Faith-based baseball
Thursday October 18, 2007
Categories: Faith, Popular Culture
Everyone in the sports world is trying to explain the remarkable rise of the Colorado Rockies. The team was won 21 of its last 22 games and is 7-0 in the playoffs. This would be big news no matter which...
Filed Under: Colorado Rockies
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Advertisement
Advertisement
About J-Walking
This blog is no longer updated and is closed for comments. We welcome your comments about Christianity in our Christianity forums.
Read David Kuo's bioSearch This Blog
Or it could be that several key decision makers in the organization used to be teammates on another baseball team in the American heartland, the Kansas City Royals, when they were perennial division (and in 1985, World Series) winners -- and know how to rally a team when the chips are down.
But I agree, this streak is so unbelievable it is beginning to defy normal laws of coincidence. Amazing only begins to describe it ...
I just puzzled by what implicit hypothesis that underwrites the idea that a professional sports franchise wins games based on their faith, or prayerfulness, or the intervention of Divine Providence, or whatever. No one seems to ever make this sort of connection explicit. Is it that everything that happens is just flatout decided by God? Or that sometimes you can get a divine intervention, but don't count on it? Or that God rewards groups after an assessment of the collective faith or worth of the group? Or that good but improbable things happen because of Divine Providence, but bad things happen by chance?
One of my little areas of interest is pagan Roman prayer and magic. It always gets my attention when modern folks give voice to ideas so familiar to the ancients.
Well, good luck, Rockies!
May Fortune Attend!
SkipChurch articulates a point I've been struggling with in my mind for some time now. How is it we can see the hand of God in some things but not in others? Why do we feel divine grace at work in small things but cannot see God in the bigger picture?
I'm still trying to even learn how to formulate the questions correctly. I think that's more difficult than finding answers.
Thinker? Can you give us another lesson?
God cannot help bad machanics. Sorry Lord, you know this, if a baseball player does not do what is right when it comes to hitting, catching and throwing, running bases and folowing good coaching, they will not win games.
Wuh, wuh, wait a minute.
Following the correct way of doing things will bring good outcomes?
Hey, the message of the New Testament record.
Guess those Christian baseball players are just doing what is right.
". . . How is it we can see the hand of God in some things but not in others? Why do we feel divine grace at work in small things but cannot see God in the bigger picture?
Paul says that faith is the evidence of things unseen.
We now "can see" what during Paul's day was "unseen." For example, we now know that the "universe" is comprised of the same things as the tiniest things we can see.
And in the Bible the granduer and wonder of God's whole creation has been proclaimed from the beginning to the end. It seems that Evangleicals and the usual orthodox followers have been seeing the biggest pictures as a matter of fact. And science has finally caught up with the sensibility of Evangelical truth.
Annnnd, back to baseball and good Christian ways; when you study the swing, throwing and cathching . . . there is only one way to do them correctly.
Quantum mechanics anyone? It takes awhile, but science always catches up to the Bible.
Donny
Serendipity - coincidence - mathematical probability - God. Four explanations for the unexplanable. One of the interesting sorts of speculation regards "holons". Now, as I recall - a holon is anything that is connected to another. Particle somehow connected to particle. Coincidental coming together of those who have lost one another - holon. A seemingly unconnected set of coincidences - holons. Now, if everything is a holon - there is connection to the great wholeness of God - than we cannot be disconnected except by our own failure to recognize our connection to God. Great mystics seem to come to that understanding (I'm thinking of St. Teresa of Avila here). Perhaps it is necessary to see the small connections, the small moments in order to begin to understand that we are created to be connected. Original sin is simply the disconnect that we assume is true. Redemption is the recognition that we are not alone - ever.
I think of the films - Crash and Grand Canyon. Both tried to make that point - sort of.
Donny:
Why do you constantly change your poster names? Just curious.
Thinker:
I hardly think of Crash as a religious film (though Grand Canyon, IMHO, might be slightly more in that direction ...).
Crash was interesting enough, mind you, but I lost respect for it as a great film during the turnabout is (un)fair play revelation of a second connection between Thandie Newton's and Matt Dillon's characters ...
So I suppose that all those other teams that have "born again" Christians in coaching, management and player positions must have not prayed properly???
If we believe that the Rockies succeed, in part, because of the faith of their players and management, then we must also believe that other teams fail, in part, because of the faith of their players and management.
Why is it that Christian athletes never thank God for losing?
I think we'll see the extent of the Rockies' true Christian commitment by what they do when they lose games. And if they act differently from other groups should they win.
Curt Schilling is a loudly professed Christian (and Bush supporter). According to him, this accounts for his role in winning the 2004 World Series. But he made no mention of either thing when he gave up six runs this past Friday, and for practical purposes lost the Red Sox the likely key game of the present series. Curious that.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.