I was in the gym late this morning. Just in time to see one of those things I try to avoid: the evidence of our secular religion. Which is sport. I watched a spectacularly choreographed piece of liturgy, which opened the Olympic Games. In this I noted:
- The subversion (again) of the Anglican Church, embodied in it’s head, Queen Elizabeth, declaring the darn thing open.
- The use of music, fireworks and multiple torches to promote the meme that we are all one
- The way (again) that sport has taken over the mass media, distracting us from what needs to be done
Now, all this saddens me. I have played sports, I still do physical things — I was in the gym so I remain able to walk, to run, to participate. But these are hobbies. Ones I used to be good at when I was younger — I know exactly what it used to take to be good because I trained with people in the national squad (they had talent, I did not: they worked part time, I was in medical school so was studying 60 hours a week).
Sport is now professinalized. In the UK, writing London 2012 breaks copyright. The use of that phrase is something the olympic committee is renting out.
I was left thinking that Albert Speer would have deeply approved of the opening ceremony.
We are not supposed to be like this. We are not supposed to worship the idols of this age.
1A long time afterward, when the LORD had given rest to Israel from all their enemies all around, and Joshua was old and well advanced in years, 2Joshua summoned all Israel, their elders and heads, their judges and officers, and said to them, “I am now old and well advanced in years; 3and you have seen all that the LORD your God has done to all these nations for your sake, for it is the LORD your God who has fought for you. 4I have allotted to you as an inheritance for your tribes those nations that remain, along with all the nations that I have already cut off, from the Jordan to the Great Sea in the west. 5The LORD your God will push them back before you, and drive them out of your sight; and you shall possess their land, as the LORD your God promised you. 6Therefore be very steadfast to observe and do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right nor to the left, 7so that you may not be mixed with these nations left here among you, or make mention of the names of their gods, or swear by them, or serve them, or bow yourselves down to them, 8but hold fast to the LORD your God, as you have done to this day. 9For the LORD has driven out before you great and strong nations; and as for you, no one has been able to withstand you to this day. 10One of you puts to flight a thousand, since it is the LORD your God who fights for you, as he promised you. 11Be very careful, therefore, to love the LORD your God. 12For if you turn back, and join the survivors of these nations left here among you, and intermarry with them, so that you marry their women and they yours, 13know assuredly that the LORD your God will not continue to drive out these nations before you; but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a scourge on your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land that the LORD your God has given you.
14″And now I am about to go the way of all the earth, and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one thing has failed of all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you; all have come to pass for you, not one of them has failed. 15But just as all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you have been fulfilled for you, so the LORD will bring upon you all the bad things, until he has destroyed you from this good land that the LORD your God has given you. 16If you transgress the covenant of the LORD your God, which he enjoined on you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you, and you shall perish quickly from the good land that he has given to you.”
Now, the children of Isreal were told to not tolerate having the old nations among them. THis was different from the sojourner and stranger — they were welcome, but they had to be subject to the Laws of Israel. For the sojourner among you was to participate in the Pssover.
We are not of Istreal, we are of the new covenant, not the old. Now, many have spiritalized this and said that we should not tolerate sin in our lives, and that is true. We should continually be examining each other and encouraging each other. But there are some errors we have that allow us to depart to the left an dto the right.
We have become stupid. Our sense that all need to come to Christ, and our wish to be gentle to the penitent has led to us not preaching the law and not preaching about repenteance. Without education and knowledge, we are blind. We are told to love God with all our mind, not switch it off.
We therefore fight about the wrong things. The exact style of liturgy does not really matter. THere are significant differences in the theological understanding of salvation between the Roman and Protestant Church (and between both and Orthodoxy) and they do matter, but the regional variations in the liturgy don;t. The Romans, for instnace, have five or six rites. All deemed licit. We ignore the important — the epidemic of divorce, despair, the loss of a generation because of our coldness, our priggish false self righteousness, and our over involvement with political movements (on both the left and the right).
We should be feeding the hungry regardless of who is in power. We should be doing good and not asking who you sleep with. But then we should be preaching the unvarished gospel. For it is not us that causes change, but the word of God,
And we should not be distracted by the worship of youth, the olympics (complete with McDonalds adn Coca Cola) or the nation that is hosting it. GOd is jealous, and our worship belongs to him alone.