I listened a little to Colin Cowherd's ESPN talk show today. Of course, he spent a lot of time talking about the Penn State scandal. Like many people, including myself, a life-long Penn State/Joe Paterno follower, Colin rightfully aired his disgust at the irresponsibility of Penn State officials in handling the child abuse incidents.
But I do take issue with Colin on a couple of points. Colin made the point that even before the scandal broke out, that the Penn State football program was being held back by the legendary coach. He was implying that if Penn State would have made a change years ago, that Penn State would be a more elite team in terms of wins/losses.
Colin just doesn't understand that there is more to college football than being an elite program year after year. One of the positives of the Penn State system has been to not sacrifice academics at the altar of being an elite team. Schools like Penn State, Stanford, and Northwestern have high graduation rates in their football programs making it more difficult to have several strings of no loss or one loss seasons. It's been amazing that Penn State has won two national championships and has had several top 10 finishes without sacrificing academics. Quite frankly, this is the main reason why I have been a passionate follower of Penn State football over my lifetime. As tarnished as Joe Paterno's legacy will now be, that is a positive that I hope will not be forgotten.
The other problem I had with Colin's remarks today was with his take on religion. Colin made the point that western religions such as Christianity indirectly lead to moral failings such as the scandal at Penn State. His reasoning was that Christianity is a religion that directs it's worship outward to God. He then implied that when people do this, they can also easily direct their worship toward individuals which can be unhealthy as with the case of Penn State fans adoring/worshipping Joe Paterno. Colin then pointed to the benefits of eastern religions as religions that have people primarily look inward rather than outward so we can see our weaknesses more clearly.
I think Colin is confusing western religion (Christianity) with western culture. In western culture, we are so busy that we often fail to look inwardly to think about who we are and who we can become. Christianity teaches that we are to look BOTH inwardly at ourselves AND outwardly to God. We look outwardly because God has created us to be fully human and a reflection of God's image. We look inwardly to examine if we are becoming more and more like God. Again, western culture does not encourage this kind of introspection.
If we didn't have the outward part of our faith, the looking to God as our creator, what hope is there if we look inside ourselves and see only our weaknesses? If you're only option is to look inwardly and the only hope is found there, that can be pretty depressing! But you don't have to just look inside. You can also look to God for strength, guidance, and support. This doesn't mean that we don't have a part to play in our moral undertaking. It just means that God is the source to help us become who we are created to be.
In summary, here's my response to Colin: "I love your show. I agree with your disgust of what happened at Penn State. But don't forget the importance of academics in college football. And, don't confuse western religions with western culture."
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2 comments:
I mean there's no denying that western religion teaches you to look towards other things like prayer and god for help while eastern teaching would say to look internally and find fulfillment through yourself. Western religion puts (people) on a pedestal where eastern theology places the individual at the forefront. So when you say western culture not religion I mean religion is actually a more concrete example. When you see others as better than you (i.e. asking for an autograph) you turn to them for the answers or develop a certain amount of dependency on their status. No one man should ever be made more than he is. Because of that pedestal and feeling the need to stay atop, sometimes people make improper decisions. Anyone who knew about this and continued to let it happen, really needs to rethink their thoughts on a lot of things in my opinion.
Thanks for your thoughts, Adam. Again, it's not the religion (Christianity) that is the problem. It's the diluted kind of Christianity that is influenced by the western culture around us.
And I would counter your point about Christianity placing people on pedestals. To the contrary, the emphasis is on God and not people with the understanding that people are to reflect God's nature (love, truth, justice, etc.) Again, western culture has warped this understanding. The problem isn't with the religion itself.
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