Video: Winning isn’t everything

The recent hubbub over a Christian girls school forfeiting a basketball game and firing their coach following a 100-0 blowout begged the question: Was their conduct “unChristian?” Should Christians apologize for winning, for putting forth their best effort?

Watch the story below and see what I believe is a perfect example of how Christians can approach competition.

Winning isn’t wrong. But winning isn’t everything:

In the case of the Covenant School’s girls basketball game, I personally feel that Christians should at the least be expected to follow the generally accepted rules of good sportsmanship, which include not running up the score. As the story unfolded, there was some debate over whether that is what actually happened.

Beyond good sportsmanship, I believe Christians would do well to remember Philippians 2:3-4:

Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

We can live by that verse and still pour our guts out on the field of competition. As in the now immortal words of Covenant School Headmaster Kyle Queal: “A victory without honor is a great loss.”

Love like Emma

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his history-changing book, “The Origin of Species.” No doubt we’ll see lots of stories and TV specials about Darwin, his theory of evolution, the controversies it still foments and the battles over religion and science, God and Man, fate and design.

I found this story in the Los Angeles Times to be both an exceptionally well-written story and an unconventional look at the intersection of two opposite worldviews:

On Jan. 29, 1839, in the little chapel in the English village of Maer, a religious, 30-year-old woman named Emma Wedgwood put on a green silk dress and got married. She believed firmly in a heaven and a hell. And she believed you had to accept God to go to heaven. She married Charles Darwin.