OR: Are Sports More Important Than Faith?
(This article reflects my sense of anxiety over what is a religious issue in a sense. However, I decided to put on the Politics Forum because it is about using laws to promote values in society.)
Recently a long time friend invited me to a meeting of the education committee at my church. I no longer have children (well, she's 25, so, sort of, but not really) and spend most of my time in trying to encourage young families whom are seeking God to come and see what our church is all about. But I agreed because I believe in education (was a teacher once upon a time) and was interested in how the Sunday School was doing.
It was quite surprising to me that the Sunday School Committee was actually suggesting that perhaps Sunday School was going to be cancelled in the fall because it wasn't felt that there was enough interest from the kids to make it worthwhile to have. So, in an effort to see if the kids and parents would be too disappointed by this (churches hate to lose anyone through "disappointment") they held a "fun night" to see how the kids felt about this.
Perhaps in the interest of fairness I should say that I don't believe kids should have a say in whether they go to Sunday School. That is, to me, a parental responsibility. When my daughter became 2 years old she began Christian education and her mother and I attended every week also. It's part of what some people call "family values" as opposed to the parent who says "this looks Christian, kid, you go while Mom and Dad sit and read the paper Sunday mornings." That teaches values also, just not very good ones.
What I found out quickly was that the kids were so involved in sports programs on Sunday morning that they had no time for Sunday School. There were 16 kids at the meeting ranging from 8 to 15 years in age. 10 of them had at least a 6 week commitment to either junior football (Pop Warner) or cheerleading for junior football or were involved in youth basketball or volleyball programs during the winter. 2 of the others were involved in bowling leagues that ran from October to March that met Sunday mornings.
I was outraged by this. Obviously there is no sense among parents that faith requires participation in Christian education and it's much easier to get Jane and Johnny to go to sports programs than church. The kids were ambivalent about their faith with a very poor understanding of the role of worship, Bible study, or even fellowship in their lives.
Now I understand proposing to the local government that sports programs not be allowed to operate on Sunday morning (except the Summer) is going to meet with both skepticism and derision. Those on the liberal side will say that we don't need a law to accomplish the purpose of getting kids into christian education programs. It should be up to the parents a liberal will say and suggest an education program for the adults to show them the benefits and joy of Bible study. Conservatives will say this is meddling intrusively into families when there are much worse problems that need dealing with.
But, before you scoff so quickly, consider the use of law in society. It is not simply a device for stating what is wrong. True, saying that stealing, murder, blackmail is not actually promoting good behavior. However, what about laws which promote having children? We certainly do that by the tax breaks we give. It is, at least in part, promoting the social value of a family by agreeing as a government to provide some support.
The thing is, while I might have been a flack-jacketed parent whipping my child daily, forcing her to attend Sunday School, most parents today aren't. They might wish Jane or Johnny wanted to go to church but sports are, believe it or not, more fun. Shameful but true. But we don't give up teaching science or math to kids because it isn't fun. We recognize the value of education and promote the concept by forcing kids to attend schools.
I'm not suggesting we do that with Christian Education. I'm suggesting we level the playing field between a society that says it has values (you do have values, don't you?) and the ability of someone to run youth sports on Sunday mornings.
Do you really think that is asking for too much?