Until NFL owners and the NFL Players Association are willing to put less money in their pockets, don’t expect their influence to go much farther than celebrity players recording public service announcements. In the meantime, use the awkward courage the NFL refuses to show. Intervene when you see a friend or family member on the verge of abusing alcohol. You might just be saving another precious someone from a different kind of abuse.
That’s the nature of sports discussions now—the nature of all discussions. For some reason, we as a culture have to reduce the things we love to either or. Popularity and support have to be a zero-sum propositions, where the light can only shine in one direction.
There’s not a single verse in the Bible that says church has to be boring, that it has to be attended in investment banker attire, that worship can be expressed only in liturgical ways. When Jesus healed people or raised their loved ones from the dead, how do you think those beneficiaries responded? If lives are being utterly changed in a church, why would we expect a different response?
Tonight, I’m choosing not to think about the Ravens’ new playoff chances or their altered offense’s chemistry. Tonight, I’m not going to feel sorry for Peyton Manning working with a third-string center or Chip Kelley coaching without a full stable of dynamic receivers for the NFL version of his Oregon offense.