One thing Christian parents need to understand when dealing with the public school system is that it is highly tuned to pull parents into a community, and to value that community more highly than they do their beliefs. One specific example of this drive to pull the family into a community that is opposed to a Christian worldview is team sports. Now, there are other programs that can draw entire families into a community, with the result of the family placing relationships in the community above their relationship with God, but sports teams are, in fact, the perfect vehicle for pulling someone into a worldview that is antithetical to Christian thought. I can already see the eyebrows raised out there, so let me explain.
First, what is the primary point of team sports? To learn to play well on a team. And what the world means by learning to play well on a team is to learn to subsume your values, and your beliefs, to those of the team. A simple example is the expectation that the team member will rearrange their family life around the team’s events. A more subtle example is the pressure among the team members to believe a certain way, to act as a group, to project a certain image.
The image issue can be expanded to stand on its own as a second danger.The focus on image is plain in many ways. Recognition is given through the school for success, through parades, through special jackets and other clothes, special school events, and in many other ways. There is a less obvious way this image carries over into our everyday lives, especially since it dovetails with a singular movement in society itself: The focus on an image of physical fitness.
Now, I don’t want to get into a big argument about being physically fit here, because I see nothing wrong with exercise. But the focus, in our society, isn’t on being fit, it’s on the appearance of fitness. I know of a number of Christian moms who discuss which sport each child’s body seems to be a “best fit for,” and how they like the “broad shoulders” of their sons, and the “thin waists” and “long legs” of their daughters. The confluence of team sports and a societal emphasis on an image of fitness blend into a dangerous brew of misdirected priorities, often leading to bad theology and a poor relationship with God.
If Christians decide to send their children to public schools, this is one area they must fight tooth and nail. Anything dealing with team sports sets up this entire issue of focusing on body shapes, the image of fitness, and the concept of placing the team’s beliefs above your own. That this can back into your entire family, impacting your own spiritual maturity, makes this particularly dangerous territory.
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