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Friday, September 30, 2016

Baltimore Ravens Tight End Benjamin Watson: Christianity Not Privatized, But Is Wholistic Reality-Oriented Commitment

By Rick Pearcey • September 30, 2016, 10:27 AM

When Baltimore Ravens tight end Benjamin Watson was on radio and asked by Glenn Beck, "How hard is it to keep your faith in the world you live in?" Watson replied:

When you go to work, you are a Christian at your workplace. You're not a broadcaster who happens to be a Christian -- you're a Christian who does broadcasting and writes and those sorts of things. Same thing for me as an athlete. So everything I do, even just who I am . . . whatever the trials are and the temptations are in any job is not anything that is not uncommon.

The view expressed in our regressive politically correct culture today is contrary to what Watson has expressed and is the exact opposite of the humane and intregrated emphasis set forth in the Biblical data.

Secularists such as Obama, Hillary Clinton, and many Republicans, seem to want a tamed Christianity that is satisfied with forever sitting in prayer closets and having a totally privatized relationship with Jesus. Just don't bring "my faith" out into public life, as if that "faith" had anything to do with the real world of politics, public policy, social life, and all the rest.

What these regressives fail to appreciate is that the Biblical data concern the whole human being in the wholeness of life. What is given in the Christian worldview is a wholistic approach to life that sets people free to experience integrated, non-hypocritical lives in all that they do -- and not on the basis of a private "faith" but on the basis of verifiable truth-claims that can be considered, discussed, evaluated, and then applied with authenticity (not perfectly, but authentically) in the totality of the real world.

As an NFL tight end, Benjamin Watson has to make great moves on the field. But the real game-changers are the patterns of his life, made on the basis of truth that is humane, wholistic, and liberating. Not just for him, for also for the world around him.

For further reflection on these themes, please see my "Christmas in Space and Time" and my "Test Everything" Foreword to Nancy's most recent book, Finding Truth.