Growing up was not easy. I grew up Independent Fundamental, with a leaning more towards the independent in my household. My parents never agreed completely with all the legalistic trappings of our church, yet we still held a form of fundamentalism, just not the extreme. I have gone off about the whole fundamentalist doctrine many times, I am still resentful, and that is to my discredit. It is hard to know exactly the right thing to do. Norman schwarzkopf has a quote "The truth is you always know the right thing to do, the hard part is doing it." He is right and wrong, sometimes you know the right thing to do, others your left scratching your head.
I am not an athletic person, never have been. It was okay because I was never really interested in sports. I had a big imagination and was far more interested in books and movies than throwing a ball around. Sports were something I did in an attempt to relate to everyone else. I never related very well with sports because I wasn't really interested, and I was never any good. The thing was I didn't relate well with anything else either.
There are groups of kids who aren't good at sports, they relate through video games, movies, and music. I didn't relate well on that front because it was taboo, or at least a good portion was. Here is the thing, I understand my parents hesitation. The majority of the what our culture produces is filth. Aside from actual filth there is the underlying messages of the TV / film / music that is filth. Star Wars is a good example, it is an amazing movie, it teaches heroic self sacrifice, and a message of atonement, and it is also heavily steeped in a New Age philosophy.
For many christians sports is the safe alternative. There is a heavy christian influence that runs through many sports programs. The team prayer at the beginning of a game, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, sports are safe. Yet when you get in practice or a game you hear more cursing, talk about sex, exposure to pornography, and discussions about drugs than you would from most movies I was prevented from watching.
This world is fallen, and exposure to the fallen, fractured pieces of this life will happen. You can't really control it, but you want to build a wall around the innocence of a child, protect them, even though you really can't. I've been thinking maybe its not the exposure, its the awareness. An idol is an idol, regardless of the form it takes. A kid really into goth music worships the bands they follow, a kid really into football will worship their favorite team or player. Tell me how far apart are these two images, what is the real difference between the two?
These are the extremes right? Thats not the average fan in either instance. But that is how extremes all are, if you take sports fans in the extreme, and compare them to the extreme of those into role playing games there really aren't that many differences.
If you look at those who are fans in moderation? Can you really say that watching or playing football is far more wholesome than watching a popular movie? Last time I checked the cheerleaders still weren't wearing that many clothes, and the pride filled celebrations have as much to teach as the rock n' roll anthem that fills the soundtrack of a game during timeouts.
So what is the balance? Do you try to find the lessons in whatever your kid is predisposed to? It is something to try to figure out. I really don't know the answer, being a christian parent is going to be hard.
