Bowling with Jesus

Bowling with Jesus May 18, 2016

Via Christian Nightmares, we find a 1955 religious publication: Amusements for Christians: Right or Wrong? Written by the evangelist John R. Rice, publisher of the fundamentalist Sword of the Lord newspaper.

The cover mentions nine potential “amusements” that Rice apparently deemed controversial: Games, Dancing, Skating, Ball Games, Mixed Bathing, Television, Bowling, Movies, and (smooshed together) Opera and Plays.

So Rice is asking: Does Jesus approve of bowling?

The answer to that, obviously, is yes.

BowlingWithJesus

In the fundamentalist church and school I grew up attending, some of Rice’s questionable activities were commended, while others were condemned. Games, ball games, and skating were all deemed acceptable. Mostly. (Some were forbidden to play any games involving dice or standard playing cards, so rainy days on youth group retreats involved lots of Uno.) So was some television and some theater. “Mixed bathing” was permissible, but women’s swimming attire was closely scrutinized. (A two-piece suit — even the word bikini was avoided — was unthinkable. There was some flexibility on the question of whether suits needed to be skirted.)

Dancing was, of course, a sin. Right up there with drinking, smoking, and cussing.

Movies were a bit more contentious and elastic. Many of us were permitted to attend G and PG movies, but others felt that even that meant participating in the scandalous worldly Babylon of the Hollywood system. After all, what if someone saw you walking out of a showing of Mary Poppins? How would they know you were there for the G-rated picture and not the vile R-rated picture showing in the next room? This concern about the effect of movie-going on one’s Christian “witness” was why even the anti-movie-going families seemed to be OK with watching those same movies once they were broadcast on television. As long as it wasn’t cable television, where it was rumored they showed R-rated movies uncensored. R-rated movies were right out for almost everyone … usually, although there was also a distinction drawn between movies that were rated R for sex and cussing and those that were rated R, but “only for violence.”

But even though our church and school communities included some extremely fundie fundies — third-generation Bob Jones alums, Gothardites, etc. — I don’t ever recall hearing anyone fretting about bowling. Maybe it’s just because we were Jersey people, but I don’t think it ever occurred to any of us that bowling might be morally fraught or “worldly.” We bowled. We liked it. And we didn’t imagine that maybe we shouldn’t be doing it or liking it.

I haven’t read Rice’s book, obviously, just giggled at its cover, so I don’t know where he brought down the Sword of the Lord when it came to the controversial question of Christians bowling. Maybe he just threw bowling in there as the rare example of an “amusement” he found acceptable.

Or maybe this is a regional thing. I remember visiting a gathering of religious right fundies in North Carolina and being shocked to see so many people smoking. For the Northeastern fundies I knew, smoking was unthinkably worldly, but for the good inerrant-KJV-Bible-loving Christians of Tobacco Road, it didn’t seem to be an issue at all. So would midwestern fundies like Rice have been equally startled to see a bunch of devout Jersey fundamentalists donning rented shoes to throw some rocks? Curious to hear from others about that.

Anyway, I think maybe we’ve stumbled onto a useful taxonomic distinction for distinguishing some strains of American fundamentalism from others. One strain, apparently, forbids bowling as a worldly amusement every bit as reprobate as dancing or playing cards. On the other side you have folks like those in my community growing up. We bowled, fervently praying as we did so that God would guide the ball to help us nail that 7-10 split.


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