By Jim Coggins

IN American universities, sports scholarships often seem to skew academic priorities, with weak students getting sports scholarships while more academically gifted students are flipping burgers to make ends meet.

Sports aren’t supposed to have as prominent a place in Canadian universities as in U.S. ones – but this is not always the case.

When I attended McMaster University,           I was a member of the history department graduate students summer softball team, playing against teams of graduate students from other departments. It was rumoured that the chemistry department gave out post-doctoral fellowships just to keep its infield together.

The rumour was a useful excuse to be trotted out every time the history department lost to the chemistry department (which thankfully did not happen every day – just on the days when they played each other).

Of course, such ironies and inconsistencies could never be found in church sports leagues. Or could they?

Only in church sports leagues can you get a headline like  ‘Christians beat Lions,’ or ‘Victory Church loses,’ or ‘Grace Church crushes opposition’ or ‘St. Paul hammers Our Lady of Mercy.’  

Church leagues raise a lot of questions.

For instance, if a Roman Catholic church defeats a Protestant church in a soccer game, does that mean the Reformation was a mistake? If a Baptist church defeats a United church, does that mean God really is on the side of the Baptists?

If an Anglican church loses, does that mean the Anglicans didn’t pray hard enough? How can an evangelical church hope to defeat a ‘Spirit-empowered’ charismatic church? Isn’t that a bit unfair?

And what happens when one ‘name it and claim it’ church plays another ‘name it and claim it’ church? Do they both win? Or do they only positively confess their victory?

If a very successful church has a soccer team that loses, will it tarnish the reputation of the church? If a church has great worship music, inspiring sermons and popular family programs, but a losing softball team, does that mean the pastor will be fired? How long will it be before some church hires a pastor of sports ministries?

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More specifically, in B.C. church sports, what does it mean that the ‘Chief Sinners’ had a better record than the ‘Angels’?

And why did one team name themselves the ‘Samurai Swine’? Did it sound more politically correct than ‘Japanese Pigs’?

If the purpose of church sports leagues is fellowship, fun and exercise, do the scores really matter? Does God really care who wins, or is he more concerned with how the teams play? Church hockey teams are well-known for how they play.

Former Evangelical Fellowship of Canada president Brian Stiller grew up as a Pentecostal on the Prairies, playing hockey against Mennonites. He said that, from this experience, he developed a deep appreciation for the Mennonite theology of nonviolence.

This received a nervous laugh when Stiller mentioned it at a Mennonite church convention.

Fortunately, conflict and ungracious conduct are limited to church sports leagues, and never appear in church business meetings, for instance.

On the bright side, church sports leagues provide wonderful teaching opportunities.

They reinforce our understanding of deep theological concepts, such as human depravity – and sometimes also grace and forgiveness.

September 2009