NFL.
The Boston Herald has a great piece up about Patriots Tight End Ben Watson, who has wanted to be a football player and a missionary since he was 4 years old. (When he was just 4, his dad would announce his name as a player for the Redskins and he would run out of the closet as if running on the field.)
There’s a great quote in here from Ben’s father, who is a pastor, who says,
“If you are pointing your finger to the sky and praising the Lord after you score a touchdown, then you get off the field and you’re a bum, well, who is going to believe in you?”
Watson also talks about the midfield prayers immediately after a game,
“We thank God for the opportunity to let us play in the NFL, we thank him for our physical gifts, and we pray for the safety of the traveling team. Now, everyone in that huddle isn’t necessarily Christian, just as everyone outside that huddle is not necessarily a heathen. We’re all human. We all make mistakes.”
It’s a fascinating piece written by a great writer (Jackie MacMullan). Well worth the 5 minutes.
Worth a few minutes to read the whole thing if you have the time. I especially like this quote from Josh’s wife Katie,
“God told me he was going to give Josh baseball back, but it wasn’t going to be for baseball…It was going to be for something much bigger. He was going to give Josh a platform to help others. He is the most beautiful choreographer. It’s not by accident that all the things that have happened in our lives have happened.”
I was surprised earlier this afternoon to see that ESPN.com was actually running the Dana Jacobson story on their front page links (although i see that now, 8 hours later, it is nowhere to be found). While the story had received a good bit of attention on the sports blog circuit, it’s the type of thing that usually gets swept under the rug over at the four letter.
If you’re not familiar with the details, ESPN personality Dana Jacobson, known mostly for her journalist role on ESPN2’s “First Take” (formerly “Cold Pizza”), got a little out of hand at the Mike & Mike Celebrity Roast last week in Atlantic City. Allegedly, Dana was beyond inebriated at the event. So wasted, in fact, that she made some not-so-nice comments about Notre Dame and a certain member of the trinity. As was repored by a tipster at Deadspin.com, this was the gist of what she said:
“I am sorry. My remarks about Notre Dame were foolish and insensitive. I respect all religions and did not mean anything derogatory by my poorly chosen words. I also deeply regret the embarrassment I’ve caused ESPN and Mike and Mike. My actions at the roast were inappropriate and in no way represent who I am. I won’t make excuses for my behavior, but I do hope I can be forgiven for such a poor lack of judgment.”
There are so many lessons to be learned from this, but the most important one is probably this: Avoid all things Mike & Mike related. (which, i know, is getting tougher and tougher these days)
As for Jacobson, we’re all about second chances here at PFB, though we’re still not sure why someone, no matter how drunk, would go the “F Jesus” route. I’m pretty sure Jesus will forgive her, if she’s interested in asking Him (or anyone else other than the Catholic League), so I’m not going to walk around pretending to be offended by the comment. Clearly it was an asinine thing to say, and she’ll be paying for it professionally for quite some time.
The wackiest thing about this whole ordeal, has got to be the poll on WorldNetDaily.com(the poll appears to change daily, and may no longer be active when you’re reading this). I mean, seriously, 10 possible answers?? What is this, the U.S. Census? And look at the penultimate option!
Here’s the results as of 10:15pm EST, on Wednesday night!
80% of 7,000 people think she should be fired or she is going to hell if she doesn’t repent for her comments. wow.
Tough crowd? or people telling it like it is? If you’ve got an opinion, you know where to share it…
MCB: My initial reaction to the video was disinterest. I read its description as Barkley calling conservatives “fake Christians”, and to me personally, that didn’t seem to be that inflammatory. At times, it does seem like conservative politicians wave the flag and Bible around election time, and then desert those constituencies later on. I thought that was all Barkley meant by that statement. But then, I watched the entire video when I had more time, and I was a little angry. Sure, Chuck looks awkward and somewhat pitiable on that broadcast. But I’m sure it would come as a shock to historical saints if “not judging” is the pinnacle of morality! All Christians should vote Libertarian by Chuck’s logic. What did you think about what Barkley said when you watched the video? Was it truly offensive, or do you think he just spoke without thinking?
I stumbled onto this today and couldn’t believe I had never heard of it.
Perhaps you’ve seen the videos of ESPN’s Chris Berman that have been all over the internet for the past week? They all seem to be about 5-7 years old, and feature Berman off camera (or so he thought) using language that your pastor would not use from the pulpit.
The anonymous guys at 
The Boston Herald has 
The Dallas News has 
I was surprised earlier this afternoon to see that ESPN.com was actually running the Dana Jacobson story on their front page links (although i see that now, 8 hours later, it is nowhere to be found). While the story had received a good bit of attention on the sports blog circuit, it’s the type of thing that usually gets swept under the rug over at the four letter.
