Unplayful games

“You cannot serve God and Mammon (Wealth).”

Matt. 6:24

Here we go again. The Olympics are upon us once more, this time in Paris, France. Perhaps it seems appropriate that CC’s editors have chosen the theme of A Theology of Play for this issue. What could be a greater display of the world at play than the Summer Olympics? NOT.

Play – verb – caper, disport, frisk, frolic, gambol, romp, skip; noun – amusement, exercise, game, elbow room, freedom.

Playful – adjective – frisky, frolicsome, merry, jolly, mirthful, sportive, spritely, vivacious.

The above characteristics are taken from my Webster’s Canadian Dictionary and Thesaurus.

Winning isn’t the point

All of these words connote a sense of joy and lightness, as well as fun in play itself rather than in its outcome. One thinks of the spontaneous play of a pick-up game of hockey, baseball or soccer. I think of the endless hours of pond hockey I played as a kid. Or a Sunday afternoon playing family board games, just for fun. Or a bunch of kids playing tag, or just running around with joyful abandon. Winning in these situations is nice, but it’s the playing that’s the main point.

So now let’s look at the Olympics. How about this for some characteristics: jingoistic (i.e., hyper-nationalistic); extravagant excess (in which only the rich countries can truly compete – the vast number of medals have been won by five of the richest countries in the world); professional (only full-time athletes heavily subsidized by their governments are able to compete); intense (careers are won or lost based on performance); rife with corruption (a huge dope testing infrastructure is a permanent fixture of the games); elitist (a handful of mostly super rich aristocratic old men – the self-perpetuating International Olympic Committee – control the games); destructive (poor neighbourhoods are bulldozed to accommodate environmentally suspect infrastructure).

I could go on, but I’m limited to only 500 words in my columns.

Time to boycott

The Olympics derive their greatest source of income from the sale of television rights to broadcast the games. TV broadcasters are willing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to secure such rights. They, in turn, charge millions of dollars to advertisers to run ads on their networks. In essence, broadcasters are selling audiences (including you and me) to advertisers, who, in turn, want to sell us stuff so that our consumptive, unsustainable way of life can continue.

So, there are good reasons (moral and economic) for us to boycott the Olympic games because, without millions of consumers (you and me again) viewing the games, they can’t continue. Given that the Olympics embody everything that is morally nasty and environmentally destructive about late-modern capitalism, I believe it is incumbent on Christians to boycott this thoroughly unplayful, secular celebration of hubristic excess.