Punching, clawing, kicking, and beating your way into the hearts of men. . .

Pastor With a Punch from The New York Times - Video on Vimeo.

“Can you love your neighbor as yourself and at the same time knee him in the face as hard as you can?”  So wondered Pastor Paul Burress, as we interviewed him about his “fight ministry,” which he started to bring his take on Christianity to more people in Rochester, N.Y. For Mr. Burress and his ministry, the answer is yes — members of his congregation fight one another in church on a regular basis.

Mr. Burress is one of a growing number of pastors who incorporate mixed martial arts (M.M.A.), a violent sport also known as cage fighting that embraces kickboxing and wrestling, into their parishes. Pastors like him feel that the church’s traditional evangelizing is not resonating with young men anymore, and they are resolved to change that. They justify their unorthodox approach by arguing that many of the Bible’s core tenets involve fighting: for freedom, for one’s beliefs, and for Jesus, too.

Though it was banned in nearly every state a decade ago, M.M.A. is now one of the fastest-growing sports in the country. (Mr. Burress is a retired M.M.A. fighter; New York State prohibits professional M.M.A.) Churches like Mr. Burress’s integrate fighting into many elements of their worship, which they supplement with M.M.A. viewing parties and even, in Mr. Burress’s case, live fighting events (Several pastors have estimated that 700 churches have incorporated M.M.A. into their ministries).

From the New York Times. . .

Truth is stranger than fiction. . .  The solution for a feminized church is to punch enough testosterone in it so that guys can beat the crap out of one another in the name of Jesus?  Surely none of us who love the Church is happy about the persistently low attendance among young men but the use of  mixed martial arts — a sport with a reputation for violence and blood that combines kickboxing, wrestling and other fighting styles — to reach and convert this target group requires the Church to use something other than the means of grace and to condone that which is hardly consistent with the Gospel.

As usual, results are invoked as the reason why this must be okay.  If you can accumulate enough decisions for Jesus or scalps for Christ, any means justifies the ends.  But that is exactly the point.  Even if MMA were thoroughly honorable and acceptable, the use of means other than the means of grace to reach people for Christ always raises questions.  The trouble is that we have grown so accustomed to gimmicks in service to the work of the church that we don't know what to say except "okay" when a seemingly more distasteful means is working better than the ones we have told ourselves are okay.  If we are okay to entertaining people into the kingdom of God, why not entertain them with bloodsport instead of a vivacious worship diva singing love ballads to Jesus?

We have lost our way.  Even old and staid denominations like the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod have voices and locations approval of MMA and probably the next incarnation of whatever works to pack them in.  In fact, we are usually well behind the curve in current gimmickry parading as faithful witness so what is next?  A stripper pole in the chancel.  Oh, wait, that has already been done.  Perhaps some might think Jesus is amused but I think He is saddened by what we portend in His name.  What do you think?