One issue that has emerged over the summer, thanks to a ruling by the Supreme Court, is the appropriate role of prayer at sporting events. Without going into the strengths or weaknesses of the Court's decision, it seems right to wonder about the appropriate place of prayer in these situations. I remember reading that Hall-of-Fame manager Sparky Anderson once asked, if a player thanks God when he hits a home run, does he then blame God if he strikes out? (The answer: no. The player thanking God is recognizing that, although he may develop his abilities, it is the gift of God that he has the abilities to develop in the first place.) 

Even Cal Thomas, a committed evangelical Christian, wrote in his column recently that public generic prayer actually trivializes the whole idea that praying is supposed to be entering worshipfully into the presence of God, and I can see his point. 

I do think, though, that there is a place for prayer at sporting events, whether publicly led or privately offered. I don't think God is greatly concerned with the outcome of a game, but that doesn't mean He doesn't care about other aspects of the events that we could and should pray about. Such as: 

• For the safety of the participants, that none would be seriously injured 
• That those who play, coach, and watch would remember that winning and success do not increase a person's value, and that losing and failure do not decrease their value, either 
• That the important lessons of hard work, overcoming adversity, teamwork, and sacrifice would be learned by the players and retained by them off the playing field 

Brad Pardee
Editor

I found my thoughts turning to the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Among the athletes was Zola Budd, the barefoot South African runner who was forced to seek British citizenship in order to compete because South Africa's apartheid policies had led to its exclusion from world competition. 

When most people talk about Zola Budd, they talk about her collision with Mary Decker, the American who was favored to win in the 3,000-meter race. That's not what I think of, though, when I think of Zola Budd. 

When I think of Zola Budd, I think of the way she was not allowed to represent her true country because the world community had isolated South Africa, and it's certainly true that apartheid was worthy of all the condemnation it received. Not only was South Africa excluded from international athletic competitions, but also boycotts of South Africa became something of a cause celebre. Corporations and mutual funds proudly announced their refusal in invest in companies with ties to South Africa. Protests seen on the nightly news demanded an end to apartheid. 

As far as I can tell, since the end of apartheid, there haven't been any countries that were quite the same kind of "persona non grata" in the world community. Can we safely say, then, that no other countries have mistreated or discriminated against their citizens to the degree that South Africa did? Of course not. What is the difference, then? 

A couple things, I think. First of all, there is the economic side of things. South Africa has never had the kind of presence in international trade that China has, so we were unwilling to turn a blind eye to apartheid the way we do to the well-documented human rights violations occurring in China. South Africa has never had a resource we were dependent on as we are on oil from Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations, so we were unwilling to remain silent on apartheid the way we are on the religious persecution, to the point of outright murder, which is not only sanctioned but actually carried out by the governments of the oil producing nations. When there is money at stake, it is easy to see principles either collapse or disappear altogether. 

The second reason, though, is that the oppression in South Africa was carried out by the white minority against the black majority. It seems to me that there are those in America who are so desperate to make up for the slavery and racism in this country that they are very sensitive to the plight of blacks, wherever they are being mistreated. There was a degree to which the boycott and exclusion of South Africa, in this country at least, was an attempt to ease a sense of guilt over the wrongs of the past, as if there was some way to make up for the enslavement of an entire segment of the population based on race. 

This kind of heightened awareness does not apply to other groups around the world. In Sudan, for instance, what is being done to the Christians by Islamic fundamentalists is far worse than what South African blacks suffered under apartheid. Yet, Sudan has a small team participating in the Olympics. What was cause for exclusion and international sanctions when it happened to blacks is quietly ignored when it happens to Christians. The same is true of Indonesia and Pakistan, both of which are also represented in Sydney, despite the persecution being carried out against the Christian minority in each of these countries. 

It is all well and good to stand up against injustice, as the world did against apartheid, and rightfully so. When the response to injustice, however, seems to vary, depending on the money involved or who the victims are, one can only wonder if justice was the true motivator. Did Zola Budd have to change her citizenship because of international outrage at injustice, or because the victims of injustice in her country were the "right kind" of victims and the oppressors didn't have the money to make the rest of the world look away?