M. A. Whatley

This is probably gonna sound really stupid but bear with me, I’ve got a point.

Don’t let the subject of this post fool you, I hate football. I despise it. I loathe it with every fiber of my being.

In fact, that’s the true subject of this post. I’m here to talk about just how much I hate football.

Also deer hunting. But for ease of typing, I’m just gonna use football as my example here.

I have a reason though for my contempt, and it is a totally valid reason and one which people should listen to when I decide to speak up about it. And that reason is that it sucks, and I want everyone else to know that. And if they happen to think otherwise, then they’re wrong. (Sarcasm)

The thing is, I truly do hate football. I understand, logically speaking, that there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. There is nothing wrong with other people liking it. The fact that other people do like it doesn’t have any effect on me or my life, other than it’s kind of annoying to have to listen to people talk about it.

But you see, I’ve had several people in my life who were just awful people. They treated me like crap. They treated others like crap. For absolutely no reason.

And you know what? All of those people LOVED football.

They lived and breathed football.

They’d force me to sit there and watch the game, too. Every single thing I know about football (which I’ve tried to make sure wasn’t very much) was learned against my will.

Now, I don’t like any other sports, either. I don’t want to watch them, and I certainly don’t want to play them. But baseball? I couldn’t care less if someone likes it and wants to discuss it, as long as it’s not with me, because I just don’t know anything about it and won’t know what they’re talking about. But if they wanna sit nearby and talk to someone else about it, then it doesn’t really bother me. Soccer? Same thing. Basketball? Have at it. Quidditch? Actually, I might wanna talk about quidditch…

But football? Even just hearing it mentioned in passing is enough to set my teeth on edge.

I understand that most people who like football are good people. But because of my past, it’s hard for me to remember that. It’s so ingrained in my psyche that “bad people like football” that if I hear someone talking about it, I have to actually remind myself not to hold it against them, that it’s not a signifier of their character.

But I hate football so much that I find myself spouting off my hatred of the subject like word vomit if I get ever get the chance during a lull in the conversation. And if someone actually takes the bait and asks why I hate it so much? Oh, boy. Strap yourself in, we’re gonna be here for a while.

But you see, I understand that my hatred is completely unfounded. It has nothing to do with the actual sport. I realize that as I complain about it, it’s actually showing my underlying psychology, not how much football sucks. I’m not fooling anyone. I am biased. Because “bad people like football”, that makes my mind believe that football is inherently bad, and therefore all people who like it are also bad. Somehow it makes me feel like I’m better than the others who fell for this trap, smarter somehow. They don’t even realize they’ve gotten sucked into something so toxic. But if I can warn other people against it, maybe they’ll realize it for themselves. Maybe they’ll choose the obviously better option, which is to avoid it at all costs, because there is no way football can ever be anything but awful, and to like it means that you are, too. It corrupts people. It makes more bad people that will treat others badly, just like the people in my past.

This is where the metaphor part comes in. Because I DO hate football (Though not quite to the hyperbolic extent of that last paragraph. That was an exaggeration to make my point.) but I’m using it as an example, because when you try to point out the true subject matter I’m getting to, people are blind and won’t listen. They’re too biased. If someone came to me and told me to just give football a try, I wouldn’t listen to them. It doesn’t matter how much they tell me that it’s actually great, I don’t care. I don’t want anything to do with it. I might actually would like it if I gave it a try, but I’m not going to. I don’t WANT to like it. I don’t want anything to do with the people from my past, I don’t want to be anything like them, and football symbolizes everything about them to me. If I allow myself to like football, or even just to say that it’s not as awful as I think it is, it’s like I’m letting them win. And that sure as heck isn’t happening.

So anytime I see people badmouthing Christians, or Christianity as a whole, I understand. They act so high and mighty and talk about christians as if we’re stupid for believing in some “sky daddy.” Anytime I see a Christian post on Facebook, there is undoubtedly someone in the comments just absolutely going off about the whole institution, completely unprovoked. It could be a post about the most harmless thing, but they feel the need to flaunt their obvious superiority and intelligence for not having fallen for the whole charade.

But the thing is that it never makes me question my beliefs, it just makes me feel sorry for them. I have never once felt like I was in the company of some intelligent, more evolved human specimen that everyone else should look up to, I simply empathize with them. I wonder who in their past hurt them so much that they would decide to hate over thirty percent of the earth’s population. They obviously didn’t develop this hatred organically, because just look at me. I’ve never known a single person who played volleyball, and I don’t hate it. I don’t have any feelings one way or the other about it. I understand that the only reason I hate football is because someone in my past made me hate it. So for someone to be so against anything even vaguely Christian-shaped, I know they didn’t just decide to hate it. Someone made them hate it. None of these people is ever also going off about any other religion. I’ve never once heard someone complain about Buddhism. It’s almost always Christianity.

Yes, there are bad people who claim to be Christian. I know this. And there are Christians who do bad things because they believe them to be the right thing. But not all Christians are like that. In fact, the vast majority aren’t. And just like I know it’s wrong to hate every single person just because they like football, simply because they like football, the same is true for Christians, as well.

If you have ever been hurt by someone who claimed to be a Christian, or even claimed that they did whatever it was because they were a Christian and were somehow doing God’s work, I’m sorry. I realize that one Christian girl apologizing won’t do anything to heal that hurt, but I’m sorry anyway. Nobody, regardless of who they are or what they’ve done, should ever be treated with the amount of hate you must have been treated with in order to have sown that much hatred of your own in your own heart.

Everybody is a beloved child of God, whether they believe that or not, whether they even believe in God or not. And everybody deserves to be treated as such.

Regardless of what someone may have done, I still try to treat everybody the way I’d want to be treated. Granted, I am an introvert, so for the most part I’d prefer to be left alone. And as such, I might not always be the first person to walk up and strike up a conversation, but I still try to treat everybody with at least the politeness and sheer human decency that I’d appreciate, because I’m not really one to be throwing stones.

But whoever you are, and whatever has been done to you, I’m sorry and I hope you are able to overcome this pain one day. Not every Christian is a bad person, and I hope you’ll try to remind yourself of this the next time your past trauma tries to tell you that.

And above all else, God loves you. He doesn’t care about any of the things that those people from your past cared about. He will forgive you of any sins if you bring them to Him, and He will welcome you with open arms regardless of who you are, even if nobody else will. He isn’t to blame for the sins of those hypocrites, so I hope you will consider giving Him a chance despite those jerks. If you go to a church and the people there treat you badly, that’s on them. Find another church to go to. If you really want to go to church, don’t let other people ruin that for you. There’s most definitely one out there where you’ll be welcomed. I’d put money on it. Even a lot of Christians don’t immediately click with the first church they try, including me. Sometimes you’ve gotta visit multiple churches before you find one that you like, so don’t just give up after the first failed try.

So far, I haven’t been able to find a church where a large part of the congregation aren’t devout football fans.

But you know what? I won’t hold that against them.

At least not too much 😉