this haymaker is for jesus.

Here's an interesting article that I came across while browsing the New York Times website--and by interesting I mean fascinating from a cultural point of view but with a healthy side order of deeply disturbing. The article covers a small but growing movement in some evangelical churches of promoting mixed-martial-arts fighting among their ministries as a way of attracting, converting and retaining young men, a much sought-after demographic. The churches often double as fight academies, and the young men take part in matches--allowing plenty of time for prayer beforehand, of course.

The obvious point is that it's not really anything new for religious fervor to fit right alongside a zeal for fighting (hello, understatement). In fact, if inserting a little machismo into churchgoing and butching up the image of Jesus is what keeps these kids motivated and out of trouble, then that's great. I just can't imagine that the ministers/coaches are teaching open-mindedness or tolerance along with the ability to kick the shit out of people. That's the problem with an organization as single-minded as the evangelical church. I know no more about fighting than I know about applied economics, hairstyling, or NASCAR (which is to say nothing at all), but even I know that the best fighter is the one who has the intelligence and breadth of experience to assess his opponent and choose his battles. The person with the unbendable assertion that he is in the right and who applies brute force in all directions isn't anything more than a bully. I'd just like to point out how alarmingly shrewd these churches are, and how absurd the combination of faith and fistfighting is.