Where Sports and Theology Meet: New Book Examines The Reason for Sports

Though I have never met him, Ted Kluck and I share several common bonds. Both of us love Christ and love sports (and presumably the first far more than the second!). Both of us played sports in abundant amounts when we were younger. And both of us made money as young adults by attending sports events and writing stories about them. Knowing all of that, it was a foregone conclusion that I was going to like his latest book, The Reason for Sports: A Christian Fanifesto (Moody). And I do. It is a compelling read for men who like sports and desire to think about them through the lens of a Christian worldview. I mean, you can’t really go wrong with a book that quotes J.C. Ryle and Pete Rose on consecutive pages.

Reason for Sports is a collection of writings by Kluck that reflect on sports in light of the Gospel. Kluck has been a sportswriter, is a contributor to ESPN.com and is the author of several books, including Facing Tyson, Paper Tiger and Game Time. He also co-wrote Why We’re Not Emergent and Why We Love the Church with Kevin DeYoung.

Kluck addresses a wide variety of sports-related topics in a style that is often tongue-in-cheek, but in a way that also gives Christian sports fans plenty of food for thought where Scripture intersects with our games. Topics range from steroids, jock apologies, sports and sexuality sports busts (“bust” meaning failure, not a chest-up sculpture suitable for display in the foyer) to personalities such as Tony Dungy, Mike Tyson, Tom Brady (and his public admission that even winning the SuperBowl hasn’t brought much meaning to his life) and legendary boxer Muhammad Ali.

In a chapter on steroids, he argues that it is far better for fathers to teach their sons to be godly losers than it is to push them to embrace a “whatever it takes” toward achieving extreme athletic prowess:

“But I want my son to know that if he is a godly loser I will respect him deeply. I pray that he won’t be as shortsighted as his father, and he won’t, even for a year or two, find his identity in games or bench presses or 40-yard dash times. And I want him to know that he is to work as unto the Lord and play to win, but if he loses, and loses with integrity, that it will be an honor to go into that alley, just to carry him out.”

On sports and humility, Kluck addresses the ultra-ostentatious world of professional sports where Sportscenter highlights often focus on the latest end zone dance by Chad Ochocinco (the football artist formerly known as Chad Johnson) as much as the scores and stats from the games themselves. Kluck suggests that perhaps Christian athletes should be, of all things, different than their peers:

“So maybe instead of thumping our chests and pointing at the sky to ‘be a light’ in the football community, the Christian athlete simply walks back to the huddle. Maybe instead of soaking up the adulation of an unbelievable dunk, he just goes back and sits on the bench afterward. Maybe instead of kneeling in the end zone for an elaborate show of prayer, he just flips the ball to the ref and thanks God on his own for life, health, and the ability to play a fun game for money. Perhaps he does so, praying that God will give him grace, and striving after true humility to echo Proverbs 3:34 (Toward the scorners he is scornful, but to the humble, he gives favor.)”

Overall, Kluck’s book is probably a very different kind of read for the evangelical bibliophile, but it is an enjoyable and compelling one. It definitely provides some solid theological thinking about the games so many of us love.