What’s blowing up your blog?

A few weeks ago, in the shadow of the Kimbo Slice fight, I blogged about the MMA, violence, and Jesus. Here’s the original post. Every time there’s a big MMA fight on TV, that post seems to blow up. MMA is good to my blog, though I may not be good to MMA. Here’s a quick look at what search engine words or phrases have sent people to my blog in the last 48 hours. Thanks, MMA, for making “Violence and Jesus” the most popular post I’ve ever written!

Actually, it would appear the “Jesus Didn’t Tap” t-shirt is the big deal here.

Violence and Jesus

Hmmmm…. it’s an interesting morning so far. Most of my life I’ve avoided white shirts of any kind…. because they end up being evidence of what I had for lunch. This weekend I got to buy a couple of sweet button up shirts, and one of them is white with a pattern on it. Within 20 minutes of having it on, I have spilled two big blobs of coffee down the center of it. Great. I digress…

After just running a Google search on “Jesus and MMA,” I found an interesting thread at ProElite, who’s tagline is “empowering the fighting community.” And what do you know… there’s a thread that’s named exactly that, “Jesus and MMA.”

You may be asking yourself why I’m searching this. Yesterday the latest copy of ESPN the mag came out and the cover story was on Kimbo Slice, a once homeless guy turned bouncer turned YouTube sensation turned MMA fighter. His story is quite remarkable, but one can’t help but get the impression that it’s a little doctored up to make him out to be a better guy than he is. So I read the article on him last night, and I couldn’t help but making my way to the internet to watch the infamous fighting videos that made him the most watched person on YouTube.

This guy doesn’t mess around. He quickly puts guys on the ground, leaving their faces mauled as if he were using some sort of weapon. I watched a couple of the original videos (I don’t care for that remix crap people do) before turning it off and slipping into bed. Ashley was half asleep but I had to tell her about my adventures on YouTube. She quickly responded by lashing out at me about why me or anyone in the world would want to watch something so grotesque. If you know me, you know that I’m not actually a big fan of MMA or UFC or whatever. I have deep questions about the relationship of violence and being a follower of Jesus. Which brings me to the ProElite forum. Check out this t-shirt:

Jesus “didn’t tap?” Wonderful. Turning the event of the Cross into a virtual MMA match up. (sarcasm… please see sarcasm…). Check out some wonderful quotes:

“I wouldn’t take a 10 billion dollar bet against Jesus.”

“Yeah great T-shirt! My thing is that MMA is a sport, albeit a vicious one. MMA  fighters are athletes and I believe that as long as athletes compete with fairness, compassion for their opponents and give all glory to God then it’s all good for a Christian fighter. However, the sideshow T & A and stupid hating is something that Christian fighters can take a stand against. Also they must be careful who they have as sponsers. Christian fighters WILL be held accountable (by God) for their actions and the actions of those they represent.”

“There are a lot of neat tees for sale on ebay under ‘Christian tees’.”

“I imagine that Jesus wouldn’t be thrilled about MMA, but he wouldn’t exactly condemn it either.  He would treat the fighters with respect and compassion like everyone else.  I’m sure if he had a choice, he’d choose being around fighters than tax collectors any day.  I imagine He’d choose the company of a fighter like georges st. pierre (nice, respectful, considerate) than a lot of priests who like to judge everyone.”

I’m dumbfounded. Oh, and the comment about the t-shirts has no relevance but I thought it was funny. So collectively, most of these quotes see justification in beating the crap out of people. To the glory of God, of course. And then this last cat obviously thinks Jesus would prefer an MMA guy to a tax collector… although we know Jesus chose to hang out with tax collectors. I think he misremembered a moment from Vacation Bible School. I agree that Jesus and St. Pierre might be friends, I even think he would hang out with Kimbo. But the issue at hand is not whether Jesus would value them as people (which he would have), the issue is whether or not Jesus would have been ringside or paying PPV or endorsing it. And I don’t think he would. He loved tax collectors but didn’t exactly give them the thumbs up for ripping off Jewish citizens. He wouldn’t give Kimbo the thumbs up for crushing some dudes’ noses.

I really don’t think all forms of martial arts are “bad.” I think there’s beauty (hence the word art) in some of the traditional styles of self-defense. Honestly, my personal opinion is that there are better ways for followers of Jesus to invest their time and money. And, again, to be honest–my opinion on this could be changed. I would love to hear someone make a good argument for the God-honoring possibilities of this “sport.”