The countdown is coming to an end.
Soon it will be celebrated that at this time of the year a little baby boy was born in a place that is on what is today called the West Bank.
Some believe the story that the boy was God’s sent son.
Others are content to use their birthday to eat, have time off, maybe socialize and give away pats if they can afford it.
If you watch sports and come across stars from different countries, there is no doubt that the father-son story is more popular elsewhere than in Sweden.
In some American sports athletes can barely open their mouths before it’s Jesus here and Jesus there and God to be thanked and praised and thanked again.
Among Swedish stars, it has been as unusual to talk about their faith in God as it is to notice the Christian faith in the rest of Swedish society. The former NHL player Markus Näslund was a noted exception.
This is about to change.
One reason is that athletes are more and more looking for keys in the mental. A bigger explanation is that more Swedish stars come from families and clans where religion – whatever it is – has a clearer place.
This week, the alpine para-athlete Aaron Lindström talked about his strong Christian faith.
Similar feelings exist not least in football.
Aaron Lindström reads the Bible every day and finds it more interesting the more he reads. Photo: Geir Olsen/TT
Dejan Kulusevski reads three, four pages (always the same) in the Bible before a match. National team colleague Anthony Elanga can be seen on a site for “Ballers in God”, a Christian group that targets international football professionals with its online activities.
Malmö FF’s Isaac Kiese Thelin came into contact with the group when he played in Belgium in 2018.
Already three years earlier, Kiese Thelin had participated in a DN survey conducted by my former colleague Lasse Grimlund. “Grimman” interviewed John Guidetti about his faith in God during the U21 EC that ended with gold and asked him a survey question:
What do you believe in?
The answers clearly showed a division in the squad that is also visible in society.
Isaac Kiese Thelin, Mikael Ishak, Alexander Milosevic, Joseph Baffo, Abdul Khalili and Arber Zeneli believed in one God, it was not always the same.
Sam Larsson, Filip Helander, Kristoffer Olsson and Oscar Lewicki had no faith in God.
Surely everyone was rooting for one team and the supportership can easily be compared to a religion.
Former NHL star Markus Näslund has always been open about his Christian faith. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT
The other week I was talking to a Christian woman. God had come to her one evening at home on the sofa and she told how he had remained by her side since then.
It can sound in a similar way when someone tells how an arena visit in childhood, a match shirt as a gift or a special player created a lifelong relationship with a team, a club.
In a text on DN Debatt complained a woman last week about how difficult she thinks it is to live as a Muslim in Sweden. The understanding she still receives often comes from Jews.
It is also similar to the supportership of sports.
When the rest of society condemns and is appalled by supporters’ fuzzy boundaries between love and hate, between atmosphere and chaos – then supporters from different teams fully understand each other.
Christian athletes making the sign of the cross and Muslim athletes falling to their knees are common scenes in many parts of the sports world. When Isaac Kiese Thelin played in the United Arab Emirates, most of the team was Muslim. The players prayed together before the match.
What was it like to be a Christian in that environment?
– No problems at all, Kiese Thelin told Sydsvenskan at the beginning of the year.
– It was respect from me and from them.
Isaac Kiese Thelin celebrates after Malmö FF’s SM gold in a shirt with the text “Glory to Jesus”. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT
One would wish that the respect for other people’s religions that exists in sports was just as great elsewhere.
Then we would have had a little less war and misery in the world.
When Isaac Kiese Thelin won SM gold with Malmö in November, he celebrated in a shirt with the text “Glory to Jesus”.
More than 20 years earlier, he had seen then MFF player Peter Ijeh pull up the match shirt after a goal and show what was written on the shirt underneath. John 3:16.
The verse in the Gospel of John is one of the Bible’s most famous quotes, which in its latest interpretation reads:
“God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that those who believe in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
I’m quite doubtful about that the kinship but I have a strong belief that life does not end when what we have here is over and I will never forget when the belief came.
It was hardly sport that gave birth to faith.
There has been all the more doubt.
2023-12-17 05:00:00
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