Apparently, a popular Penn State football t-shirt for fans to wear at "white-out" games is at the center of a controversy. When I heard about this controversy, I thought that maybe it was regarding the message on intimidation.
Instead, it's centered around the solid blue vertical stripe and the words that go across this stripe forming what some folks see as a christian cross. Now, being the sensitive person that I am, and having just preached a sermon on "A World of Many Religions," I'll be the first to call a penalty (sorry for the bad pun) on people who would use a college football design to promote a certain religion over other religions.
But I don't get how this t-shirt design is offensive. I mean, yeah, that solid blue line with the words at the top do form a cross, but it doesn't appear to me to have been done in an intentional way to promote Christianity at a college football game. Is the nike swoosh supposed to represent the crown of thorns? Ok, now I'm getting sarcastic, but I hope you get my point.
Actually, I am glad to know that there are students who have protested the selling of these t-shirts, not that I agree with them, but because at least this tells me that they know what a cross represents. Let's put it this way. If you were the one to have designed this college football t-shirt with the intention of forming a christian cross out of the message and to promote Christianity at a college football game, you would be smiling right now, because my guess is that you never would have imagined that your creative and subtle design would have stirred things up and impacted this many people.
Preachers and worship designers everywhere, envy you.
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