Mixed Martial Arts for Christ
Was Jesus Christ a grappler or a striker?
(above link from Jesus ROI. Great site, btw.)
A while back, I blogged about how pastors in Brazil were using Brazilian Jujitsu to pull people into the their church services. It didn’t surprise me. Back when I was a young student in Sunday school, they used pop music to pull us in. They would rewrite secular music with “Lord is my Savior” lyrics, and they would get us to sing these new Jesus-focused songs. I remember bringing up copyright issues, and our teacher assured me that it was okay for two reasons: non-Christians did the same thing with Christian music (I hadn’t heard of this happening, but I took his word for it) and there was nothing under heaven that didn’t already belong to God.
Now it’s come to our country. There was a funny article in the NY Times yesterday that talks about how Mixed Martial Arts has become the latest recruitment tool for evangelical Christians in the U.S. According to the article, evangelicals are embracing MMA because it’s helping them recruit young men, a demographic that has been underserved by the Church. Apparently, this movement is pretty strong and deep. They even got a quote from Ryan Dobson, who is the son of Dr. James “Big Evil” Dobson, the demagogue behind Focus on the Family.
The goal, these pastors say, is to inject some machismo into their ministries — and into the image of Jesus — in the hope of making Christianity more appealing. “Compassion and love — we agree with all that stuff, too,” said Brandon Beals, 37, the lead pastor at Canyon Creek Church outside of Seattle. “But what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter.”
The outreach is part of a larger and more longstanding effort on the part of some ministers who fear that their churches have become too feminized, promoting kindness and compassion at the expense of strength and responsibility.
“The man should be the overall leader of the household,” said Ryan Dobson, 39, a pastor and fan of mixed martial arts who is the son of James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, a prominent evangelical group. “We’ve raised a generation of little boys.”
“The man should be the overall leader of the household?” And they say Asian guys are sexist? Aiya. I love it how Ryan Dobson (he should pronounce it “High-in” since he’s into Brazilian Jujitsu) calling out his own flock on their manhood. Looking at his dad James, though, it makes sense. His dad is hypermasculine in that he hates on gays, nonchristians, and puts his foot down when it comes to a woman’s right to choose. You know, men have to set the rules in the household, know how to strike thy neighbor, and pee standing up…haha…you HAVE to check out this sermon on how men should pee:
["I will destroy him who pisseth against the wall." You see, we leave the seat up only because we're faithful to the Word of God. Anyway...]
Also check out the comments on the Times article…they can be quite funny. There was one that said something along the lines of “if they neighbor striketh you, turn the other cheek and hit him with a spinning backfist.”
Apparently this movement is becoming widespread. In addition to Jesus Didn’t Tap (click to hear an awesome rap song) and Anointed Fighter mentioned in the article, I also found Jujitsu for Christ and Divine Intervention Apparel. Right now I’m kicking myself for being an atheist. I could’ve made a fortune if I were into MMA and Christianity. I don’t yet see an atheist clothing line (and I don’t think it would sell).
On a somewhat more serious note, I’m not too crazy about evangelicals using MMA as a tool to pull people in. You have young and impressionable young men, and the last thing they need is something that offers them hope in sports only to switch it from a sports focus to a “spiritual” focus. Plus, there’s something grizzly about glorifying violence and then linking it to Christ. Other than chasing the moneychangers out of the temple, I don’t recall Jesus playing sports or fighting in a ring…although God did wrestle Jacob in the form of an angel…okay, maybe they’ve got a point. With God vs. Jacob, though, that fight lasted a really long time. One of them should’ve used a submission technique. Then again, that was probably before jujitsu was invented.
Maybe they should just keep competitions among themselves. If anything, it’ll bring up some funny Christian-style trash talk. You probably won’t get gems like the stuff that comes from Rampage Jackson, but you might get some funny stuff anyway:
“I’m gonna crucify him in the first round!”
“I’ll serve his head on a silver platter!”
“Thou shalt perish by my hand!”
“I am the Way, the Champion, and the Life. No man gets the belt except through me!”
