Jesus Makes The Point Spread
Forget that enlightened-soul BS. You really want
to get in touch with God, you watch pro
football
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, February 1, 2002
©2002 SF Gate
URL:
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Praise Jesus and pass the Funyuns, the Lord does
love His football.
Basketball? Occasionally. Baseball? Sometimes,
but insufficient violence and something like 782 games
per season
breeds enormous heavenly boredom. Plus there's
all that spitting.
But while the seraphim have been known to get a
little raunchy after too much Bud Light at Red Wings
games and the
Dalai Lama has a little harmless Man U fetish and
everyone knows Satan loves nothing better than a
little televised PGA
tour to lull the nation into a khaki stupor,
Jesus with an Astroturf Bible, the Creator really
cranks on the football, baby.
Just look. There's Rams QB and noted Jesus maniac
Kurt Warner with his epically-coiffed missus, gushing
to reporters
like he just witnessed the Resurrection out there
on the field as he openly thanks Christ for a game
well played, for
passes received, for the inner fortitude to
scramble out of the pocket and avoid the crushing
sinful blows of his
depraved opponents who dare to try to part the
waters of his sacred offensive line or disrupt his
holy passing game.
There are terminally annoying athletes like Deion
Sanders or Cris Carter or untold other defensive
tackles and wide
receivers and sundry placekickers, pumping their
fists and hastily making the sign of the cross when
they snag a
wobbly endzone pass or slam the QB for a nice
concussion or split the uprights from 45 yards out or
get off on a
misdemeanor after getting busted with an 8-ball
of premium Colombian blow at the MGM Grand in Vegas.
Yes! Jesus is
with me!
There's the bulk of just about any NFL team in
the league, huddling around in testosterone-thick
prayer meetings
before and after the game like clusters of
Promise Keeper rejects on steroids, the coach or maybe
a special self-taught
preacher-slash-running back-slash-rehab candidate
leading the team in a fervent supplication, invoking
God and
Corinthians and Moses and whatever else and
everyone having total pious faith that they'll kick
the living crap out of the
Redskins before the bye.
And God, He just can't wait for the Super Bowl.
He's got the Rams giving the points, but given how
He's All-Knowing
All-Seeing He's also got even money on the Pats
to cover His holy ass, so He's good. This is what God
does. He
watches a ton of football. Jesus makes the dip.
Jesus makes a wicked-good onion dip.
Super Sunday, the teams will be praying like
they've never prayed before. Kneepads will be touching
Astroturf, very
large heads will be bowed, huge undereducated men
in tights beseeching the Almighty to please please
please not let
their knee blow out again before the fourth
quarter and please please please let them get a decent
tackle in on national
TV that they can leverage come contract-renewal
time because they could sure use that extra $4 mil and
that Nike
endorsement.
I suppose it all hearkens back to the Romans,
that glorious and righteous time when good upstanding
Christians were
nothing more than tasty and deliciously pious
snacks for angry lions, praying vehemently to be
spared the glorious and
bloody ripping-to-shreds that awaited them in
front of the WWF-- er, Colosseum crowds.
Or perhaps it's all got something to do with the
eerie similarities between church and sports arena,
both towering
overlit cathedrals full of bombast and violence
and homoerotics and stories of bloody wartime glories
long past, of
pious and self-righteous battles yet to come,
wars yet to be declared invoking His name, the USA
Imperialists versus
the Swarthy Evildoers and you just *know* who God
favors.
This is religion, American-style. Football and
antediluvian athletic prowess and war and good versus
evil and really
nothing at all about divine growth of the soul or
nuanced spiritual connection or finding God in
yourself, deeply,
esoterically, a profound and sensual connection
with one's personal spirituality, aiming for
enlightenment and
illumination and subtlety. You know, all that
quiet Eastern crap.
Not when there's 1:52 left and the Niners have a
two-point lead and the Pack has the ball on SF's 40
and it all comes
down to who's prayed more vigorously and who
deserves it more in the eyes of God who by the way is
really sick of
those dumbass Styrofoam cheese hats.
And the fans eat it raw, the Bible Belt in
particular cheering wildly and with zero irony
regarding the scope and breadth
and true concept of religion as a wide receiver
pulls down a TD pass and immediately kneels on the
field and makes
the sign of the cross and points to the sky as if
to say "it's you and me all the way, Jesus!" and all
is righteous and good
with the world because God is all about
ultraviolent sports sponsored by Chevy Trucks and
pisswater domestic beer.
Should we mention the Olympics? Utah? Medal
winners breathlessly thanking Jesus, their parents,
the opportunity to
live their weird and sort of sad, sheltered
little lives, their rare and glorious chance to become
a gleaming footnote in
American sports history, in that order. God has a
thing for luge, by the way. Call it a quirk.
The Olympics, where we can also expect to be
treated to a very different sort of sports-addicted,
slightly creepy God,
one with very special underwear who doesn't touch
that demon alcohol or coffee and actively dislikes you
gay people
and prefers His temples to resemble hideous
knockoffs of the Magic Kingdom but with far more bad
lighting and more
secret dungeons and weird brainwashing practices.
Anyone else read that incredible New Yorker article on
the
Mormons? Amazing. Revelatory. Scary as hell. So
to speak.
Yes, God will be all over the Olympics. He does
prefer football, but the Rams are gonna cream the Pats
and besides,
that whiny little Kurt Warner is really starting
to annoy Him.
Thoughts for the author? Email him.
Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears
every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate, just like a
special magic
bunny of love. He also writes the Morning Fix, a
deeply skewed daily email column and newsletter.
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