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Manute Bol's Radical Christianity

This is an article that was originally posted on the Wall Street Journal, found by clicking on THIS LINK HERE. It inspires, challenges and gives me hope. I am sure Manute was greeted with a "Well done, good and faithful servant." I hope to meet him someday on the other side.

By JON A. SHIELDS

As any churchgoer who tuned in to watch the recent NBA finals contest between the Lakers and Celtics already knows, the term redemption is probably now heard more often in NBA sports broadcasts than in homilies. A Google search under "redemption" and "NBA" generates approximately 2 million hits—more hits than "redemption" and "Christianity." The term can also be found in more than 2,600 stories on ESPN.com.

Associated Press

Manute Bol

What does redemption mean in the world of professional basketball and sports more broadly? It involves making up for—or, yes, "atoning"—for a poor performance. When the Lakers beat Boston, for instance, Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times called the victory "redemption for the Celtics' 2008 Finals beating."

More often, though, sports journalists use the term to praise the individual performances of NBA superstars. Thus, the Associated Press reported that Kobe Bryant "found redemption" after he won a title in 2009 without the aid of his nemesis and former teammate Shaquille O'Neal.

Manute Bol, who died last week at the age of 47, is one player who never achieved redemption in the eyes of sports journalists. His life embodied an older, Christian conception of redemption that has been badly obscured by its current usage.

Bol, a Christian Sudanese immigrant, believed his life was a gift from God to be used in the service of others. As he put it to Sports Illustrated in 2004: "God guided me to America and gave me a good job. But he also gave me a heart so I would look back."

He was not blessed, however, with great athletic gifts. As a center for the Washington Bullets, Bol was more spectacle than superstar. At 7 feet, 7 inches tall and 225 pounds, he was both the tallest and thinnest player in the league. He averaged a mere 2.6 points per game over the course of his career, though he was a successful shot blocker given that he towered over most NBA players.

Bol reportedly gave most of his fortune, estimated at $6 million, to aid Sudanese refugees. As one twitter feed aptly put it: "Most NBA cats go broke on cars, jewelry & groupies. Manute Bol went broke building hospitals."

When his fortune dried up, Bol raised more money for charity by doing what most athletes would find humiliating: He turned himself into a humorous spectacle. Bol was hired, for example, as a horse jockey, hockey player and celebrity boxer. Some Americans simply found amusement in the absurdity of him on a horse or skates. And who could deny the comic potential of Bol boxing William "the Refrigerator" Perry, the 335-pound former defensive linemen of the Chicago Bears?

Bol agreed to be a clown. But he was not willing to be mocked for his own personal gain as so many reality-television stars are. Bol let himself be ridiculed on behalf of suffering strangers in the Sudan; he was a fool for Christ.

During his final years, Bol suffered more than mere mockery in the service of others. While he was doing relief work in the Sudan, he contracted a painful skin disease that ultimately contributed to his death.

Bol's life and death throws into sharp relief the trivialized manner in which sports journalists employ the concept of redemption. In the world of sports media players are redeemed when they overcome some prior "humiliation" by playing well. Redemption then is deeply connected to personal gain and celebrity. It leads to fatter contracts, shoe endorsements, and adoring women.

Yet as Bol reminds us, the Christian understanding of redemption has always involved lowering and humbling oneself. It leads to suffering and even death.

It is of little surprise, then, that the sort of radical Christianity exemplified by Bol is rarely understood by sports journalists. For all its interest in the intimate details of players' lives, the media has long been tone deaf to the way devout Christianity profoundly shapes some of them.

Obituary titles for Bol, for example, described him as a humanitarian rather than a Christian. The remarkable charity and personal character of other NBA players, including David Robinson, A. C. Green and Dwight Howard, are almost never explicitly connected to their own intense Christian faith. They are simply good guys.

Christian basketball players hope that their "little lights" shine in a league marked by rapacious consumption and marital infidelity. They could shine even brighter if sports journalists acknowledged that such players seek atonement and redemption in a far more profound way than mere athletic success.

Jon A. Shields is assistant professor of government at Claremont McKenna College.

Mumford and Sons

An old friend just wrote a well thought out, profound even, article featuring the band Mumford and Sons. Check out the article at this link http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/worship/features/22374-when-the-secular-is-sacred and check out just one of their many fantastic songs below.

My Music Monday - Griffin House

Don Miller described this song by Griffin House (a fellow Miamian, now living in Nashville) as having a "Tom Petty feel." Insightful and accurate and a great compliment, it reminded me of Last Dance for Mary Jane but about something important a la Won't Back Down. I have been a Griffin fan for a long time, ever since hearing his CD "Lost and Found" in my favorite coffee shop, Kofenya. I have seen him twice in concert and man, the guy can write a song to lose your heart to and in the next minute make one that elicits a response of "I agree, well said" or "Are you so sure? Cause that offends me." Either way, I consider it good art because it elicits that response. Check his stuff out. I don't think you will regret it.

My Music Monday: Ben Rector

I have been thinking of a lot of ways to get me back to normal blogging/writing and ways to make this blog something worthwhile. I am thinking that I want to at least post twice a week. Once will be something I will call My Music Monday. Each Monday I will post an artist that I have been digging lately. This may be an old favorite, it may be a single song, it may be a freebie, it may be a new favorite. But it will be something that I recommend. The second post of the week will be something a little more thought out.

For the inaugural My Music Monday, I present Ben Rector. I found out about Ben through a great website called BriteRevolution.com and was instantly smitten. I have always been a sucker for piano pop and Ben is kind of a less sarcastic Ben Folds (what is with piano guys named Ben?). The song that got my most was called "Hank", a song to his nephew that made me wish I had written it. Favorite line: "Go and find the girl for whom your love is selfless, someone who makes you helpless to change the way you feel. And stay away from girls who always look so pretty but whose hearts arent fitting for the man in you I see." It is just good, upbeat most of the time, piano-pop that doesn't try to be more than it is but still speaks in a way that isn't simply rose colored bubble gum pop. To download for free, check out the link below.

If you like some of the music I recommend, please let your friends know about this. I am going to try to build somewhat of a blog following, which means I value your input and time. Thanks for giving me a shot.

Fear Not

If I could point you toward a website that has consistently great content, check out The Rabbit Room at rabbitroom.com. Their latest that hit my life a sunrise is http://www.rabbitroom.com/?p=5656#more-5656 entitled "Fear Not" by my favorite singer/songwriter Andrew Peterson. Read it and take heart.

World Cup Memory Lane

The World Cup has been a lot of things this year. It has been the first year that I have actually watched and cared about outcomes. It has been a year of nail-biter victories from the Comeback Kids from the USA, only to lose a heartbreaker against Ghana. A year of bad referee calls, favorites losing (England) and crazy talent (Brazil, Argentina). But for me, something I realized while taking a shower (a great place to think...and sing), is that it is a trip down memory lane.

Let me explain. Do you have those moments in life that are permanently nailed down by some event outside of your life? Perhaps it is a song that was playing on your first date, and everytime you hear that song, it takes you back. Perhaps it is your favorite sports team winning the championship on the week you graduated (San Antonio Spurs, 2003). For me, the World Cup brings me back to four years ago, when I was in the town of Ohrid, Macedonia, watching the final game with my closest Miami and Macedonian friends.

My trip to Ohrid was with a Campus Crusade for Christ Summer Project. It was one of those pivotal moments in my life where I had one idea for my life and that idea slowly got turned on its head. It was one of those trips that they make movies about; beautiful international locale, drama and love found (Joel and Caitlin eventually got married), of crazy adventures, naked cliff jumps, growth, pranks, and friendship. And above all, for me, it was a time where God continued to show me what it means to follow Him.

Ohrid is one of the most beautiful places in the world; at least looking back through my rose-colored glasses it is. And it was one of the most influential places in my life. Yet it is in the past. And sometimes the past is hard to look back on. I have come a long way from then and still have a long way to go. Many of those who went are now married, some with kids. Two of us are getting married in the next 4 months (congrats Kimberly...and me:) and everyone is beyond Miami University, some to staff with CCC and others to jobs elsewhere. The relationships I had during that time in Ohrid I thought would be with me for the rest of my life. And they are in some ways. But it isn't what I had imagined.

Jane Armstrong once gave a talk my freshman year of college about how God brings people into your life for a season and may take them out of your life again. For that season, as a soon to be college senior, I didn't have a whole lot of people in my day to day life who knew me deeply. So God brought people into my life to teach me. To challenge me to step out and be willing to take risks. He brought dear friends into my life to teach me what it means to love so much that it brings me to tears. He showed me a little glimpse of His heart for the world and it broke my heart to see those who need Him. There are so many lessons I learned from that trip, so many things that in my weaker moments, I wish I could go back and live there again, with the same people, and experience it over and over again.

I always swore I would go back to Macedonia, to relive those moments. And I hope one day I do make it back. Not to relive those moments, but to be able to see where this grande adventure has taken me and what God has done in my life. To remember not for the purpose of living in the past, but for the purpose of praising God for how he used the past to shape me. I will always love Macedonia... and the World Cup will always bring me back to that time in my life where I would do anything for a palacinki and peach tea.