Who Would Jesus Beat Down?
Essays, Featured — By Larry Shallenberger on February 8, 2010 at 12:00 pmA few months ago I posted about my training in mixed martial arts and how I reconciled it with my faith. I still don’t have a rationale worked out. But the NYT ran an article about mixed martial arts “ministries” and offered what I thought was a fair critique. The training we offer at my church looks little like what was described in the article, so I wrote a response to my congregation that I thought I’d share here as well…
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Pat, an intern at Grace, posted an insightful article that recently ran in the New York
Times. The article described the rise of mixed martial arts “ministries” in America. The article was well done, but described an approach to the sport that we don’t practice here. I thought that this would be a good time to describe what it is we do, and respond to some common concerns.
First, we aren’t training cage fighters. Getting into an octagon, even on an amateur level, requires an amazing level of commitment. Daily practices, drilling, weight lifting, and cardio conditioning. We did have one student decide to fight in a local amateur bout. We didn’t encourage him. If he had asked for my advice, I would have tried to talk him out of it. I did go to his fight to offer moral support. He lasted 14-seconds. Most of our men train one hour a week, a small handful twice a week, and two of us have a 5:30 AM mid-week session. None of us belong in cage.
Grace Martial Arts isn’t “Men’s Ministry:” The class is open only to males over the age of 14. Our brand of MMA is a blend of boxing, Muay Thai, tae kwon do, wrestling, and jujitsu. There’s a lot of grappling on the ground that simply isn’t proper for men and women to do together. It’s too, uh hum, intimate. When I was training for my black belt in tae kwon do, men and women did train side-by-side, but the entire sport was stand up.
Martial Arts doesn’t define masculinity: One of the best fighters I ever matched up against was a young woman who went on to train with the Olympic team. She tagged me more times than I care to admit. Grace isn’t trying to send the message that to be a “true man,” you need to like MMA, football, or hunting. Some of my other favorite past times are cooking, piano, writing, and listening to jazz. Martial Arts is a hobby, not a tool for gender identity.
(In the same way we offer a MOMs program. This does not suggest that all women should be stay-at-home moms. MOMs doesn’t define what it means to be feminine. It’s interesting: the Bible doesn’t waste any ink explaining what it means to be a man or a woman. Instead the Bible commands everyone to love God with all of their hearts, minds, soul, and strength. If you want to know what it means to be a man, stand naked in front of a full-length mirror. Let’s not over think this.)
Martial Arts shouldn’t be a metaphor for culture war: One of the most disturbing things I read in the article is that some churches train fighters to go to tournaments so they can win and then proclaim Jesus’ toughness. Seriously?
Martial Arts, as we understand it, is a metaphor for self-discipline and mentoring. The Apostle Paul uses sports—running and boxing—as metaphors for being in control of your will and your passions and focusing that energy on pursuing God’s order on earth. One of the strongest features of martial arts is its focus on mentoring. Everyone learns from someone. Everyone who has been in the game longer than three months teaches someone. I wrote about this extensively in my book Lead the Way God Made You.
What about the Violence? We have dialed down the intensity in our program. The beauty of jujitsu is that you tap and end the match whenever you experience more pain than you want to endure. You control the heat. Additionally, we do very little live boxing. When we do, there are no shots to the head. All strikes land between the shoulder and hips.
That said, Martial Arts is a dangerous sport. In the years I’ve trained, I’ve broken my nose, tore my ankle, slightly fractured my jaw, had a few black eyes, and cracked a bone in my hand. Most of those injures occurred during training and not live fighting.
Even with those bumps and bruises, I am convinced that it’s more dangerous to spend time on the couch than on the mat. I’d rather weather the occasional sports injury than risk heart disease, obesity, and an atrophied mind.
How do you reconcile participating in a combative sport with serving a God who describes himself as The Prince of Peace? You’ve got me here. I don’t have this worked out completely. And I’m genuinely conflicted. I mentioned earlier that we’ve dialed down the contact. Personally, I view the sport as an intense form of physical conditioning. However, I understand that some Christians have thought through this issue and have concluded that Christians should be pacifists.
I’ve never considered this position personally until I recently read Martin Luther King Jr.’s autobiography. The most honest thing I can say, in this moment, is that I’m conflicted and don’t have it all worked out yet. I should sign up from some expensive pastor’s conference in Southern California and get myself straightened out. For the love of all things holy, please don’t make me take up golf, Jesus.
So if you aren’t promoting “Macho Jesus” or a testosterone-injected Christianity then why are you doing this? In the NYT’s article, Pastor Eugene is quoted as saying “What you attract people to Christ with is also what you need to get people to stay.” So what are we offering to attract people to stay? Relationships, fitness, a culture of life-long learning, and a chance to get past negative stereotypes of religious people.
11 Comments
Thanks for the article. This is fascinating and very helpful. Although I have never worried about this issue, it is always good to stretch my understanding of Christianity with new ideas. Thank you for not associating Christianity with gender roles. My only question, and I’m sure this is an obvious one, is what are we to do with verses about turning the other cheek, etc…? This question applies to all Christians, not just those learning martial arts.
I grew up in a faith tradition where “turning the other check” was interpreted as being relevant in one personal dealings. As a teenager I took it to mean that if I get hit in the locker room that I needed to absorb the punch, stand there, and my restraint would shame there person.
When I read MLK Jr.’s autobiography I came to understand that that tactic could apply to whole people groups.
Connecting that to martial arts– I think as long as it’s kept in the realm of sport its fine. I’m not typing from jail or a hospital, so it’s obvious that I don’t use the discipline to problem solve. It’s the context of the action that determines if Jesus’ ethic is being kept or not.
This was kind of interesting to just mull over. I was not raised in a Christian home, so the response was, “don’t fight, but if you have to, protect yourself and end it as soon as possible”. Man that could mean a lot of things. When I was in seminary I had a professor who was a serious pacifist, to the point that if someone broke in to his house to rape or murder his family, he would not do anything to jeopardize the life of the assailant. He said he trusted God for the outcome. I couldn’t argue with that, except that, for me, mabye God would use me me to bring about a different outcome. Another one of those interesting “moral” questions.
I couldn’t take pacifism to that extent either.
The Bible wouldn’t take pacifism to that extent either. Exodus 22:2: “”If a thief is caught breaking in and is struck so that he dies, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed.” Pretty straightforward.
My position on war comes from applying this idea to our military as well. Most people say I’m a pacifist, but I don’t oppose war in general; I would support using our military to defend an invasion of “our house.” But when we send our troops halfway across the world to someone else’s “house,” well, that’s obviously murder and I can’t support it. Same would apply to defense/aggressiveness in hand-to-hand combat, I would think.
Great article, Larry. I like your insights.
Larry, sorry for the hijack, but I found this and had to post it somewhere. It made me giggle, and it doesn’t fit in with your post, but it fits somewhere in BWC. Thanks for understanding:
http://criggo.com/2010/02/09/paws-in-the-air/
I’m glad you wrote this- I was a bit thrown off by the NYT article, mostly because of the culture war as metaphor issues you mention, and the difficulties reconciling that you seem to have. But I agree with you that Paul does speak often about the physicality of believers, and I like that about Christianity- I wouldn’t have done well with Gnosticism
Naturally, I also am a little hesitant to support this because of its function as the men’s ministry of choice at a church; just as I am frustrated by the MOPs groups and quilting circles as the highest profile women’s ministries at churches. I appreciate that you called that out as problematic, too. So thanks for helping me think it through a little further, too. I appreciate it.
I may be biased here as I was a classical Italian fencer before I became a Christian, and a student of Krev Maga (Israeli Defense System) shortly afterwards. But I think that western Christianity is overly squeamish when it comes to martial arts training. There are people out there whose desire is violence, and solid training ought to eliminate a threat before things get too far out of hand. If somebody is used to communicating through violence (inappropriate as that may be) it serves them right to be met with a responsible/proportionate amount of force. I would even go further out on a limb to say that physical defense is a Godly thing. If an attacker is disabled, then a danger to somebody else may be averted. In that sense, I say that if you’re going to learn a martial discipline, go all the way with it.
Matticus, I think there is squeemishness. But I also think that the debate is analogous to the “just war” debate on a personal level.
Larry, I think the most brilliant point in your post is where you bring out the analogy of martial arts to disciplined living. When I studied martial arts my teacher (who was a full-time martial artist) taught us that the path to black-belt was a journey that would take five or more years and only after that point would we be ready for the “real” training. I only stuck with it for about two years, but in that time he did give me glimpses into what awaits those who mastered the basics. He taught his advanced students more spiritual disciplines of meditation, and I saw on many occasions that he taught them more about how to not move when all he would teach us “beginners” was how to move properly.
I never became proficient at martial arts, but I did gain a respect for it beyond sport. I learned that at the core it is about discipline: mental, emotional, and physical. For many people, particularly in the past, self-defense and combat proficiency were powerful motivators to learn discipline. That isn’t so much the case in the Midwest, but the lessons are still available through the martial arts for those willing to learn. If we are to follow the pattern that Jesus laid out for us we must be come disciplined (Disciples) before we can be teachers (Apostles).
Thanks for the article and the perspective.
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