Both Hoffman and Krattenmaker wish to point out that athletes across all sports use their position on and off the field to mix religion and sports to evangelize. Krattenmaker comments that athletes show their faith through interviews and religious gestures after scoring like the infamous “Tebowing” (Krattenmaker 13). Hoffman says the problem with Christianity in sports today is that it has “hijacked” the Christian traditional values of a life of love built on patience and humility with competitive zeal. The common response from athletes about why they tackle hard or play tough defense is the notion that Christians are not wimps, so the counter to this notion is meant with sacrificing New Testament values of being peacemakers for the competitive nature which is inevitable in sports (Hoffman 226-228).
In the film Wrestling for Jesus, the audience sees this message of triumph and victory through Christ just like how Tim Tebow preaches his fourth-quarter heroics are because of his faith and trust in God. Throughout the film, I tried to track how the wrestlers like T-Money and Matt Cruz related to God or spoke about Jesus’ character. Two scenes stood out to me when watching the film. The first was when Matt Cruz was showing off his trophies in his room with muscle cars and lightly clothed women plastered to his walls. Matt Cruz lifted up his biggest trophy, Christ-like award. Cruz was asked by the camera man why he won it and what does being Christ-like mean. Cruz’s response of Jesus was diluted down to “friendly” as the only adjective to describe Jesus. Cruz even goes further and says “I am really not sure”. Cruz represents Hoffman’s main concern about mixing Jesus and sports. The Christian faith is dwindled down sports to universal characteristics of a good person not a Christian person like being friendly in this case.
Another example of the wrestlers take on Christianity was when the biker gang wrestlers said that “God is good, just look at what He gave me” pointing to their championship belts. These particular wrestlers shaped their view of Jesus around the Scripture verses of being conquerors in Christ (Romans 8:37) and possibility in all things through Him (Philippians 4:13). Their image of Jesus is a man of strength and power that conquered death and promises that strength through faith in Christ. They associated several times in their ringside acts the power of Christ and the rewards of having faith in manifestations of victories because the “babyfaces” win or through championship belts. This ideology of Jesus comes to conflict with T-Money when he goes through a divorce because he thought Jesus was never to forsake him but looking at his current life situation Jesus did. This conflict resulted in the disintegration of WJC along with T-Money denouncing his faith. He no longer was a winner in life in which his faith had promised him. He gave up wrestling for Jesus and instead wrestled for himself. T-Money’s story is further support of what Hoffman asserts, sports boils the traditional values out of Christianity because of competition. The question raised from T-Money’s story is where were his priorities, Jesus or wrestling? Was church just a vehicle to get a chance to wrestle? Hoffman and Krattenmaker would argue yes.
In the film Wrestling for Jesus, the audience sees this message of triumph and victory through Christ just like how Tim Tebow preaches his fourth-quarter heroics are because of his faith and trust in God. Throughout the film, I tried to track how the wrestlers like T-Money and Matt Cruz related to God or spoke about Jesus’ character. Two scenes stood out to me when watching the film. The first was when Matt Cruz was showing off his trophies in his room with muscle cars and lightly clothed women plastered to his walls. Matt Cruz lifted up his biggest trophy, Christ-like award. Cruz was asked by the camera man why he won it and what does being Christ-like mean. Cruz’s response of Jesus was diluted down to “friendly” as the only adjective to describe Jesus. Cruz even goes further and says “I am really not sure”. Cruz represents Hoffman’s main concern about mixing Jesus and sports. The Christian faith is dwindled down sports to universal characteristics of a good person not a Christian person like being friendly in this case.
Another example of the wrestlers take on Christianity was when the biker gang wrestlers said that “God is good, just look at what He gave me” pointing to their championship belts. These particular wrestlers shaped their view of Jesus around the Scripture verses of being conquerors in Christ (Romans 8:37) and possibility in all things through Him (Philippians 4:13). Their image of Jesus is a man of strength and power that conquered death and promises that strength through faith in Christ. They associated several times in their ringside acts the power of Christ and the rewards of having faith in manifestations of victories because the “babyfaces” win or through championship belts. This ideology of Jesus comes to conflict with T-Money when he goes through a divorce because he thought Jesus was never to forsake him but looking at his current life situation Jesus did. This conflict resulted in the disintegration of WJC along with T-Money denouncing his faith. He no longer was a winner in life in which his faith had promised him. He gave up wrestling for Jesus and instead wrestled for himself. T-Money’s story is further support of what Hoffman asserts, sports boils the traditional values out of Christianity because of competition. The question raised from T-Money’s story is where were his priorities, Jesus or wrestling? Was church just a vehicle to get a chance to wrestle? Hoffman and Krattenmaker would argue yes.
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