Those who have noted the startling parallels between how the Catholic church has dealt with its sex scandals and how Penn State has handled its own have sparked a question for me.
It seems the parallels are hard to avoid. The thought of a higher good has led people to sacrifice child victims in the name of that higher good. From the outside it seems flat out disgusting. From inside? Well, obviously, not quite so…
The riots at Penn State sing a sad song about priorities when one is talking about one’s faith.
Now, okay, I have no love for football, even though it did help get me my first ministerial settlement. I was meeting with the committee in a suburban Milwaukee town, when out of the blue they asked “What do you think of football?” I wasn’t prepped for this one. And, caught off guard as I was, I decided to follow the dictum of when in doubt, try the truth. And I replied, “I think federal funding should be lifted from any school that offers it.” They laughed. They roared with laughter. I was confused. Before this at best that comment had earned a wry smile, if not complete confusion. Turned out the previous minister had played football in college and football provided the large majority of his metaphors. They saw that whatever else might be true, at least for the duration of my tenure there would be no more football metaphors.
I’ve long seen football as a peek into the hard heart of our culture. A bit of nastiness barely removed from Roman gladiator events, organized thuggery…
(Yes, friends, and most of my friends watch football, or follow it to some degree, say, but James, consider it cathartic. I don’t think so…)
But, I’d missed the religion connection.
Now, it’s hard to miss.
But, what is the religion of football?
Well, I have a humble suggestion.
Satanism.
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