One
advantage of holding dual Australian and New Zealand nationalities is that I
get to support two of the favourite teams for the Cup, the
All Blacks and the
Wallabies. Though I guess if you’re
British you can support three-and-a-half sides – England, Scotland, Wales
and the unified Irish team.
Once
more, numerous Christian groups will be active, with a special version of
the Jesus video, “Rugby
Legends: Beyond the Game”, and special editions of the Scriptures, from
the Bible
Society in Australia.
Unfortunately, they have a problem. Many Christians seem to think that the
secular world regards all Christians as sissies, and all rugby players as
anything but.
Thus, the
New Zealand
Bible Society:
Scripture distribution
manager John Jennings said Michael Jones, Inga Tuigamala and David Solomona
had contributed accounts of what motivated them in their "Christian walk"
and the value of scriptures in their sporting life. But it's not all "goody
two shoes stuff", Mr Jennings said. “They are good, solid football blokes.
Inga and Michael would ruck it up with the best of them."
Do these
special Bibles and videos work? I’m pretty dubious about all the effort that
Christian groups put into evangelising these mega-events. Does anyone do a
follow-up survey? But New Zealand blogger Joseph Gelfer makes
an
interesting comment:
Does it encourage a
certain part of society otherwise alienated from the gospels to pick them up
and read? This edition has been sat around my house for a couple of weeks
now. When friends pick it off the shelf they initially smirk at the cover
statement, ‘The faith which is central to the lives of Jason Robinson, Nick
Farr-Jones, David Solomona and many others in the rugby community is also
freely available to you.’ But after that I find people thumbing through the
pages with far more interest than other, more traditional, editions which
continue to gather dust. This alone is no small achievement.
Heavenly.
October 10th, 2003
