Q: Is it a sin when a person
injures another person in the course of a sports competition? Is it acceptable for Christians to enjoy or
even to participate in sports which appear violent or have a high risk of
injuring one’s opponent, such as Boxing or Mixed Martial Arts?
Participation in sports competitions
is one issue which has never become significantly controversial among
Christians. This is probably because
there are several occasions where Biblical authors, especially St. Paul, use
athletic competition and the physical training athletes undergo as comparisons
for the way Christians ought to approach the spiritual struggles they
face.
While there are a very small minority
of Christians who have avoided all sports out of an understanding that it is an
unfruitful use of their time, Physical training and athletic competition have
typically been enjoyed by Christians throughout the ages, and have been a
traditional part of the curriculum in Christian educational institutions
because of the understanding that our bodies and our minds are connected, and
when both are trained and disciplined, a person benefits more than if only one
is emphasized.
But with this kind of competition
does come the risk of injury to varying degrees. Certainly some sports have elements which
lend them to a higher injury risk, and some sports appear more violent on the
surface than others, but appearances can often be deceiving. Many of us would guess that highly physical
sports like Football or Boxing would have the highest injury rates, but I have
heard that sports that seem very safe, such as Cheerleading and Basketball
actually have higher injury rates.
Sports have rules intended to prevent
serious injury, but the risk will always be there, and if a player competes
according to the rules and does not act with the intention to injure, he ought
not fear that he has sinned if an opponent becomes injured. On the other hand, if one causes injury
intentionally or as a result of going outside the rules of the sport, they may
have sinned.
Mixed Martial Arts is probably the
sport that could cause the most concern among Christians as to whether they can
participate in good conscience because of the apparent level of violence
involved in competing. The Bible has
some very clear commands regarding murder, assault, and other acts intended to
harm another person, but there are two significant factors which prevent us
from concluding that all highly-physical sports such as MMA or boxing are sins
and unfit for Christians to participate in.
The first is that the intent of these
sports in not to injure. No one can deny
that the nature of the sports leaves a competitor open to injury, but the
intent of the sport is not to injure.
For example, in MMA, the goal of the competition is to use several
disciplines (boxing, wrestling, martial arts) to cause one’s opponent to submit
or to win by a judges’ decision at the end of the match. In fact, there are numerous rules set in
place to prevent the competitors from injuring one another in the course of the
event. If the goal were to injure, a
sport like this would be unfit for Christians, but that is not the intent of
the sport.
Secondly, no one is assaulting or
mugging their opponent. Instead, both
competitors enter the competition with knowledge of the risks and consent to
participate according to the rules. If
the intent of the sport were to injure one’s opponent, this factor would not
even come into consideration. For
example, dueling with pistols is an unfit sport for Christians, because even
though both parties compete with consent and knowledge of the risks, there is
no other intent but to injure.
A Christian might certainly refrain
from participating in such sports because of the guiding of his own conscience,
and Christians certainly ought to consider the impact of all of their actions
on their own reputation and that of their congregation and the Christian faith
as a whole. However, for a Christian to impose commands on fellow believers
based on their own preferences or weaknesses is inappropriate without a clear
universal command from Scripture prohibit the action.
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