Nice Guy Finishes First

This morning I am basking in the afterglow of Super Bowl XLI. The Colts finally won a championship, Peyton Manning finally won a big game, the Indy defense finally stopped the run, and a dome team finally won outside in bad weather. And for the first time, an African-American coach held up the Lombardi trophy as NFL champion. And most importantly— the Peyton Manning jersey that I bought at A.J. Wright for $5.00 years ago finally turned out to be a wise investment!

There was another victory as well. Earlier in the week, the NFL notified several large churches that they were in violation of the NFL’s copyright protection by advertising showing the Super Bowl in their church building. It may have been coincidental that the churches were in Indianapolis and Chicago, the two Super Bowl cities. The prohibition was murky enough that some cancelled their parties and there was evidently an outcry... and the NFL back-pedaled faster than a Chicago corner trying to cover Marvin Harrison. They announced that it is perfectly OK for churches to show the Super Bowl as long as they keep moneychangers out of the temple—the church can’t charge admission. Click here for details.

One of the reasons originally given by the league for preventing churches from showing the game is that they did not want the NFL connected with religious messages. They feared that churches would use the Super Bowl as a platform for sharing their faith. (Where would they get an idea like that?) They did not want the reputation of the Super Bowl sullied by talking about Jesus at half-time when we should be watching something wholesome, like Prince prancing around in the rain!

Well, if they really wanted to ban God from the Super Bowl last night, they really let the wrong two teams to play in the game. Both Indianapolis’ Tony Dungy and Chicago’s Lovie Smith are dedicated Christians. When accepting the Lombardi trophy after the game, Dungy said this--

I'm proud to be the first African-American coach to win this. But again, more than anything, Lovie Smith and I are not only African-American but also Christian coaches, showing you can do it the Lord's way. We're more proud of that.

You know, nice guys aren’t supposed to finish first. But one did last night. And it looks like we can go ahead and plan next year’s Super Bowl party. And I think I’ll hold onto my Colts jersey too!