I Am Being Serious - What's God Got To Do With It?

[PeterRS]

FIrst let me make it perfectly clear. This is not a God-loving or a God-bashing post. Many of us belong to religions and worship God or Buddha or Allah - even a few are still believers in Ahura Mazda, the God of the world's oldest monotheistic religion, Zoroastrianism. More, this post is about the influence of a belief in God and sporting prowess.

One of the 'sports' I would run a mile to avoid is boxing. I noted though that over the week-end there was a heavyweight championship match in Las Vegas won by an Englishman appropriately named Fury. When thanking all those who had helped him in the run up to the fight, he praised God for helping him during the fight and to win. 

This got me thinking. It was not that many years ago that the US was overcome with 'Linsanity'. A tall, handsome Taiwanese American basketball player named Jeremy Lin, he was the first of his nationality to play for an American NBA team. Based in San Francisco, off the field he was popular with the area's Asian community; on the field he achieved little, He moved around teams who kept him for a few months and then dropped him. In 2012 he finally achieved a run of games with the New York Nicks and became a sensation, called by the New York Times the team's most popular player in a decade. Then his form tailed off and he was let go. He wandered around several NBA teams and got virtually nowhere. Now he plays for the Beijing Ducks in the Chinese Basketball League. He has stated that anti-Chinese-American slurs affected  his performance. Yet Yao Ming, a Chinese who had been a huge star a few years before Lin, was idolised in the USA and was elected into the US Basketball Hall of Fame. 

The point is that Lin was another who dedicated all his victories to the glory of God. Clearly a committed Christian, he has said he plans to become a Christian missionary when he retires.

So my thought is: when was it that athletes started praising God for their victories and successes? I can remember watching the French Tennis Open Championship Final in 1989 when Michael Chang, another Taiwanese-American, became the youngest ever player at age 17 to win a Grand Slam. In his acceptance speech, he announced to the crowd that he thanked "the Lord Jesus Christ," adding "it was God's purpose for him."  The reason, apparently, was that his win had come shortly after the Tiananmen massacre in Beijing and it was to provide comfort for all Chinese! Thereafter, whenever he won any tournament, God was thanked.

I have no doubt he was sincere in that belief, but it drew the ire of several fellow professionals. One, by far to become the better tennis player Andre Agassi, wrote in his autobiography, that he was physically sick hearing that comment (adding that he might have been high on ice at the time!) Reportedly he shouted at the TV set, "Then why didn't God just stop the freakin' massacre!" He then makes what I consider an extremely appropriate point. Why on earth would God choose to favour Chang over his opponent who lost? The same can be said of Lin, Fury and others.

In fairness to Chang, he and his family were always devoted Christians. As far as Michael was concerned, he was so committed this meant abstinence from sex until he got married. (I wonder if that included masturbation!) "It was part of my Christian faith and part of my promise to my future wife." Considering he did not get married until he was 36, I'd have thought his life must have got more than slightly frustrating at times.

Now, if only I had a belief in God, would that have made me a better tennis player? Could I have won a Grand Slam? Sorry, Michael, I know the answer and sadly it does not accord with your views!

https://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/inspiringathletes/2013/09/a-conversation-with-tennis-legend-michael-chang.html

 

[TotallyOz]

Growing up very religious, I can understand the need of a desire to praise God. I use to thank him for every good grade I made, every college I got into, and every good person I met in my life.

I'm not religious today. However, I still pray every night. I had surgery this week and I prayed 100 times before I went under. It is just a part of who I am.

Like Lin, I thought I would be a missionary when I finished college. That wasn't in the cards for me. I think that if back then the church had been more open about homosexuality, then it probably would've been more of a possibility. However, knowing that most of the church hated me, stopped me from having any desire to participate in any organized religion. I grew away from all of that years ago.

I have many Taiwanese friends. Most are fairly religious. I did not realize that their Country had so many religious people until I started hanging out with them. I do wonder what brings that on. I wonder if living on an island that is in constant fear I have been attacked from the big bad wolf makes them more religious. It's kind a like my surgery. I was really good and prayers this week. Well, porn and prayers. I guess the two don't go together. Unless you have seen the Mormon videos. They are quite fabulous. There are quite a few of them that I really enjoyed.

I often do wonder if the older I get the more religious I will become. My mother was not religious at all. I think she gave up on religion when they told her that she would go to hell if she did not get a divorce from her third husband and marry her second husband who was abusive. She never went to church. She got cancer in her early 50s. All of my family wanted her to get baptized and go to heaven. That's what they believed. She did not want that at all. On her deathbed, they were begging her to get baptized. She declined. She lead a good life. She was not interested in a quick fix at the end of it. I always love that about her. I was also very saddened that my aunts and uncles we're so intent I'm trying to change her at the very end with a guilt complex 

[PeterRS]

1 hour ago, TotallyOz said:

I have many Taiwanese friends. Most are fairly religious. I did not realize that their Country had so many religious people until I started hanging out with them. I do wonder what brings that on. I wonder if living on an island that is in constant fear I have been attacked from the big bad wolf makes them more religious.

I am surprised by your comment about the number of religious people in Taiwan. Official statistics suggest the exact opposite, assuming you mean Christians! Only 3.9% of Taiwanese are Christian compared to 35.3% being Buddhists and 33.2% being Taoists. I have sen many Buddhist temples and a lot of young people there. Many of the Christian community seem to live outside Taipei. Despite their small number, they mounted a major campaign against the proposal to introduce gay marriage. Thankfully for my Taiwan friends, only one of whom professes to be a Christian, they failed. In my many visits, I think I have visited almost 20 temples (some of which are very beautiful) but only one church and it is close to the hotel I normally stay at.

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The one country in Asia that totally floored me as I first flew into its major airport after dark was South Korea. I simply could not get over the number of red neon crosses affixed to so many buildings. That was the old airport Kimpo. Not sure if the same can be seen nowadays from Incheon. I was soon to realise that South Korea Christianity had more practising Christians than many allegedly Christian countries -around . Buddhists make up 35%. 

[TotallyOz]

I have met quite a few people from their and yes, they are religious. Some of my best friends are from Taiwan. I seem to know a large number of Christians from there. Perhaps it's because they're all from the same group. They have been in Thailand for ages and are business people. There's also an equal number of that or Buddhist. But the Buddhist are also quite religious. I was surprised at the number of Christians in any Asian culture. I don't know anything about China. But, I know the desire from the American religions has been to convert all the Buddhist to Christianity. Actually, I grew up in a church that have set missionaries to Thailand for a generation or more. I think I've told the story before I have been in my freshman year of college and this freshman from Thailand came over to me and hugged me and said how glad he was to see me. His father was a missionary I am training who came from my hometown in Alabama. He only stayed with us in Alabama for one year. Not even with me, but with my church. I was in fourth grade. This lad remembered me from fourth grade he was now in America to study, missionary. I am still friends with him. His son is a missionary. His grandson is also a missionary.

I just think the number of people that I know from Taiwan has been quite heavy I in Christianity.

[fedssocr]

I think a good bit of South Korea's conservatism stems from the prevalence of evangelical Christianity there. I believe there were lots of missionaries who went there after the war.

I haven't ever noticed much Christianity in my visits to Taiwan but those have been quite short visits. Politically they seem to be a good bit less conservative than the Koreans, although getting to gay marriage wasn't easy.

[PeterRS]

Christianity in Asia has been alive - and mostly well - since the early 16th century. When the Spanish conquered The Philippines, Catholic missionaries were not far behind. The Portuguese had earlier established settlements in Goa and Malacca. Arriving in the tiny enclave of Macau. they negotiated with the Chinese Emperor to be allowed a trading post. They were given a lease on the small enclave of Macao, a lease that continued till 1999. Using Macao as a base, the diocese of Macao spread far and wide to Japan, Vietnam and perhaps surprisingly China itself. Unlike most of the colonial traders, the missionaries took their job very seriously. They learned the languages of the countries and sought souls for God by showing the indigenous populations the errors of their heathen ways.

Chiang Kai Shek's extremely powerful wife came from the very Catholic Soong family. To marry her, Chiang had to convert to Catholicism but rarely followed its commandments! That the Soongs were Christian goes back to a Jesuit priest named Matteo Ricci. Based in Macao, he was the first westerner ever allowed to enter Beijing's Forbidden City in 1601. The Emperor created him an adviser because he wanted Ricci's knowledge of astronomy and the sciences. He had already learned how to speak, read and write classical Chinese. While at Court and on his earlier travels around the country he had several major Christian converts. If a foreigner died in China, Court rules insisted his remains had to be transferred back to Macao. In Ricci's case, the Emperor agreed to his being buried in Beijing.

With Chiang and his wife being Catholics, no doubt some of the 2 million who followed them to Taiwan were also Christian. Some were also Christian missionaries. These formed the basis of Chiang's Kuomintang political Party. Studies show that even with the island's small number of Christians, that number continues to diminish today. Perhaps one reason is that the majority Protestant religion (twice as many as the number of Catholics), which was introduced to the island by Dutch colonisers during their brief rule in the 17th century, continues to ban the deep rooted cultural significance of ancestor worship. Inevitably, this severlaly limits the numbers prepared to join that branch of the Church.

[PeterRS]

20 hours ago, TotallyOz said:

Growing up very religious, I can understand the need of a desire to praise God.

I came from a different household. My mother went to Church but I was never sure how much it was out of religious conviction. My father attended, but only for baptisms, marriages and deaths. My siblings and I first came under my mother's influence and so we occupied a pew - thankfully near the back. My poor sister was tone deaf and sang everything about a fourth lower in pitch. As if that was not bad enough, there was an ageing spinster soprano in the choir - she must have been a member for a good 50 years - and her somewhat screeching tone did little to help the choir achieve a degree of unanimity of tone.

Lying in bed last night, I recalled the sermons. In these, I don't think I ever really understood what the minister was talking about. And that got me thinking about a satirical sketch involving a minister and a similar type of sermon. This was delivered by Alan Bennett, one of Britain's foremost playwrights and novelists, when he and three other members of the famous Cambridge Footlights Revue presented a satirical show for the prestigious Edinburgh Festival in 1960. All were to become famous in their later show business careers. The others were Pater Cook, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore. Alan Bennett's minister is obviously now dated, but much of it remains hilarious and is so typical of what i remember and what I failed to understand in those far off days in Church.

The show was named Beyond The Fringe, the reference being to the huge Fringe Festival of all sorts of shows and events that surrounded the items in the main international Festival. Although planned to run for two weeks, it became a sensation. It had long annual runs in a London Theatre and then on Broadway. It is credited with starting a satire boom that leaned heavily on ridiculing authority and the establishment. It was to lead to a relaxation of comedy guidelines on public television and thereafter to the creation of such series as Monty Python's Flying Circus.

[Alsfca]

I think Taiwanese are more "Traditional" in their believes than most Chinese, including those from Hong Kong. Most of them, especially those from the south, still go to temples and pray to the "traditional" gods (like Kuan Yin) for good fortunes and good marriages. I am not sure if that is considered "religious" or just being Chinese following the "traditions". Most Taiwanese that I know of mainly follow the "traditional" religions rather than Christianity. However, there are some very rich and powerful Born Again Christians in Taiwan who are willing to spend a fortune to advance Christianity in the island. The CEO of HTC spent a lot of money and energy trying to defeat gay marriage in Taiwan a few years ago. Unfortunately, we have a few of those here in the States as well!

https://hornet.com/stories/htc-cher-wang/

[Lonnie]

On 10/11/2021 at 6:20 AM, TotallyOz said:

She was not interested in a quick fix at the end of it

Good for your mom. 😃

[a-447]

As for supporting sports players, I would have thought God would have more pressing concerns to deal with.

Controlling his latest creation - the corona virus- would be a good start!