"Football is not a matter of life and death, it is more important than that."
Christianity, Boxing, and Mixed Martial Arts
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Reflections on Morality, Vocation, and Well-Being, Nick Watson and Brian Brock, JRS, Vol 17 (2015), 1-22
The authors rightly distinguish sports which include a risk of injury from boxing, and mixed martial arts, where the aim is to hurt or injure. They note that within the Catholic and Jewish faiths there has been support for boxing. They quote the former world champion, Manny Pacquiao, who believed that boxing was his God-given calling and asked “why would God give you a calling that was sinful?” They quote the opinion of George Forman hat boxing “makes young people were less violent”. They quote an argument that boxing is justified by the evangelistic opportunities it gives.
They conclude that their “reflections have led us to believe that boxing and MMA are immoral and, are thus, not appropriate for helpful for humans with Christian belief to participate in and/or watch. … As Christian theologians we are very uncomfortable with the intentional (sinful?) Interpersonal violence directed at an opponent, in this fashion in the image of God”. They felt that the view that boxing, and mixed martial arts are legitimate Christian vocations would require a more robust theological justification than has so far been given.
The article makes a contribution to a neglected subject but I felt that it would have been better to concentrate on boxing (or MMA) but not both in the same article. I also felt that there was a some useful material on boxing that the authors seemed unfamiliar with.