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Music for a Sunday morning

A bibliography on a Christian approach to sport

updated 22 Sept 2018.

John Byl and Tom Visker Physical education, sport and wellness. Sioux Center, IA : Dordt College Press, 1999.

Contents: 

• The Bible and the body: a Biblical perspective on health and physical education / John Cooper

• The Incarnation and the flesh / Bud Williams

• Somatospiritual model: a biomechanist looks at the Bible / Brian W. Bergemann

• Transforming wellness: linking spiritual concepts to personal health / Timothy J. Voss

• Spirituality and wellness: student perspectives / John Byl

• Attitudes of member institutions of the Coalition for Christian Colleges and Universities (USA) towards required health and fitness courses in the core curriculum / Allison J. McFarland

• Developing an aim-centered K-12 physical education program based on Christian tenets / Marvin A. Zuidema

• Leadership theory as it applies to academic work / Beth A. Easter and Dale E. Gibson

• Sport education: more necessary than ever / James Timmer, Sr.

• Intentional integration of scripture into the study of sport sociology / Allison J. McFarland

• Christian sports and leisure: oxymoron or redundancy? / Carl E. Zylstra

• We coach "Play the whistle" but what happens when the whistle breaks? / Gregory Gidman and David Turkington

• Sport ethics via Thoreau / Douglas Hochstetler

• A reflection on the moral value of interscholastic athletes / Calvin P. Van Reken

• Pressure to win? But I'm a Christian coach at a Christian college / Karol Hunt

• Moral reasoning: what is it and how it is best accomplished in the classroom and gymnasium / Sharon K. Stoll

• The effects of religiosity, education and experience on the moral reasoning levels of NCAA division III male head athletic directors / James R. Timmer, Jr.

• Senior student's perspectives on physical education and sport / Murray W. Hall

• Calvinism and Mennonites :a pilot study on SPEPHERDing Christianity and sport in Canada / John Byl

• A contrast between physical activity in the early church and muscular Christianity: what implications does this have for the 21st century? / Dale E. Campbell.

P Heintzman, G A van Andel and Tom Visker 1994. Christianity and Leisure: Issues in a Pluralistic Society. Sioux Center, IA: Dordt College Press

ContentsSection One: Biblical and historical perspective

• Work and play: a Biblical perspective / Robert K. Johnston

• Implications for leisure from a review of the Biblical concepts of Sabbath and rest / Paul Heintzman

• The Puritan ethic and Christian leisure for today / Leland Ryken

Section Two: Methodological issues

• Toward a Christian perspective in the leisure sciences / Gordon Spykman

• Leisure science, dominant paradigms, and philosophy: the expansion of leisure science's horizon / Paul Heintzman

Section Three: Present practices and challenges in leisure

• Whatever happened to the leisure revolution? / Gordon Dahl

• Leisure and the New Age movement / Glen E. Van Andel

• Contemplative leisure within Christian spirituality / Joseph D. Teaff

• Leisure at L'Arche: communities of faith for persons with developmental disabilities / Cathy O'Keefe

• Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot / Don DeGraaf

Section Four: Play, sport, and athletics

• Sport, play, and leisure in the Christian experience / Shirl J. Hoffman

• Coming to terms with play, game, sport and athletics / John Byl

• Play, game, and sport in a Reformed, Biblical worldview / Tom Visker

• Atheletics from a Christian perspective / Marvin A. Zuidema

• Towards an understanding of 'muscular Christianity': religion, sport, and culture in the modern world / James A. Mathisen

• Competition in Church sport leagues / Kimberly A. Keller, Gary H. Naylor, and David R. Stirling

• Christian ethics in North American sport / Murray W. Hall

Section Five: Leisure and culture

• From the Super Bowl to worship: the roles of story in work and leisure / Quentin J. Schultze

• From faith to fun: humor as invisible religion / Russell Heddendorf

• Leisure, drama, and Christianity / Gwen Laurie Wright.

Brian Bolt. 2018. Sport, Faith, Life. Grand Rapids, MI: Calvin Shorts.

Robert Ellis 2014. The Games People Play: Theology, Religion, and Sport. Cambridge: Lutterworth Press.

P Heintzman, G A van Andel Christianity & Leisure II: Issues for the twenty-first century. Sioux Centre, IA: Dordt College Press.

Lincoln Harvey 2014. A Brief Theology of Sport. London: SCM.

Lincoln Harvey, A Christian perspective on sport.  https://www.uniontheology.org/resources/doctrine/the-holy-spirit-and-the-christian-life/a-christian-perspective-on-sport

Shirl James Hoffman 2010.  Good Game: Christianity and the Culture of Sports. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press

Robert K. Johnston 1997. The Christian at Play. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Jim Parry, Mark Nesti and  Nick Watson 2013. Theology, Ethics and Transcendence in Sports (Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society). London: Routledge.

Clifford Putney 2003. Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920. Harvard: Harvard University Press.

Mark Roques. 2003.  Fields of God: Football and the Kingdom of God  Carlisle: Authentic.

B J van der Walt. 2007. 'Spotlight on sport: a Christian-worldviewish philosophical reflection'. Transforming Power. Potchefstroom: ICCA, ch 13

Tom Visker 2002. Just do it right: the experience of shalom in sport participation. Pro Rege 30:17-21.

Tom Visker 1992-93. Sports participation in a Reformed biblical worldview Christian Educators Journal 32 (Dec 92/ Jan 93): 6-7 and 18-19.

T. L. Visker & S. J. Hoffman.1999  Leisure, Play, Game and Sport in a Christian Perspective Dordt College Press.

Nick J. Watson and Andrew Parker (eds.) 2015. Sports and Christianity: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society). London: Routledge.

Nick J. Watson and Andrew Parker. 2014. Sport and the Christian Religion: A Systematic Review of Literature. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press.

D F M Strauss. 2005. Philosophical Perspectives on Leisure, Play and Sport. In: Relativity and relativism: historical and systematic considerations. In: Acta Academica Supplementum. 2005(2):199-231 Journal for Christian Scholarship, Year 40, 4th Quarter (pp.149-168)

 Marvin A. Zuidema 2006. Foundational thoughts on a Christian philosophy of play, sports and athletics. Pivot

Useful websites:

https://sportandchristianity.com/

Jack Dee on the CofE

"The Church of England for me had always been like an elderly relative that I felt I should visit from time to time."

Jack Dee Thanks for Nothing Doubleday: London , 2009, p. 167.

Music for a Sunday morning

Glenn Sunshine on the decay of modernity

Glenn Sunshine: 'What is a worldview?'

How to solve conflict

[HT Edward Babinski]

Jesus is coming: plant a tree

Slides for my talk below

Jesus Returns 2 Pet 3

View more documents from Steve Bishop.

The return of Jesus: plant trees!

What would you be doing now if you knew Jesus was coming tomorrow?

Luther, when asked a similar question said: "I would plant a tree today."

Why would he want to do that?

Will what we do now make a difference after Jesus has returned?

If it does then planting a tree is important.

Our role as image bearers of God is not to populate heaven!

If it was all we would have to do is get someone to pray the sinners prayer and then kill them.

The Bible is clear Jesus is returning. How do we then behave? How do we then respond? Does it matter what we think about Jesus’ return? Eschatology, the study of the end times, is it important?

For many the idea is that we are waiting around on an earth which is a training ground for eternity, waiting for Jesus to come and whisk us away so that we can be with him in a mansion in heaven. The earth will be destroyed, time will end and we will be in heaven for ever.

That view has nothing to do with the Bible - it is a reading into the Bible of pagan Greek ideas. It is wrong on nearly every single point!

Eschatology does affect what we do now. It affects the priority we place on culture, business, politics, science and so on.

In the passage we had read (2Pe 3) Peter writes:

1 Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking.

Wholesome thinking - thinking is important. How do we renew our minds? - part of the answer is given here: “I have written...”: the scriptures. We need to soak and marinade in the scriptures, then our minds can be renewed, become wholesome. Like a jazz musician we will then be able to improvise and develop ideas in the way they were intended to go.

Peter goes on in verse 2

2 I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.

There are 31,124 verses in the Old and New Testaments, and of these 8,352 are predictive prophecy, almost one third! In fact only four biblical books contain no predictive prophecies: Ruth, Song of Songs, Philemon and 3 John. The emphasis in the scriptures on prophecy is itself justification enough to study it and the end times.

When it comes to theology and eschatology in particular many Christians complain that there are too many terms to understand; and yet we can walk into the Coffee shop and order a coffee - what's going on? expresso, frappacino, baby cino, latte, americano, skinny, how many terms do we have to get our minds around to get a cup of coffee?

So, rather than look at coffee terms, most of which I suspect you will all know I want to look at some theological terms. If we order a coffee we can do theology.

There are four main views regarding theology. All centre around what’s been called the millennium - a period of a 1000 years mentioned in Rev 20.

2. Millennial views (see slides)

A key question is: What about culture? How much will make it in at the return of Jesus.

Does planting a tree now have any lasting influence when Jesus returns. Does it matter what job we do as long as we evangelise and practice singing in church for heaven?

What will be the fate of the earth? Will art, science, poetry, commerce make it into the new earth?

There are two apparently opposing views:

Annihilation or transformation

Discontinuity or continuity.

Renewal or destruction

There are a number of verses that suggest destruction and a number that suggest renewal.

In this passage Peter describes the return of Jesus as the earth being destroyed. The writer to the Hebrews, echoing the psalmist, talks about the earth and heavens perishing and being rolled up like a garment, and Jesus says that heaven and earth will pass away.”

On the other hand we have Romans 8 suggesting a liberation not a destruction.

¹⁹The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. ²⁰For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

Acts 3: 19-21 restoration of all things apokatastastaseos panton suggest at Christ's return the creation will be restored to its original perfection.

He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.

How do we reconcile these conflicting accounts? Is it restoration or destruction?

In many ways the scriptures can sometimes be like those 3D images - to make the image 3D each eye must see something slightly different, when these are then re-focused a new image appears. We have to take these conflicting images and refocus them.

The first thing we need to remember is that these passages may not necessarily have to be taken literally; they may well be metaphors to describe the catastrophic and cataclysmic event the return of Jesus will be.

Let us examine three passages that talk about an apparent destruction of the earth.

(i) Matthew 24:35: ‘heavens and earth will pass away’ (cf Mk 13:31; Lk 21:33).

³⁵Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

The Greek word ‘pass away’ is the same word that occurs in 2 Corinthians 5:17, where Paul describes the person in Christ as a new creation, saying ‘the old has gone’ (literally passed away). This implies not total destruction but transformation. Hence we could legitimately paraphrase Jesus as saying ‘heaven and earth will be transformed but my word never changes’.

(ii) Hebrews 1:12

"In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
¹¹They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
¹²You will roll them up like a robe;
like a garment they will be changed.
But you remain the same,
and your years will never end.

The word translated as ‘changed’ in v12 is the same word is used in 1 Corinthians 15:51 and 52. Here the context is the resurrection of believers: ‘we will all be changed’. Yet again the meaning can be understood as transformation. When we receive resurrection bodies we shall not be destroyed but changed or transformed; in the same way the earth will be transformed.

Now we come to this tricky passage.

(iii) 2 Peter 3:10

The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.

The KJV has “the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up

This was a translation of a word (katakaēsetai) from one particular manuscript (Textus Receptus) version of the passage- recent discoveries have found that a more accurate version of the original (Codex Sinaticus and Codex Vaticanus) comes from a different Greek word (heurethēsetai) meaning: ‘will be found’. The emphasis is not on destruction but on disclosure.

The context here is Noah’s flood. The water purified the earth, the water removed not Noah and his family but evil and the wicked. In the same way fire is used time and again in the scriptures to denote a purification. In fact the language used here is a metallurgical one - the purification of metals by fire. Fire doesn’t destroy the metal it purifies it. So, the new earth will be disclosed, transformed, purified and redeemed.

Jesus’ return then will mean some massive changes – there will be a judgment. However, the earth won’t be destroyed. It will be changed in a similar to which our bodies will be changed, but we will still be us and the earth will still be the earth, albeit a new and redeemed earth.

So, how does that affect what we do now? Should we be planting trees?

It’s interesting to note that in Rev 21 a brilliant description of the new heaven and earth. The imagery isn’t us going to heaven but heaven coming to earth. [Incidentally do you know how many times the phrase ‘going to heaven’ (or similar) is used in the scriptures? None!]

But in verse 24:

The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their spleandour into it. .. the glory and honour of the nations will be brought into it.

And in Is 60 – the imagery which Revelation has borrowed:

³ Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

⁹ Surely the islands look to me;
in the lead are the ships of Tarshish,
bringing your sons from afar,
with their silver and gold,
to the honor of the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel,
for he has endowed you with splendor.

¹⁰ "Foreigners will rebuild your walls,
and their kings will serve you.
Though in anger I struck you,
in favor I will show you compassion.

¹¹ Your gates will always stand open,
they will never be shut, day or night,
so that men may bring you the wealth of the nations—
their kings led in triumphal procession.

What are these ships of Tarshish? They were large trading ships – why are they here in the holy city, the new Jerusalem?

They were the objects of God’s wrath in Is 23 and yet they appear here.

Richard Mouw writes:

My own impression is that the judgement that will visit the ships of Tarshish is of a purifying sort. We might think here of the ‘breaking’ of the ships of Tarshish as more like the breaking of a horse rather than the breaking of a vase. The judgment here is meant to tame, not destroy. The ships of Tarshish will be harnessed for service in the Holy city – a process that will require a ‘breaking’ of sorts.

The ships of Tarshish represent pagan commerce and yet they seem to under go a purging and appear in the new Jerusalem.

In the same way all our acts will also undergo a breaking, a purifying. Culture will be transformed and be a part of the new earth. What we do now has eternal consequences.

Some of you may be thinking: nothing matters but the kingdom – and by that you think of prayer, worship, Bible study, personal piety and so on. But God would say, because of the kingdom everything matters! Art, history, poetry, wiork, science, business – everything matters.

There was once an engineer – he wanted to be Christian in all that he did. He was accurate in all his measurements, he worked hard, never stole from work, even bought his own paperclips, when he photocopied his own things – he worked extra to cover the costs, he shared his faith with his co-workers. It wasn’t until later he realized he’d been helping build the Tower of Babel.

Nothing matter but the kingdom – but because of the kingdom everything matters.

So, if Jesus were to return tomorrow what would you do tonight? Let’s plant trees!

Trees of culture, commerce, politics, art, …. It matters.

Our original mandate was to fill the earth – that includes a cultural filling.

Jesus is coming – plant trees!

Music for a Sunday morning

Practical ethics

Practical Ethics  is a useful resource - it provides, as the title suggests, an ethical perspective on the news.

Music for a Sunday evening

World Christianity Quiz

Courtesy of The International Bulletin of Missionary Research:

World Christianity Quiz

1. Total number of denominations worldwide

2. Percentage of the world’s 6.6 billion people who call themselves “Christian”

3. Ratio of “white” to “non-white”Christians

4. Number of evangelical Christians in the world

5. Number of languages worldwide with a portion of Scripture translated

6. Number of women in full-time Christian ministry serving around the world

7. Total number of Christian foreign missionaries currently deployed worldwide

8. The six countries that receive the greatest number of foreign missionaries

9. Number of Roman Catholic parishes in Africa and in Europe (in 2004)

10. Number of Africans who are serving as foreign missionaries on other continents

Answers here.

You can get a free on-line subscription to the journal here.

Football and faith?

What role should religion have in football? The BBC's World Service programme Heart and Soul takes a look. 16 mins or so into the programme WYSOCS' Mark Roques is interviewed. Mark, author of Fields of God, makes a great case for football as an expression of the glory of God: football can be redeemed. Playing football is part of the good creation.

The programme can be heard here.

Here's the Colombian goalkeeper, Rene Higuita's scorpion kick Mark mentioned.

My best books of 2009

It's that time of year again - the time to compile 'best of' lists. I was thinking of my best books of 2009 and most of them weren't published in 2009. I'm a bit slow catching up with my reading - and then along came a whole tranche of excellent books towards the end of the year. So, my best books, in no particular order:

Jim Belcher Deep Church
Jamie K A Smith Desiring the Kingdom
Mike Goheen and Erin Glanville (eds) Exploring the Religious Roots of a Globalized World
B J van der Walt At Home in God's World
Danie Strauss Philosophy: Discipline of Disciplines
Robert Knudsen Roots and Branches: The Quest for Meaning
H. Evan Runner Walking in the way of the Word
Albert Weideman Beyond Expression
Egbert Schuurman Technology and the Future
Willem Ouweneel Heart and Soul


Here are my best books of 2008

WYSOCS AGM, globalisation and Newbigin

We had a great time at the WYSOCS AGM last Saturday.

Mike Goheen spoke three times over the weekend. The first session was on globalisation. He took a refreshing approach.   Globalisation is the outworking of the cultural mandate, to spread out spatially and globally - however, it has become distorted and misdirected. It has become shaped by economic idolatry. It has deep religious roots that can't be ignored.

His second session was on Newbigin and his desire for the 'laity' to fulfill their cultural callings. This session crystalised a numebr of key themes for me, discipleship, mission and worldview. Below are some of my notes for this session.

Unfortunately, I missed the third session on Sunday evening.


A neglected area of congregational life Newbigin's plea for training Christian for their cultural callings

Newbigin's understanding of mission

Mission: all of life bears witness to the gospel. Jn 20:21
God's people are a sent people - we can distinguish certain aspects

• Evangelism as words
• Deeds, mercy and justice
• Missions
• Various callings in culture

The latter he saw as the primary witness.

It's not (just)

• Evangelism at work
• Personal ethics - don't steal rubber bands; don't cheat on taxes; don't commit adultery with your secretary etc.
  

It is:

• Living out God's creational intent for those areas of creational life

It's the primary witness, but it is the most neglected. It is also one of the hardest things to put into effect.

The church “must equip its members for active and informed participation in the public life of society in such a way that the Christian faith shapes that participation” (Newbigin Public Truth).

". . . a farmer who farms his land but neglects to say his prayers will be certainly condemned by Christians as failing in his duty. But a farmer who says his prayers, and allows weeds, bad drainage, or soil erosion to spoil his land, is failing in his primary duty as a churchman. His primary ministry in the total life of the body of Christ is to care rightly for the land entrusted to him. If he fails there, he fails in his primary Christian task"  (Newbigin 1952 The Christian Layman in the world and in the Church).

How can we do it?

Formation of structures that equip for callings

• Study centre
• Conferences
• Frontier groups
• Leadership that enables training folk for their callings

Lesslie Newbigin 1909-1998

Apparently today is the centenary of the birth of Lesslie Newbigin. To celebrate the fact Lawrence Osborn of Theosblog has posted an appreciation.

Robert Bradshaw has recently been adding pdfs of the journal Reformation & Revival. Recently added are two contributions from Mike Goheen - both not unrelated to Newbiggin:

Michael W. Goheen, "The Legacy of Lesslie Newbigin for Today," Reformation & Revival 14.3 (2005): 49-63.

Michael W. Goheen, "A Missionart Encounter with Western Culture," Reformation & Revival 15.1 (2006): 155-171.

Mike is at WYSOCS this weekend.

Saturday 12th December, 10am - 2pm

The Religious and Historical Roots of Globalisation

This Lecture is scheduled as part 2 of the WYSOCS Charity’s AGM event. The AGM is part 1 and Lunch is part 3. All are welcome.



Saturday 12th December, at 7 for 8pm

A Neglected Aspect of Congregational Care: Newbigin's Plea for Training Laity for their Cultural Callings

Dessert and Coffee will be served from 7pm.
Clergy, elders and deacons especially welcome!



Sunday 13th December, at 8pm

Reading the Bible as One Story

A light supper will be served at the end of the evening.
Students especially welcome.


Venue: Outwood House, Outwood Lane, Horsforth, Leeds.

Creation out of Nothing by Copan and Lane Craig

Creation out of Nothing: a Biblical, Philosophical and Scientific Exploration
Paul Copan and William Lane Craig

Leicester/ Grand Rapids: Apollos/ Baker Academic, 2004. 280pp. pb.
£14.99 ISBN 1-84474-038-2

Creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing) is an important doctrine that has come under fire in recent decades from theologians such as Gerhard May and scientist-theologians such as Ian Barbour. May contends that creation ex nihilo is biblically ambiguous and that it was a second-century response to Gnostic ideas; Barbour rejects it in favour of an absolute dependence of the universe on God.

It is in response to these ideas that Copan and Craig have teamed up to write this inter-disciplinary book. They show that creation out of nothing is biblical, and scientifically and philosophically grounded. They don’t explore the rich theological implications of creatio ex nihilo but do show that there is a very strong cumulative case for the doctrine and contra May it is a thoroughly biblical one.

The first three chapters explore the Old Testament, the New Testament and much of the extra-biblical evidence. At times these chapters read like a rich mosaic of commentators, but the conclusion in each one is that creation out of nothing is not a second-century invention; it is implicit in both testaments as well as explicit in the Jewish and early Christian writings.

The second half of the book (chapters 4-8) deals with scientific and philosophical arguments. Chapter 5 exposes the error that many – such as Barbour – make in conflating conservation and creation: ‘Creation is distinct from conservation in that creation does not presuppose a patient entity but involves God’s bringing something into being’ (165).

Chapter 5 explores the problem of the creation of abstract objects such as mathematics concepts. They examine three possible solutions: absolute creationism (which seems to be anything but absolute!), fictionalism and conceptualism. They conclude that much creative work is being done and still remains to be done on this issue; hence, they are not prepared to pronounce judgment over which solution is the most plausible. (I’m tempted to say none of the three they mention!)

The impossibility of an infinite past is explored in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 examines two broad lines of scientific evidence that the universe is not eternal and that it had an origin a finite time ago. The first of these evidences is the expansion of the universe and the standard big bang model of creation; the second, thermodynamics.

The final chapter examines naturalistic alternatives to creation ex nihilo; namely, that the universe created itself and that the universe sprung into existence uncaused out of nothing. Here they ably show the fallacious nature of these arguments.

One need not agree with all their arguments, but Copan and Craig have provided an excellent, inter-disciplinary and timely cumulative case for creatio ex nihilo.


Review originally published in Science and Christian Belief  18(1) (2006)

Cornelius Hunter on a major cause of global warming: hot air

'[H]ot air emitted by evolutionists' is the cause of global warming, claims Cornelius Hunter. It  must be true he has a graph to prove it (above)!