Football, Objectification and Empty Moralism - A Critique

I read an article recently that really bugged me (yeah, this happens a lot). I can't exactly articulate why, but that's what writing is for, so here we are. Welcome. There's coffee and cronuts in the back.

The writing in question is part of a series on Christ and football fittingly titled "Touchdown Jesus." This particular iteration is about 23 year-old NFL player Johnny Manziel, recently in the news for allegedly assaulting his ex-girlfriend—another incident in a brief yet troubled career.

The writer alleges that Manziel's downfall is directly linked to something called "the altar of icon." What is the altar of icon? As far as I can tell, the altar of icon is something sports fans do to athletes when they treat them like celebrities instead of ordinary human beings created in the image of God.

When we treat famous athletes like...famous athletes, we hold them to impossible standards, then grind them down when they fail to meet our unrealistic expectations for perfection and good living.

I think there's a word missing from Dunham's column: "Idolatry." Idolatry is Christian-speak for anything elevated above Christ or the gospel (Hence "Touchdown Jesus").

We (Christians, it's implied) worship the idol of sports celebrity at the altar of icon.

So who is responsible for Manziel's moral and spiritual breakdown? We are:

[. . . ] Objectifying athletes has terrible consequences. When we do it, we neglect the fact that they’ve been created in the image of God. We apply pressure with our scrutiny and a false sense of importance with our praise—and I do mean “praise.” We take men and make them icons, and we all feign surprise when those icons crumble to reveal the decaying remains of a person. It’s a predictable, broken dance, and it yields predictably broken people. (source)

I'm getting tired of moralizing, particularly Christian moralizing, that pretends to say something profound and spiritual yet says nothing at all. Maybe I've done too much moralizing in my lifetime and that's why it irritates me so much.

But I mean, what does this even mean? That by treating Manziel like a celebrity, we drove him into domestic violence and substance abuse? That fame always has a dark side? That something in the core of Manziel's being just couldn't handle being really, really good at something?

There are so many frames of reference we could use to try to understand Manziel's downfall, like mental health, substance abuse, the sports industry, the NFL and domestic violence, etc.

But this particular narrative manages to vaguely condemn the reader as a bad Christian while erasing the real victim:

The "altar of icon" did not hit Colleen Crowley so hard in the head that it ruptured her left eardrum. How hard do you have to hit someone to rupture their eardrum? This question makes me feel sick and sad, and not just for Manziel.

Dunham's "altar of icon" is ultimately just one more form of objectification (I objectify your objectification!)—one kind of story imposed on the tragedy of a real-life human being. It's a sanctified, Christianized objectification, vaguely condemning something that the reader would be hard-pressed to actually identify, let alone fix and change. It's the Christian version of "a string of misfortunes befell a promising young athlete."

And I can't imagine the reader going home and tearing down the altar of icon they have erected in Manziel's honor.

I can imagine condemning violence, not matter what form it takes. I can imagine holding people responsible for their actions. Once again, domestic violence and substance abuse and generally bad behavior is not something that happened to Manziel. Those are his actions, and he is responsible for them.

Isn't that part of what it means, after all, to be created in the image of God?

Two Sides to Every Story

Like every other kid who grew up in evangelical Christianity, I loved the Focus on the Family radio drama Adventures in Odyssey, an inventive and often hilarious program that taught lessons about such diverse topics as, "Handling the power of media responsibly" and "Dealing with an alcoholic parent."

I can still remember the episode entitled Two Sides to Every Story. A brother and sister are home alone when, in a series of mishaps, their TV catches on fire. Each sibling tells his/her side of the story—each painting his/her own actions in the most saintly light possible, while basically blaming the other for the catastrophe.

My childhood, right here

The episode dramatizes the brother's story, then the sister's story, then what really happened. The lesson of the episode: "Considering another person's point of view."

 It's a good lesson.

I was reminded of this principle when I saw Franklin Graham's response to Naghmeh Abedini and her revelation that her husband, recently released hostage Saeed Abedini, has abused her throughout the marriage (I say "has abused," because the implication is that his abusive behavior is ongoing).

He says,

Other than God, no one knows the details and the truth of what has happened between Saeed and Naghmeh except them. There’s an old saying that there are at least two sides to every story. I can tell one thing for sure—not everything that has been reported in the media is true.

Oh. Okay.

According to Graham, there are certain truths that are simply unknowable—it's a classic, he said, she said, would-you-do-it-if-Jesus-were-in-the-room type of situation.

Unlike God, we were never in the room when Saeed abused his wife, so we can never say for certain that he did—and should therefore withhold judgment.

Graham, however, fails at his own test. Let's break it down, shall we?

"There's an old saying" (older than God?) - Start with a cliche

"...that there are at least two sides to every story." - Transition into irrelevant but profound sounding idiom

"I can tell one thing for sure—" - Wait a minute—you know the truth? You just said it was unknowable. What happened to "Other than God"? Are you God?

"...not everything that has been reported in the media is true" - Aggressive use of the passive voice that sounds like a denial, but actually comes out as an admission: "not everything" means some of it is true, but you refuse to reveal what exactly. Why? What do you have against truth, Franklin Graham, especially since you are apparently in a special position to know it.

The original idiom and the Adventures in Odyssey episode of the same title both teach that there are two sides to every story, and that the truth lies somewhere in between.

However, when it comes to facts, there is only one side to the story. I'm going to put it in the active voice, because I can:

He abused her.
He did not abuse her.

It's that simple. They can't both be true. Abusers and those who defend them use confusing language to divert attention from this True/False binary. It's either/or, not both/and.

Potentially, Graham actually means:

• He abused her, but it wasn't that bad.
• He abused her, but there were extenuating circumstances that either justify or excuse his actions. 
• He abused her, but she deserved it. 
• He abused her, but only emotionally and mentally, not physically. 
• He abused her, but he suffered too, so it's all good.

Alternatively, he is indirectly asserting that:

• He did not abuse her, therefore she is lying.

But he never comes right and out and says that. Because that would make his meaning clear. And nothing is worse than the precise and transparent use of the English language.

Graham asks us to withhold judgment (what with the whole not being God thing), but he himself passes judgment—he goes from "no one knows . . . the truth" to "I can tell one thing for sure—not everything that has been reported in the media is true" or in other words, I know the truth, but I'm not going to say it here.

There's this false sense of balance in "There are two sides to every story," as if you are setting yourself up as the impartial judge waiting to hear both sides of a case. When in reality, Graham means that there is one side to the story, and that is his side, Saeed's side, the abuser's side.

It would be so much more honest to say some version of, "She's a lying, crazy b***."

Now that's a story I've definitely heard before.

Stories That No Longer Serve

When I graduated high school, I had one or two stories hanging off me, like particularly clingy mollusks. One of those stories was this:

Photo by Jason Rogers

I have no self-discipline.

In high school, I tried to homeschool myself (don't try this at home, kids) and with insane ambition but complete lack of structure, didn't quite manage it. I slacked off for about three years.

Failure #1

When I got to college (or more accurately, Bible college), I took two correspondence courses, one in American literature and one in American history.

There were no deadlines, only a free form "You have 9 months to finish this course." With inane ambition and a complete lack of structure, I did the first assignments for both courses and then nothing after that.

Failure #2

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I decide to write a thorough literary analysis of the book of Lamentations for my Old Testament class. Line by line. Line by line.

I ended up sitting in my professor's office completely stressed out and overwhelmed, describing how this paper on Lamentations had consumed me, taken over my life, turned into a monster. Oh, and by the way, I hadn't finished it yet.

And then my professor said something about monsters or about this paper being a monster that I strain to remember. It feels important. I don't remember. It was probably some combination of smartass and profound.

In that space of lost memory, I have only the image--that in my life I have two modes of being:

One--Painstakingly, perfectly, picking my way through the rubble of Jerusalem.

Two--Running, screaming from a nameless, faceless terror.

One--Struggling, straining for complete control.

Two--Drinking, smoking, drugging (or in my case, getting loopy as a can of worms on lack of sleep), all to turn off the perfectionist and tune into divine possession.

Whether I was being pursued by the monster or slave-driven by the perfectionist, my story had no space for ordinary, everyday divinity:

The holy normal of 2:34PM. The spirit-filled comma. Visions of eternity punctuated by trips to the bathroom. The transcendence of non-linear video editing. The glory of God. The glory of a perfectly timed cut.

It feels odd to look back now on what might have been the most productive period of my life and realize that this story of "no self-discipline" defined me. It turns up again and again, despite the overwhelming evidence of things made.

Fifty-eight pages, later, I even finished what was meant to be a 10-15 page paper.

I slayed the monster, before it could slay me.