No rugby watching on Sunday, even if your son is playing

These Australian LDS parents decided not to watch their son play a rugby league final Down Under because the game was on a Sunday. More power to them.

I’m reminded of the “Chariots of Fire” scene where the Scottish minister refused to run in the Olympics because the race was on a Sunday. The most interesting thing about that were the many discussions that ensued about proper Sabbath Day worship.

My personal take: my family doesn’t watch much TV on Sundays. We honor the Sabbath by going to Church and avoiding going shopping. We’re not Pharisees about this: if we are missing something, and it can’t wait until Monday, we go to the store. If there is something on TV we really want to watch, we turn the set on. If my son were playing in the World Series or Super Bowl, I’d turn on the set to watch him, or, more likely, I’d try to get tickets to the game.

The Spencer W Kimball manual we are reading at Church this year says people should not hold picnics on Sundays. (I taught the Sabbath Day lesson on this in High Priest’s several Sundays ago). My position on this is that picnics and trips to the park are appropriate Sunday activities for our family. Such activities may not be appropriate for other families, but for us they are spiritual, restful and happy times. My feeling is that people should prayerfully consider what are appropriate activities for them on Sundays. Some families may consider TV watching and family picnics appropriate — others may not. I also think there may come a time later in life when appropriate Sunday activities change for me and my family. But for now I feel we are honoring the Sabbath the way we should.

Having said that, I appreciate people like this Australian family who have made another decision on how they will honor the Sabbath. I think it is a nice reminder that Sunday is not just another day like any other and that people should try to honor the Sabbath in their own ways. For this family, that includes not turning on the telly. Bully for them.

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About Geoff B.

Geoff B graduated from Stanford University (class of 1985) and worked in journalism for several years until about 1992, when he took up his second career in telecommunications sales. He has held many callings in the Church, but his favorite calling is father and husband. Geoff is active in martial arts and loves hiking and skiing. Geoff has five children and lives in Colorado.

10 thoughts on “No rugby watching on Sunday, even if your son is playing

  1. Good for them in being consistent in their belief. Perhaps the ethics of the Australian culture is stronger than it is here in the states.

    Are there any General Authorities who would view playing football with your buddies is an appropriate Sabbath activity? What if you were paid millions of (alcohol industry funded) dollars; does the ethics change then?

    In America, we raise pro sports players to the level of Doctors, Soldiers, Police and Firefighters. We seem to equate football stars with men and women who put themselves in harms way, to save our skins.

    Even though police and firefighters have to work on the Sabbath we revere them because of the necessity of what they do. Were they not available on Sunday, our world would become a much more dangerous place.

    I have seen LDS football stars lauded during General Conference and by General Authorities because of their sports accomplishments, those accomplishments that require them to work regularly on the Sabbath.

    We know that saving lives is important enough to work on the Sabbath.

    I suppose we now know that Professional Sports is also important enough to take over the Sabbath.

    NV

  2. Noah,
    You have just successfully accomplished exactly what Geoff was so good at avoiding, judging another’s decision about how they honor the Sabbath. In fact, I was so impressed with Geoff’s explicit separation of what’s good for his family and what’s good for others that I had the hope that this thread wouldn’t turn into a Steve Young-bashing session. And the first comment out of the gate dashed that hope.

    I guess my question is why do you care how others interpret righteous Sabbath living? Seriously, what effect does it have on your life? Are you really concerned for their spiritual welfare? Or are you concerned that because the GA’s don’t condemn Steve Young over the pulpit that your children are going to get the wrong impression of what’s okay to do on the Sabbath? These are serious questions, I truly have no idea why someone would care so much about another’s Sabbath decisions that they would make such sweeping judgements.

  3. It’s worth pointing out that in a room full of righteous high priests when I taught the SWK lesson on the Sabbath there was nobody condemning me for going on picnics or occasionally watching a little TV on Sunday. I think most people struggle with this issue, especially if you have small, energetic children. I’m not sure locking my two-year-old in the house and reading him Bible stories all day (when he can only sit through about five minutes of it in the first place) is doing him any good, whereas taking him to the park where he can run around and chase birds and go on the slide and spend time with his mommy and daddy is definitely doing him some good. And then I can read him Bible stories before he goes to bed that he can actually pay attention to because he has spent some of his seemingly boundless energy.

    I guess I feel that my family should try to honor the Sabbath in ways that uplift us, instead of following strict, unbreakable and difficult-to-follow rules.

  4. Geoff, thanks for bringing a nice little story to our attention. It’s especially nice somehow to see this in a non-American setting. One of my mission zone leaders later was a first round NBA draft pick and had a modest career playing professional basketball. A few years ago the Meridian sports columnist interviewed him, and he had an interesting observation as a father in California about Sunday sports observance: “I think it’s very difficult if you have more than one LDS child on a team and the families don’t believe the same way. It makes it difficult for others to understand how a religion can teach something where one family says, ‘yes’, and the other says, ‘no.'”

    As much of a conflict with others’ schedules Sunday may be for us, our burden is pretty small compared with that of observant Jews.

    http://www.meridianmagazine.com/sports/010720ms.html

  5. Great post Geoff, and it’s very cool that the rookie of the year in rugby is lDS.

    I was surprised when I heard the picnic thing though. Many activities that are discouraged to do on the Sabbath are pretty obvious. shopping, waterskiing, going to Disneyland. Never in a million years would I have guessed a prophet had warned against going to the park with your family. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Sunday than to spend it enjoying a meal and God’s creations with my wife and children. In fact, we just did last Sunday and it was wonderful

  6. Hiya Rusty. I make judgments about people and their actions hundreds of times a day. Most folks do. I even judge Church members.

    When I find that someone is superior in their covenant keeping or attitude or spirituality than I am (nearly all the time) I then judge their decisions that led them to a better place.

    That’s how I get to their better place. I’m sorry that you seem to think that judgment is a bad thing.

    In spite of that, you seem to have made a judgment about me. You appear to be under the impression that I have indulged in a “Steve Young-bashing session.”, even bashing your hopes in the process.

    Am I correct so far?

    Rusty, where did I mention Steve Young? I mentioned America (specifically American Culture), I mentioned General Authorities.
    Perhaps my point was toward them. Now that I think about it, I’m quite certain it was.

    Maybe if I restate my post, my actual point will emerge.

    Hearkening back to my earliest days as a Church member, I was taught which activities that were and were not in harmony with a healthy Sabbath. Attending Sacrament Meeting, personal and family scripture study, and home teaching, constituted healthy Sabbath day choices.

    I was cautioned to avoid shopping, employment (where possible), and self gratifying recreation.

    Family enriching recreation was left up to my own discretion.

    The natural questions of Law Enforcement, Rescue services and utility work, as Sunday Employment, came forward. They were quickly answered with the explanation that first two were life saving services. Sacrificing a life in order to strictly keep a commandment was unnecessarily foolish.

    Utility workers support both of the above services. They also contribute, in no small amount, to the health and safety of their community.

    Most other forms of employment did not fit the above categories. We were taught to make career choices would not deprive us of Sabbath day blessings.

    Recognized, was the occasional, unfortunate circumstance that might necessitate our working on the Sabbath for a period. If we found ourselves there, despite our best efforts, we were counseled to do our best to remedy the ‘blessing depriving situation’ and return to healthy Sabbath day activities.

    Is any of the above in conflict with the Gospel as taught to you?

    Since you brought Steve Young into this, we’ll use him as an example. From what I understand, 99% of Steve Young’s life is a living example of how a Priesthood holder should conduct himself.

    However, that same 99% was all but ignored by General Authorities who focused on; not his mission work or his worthy example, but his Sabbath Day Employment.

    Can you see how the focus here is not on Steve Young, but on the General Authorities who choose this one small piece of Steve Young’s life as an example for young men?

    I have no issue with Steve Young’s choices. They were his to make.

    I do have an issue when General Authorities appear to treat Pro and College Sports as if they were vital services to our community, equal to saving lives. Every way I look at it, it shows as an inconsistency, at odds with Gospel Doctrine.

    It is a circumstance that I can not reconcile.

    I’m also not thrilled with exposing our young men to a diet of alcohol and soft porn laden ads as the price of watching a Sunday game. But that’s another issue.

    I hope this better explains it for you. Don’t feel too bad though.

    I’ve experienced the knee-jerk reaction of someone assuming these comments were an attack on Steve Young so consistently, that I’d be shocked if it didn’t happen.

    Some folks seem to choose the meanings they want.

    NV

  7. I had to laugh when I read that Kimball quote — one of the sons of one of our High Council members (they live about two hours away from our building, and our meetings are from 11am to 2pm) was really happy to come to our ward a few weeks ago, because they got to have a picnic before going home!

  8. Context is everything when you use historical illustrations. A generation or two ago, a picnic was not usually a simple lunch in the park with your immediate family — it could be a large organized group affair, with ball playing and three-legged races and horseshoes and prizes and dressing up to flirt. Warning against picnics is like similar warnings against Sunday drives and holding family reunions on Sunday — I think perhaps SWK was reacting against something that was not inherently bad, but which was out of hand at the time he wrote about it.

    With the exception of going to Sacrament Meeting, Sabbath observance, IMO, is about the feelings and peace and reverence, not about specific activities. When I was a student, for instance, my roommates spent Sunday afternoons with art and music and literature — but since that was what I did all week long, those activities were NOT restful or reverential for me, and I had to do something else (writing letters, usually). It’s where your mind and heart is, not always what your body is doing, that makes the Sabbath, IMO.

  9. Ardis, an excellent, erudite comment. Your comment reminds me of Church leaders who warned against “reading novels” 100 years ago. Of course now we look back at that literature as classics and laugh at their naivete. But, as you say, the comments make much more sense in the context of the time.

  10. I wouldn’t really mind Sunday viewership of football and other sports programs if the inherent idolatry of pro sports wasn’t so obvious.

    It’s just so obvious that football has replaced God at the head of American religion. A true American form of ecstatic worship. Skipping church to tune in seems a rather grotesquely obvious in-your-face to God to my thinking. The fact that it’s so regularly poo-pooed by elders quorums across the nation also raises a lot of red flags for me.

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