Churches use the European Football Championship for their “theology”.

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The European Football Championship in 2024 appears to be an opportunity for the churches to exploit mass sport for their “theological” purposes. A football service with a very strange philosophy of spiritual representatives from the Protestant and Catholic churches in a Jesuit environment.

Sporting events – Antique tool

“Bread and games”. A tactic that was successfully used, especially in ancient Rome, to calm down a possibly dissatisfied people. You provide them with inexpensive food and give them opportunities for intellectual distraction and the emperor or the Senate can do as they please. The people are quiet, talk more about the results of the competitions and argue more extensively about their chosen “favorite gladiators” than to look more closely and, above all, more critically at the rulers’ fingers.

Major sporting events are therefore generally welcome occasions to wave through this or that law “quickly” without the (cooperating) media ever picking up on it. A look at the Federal Government’s Federal Gazette, where adopted standards can be viewed, each time around a major sporting event, can be very enlightening. But who’s looking?!

Ball games – religion and war training

Ball games such as football, handball, golf and especially polo are not a modern invention. The history of these sporting events, in which the ball plays a central role, goes back to ancient times. Competitive sports with a ball or sphere were already known in ancient Mesopotamia. However, these competitive games, which were organized with a ball, were not intended purely for physical exercise, but rather reflected the representation of an action in the respective mystical religions in the respective peoples. Training the soldiers to use their weapons also played an important role.

The game known today as polo, with a baton in the hand of the player riding a horse, was once a hammer used in war. This exercise was also known in Babylon, but without a horse. Here the player sat on the back of a fellow competitor. The Epic of Gilgamesh began and ended with a ball game. The hammer and bullet were made from the “cosmic tree”. A constellation with “supernatural properties”. The ball allowed access to the underworld and enabled communication between people on earth and the spirits. The hammer and ball were also used to symbolize the war god Ishtar.

Heathen ball games in the curriculum

The pagan mythologies surrounding ball games are also learning material for Montessori schools (source). The Montessori schools are closely linked to the global curriculum developed by the UN. The Montessori centers also work with “World Goodwill”. An offshoot of the Lucis Trust organization founded by theosophist Alice Ann Bailey. (Info).

Competitive sports integrated into “theology”.

In the past it was simply applauded for a victory by the local football team, but today it has been elevated to a part of practiced religion. The churches see the event of the European Football Championship as an opportunity to enlist the people who usually gather in masses, a now unusual sight in “houses of worship”, for themselves and their agenda. Under the motto “United,” the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and the German Bishops’ Conference held an ecumenical service last Friday at the start of the European Football Championship.

In addition to representatives of the respective church, actors from politics and society were also present. People wanted to pray for a “peaceful and unifying tournament”. (Source). This football service took place “appropriately” in the Jesuit Church of St. Michael in Munich. So it’s a “theological home game”.

EKD representatives on Christian values

The already well-known narratives of the “theological messages” were not spared in the individual speeches. Thorsten Latzel, President of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, hopes that “the Euro in Germany will be a cosmopolitan and people-friendly festival.” Togetherness and hospitality should be remembered, because that is what Christians stand for. This included “unconditional charity, hospitality, ecumenical cosmopolitanism as well as peace and justice in all relationships.” As if Latzel had reached deep into the box of words in the encyclical “Fratelli Tutti” by Pope Francis (Jesuit) to increase his score with the hosts of the Jesuit Church who were certainly present.

The president of the Protestant church constructed a connection between faith and football. Both therefore have the common denominator of great passion and the spirit of a team sport. “In global ecumenism, we are together part of the one Christ team,” but with different fan communities. Anyone can play in this “Christ team”. Origin, wealth, poverty, whether fat or thin, it doesn’t matter.
However, the number of national players who are fat and impoverished is likely to be close to zero.

“Sportbishop” relies on “Team Christ”

The “sports bishop” of the German Bishops’ Conference, Stefan Oster from Passau, who was also discussed, managed to make complete opposites appear as one in just a few sentences. As Christians, said the bishop, we also hope and wish that the joy of the game and the community prevails. The hope that perspective will be maintained even in the face of disappointment. Even if their own team lost, the fans should go home with gratitude because they experience that “a defeat in football is neither the end nor does it take away from football its beauty, its power and the joy that comes from the game comes”.

Football is about what Christ wants for us, said the “sports bishop” from Passau. It’s about “experiencing community, the joy of being alive, and the perspective of arriving in great joy.”

A complete reversal

Did Jesus Christ ever call for physical activity or going to a sporting event or at least going to the theater? Never. Were the apostles and the first members of the Christian community called upon to fight and throw each other out as a “team”? Never. The “sports bishop” Oster equates the competitive sport of football, which is all about the “victory of the best” and the elimination of every other team as a loser, with the will of Christ. Not to mention the billions in sales in the background of such events.

If you continue along the “sporty path” of the “theologically sporty” bishop, then the reality looks completely different. In “Team Christ” there are no losers. The losers, on the other hand, are those who do not join the “Team Christ”. This applies to all teams that did not qualify, based on a free decision, and of course also to all those who were just “touched” up to the “fanatical” spectators in the ranks. In “Team Christ” there is no diverse, colorful mix of different teams with different philosophies, pennants and jerseys. So equating the European Football Championship with a “Team Christ” is – with all due respect – nonsense.

However, here too there is the suspicion, as with the Roman Catholic Church in general, that the “Christ” also referred to by Oster has nothing at all to do with the Jesus Christ of the Gospel. It is an open secret that the “theology” of the Church of Rome is based on Mithraism and merely gives itself a Christian appearance (Info). Either way, that one

Sport – substitute for religion

Physical fitness is good for your health. Be it jogging, swimming or gardening. But international sport, whether football or another sport, and its clubs run as large corporations, are nothing more than institutions that offer a substitute religion. Badges, posters, t-shirts, flags, pennants, household goods, whatever, it must contain the favorite team’s logo. Die-hard football fans worship in the fan curves with their hands raised, light Bengal fires, sing, drink, meet in their fan clubs and also discuss at home and at work about past games, player appearances, purchases, awards, fouls, red and yellow cards and that same program also via the trainer.

The entire football gospel up, down and diagonally. The commonality claimed by Oster and Latzel only exists on the same team. The “big rest” is and remains not coexistence, but rather bitterness towards one another.

Bible verses from King James Version