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The Olympics and
Paralympics are now over and many of us have enjoyed the sporting exploits that
we have seen. Without wishing in any way to denigrate these events or sport
itself I think there are some things that Christians ought to consider. It may
be that young people will be enthused to go into sport but only a handful are ever
going to take part in the Olympics, let alone win a gold medal. We need to
emphasise the value of taking part and not just winning or becoming famous. Moreover,
sport is not the most important thing in life; many other employments and
activities are more necessary and more valuable to society as well as to the
individual. I hope sport is not becoming the new religion. As far as the
Paralympics are concerned while this summer may spur numbers of people with disability
to take up sport, there are likely to be many disabled people who are not able
to; these need to be respected and valued too. While our attitudes often do
need to be examined and changed there will always be a need for thoughtful and
understanding compassion. More worrying is the apparent trend to revert to a
pagan approach to sport – after all that was the milieu of the original games. The
Daily Telegraph spoke of the pagan style closing ceremony of the Paralympics,
and the picture above is of the face of a fiery pagan god that appeared in that
ceremony. The closing Olympic ceremony had a children’s choir singing Lennon’s Imagine,
but maybe he wouldn’t have been too bothered about pagan religion. I look
forward to hearing what fruit there has been from all the evangelistic activity
that churches and Christians, especially those in the London
