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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 15 November 2022

The ministry with which I serve, SAT-7, works to share the gospel and Christian teaching with people throughout the Middle East and North Africa region.

SAT-7 does this 24/7, presenting God’s Word and Christian hope via un-censorable satellite television broadcasts and now also online video on demand.

Yet with that, I find it interesting that when people, including Christian radio staff who interview me, become aware of serious crises in the region – which is nearly every week – they ask, “What is SAT-7 doing?” Emphasis on the word “doing.”

What they mean—whether they realize it—or what they are implying, is that physical or humanitarian needs require a direct physical response. Providing food, clothing, housing. I’ll call this, Feeding the body.

This need and opportunity for direct physical response could develop in the wake of war, growing food insecurity, poverty, or serious spin offs of social unrest…

There is, of course, nothing wrong with, and in fact a lot right with, responding to physical or humanitarian needs by, so to speak, feeding the body. To love your neighbor as yourself you can do no less than respond to people’s physical or humanitarian needs. 

Some Christian nonprofit organizations and NGOs are exclusively dedicated to direct physical or material responses to people’s physical and humanitarian needs. This is a good thing.

But, while providing people with physical help, like food and clothing, even money, is good, even commanded of believers, still, providing for physical or humanitarian needs with material goods is not all they need and tends to address only immediate circumstances. 

This is not a criticism of organizations or people who work to feed the body. It’s just an observation about the total picture.

The question remains, have we helped them in the long term?

Since SAT-7 is a broadcast and media ministry, it is not typically and regularly working on ground with material resources. So in some people’s minds, SAT-7 is apparently not “doing” anything. But then again, SAT-7 is “doing” something every day. It’s feeding the soul. It is broadcasting the gospel, the most powerful transformative message in the world.

Sharing Christ with needy people—including those in the midst of crises—then seeing dramatic spiritual change in their lives, allows us to witness how spiritual transformation changes how people think and act, often affecting their personal opportunities and condition.

My friend Tom Atema, observed, “Jesus knows that he can make a person's life better, and then they will become better at life. They will, as they mature, have an inward want to to make their life better - and they do. It’s one evidence that a person has accepted Jesus as Savior and is growing in this relationship. New believers gain dignity and self-respect. They become image bearers of Jesus in their everyday life. Before long, they take themselves off the aid given and provide for themselves.”

It seems to me that some Christians don’t really have the confidence or deep-down belief that their faith can change the world. They seem to be looking for something else, some other solution to address the intractable social problems confronting us. 

If so, in my view, they are missing the point that they already have the answer. They are God’s ambassadors of reconciliation. And they must have the understanding and the confidence to acknowledge that no other values or approaches or philosophies offer the power of new creation that is in the gospel: 

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here,” (2 Cor. 5:17).

As the late British theologian John Stott once put it: “Evangelism is the major instrument of social change. For the Gospel changes people and changed people can change society.”

We know God’s Word makes a difference because we can see some changes with our eyes. We experience the fulfilment of his promises.

We know God’s Word makes a difference because he promised this in his Word: Scripture says, “So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Is. 55:11).

So, “What is SAT-7 doing?” Well, it is sharing with desperate people the one and best solution to every and all problems, every and all challenges, which is to say, SAT-7 is pointing people with a relational, sin-problem dilemma to the one relationship that resolves their dilemma, salvation in Christ.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. 

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022   

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 07 November 2022

Washington and Colorado became the first states to legalize sale of marijuana for recreational purposes in 2012. Now President Joe Biden stated in February 2021 that his administration will pursue cannabis decriminalization. Is this trend toward embracing recreational marijuana good and wise?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #53 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Both Democrats and Republican politicians, and certainly the general public, seem to have made peace with the idea that marijuana— also called cannabis, weed, pot, or dope, referring to the dried flowers, leaves, stems, and seeds of the cannabis plant—is a harmless drug, no more threatening than caffeine. And now the current administration is apparently marching full speed ahead toward decriminalization or legalization of marijuana in both medical and recreational uses.

“In the US, the non-medical use of cannabis is legalized in 19 states (plus Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the District of Columbia) and decriminalized in 12 states (plus the US Virgin Islands) as of May 2022. Decriminalization refers to a policy of reduced penalties for cannabis offenses, typically involving a civil penalty for possessing small amounts…instead of criminal prosecution or the threat of arrest. In jurisdictions without penalty the policy is referred to as legalization, although the term decriminalization is sometimes used for this purpose as well.”

“Despite federal prohibition, the U.S. cannabis industry has experienced dramatic growth in recent years. By some estimates, total U.S. cannabis sales were expected to surpass $24 billion in 2021, representing 38% growth over 2020 sales…(Business analysts) projected that the cannabis industry is expected to add $92 billion to the U.S. economy.”

Around nine-in-ten Americans favor some form of marijuana legalization, according to an April 2021 Pew Research Center survey. An overwhelming majority of U.S. adults (91%) say either that marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use (60%) or that it should be legal for medical use only (31%). Just 8% say the drug should not be legal in any form.”

The CDC says, “Marijuana is the most commonly used federally illegal drug in the United States; 48.2 million people, or about 18% of Americans, used it at least once in 2019.”

Now, despite all the excitement about “Ooo, pot is finally legal,” there are still significant downsides. In other words, marijuana was considered an illegal and harmful drug in the past for worthy reasons.

Again, according to the CDC, 

• Recent research estimated that approximately 3 in 10 people who use marijuana have marijuana use disorder. For people who begin using marijuana before age 18, the risk of developing marijuana use disorder is even greater.
• Marijuana use directly affects the brain, specifically the parts of the brain responsible for memory, learning, attention, decision-making, coordination, emotion, and reaction time. Infants, children, and teens (who still have developing brains) are especially susceptible to the adverse effects of marijuana.
• Long-term or frequent marijuana use has been linked to increased risk of psychosis or schizophrenia in some users.
• Using marijuana during pregnancy may increase the person’s risk for pregnancy complications. 

So “the public health impact of marijuana legalization remains a controversial issue. Advocates of legalization contend that this policy change will provide for more stringent regulation and safer use of marijuana, more efficient use of law enforcement resources, and possibly even a decline in the prevalence of marijuana use among adolescents and of the use of “harder” drugs (e.g., cocaine and heroin). 

Those opposing legalization cite the adverse effects of marijuana and worry that legalization will lead to an increase in use, and thus an increase in health problems attributed to marijuana. The latter view is reflected in the official position statements of prominent professional medical associations such as the American Psychiatric Association, the American Society of Addiction Medicine, and the American Medical Association, which have expressed concern regarding the negative consequences of marijuana use.”

“There has been a significant increase in the number of people using marijuana daily or nearly daily.” “The legalization of medical marijuana has led to a boom in the industry, with dispensaries popping up all over the country.” “More people are using marijuana for recreational purposes.”

But what many people do not know is that “the potency of marijuana’s psychoactive component, THC, has risen dramatically. In many of the marijuana products being legally sold in Colorado—one product is sold as “Green Crack” and has a THC content of 21%, and other products legally sold have a THC content of as high as 70%.”

So, the marijuana now widely available is not the same, nor as supposedly harmless, as the pot associated in the public’s memory of the Let it all hang out 1960s drugs, sex, and rock and roll hippy counterculture. 

Drivers who are high on marijuana react more slowly, find it harder to pay attention, have more difficulty maintaining their car’s position in the lane 

and make more errors when something goes wrong than they do when they’re sober. Marijuana users’ minds are blunted to reality. Cannabis is mind-altering, harmful to the brain, and potentially addictive. It destroys brain cells. People who use marijuana are more likely to abuse other drugs like alcohol, tobacco, opiates, amphetamines, cocaine, and heroin. Getting high causes you to become disengaged, not only from people, but also from life in general.

Aside from considerations about the physical and psychological effects of marijuana, we could also talk about why people seem to want to deaden their ability to interact with their circumstances and people around them. Some would say this is symptomatic of a spiritual issue, a desire to seek solace and a reduction of anxiety in chemicals rather than the Spirit of God.

Marijuana is nowhere referenced in Scripture, but prohibitions against intoxication are.  

People sometimes note there is no condemnation of drinking wine, so why is marijuana different? One answer is that wine can be imbibed without drunkenness, while numerous medical researchers, and also marijuana users, point out that one hit makes a person high, that indeed the sole purpose of smoking pot is to get high. 

So, there is a difference between drinking wine and smoking pot.

Christian liberty indicates that, where legal, Christians may decide to employ perceived benefits—though research is not yet definitive—of medical marijuana.

Christian liberty, the freedom God gives us to discern and make wise decisions, may allow us, where legal, to use recreational marijuana, or it may not – herein lies the discernment and decision to be made.

Scripture enjoins us to use our freedom wisely, noting that all things may be permissible but not all things are beneficial. Christian freedom is always to be used as unto the glory of God and the blessing of those around us.

Use of medical marijuana is controversial. Use of recreational marijuana is unequivocally problematic. “Today’s marijuana is a potent, highly hallucinogenic drug, so recreational use is fraught with danger.”

Using recreational marijuana, even periodically, is a threat to youth who are more susceptible to negative side-effects, can cause mental health problems like paranoia or schizophrenia, impairs users, can cause a host of physical maladies, and can be addictive.

Why, then, is the current administration and a number of states so excitedly insistent upon making recreational marijuana legal? One answer could simply be money. The cannabis industry is booming, and politicians want the taxes this haul generates.

In the end, one wonders how getting high on marijuana, how using a recreational drug to deaden our senses, how allowing our minds or bodies to be brought under the power of anything other than the Spirit of God, is beneficial and wise. Well, it is not.

Regarding use of marijuana for medicine, I encourage you to go slow, study available research, and look for safer alternatives.

Regarding use of recreational marijuana, I encourage you to be a cannabis teetotaler. “Do not get drunk on wine,” the Scripture says, “which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit,” (Eph 5:18). It’s not much of a stretch, and not a misinterpretation of Scripture, to say the same about pot.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. 

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022   

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 01 November 2022

Have you ever found yourself in a conversation, using words you learned in the media but words with which you disagree?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #52 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

For a while now I have been thinking that conservatives or Christians specifically are losing ground in the culture wars in part because the words we’re using are developed and defined by those with whom we disagree.

The abortion debate ran into this a long time ago. People who support abortion as a legal option for ending a pregnancy, never talk like this. They talk about “reproductive health” or “reproductive freedom.” They refer to themselves not as pro-abortion but as pro-choice, and they now refer to those who oppose abortion as “anti-women.” 

If you talk about transgenderism and you say something like “trans affirming” or “transphobic,” you just referenced the topic at hand using vocabulary developed by those who promote trans ideology. If you say you do not believe trans men should be permitted to participate in girls and women’s sports, then media will not describe you as protecting women or pro-girls but as “anti-trans.” If you are a parent that does not support your child’s desire to live a trans lifestyle and possibly to medically transition, then you are described by school districts as a threat, the bigoted enemy. In some states, parents can be prosecuted for not unquestioningly supporting their child’s pursuit of transgenderism. Author J.K. Rowling, who has expressed a preference for calling herself and other female persons, “women,” as opposed to womyn or some other twist on female status vs trans women, has been attacked as “trans exclusionary.”

If you talk about pregnancy and you say “pregnant people” rather than pregnant women, you just bought into the ideology promoting the anti-scientific, anti-biblical idea that men can have babies.

If you say, “sexual orientation” or “gender fluidity,” words now so common they have their own acronym, SOGI, you just acknowledged if not affirmed that sexuality is somehow a choice, an orientation, and that gender, a socially constructed concept to begin with, not only exists separate from biological sex but it can change, that “being binary” as is now said is not the only option.

The new fad concern for pronouns, as in when you meet someone you say, “My name is Rex and I use the pronouns he/him/his. Are there any names or pronouns I can use to best respect you?” is now a commonplace in media, education, and corporate life. In other words, to be in sync with the “prevailing acceptable narrative,” one must use the right pronouns, so a boy or girl who declare he or she is some version of non-binary, now demands that everyone refer to him or her as “they” or “ze” or “Xe” or one of an indefinite and always changing set of neopronouns used by the gender non-conforming, which is to say, those who reject their divinely determined biological sex. So, we’re considered disrespectful if we do not use these ostensibly gender-neutral pronouns and we’re expected to declare our own—on emails and other publications—even if we do not agree or otherwise participate in this gender confusion.

If you want to discuss race relations and begin with phrases like “white fragility” or “whiteness” or “white supremacy,” you just bought into a set of assumptions and cultural interpretations that bias the discussion in favor of leftist views of oppression, race, and justice. Even the phrase, “Black lives matter,” needs definition. If you mean the organization, then you are promoting a host of values unsupportable in a Christian worldview. If you mean simply that the lives of black persons matter, then absolutely the phrase rings true, as does “all lives matter” or “blue lives matter,” though again, the problem confronting us is that any and all words or phrasing—especially on social media—can quickly be turned on their axis to represent a stated or implied political posture in opposition to or even attacking another point of view.  

The word “equity” is now regularly used in place of “equality,” the former meaning sameness of outcome or result and the latter originally meaning sameness of opportunity. Equity assumes injustice and unfairness if any differences exist, whereas equality—this word, too, a victim of political revisionism—historically meant everyone is able to begin, to live, to pursue moral interests without opposition. Today, equity is the penultimate goal, equality is a means to achieve it.

If you say, “women’s rights,” a concept that would seem to be something Christians and conservatives should embrace, and indeed they do, you still need to define your term because in many usages today this phrase is a euphemism for abortion advocacy. Point being from the left, women’s rights are unattainable without full-on abortion-on-demand up and possibly after actual birth.

Same for the phrase “social justice,” a concept that is now so thoroughly immersed in Marxist, socialist, or secular progressive values as to have no alignment with what the Bible means when it talks about justice.

“Climate change” is another phrase that’s been defined, redefined, adulterated, and propagandized to the point it is almost unusable. And even if you use it, you still need to say what you mean, or better what you do not mean, by the phrase because undergirding much of the push for climate change policies is a secular, progressive, globalist big government, anti-capitalist intention. What that form of climate change is about is much more than Creation care, environmental stewardship, or conservation.

“The fact is, for the (climate cataclysm cabal) rants and demands aren’t about climate change. They’re about control. Control of our energy and economic future. Our jobs and living standards. The kinds of homes we can have, and how much we can heat and cool them. What kinds of cars we can have, and how far we can drive them. What we can hear, see, read, learn, think and say, under full-throttle Green Fascism.”

I’ve shared a few examples of the utter chaos that is now the English language, chaos that did not just happen but is rooted in a wholesale postmodern, post-Christian cultural rejection of Judeo-Christian values and the abundant Western Civilization those values made possible.

As I have said many times and will necessarily keep saying it, in a culture that has jettisoned the idea of absolute truth, including moral absolutes and often including God himself, there is nothing left to hold the culture together. There is no other so-called metanarrative comprehensive and true for all times countries and cultures that can define reality as God defined it at Creation. There is only the Tower of Babel, confusion. 

So, we live in a time when word salads are our daily experience.

The key for our Christian witness is to speak truth. This likely means we must work harder to understand how words are being defined, particularly if they are biased in the direction of a worldview or ideology with which we cannot agree, and then determine how we should define them in terms of our Christian faith.

Our task is to know our own convictions, to be informed, and to take courage in expressing our Christian worldview.

As Scripture reminds us, “Buy the truth and do not sell it—wisdom, instruction and insight as well,” (Prov. 23:23).

In a time of division and confusion, careful, truthful communication can be a light in the darkness.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. 

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022   

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 25 October 2022

Have you thought about how much the world has changed in your lifetime?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #51 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

On this, Oct 25, my 70^th birthday, I feel compelled to share a podcast that offers some personal reflections. 

If you had told me when I was 30, or even when I was 60, about some of the things now taking place in our culture and country I would have rejected most of the possibilities out of hand.

Like many of my older friends, I have to say it seems like our culture and country are upside down, in many ways unrecognizable from the experience of my childhood and even my experience as a young adult.

Of course, not everything is bad or wrong or irrational. We’ve made technological and medical progress that benefits us all. I remember the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and the good changes that resulted from it. I’m glad women are treated differently now, given more access in the workplace, and recognized for the leadership and other creative potential they can and do contribute. Our ability to communicate via satellite broadcasting and the internet now makes it possible for us to share the Gospel and Christian teaching globally, to reach the unreached, and to speak into so-called “closed” countries, a concept that from the point of view of a Sovereign God does not exist. For the Lord, there are no closed meaning unreachable countries, no closed meaning unreachable hearts.

But with some positive change we’ve experienced a boatload of negative change.

The pandemic occurred as part and parcel of living in a fallen world. Pestilences and disease come and go. But the government overreach, the fake news, the government mandates not just threatening but taking away freedom of worship, mobility, assembly, and speech in this, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, was and remains disheartening at best, dangerous at worst.

The rapid, fall off a cliff movement of our culture to embrace first a level of sexual permissiveness a healthy society cannot sustain, then to embrace, promote, and demand sexual liberation that is utterly irrational in the face of history, biology, culture, and religion is mind-boggling.

It’s only been twenty years since TV show “Will and Grace” paved the way for gay characters on television. In the past two decades, LGBTQ has become an unstoppable tour de force pushing not simply for tolerance or acceptance but normalization, legitimation, and promotion in every aspect of life including religion. LGBTQ in a short time has gone from something considered immoral or perverted to something considered acceptable, no big deal, and to each his own.

It was just seven years ago in 2015 that the Supreme Court of the United States opened the legal doors to same-sex marriage via Obergefell v. Hodges. President Barack Obama switched his viewpoint while in office in order to support same-sex marriage as some new civil rights accomplishment.

It was just seven years ago that Bruce Jenner appeared dressed as a woman on the cover of “Vanity Fair” with the now infamous comment, “Call me Caitlyn.”

Transgender ideology, following upon the heels of LGB politics, has become the new flavor of the month. President Joe Biden has repeatedly argued that transgenderism, along with abortion in his mind, is a newly discovered constitutional right. Meanwhile, the last appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States, Ketanji Brown Jackson, answered a question during her confirmation hearings about defining a woman, with the comment, “I’m not a biologist.” In other words, a woman vying for and now holding the highest legal office in the land suggests she cannot provide a definition for woman. This level of unremitting irrationality is now being vigorously embraced and promoted in the nation’s public schools from kindergarten to grad school. What do you suppose this kind of willful sexual deceit will do to the next generation of American children?

Truth, i.e., moral absolutes, meaning right vs wrong, has been systematically jettisoned beginning in the 1960s and now to a point where celebrities or politicians regularly talk about “Your truth” or “I know my truth.” Among the results of this rush to free us all from reality so we can do what’s right in our own eyes, is a new spate of lawlessness, inconsistent, inconsequential, and near irrelevant law enforcement. Consequently, schools, sports events, city centers are unsafe crime spree zones. That’s crime spree, not crime free. Not a week goes by that does not prove out this sad observation.

Patriotism, too, is no longer kosher. One must not celebrate a country in which something bad happened in the past, some group was ill-treated, or in someone’s view is not perfect. I heard a school board member from Fargo, North Dakota say the board had voted to cease repeating the “Pledge of Allegiance” because it didn’t align with the district’s equity and inclusion values, and that—here’s the amazing part—he said it wasn’t true, that since there was not “liberty and justice for all” he couldn’t embrace it. Where, one wonders, did this man fail to learn about ideals and aspirations, about goals, about making statements about what we want to be?

Meanwhile, even the U.S. military has gone woke in a variety of ways, placing more priority on race and gender than on preparedness.

And I know that no amount of social support programs, free housing, medical care, mental health services, public defenders, state hospital, hospitals, jails, criminal justice system, substance abuse treatment, and more can meet the need of a population of people who do not police themselves, no longer look to family or church, and reject all categories of right and wrong in the name of unlimited personal happiness. 

So, when we list these things it becomes like a sad litany, an “I don’t recognize my own country” disillusionment. I understand when I hear older people make this comment.

But I have always attempted to be optimistic, not pessimistic, in part because that’s what I believe Christians ought to be. We know the Sovereign God who is not surprised by any of this. We know the Lord who knows and holds the end of the story, history, in his hands. We know that in darkness the light of Christ should shine more brightly through us. Why then should we succumb to despair?

I admit feeling discouraged when I hear of another absurd and radical idea or development being championed as the brave new world. But this is to be expected in the intentionally de-Christianizing culture and times in which we live.

In his book, Strange New World, Christian scholar Carl R. Trueman notes that in the book of Psalms, the various psalmists regularly wrestled with the vagaries of the world around them. They were honest, sharing their anxieties and concerns with God.

“But this is never for the purpose of self-validation or, worse still, a wallowing in self-indulgent pity. Rather, it is for the purpose of setting the experiences and the feelings recounted within the context of God’s great truths.”

The psalmists present a view of the Christian life that is marked by joy but that also knows sorrow and loss. They set the struggles of the present in the context of God’s great actions in times past and promises for the future.” Consequently, they help to keep perspective—theological and emotional—on the events of the present.

We do not live by sentiments. Jesus said, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God,” (Matt. 4:4).

So, in my 70^th year I want to live well as long as God gives me to live. And I want to have finished well when he says my expiration date has arrived.

To do this, you and I, while being now weary in doing good in the face of trials and travails of this world (Gal. 6:9).

“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus,” (Heb. 1:1-2).

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. 

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022   

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 10 October 2022

Have you noticed the startling uptick in violent incidents at sports competitions? 

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #49 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life. 

Sports existed before the Greeks gave us the Olympics. Friendly competition has been and still is an enjoyable pastime, testing skills, athletic prowess, experience, fortitude, and the old who-wants-it-most.

The fact that violent incidents periodically make an appearance on the sports field isn’t all that surprising, given that men and women are usually emotionally cranked during competitions. Add to this the reality that we’re all sinners, and we live in a fallen world, so of course there will be altercations from time to time.

Soccer, or “football” as it is called by the rest of the world, seems to have historically attracted not only fans but fan-atics who believe the game is a prize fight. 

Some 26 fans were injured in a soccer brawl in Mexico, gun shots were fired at a post-game soccer match in Portugal, a match was delayed when the crowd began fighting before a game in France between French and German teams. Saint-Etienne French soccer fans attacked their own players after the team lost, running onto the pitch and throwing flares and other objects at their players. “In the United Kingdom, the country's ‘football policing unit’ reported a 47% increase in arrests at soccer games this season over the same period in 2019-20.”

Fan fights, however, are becoming increasingly common in the US – at all levels of sports from little kids to the pros. University students are chanting the F-word at opposing players. Recently, Clemson and Georgia fans got into a brawl before the game, same happened Florida State v. Alabama, Fresno St v. Boise St, several NFL pre-season games, Rams-Chargers, Lions-Eagles, Dolphins-Bills, Jaguars-Steelers, including women by the way. 

And Major League Baseball too. A huge brawl erupted at Wrigley Field between Chicago Cubs and St Lous Cardinals fans.

An NBA player’s mother and wife were physically harassed by fans at a ballgame in Dallas and other players are saying they will no longer bring their families to games.

Professional tennis, historically one of the more mannerly sports, has witnessed an increase in verbal abuse. Players and fans using racial slurs at matches, spitting, cheating accusations, cursing, thrown racquets, angrily hit balls—some endangering personnel or fans, or just an egregious increase of poor sportsmanship, perhaps epitomized by Australian men’s player Nick Kyrgios, who curses loudly, shouts at the crowd or umpires, and after losing at Wimbledon, stood courtside pounding his racket into smithereens.

At a youth soccer game in Arizona, a father assaulted a referee while his son, the player, threatened to kill the referee.  

Parents youth players are becoming so verbally abusive and physically threatening that referees around the country are quitting and fewer are signing up for the job, creating a shortage of youth sports referees. 

“The high school sports landscape has lost an estimated 50,000 officials and referees over the past three years.”

“A 2017 survey by the National Association of Sports Officials found that 87 percent of the participants had suffered verbal abuse, 13 percent reported being assaulted, and 47 percent said they felt unsafe. 

Parents have also attacked each other, youth referees, and even players, including tripping teens on the field, shining a laser into a player’s eyes or knocking them over. Racist catcalls, taunts and insults against teams of color from parents are also all too common.”

“Last fall, the father of a player in Vail, Colorado, sprayed a youth hockey coach in the face with Lysol. 

The mother of a player in Laurel, Mississippi, ambushed the umpire of a softball game for 12 year olds at a parking lot after a game this April and gave her a black eye. 

And in August 2022, popular football coach Mike Hickmon of Texas was shot and killed – in front of horrified children – after a game for nine-year-olds during an argument over the score. Small wonder that 80 percent of all new high school sports officials in the U.S. leave the field after two years.”

Now, “kids in the U.S. are quitting youth sports in droves, with nearly 70 percent dropping out before age 13 “because it’s just not fun anymore.” 

This trend, experts say, is largely due to too much pressure and the growing number of overzealous sports parents screaming insults at coaches and kids from the sidelines.”

“'Violent sports fans are causing alarm at every level, from high schools to the pros, there are nearly daily incidents of abusive behavior in the stands.” 

Anecdotally, you see the increase in aggressive, abusive, threatening behavior, along with actual assaults.

Then there is the use of alcohol, not mentioned in most of the examples I cited, but it’s there, particularly on the professional level. 

Teams have learned that 10-cent-beer nights are counterproductive, but while they may limit beer purchases after the seventh inning or during the fourth quarter, by then fans are already sauced.   

Some are saying this increase in sports violence is due to the stresses of the pandemic. Maybe.

Others say it is rooted in the hours people spend online, yelling and cursing virtually and now not adjusting to real-life exchanges. Maybe.

But more likely, this increase in abusiveness and violence is more evidence of the breakdown of American culture. Civility and empathy are disappearing in our society, so why wouldn’t we expect this in sports as well?

I’ve noted in earlier podcasts, we’re living in a post-Christian culture, a time of serious cultural chaos. Individuals are attempting to live, without genuine religious faith, often without healthy family support, with a focus upon personal happiness and little else. 

So, they are developing more neuroses, more anger. People no longer live with the reinforcement religious faith provides, nor its restraint either. Anything and everything sets them off, including sports not going as they wish.

Scripture reminds us, “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man,” (Matt 24:37). So then, what was it like in the days of Noah?

Again, Scripture tells us, “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence,” (Gen. 6:11).

In the days of Noah, it was violent, and “every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time,” (Gen. 6:5).

I wish I could say recent sports violence is a blip, that it will go away soon, but sorry to say, I think this will get worse, as it is now in other societal activities, like going to the mall, school, parades, concerts, workplace, even church.

So, taking reasonable precautions is good stewardship. Don’t go to games where beer is the primary marketing push. Know where you are booking seats in the stadium or fieldhouse. Be aware of what other fans are doing around you during the game, and if needed, take your family out of there. Don’t allow younger if not even teens to go to the restroom on their own. Park in lots or ramps that are well-lighted and easy to access. Use common sense.

But Christians should not despair—ever—for our light should shine brighter in cultural darkness. We are to be salt and light, peacemakers, voices of reason, testimonies of faith in a better way only possible through faith in Christ.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. 

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022   

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.