Mike's World Views

By Mike Henry

I like sports analogies. The late Haddon Robinson made the following observation, "In the past we, as American Christians, always had home field advantage. We knew that in the crowd, there were those from the other team who were opposed to us, but the larger stadium crowd was either on our side or indifferent to our witness as Christians. All that has changed. Now we play all of our games on enemy turf. A minority is on our side, but the wider culture sits in the stands shouting hateful epithets at us, rejoicing at our losses."

Many of us older folk are shocked at the moral collapse we are seeing. Things that used to be shameful are now accepted, even celebrated. It’s progressive alright, progressing where? Down the broad road to destruction I fear.

Let’s continue with the sports metaphor. It used to be that home field was a huge advantage. I remember quarterbacks throwing their hands up in despair; because of the deafening crowd noise players could not hear the count. Coaches have since learned how to neutralize the crowd noise by teaching their players to go on motion signals. In fact, visiting teams love to silence the crowd by making big plays in the face of deafening noise. Far from a detriment, crowd noise serves as an incentive to make the big play and silence the fans. Some players will even taunt the crowd. In this year’s NFC/AFC championship games, both visiting teams won.

The application should be obvious. Yes, as Bible-believing Christians we have lost home field advantage, but that does not necessarily mean defeat. We too can beat the crowd noise with more creative and effective ways to communicate the message of grace and truth in Christ Jesus. We don’t taunt the crowd, but rather point to heaven and the One who’s victorious over death, hell, and the grave. I do like players who take a knee – at the end of the game in thanksgiving to God.

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