When Will It All End?
ENGAGING in refreshing physical activity is pleasurable and healthful. But unfortunately, being participants or even only spectators at a sporting event often means being sucked into an extremely violent, and oftentimes drug-filled, world.
Modern-day sport is merely one expression of that violent world. Speaking of the incidents in Belgium in 1985 that caused the deaths of 39 persons in the stands of a football stadium, philosopher Emanuele Severino said: “It is generally agreed that events like the one at Brussels occur because of people’s growing lack of belief in certain fundamental values of our society.” Then he added: “The violence of our time does not originate with the absence of values but with the presence of new values.”
New Values in Sports
What are these new values mentioned by Professor Severino? One is the narcissism of the athletes that makes champions “demigods.”
Then there is nationalism and the resultant political implications. The magazine L’Espresso states: “Sport has become a great vehicle for social promotion. The more victories it wins, the more a nation is considered.”
Money is also one of the new values that has become part of the sporting world. Considerable financial and commercial interests—television-transmission rights, publicity, lotteries, and sponsorships—ensure “unscrupulous competition,” even among the sportsmen themselves. A former soccer player said that soccer “is no longer a game. It’s just a business.”
The prevailing principle is victory at all costs, and according to the new values of today, this means everything—from violence both on the field and in the stands to the violence caused by fans before and after the game, from doping and its lethal effects to unfairness and unscrupulousness. The sporting spirit, so-called fair play, seems to have become a thing of the past. Will it ever return? Judging by what is said, people hope so, but the facts are anything but encouraging.
Drugs and Violence—Will It Ever End?
As Professor Severino admits, violence in sports is only one aspect of a more generalized violence that torments modern society. What is the cause of so much violence? A Bible prophecy helps us to understand the problem. Speaking of the last days of this wicked system of things, the apostle Paul listed the following traits: ‘Men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, disloyal, without self-control, fierce, without love of goodness, betrayers, headstrong, puffed up with pride, lovers of pleasures.’ And he added: “Wicked men and impostors will advance from bad to worse.”—2 Timothy 3:1-5, 13.
This present world, the Bible explains, “is lying in the power of the wicked one.” (1 John 5:19) Satan the Devil is “the wicked one” who corrupts good things, such as wholesome sporting activities. He is the one responsible for the violent spirit. He also foments the nationalism, the selfishness, and the greed that have ruined society and sports.
But as individuals, we do not have to give in to that demonic spirit. We can, through application of Bible principles, “strip off” our old personality with its wrong practices, including violent manners, and put on “the new personality,” which produces peaceful fruit.—Colossians 3:9, 10; Galatians 5:22, 23.
Will there ever be an end, though, to violence and doping in sports? Most certainly! When? When the violence and drug abuse in society come to an end. The present increase in wickedness indicates that the time is at hand!—Psalm 92:7.