Theological starting points: Imago and Incarnation

Last week's post opened up a small number of ethical wonderings about the viability of football as an entertainment in the age of CTE, one of which was penned by Benjamin Dueholm in The Christian Century back in 2012. Dueholm, in contrast to the other noted pieces, did approach his wonderings from an explicitly religious, and specifically Christian, point of view.

To speak of these questions from such a point of view is eventually going to require some theology.

I'd like to throw out two possible theological starting places for such inquiry: the Imago Dei and the Incarnation.

The former has a clear enough biblical citation available, if you're going to start from scripture. You can find it, in fact, in the very first chapter of the first book of said scripture. Genesis 1:27:

So God created humankind in his image,
   in the image of God he created them;
   male and female he created them. 

Fairly simple, yes? Humans, male and female, were created in the image of God, or Imago Dei if you're into fancy Latin terminology.

If this basic theological ideal were really taken seriously, there are an awful lot of things we do to bodies that would be severely questionable, not just football and its awful potential for damaging brains.

However, it's football that we're talking about here. And football, in anywhere from one-quarter to one-third to maybe even forty percent of cases, does damage to the human brain -- one of the most remarkable and intricate components of that image-of-God-created body -- that cannot be repaired, and cannot be explained away by other sources.  Given the degree to which there are so many ways in which that human body can be damaged or broken -- combat, accident, disease, and so many more -- there is simply not a moral means to justify more damage and brokenness for entertainment purposes. It is an ethically untenable position. Do you really want to be in the position of justifying the eventual irreparable damage of seven out of twenty-two players on the field at any given time for your entertainment?

There is also a second theological prong noted above: the human body was not only created as a locus of the Imago Dei, but also was the locus of the Incarnation.

Now the word itself is not necessarily traceable to a particular Bible verse the way Imago Dei is, but the concept is embedded in one of the most basic tenets of Christianity for most (albeit not all) of its history. Incarnation at its simplest refers to God taking on humanness -- not merely "human form" as it is sometimes phrased, but real humanity -- in the redemptive person of Jesus.

Because this was the subject of intense debate in the early formative centuries of the church, one of the places where one finds the word and the concept of incarnation is in the early creeds of the church. Dating (in its final form) from 381, the Nicene Creed is perhaps most explicit about its view of incarnation, in speaking of Jesus:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human.

Point blank. After making sure you understand that Jesus is "God from God...true God from true God," the statement turns around and also makes sure you understand that Jesus also "became truly human." Paradox, mystery, whatever you choose to call it, the Incarnation was embedded into church thought even if it was more easily stated than explained.

Later confessions might address the subject more obliquely, but it does receive treatment and description. The Heidelberg Catechism of 1562 frames the point succinctly...

Q. 18. Who is this mediator who is at the same time true God and
a true and perfectly righteous man?
A. Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is freely given to us for complete redemption
and righteousness.

...as does the twentieth-century A Brief Statement of Faith from my own Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Confessions:

We trust in Jesus Christ, fully human, fully God.

In other words, we're talking pretty basic doctrine here, mainline folk.

So in short, the human being was the means by which God chose to enter the world in the person of Jesus. God didn't just put on a flesh suit, or merely take on human appearance or likeness. God became human. Whatever ways Jesus may not be like us human types, there is this one inexplicable point of contact -- being human. That our humanity was not so low that God the Son would yet enter into that humanity is one of the great mysteries of faith.

Now God in human form, i.e. Jesus, did take some pretty severe physical torture. Crucifixion as the Romans practiced it was meant to be painful, by doing horrible things to the human body. Being followers of the one (or the One) who endured such brokenness and destruction in his human body should, if nothing else, give us tremendous pause in participating in anything that visits more brokenness and destruction on the bodiliness we have in common with God Incarnate, i.e. Jesus. And again, participating (by the spending of our dollars, by the devotion of our time and emotional attachment) in such breaking and destroying for the mere sake of being entertained ... it becomes extremely difficult to justify.

That's a starting point. By no means are the only possible theological concerns to be raised in this discussion, but they are two possible points that speak directly to the bodily destruction that is seemingly inextricable from the game. And to the degree that the violence that leads to the brokenness and destruction is inseparable from the game's appeal, as many of its adherents will tell you quite vigorously, then it seems we have an unresolvable problem.

He, too, is created in the image of God.

And he, too, is created in the image of God.