{"id":1742,"date":"2015-05-20T15:21:53","date_gmt":"2015-05-20T20:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pts.edu\/blog\/?p=1742"},"modified":"2021-01-29T15:58:40","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T20:58:40","slug":"deflate-gate-and-christian-ethics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pts.edu\/blog\/deflate-gate-and-christian-ethics\/","title":{"rendered":"Deflate-Gate and Christian Ethics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week\u00a0the National Football League handed down a\u00a0four game suspension for Tom Brady of the New England Patriots for his part in deflating footballs before a playoff game this past year. The team was also penalized $1 million and 2 future draft picks. If you turned on ESPN recently you\u00a0saw all kinds of debates in response. Is this fair? What really happened? Is the evidence strong enough to warrant this response? What will happen in the appeal? Tom Brady has frustrated many as he has not really admitted or denied the accusations. This will certainly be a news story for many weeks to come.<\/p>\n

Everybody is sharing opinions on the matter on social media and in conversation, but I will not be sharing mine. Instead, I want to point out\u00a0four ways that the discussion on ESPN and in the news is distinct from the way Christians should approach ethical discussions. I am not arguing that the debate should be done from a Christian perspective in those contexts. I think, however, that Christians need to think critically about the differences.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. God cares about means and ends.<\/strong> The excuse has been made that since the Patriots beat the Colts so soundly the ball pressure did not influence the outcome and so the ball pressure does not matter. This is a popular argument\u2014to say that if you do something unethical for a good reason or if you do something unethical that does not result in a problem that it is acceptable. This is not a Christian argument. God cares about what you do and the results that you have. Remember that Jesus even cares about what happens in your mind before you even take action. (Mt 5:28)<\/li>\n
  2. God sees and cares about who you are and what you do when no one is looking.<\/strong> Christian ethics are not about not getting caught<\/em> or about definitive proof<\/em>. Christian ethics are based on doing the right thing no matter who else sees or catches you because God is always with you and sees what you do in secret. (Mt 6:4, 6, 18) The question is not, \u201cWhat can I get away with?\u201d The question for Christians is, \u201cHow can I be more Christ-like in every area of my life?\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. Christian ethics care about truth and confession.<\/strong> One of the key truths of Christianity is that the truth will set us free. (Jn 8:23) There is also something freeing about confessing the truth. If you did something wrong then say so. If you did not do anything wrong then say so. Or, as James encourages, we should let our yes be yes and our no be no. (Jm 5:12) I don\u2019t know what Brady did or did not do, but I wish he would be very clear about it publically. Honesty goes a long way in Christian ethics.<\/li>\n
  4. Christian ethics are not ultimately based on human fairness.<\/strong> This is the big question of this story\u2014is the penalty fair<\/em>? When the world says that, they are talking about human opinion. When Christians evaluate behavior we do so based on the righteousness of God\u2019s own character and not on what people think is fair. And even then we don\u2019t get what we deserve, because Christ takes the punishment we deserve. There are still consequences for sin, even under grace. We feel the results of our sin just as we set up laws and punishments to keep society in order. God even does this in the Old Testament. My point is that the ultimate evaluation for Christian ethics is not a human understanding of fairness but the righteousness of God\u2019s character. The criteria for Christians is higher.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I do not expect that the NFL, Commissioner Roger Goodell, ESPN, or even Tom Brady and the New England Patriots\u00a0to be living or talking about Christian ethics. My worry is that Christians will not think critically about the distinctions between the world\u2019s ethics and God\u2019s ethics and will bring the world\u2019s ethics into the church. For us, the standards and the discussions are different. Confusing them can be dangerous for the church.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Jordan Rimmer \u201912 is the pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in New Brighton, Pa. He earned his Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and is currently working on getting his Doctor of Ministry. Before moving to Pittsburgh, he was the director of outreach and youth ministries at Glenwood Methodist Church in Erie, Pa. He is a husband and father of four children. Jordan blogs at jordanrimmer.com<\/a> and tweets at @jrimmer21<\/a>. His sermons are available for download on iTunes or at http:\/\/jordanrimmer.podbean.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Last week\u00a0the National Football League handed down a\u00a0four game suspension for Tom Brady of the New England Patriots for his part in deflating footballs before a playoff game this past year. The team was also penalized $1 million and 2 future draft picks. If you turned on ESPN recently you\u00a0saw all kinds of debates in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[116,115,119,118,117],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theological-reflection","tag-christian-ethics","tag-deflate-gate","tag-ethics","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-tom-brady"],"yoast_head":"\r\nDeflate-Gate and Christian Ethics - Pittsburgh Theological Seminary<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When it comes to pop culture events in society - like Deflate-Gate - how should Christians respond? 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