I have season tickets for Notre Dame football games. (This is surprising for a few reasons, but true, nonetheless.) Anyway, on a beautiful October evening, I had a perfect view as Notre Dame running back Kyren Williams took the handoff and lunged right, as the play had been drawn up. Seeing a mass of North Carolina baby blue, he reconsidered. He dodged, ducked, and spun left, stiff arming a linebacker with enough force to knock him flat. And then he sprinted 91 yards up the sideline for a touchdown. It was an athletic feat to behold.
I’ve thought about that play often as I continue to ponder the role of the Christian Church in American society.
In the week before that game, Williams spent a minimum of 15 hours working with a physical trainer and practicing strength and conditioning drills. He analyzed game film and practiced with his teammates for another 15 hours. (The remainder of his 35-hour Division I football work week was devoted to eating a prescribed diet, taping for practice, and attending team meetings.) For weeks, and months, and years Williams has spent untold hours doing squats, sprints, intervals, hurdles, lunges, deadlifts, curls, and extensions—none of which are unique to football, but all of which were necessary for that 91-yard touchdown run.
During the football season, Williams conditions and strengthens his body 15 minutes for every one minute of game time. Fifteen to one for strength and conditioning alone. Step back and look at his entire year, and the ratio explodes to 60:1. For a football player, strength and conditioning is obviously very important. In fact, judging by the hours spent, strength and conditioning is just as important as learning and practicing the actual game plays.
Now, a quick trivia question: can you name Kyren Williams’ physical trainer? Of course not. If you follow college football, you can probably name Williams’ head coach, and you might know the name of his offensive coordinator. They are the people with the information that piques fans’ curiosity. Fans want to know about the X’s and O’s. What was the strategy? Fans aren’t interested in a recitation of sprints, hurdles, and deadlifts. Those things are fundamental and vital, but not particularly interesting, so the spotlight is on the coach, not the trainer. But thank goodness for the trainer, or the game could not be played.
Which brings me back to the role of the Christian Church in American society. Ah…American society. Judging by the news, American society is getting hammered on the football field of life. Pick your topic of concern—foreign affairs, inflation, corruption, policing, education, healthcare, immigration, crime—and you might conclude that we are not moving the ball down the field. There could be many reasons for this. Maybe “game” conditions are worse—an allegorical storm is battering the allegorical stadium. Maybe the “coaches” draw up poor plays, underestimate the opponents, lack vision, and fail to inspire. Maybe the “players” need help with strength and conditioning.
The game of life is a tough game. To be human requires constant effort. We struggle for food, shelter, and procreation like the rest of the animal kingdom. But humans have the added burden of our massive unruly brains. Pride, humility, wrath, kindness, sadness, and joy ebb and flow, spike and plummet, often for no apparent reason. As we navigate that swirling mess of ego, we interact with others of our species who are navigating their own unfathomable selves. And we, unique among all the animals, are aware of our own mortality. Yes, life is a tough game. Would we play it any better if we were “in shape,” so to speak? If we could receive training and do the fundamental and vital work of strengthening and conditioning—our Selves?
I think so many in American society desperately need a training program to strengthen and condition their unruly brains, their human relationships, and their existential peace. Surely that could be a role for the Christian Church. The Gospels are filled with Jesus’ teachings on how to be more fully human! It’s all there: how to deal with our vices; how to interact with others; how to find peace; how to understand our relationship to the eternal. Jesus was the Perfect Trainer. He wasn’t a coach. He didn’t draw up plays. He didn’t plot strategy. He taught the fundamental and the vital. I came that they might have life and might have it in abundance.1 Those who listened either practiced it or walked out of the metaphorical gym.
Often today the Christian churches in America seem to want the role of head coach. The stadium lights flood the field, the music blares, the crowd roars, and the churches are drawn to the adrenaline high of the hot social issues. The various denominations want to draw up the plays in the game of life. Lobbying in the halls of Congress, marching in protests, advocating for specific politicians, and preaching the strategies of offense, defense, and handoffs, they want to be out on the field—not back in the gym.
No wonder it seems like American society is getting hammered on the football field of life. The weight room has been left unattended. The humans, finding the lights off and the nameless trainer gone, wander back out to the field, out of shape and ill-prepared.
1. John 10:10b
