Chariots of Hire

Presbyterians & "Super Bowl Sunday"

by Brad Isbell

WE ARE RELIABLY INFORMED that this is “Super Bowl Week,” a promotional publicity-fest that is something like Advent for the USA’s greatest holy day. That this holy day falls on the first day of next week—the Lord’s Day if you are a confessional presbyterian—may have something to do with professional football’s relatively late arrival on the American sports scene. That some churches and elders who ought to know better embrace this mega-event as an appropriate occasion for church activities may indicate the diminishing regard presbyterians have for their historic standards.

By the time burly bruisers began to get paid for playing football, Saturdays were taken—already the domain of high school and college contests.¹ Professional football arose in the 1920s when Blue Laws prohibiting many commercial activities on Sundays were fading away. All over the country local and state governments were greenlighting Sunday contests. By 1967 TV viewers were ready for some football and the TV networks were ready for increased revenues so when 65 million people watched the first Super Bowl the die was cast. Every Super Bowl since has been played on Sunday. The NFL owns Sunday now from fall through winter. A few cranky protestants pose no threat to the new lords of the old Lord’s Day.

American churches generally accepted the ongoing relevance and application of the Ten Commandments until about the time professional sports went wild in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By then the glories of Revivalism were fading and pragmatism called evangelicals like a siren. The doctrinal underpinnings of Lord’s Day observance were largely lost on both the fundamentalist right and the progressive left. The right was running on the fumes of Calvinistic doctrine (see the early Southern Baptists). The 1925 Baptist Faith & Message reflects an almost-Westminsterian understanding of the Lord’s Day. The 2000 revision showed the loss of this understanding by the end of the 20th century. While evangelicals may have fallen prey to pragmatism, the mainline loved respectability. The old ways of honoring the Lord’s Day were just…weird. And no one wanted to be weird.

Witness the baptists’ Lord’s Day declension.

But back to the 1920s: by then waves of European immigration brought the freer, so-called “Continental Sabbath”² to American cities where Sunday freedom became a political issue. Cultural resistance to a commercial Sunday crumbled and many evangelicals and confessional protestants forgot why they had ever cared about the Fourth Commandment. And they kept forgetting. Christians loved the courageous example of sabbatarian conviction portrayed in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire, but there was no resurgence of regard for the Christian Sabbath. Scottish athlete Eric Liddells’s sacrifices for the sake of his convictions in 1924 were inspiring but already seemed quaint and out of date.

1924 seemed like ancient history, even in 1981.

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE 17TH CENTURY the Westminster Divines believed the Christian Sabbath was too important to forget, and their warnings against such forgetting seem almost prophetic. In Westminster Larger Catechism 121, they wrote: “Satan with his instruments much labor(s) to blot out the glory, and even the memory of (the Christian Sabbath), to bring in all irreligion and impiety.”

In 2024, after about 100 years of professional Sunday sports, it’s common to see evangelical pastors wearing football jerseys on their church stages (or even behind rare vestigial pulpits) to promote “Super Sunday” events. Whether conceived for outreach or fellowship, these events are always billed as FUN! Less common are confessional presbyterian churches engaging in February football hijinks. Less common, I say, but not unknown.

A PCA CHURCH SOMEWHERE IN THE SOUTHEAST is having a big, public, commercial Super Bowl party this year. Surely it is not the only such church to do so, but we are persuaded that such events are still quite rare. Now, informal gatherings of church families or small groups to watch what we (for legal reasons) are supposed to call the BIG GAME are not unheard of, and neither are youth events centered around the advertising-entertainment festival to which a football game has been attached. Sunday evening worship services, since they have almost disappeared in the PCA, are no hindrance to such gatherings. Neither, it would seem, are the doctrinal standards of the church.

The PCA church in question is meeting not at its building but at a brewpub, though prospective attendees are assured that non-alcoholic drinks will be available. And the victuals for the viewers will be provided not by church ladies or warmed-up Costco pizzas, but by a food truck. And speaking of food trucks (chariots of hire, if you will), we’ve noticed a churchy trend in that regard: churches contracting with food trucks to vend on church campuses on the Lord’s Day after worship. This at least serves to render the old “Should we go out to eat on Sunday?” controversy moot. Now the restaurant comes to you. Dinner on the grounds just ain’t what it used to be. Who ever got great street tacos at a potluck anyway?

IT’S NOT ABOUT RECREATION. “Wait,” you may ask, “what do you mean it’s not about recreation? All this stuff sounds fun!” But the recreation³ we have in mind in a presbyterian context (and goodness gracious, aren’t we supposed to be sensitive to context?) is the recreation mentioned in several sections of the Westminster Standards.

The PCA (unlike the abovementioned baptists) has not formally changed its doctrinal standards. Since 2000 and the codification of Good Faith Subscription exceptions to the plain reading of the Standards on Commandments Two and Four have become unexceptional. Many PCA elders state differences and are granted exceptions to the following bolded parts of the Confession, Shorter Catechism, and Larger Catechism:

21-8. This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest, all the day, from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations, but also are taken up, the whole time, in the public and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.

Q. 60. How is the sabbath to be sanctified?
A. The sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days; and spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of God’s worship, except so much as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy.

Q. 61. What is forbidden in the fourth commandment?
A. The fourth commandment forbiddeth the omission or careless performance of the duties required, and the profaning the day by idleness, or doing that which is in itself sinful, or by unnecessary thoughts, words or works, about our worldly employments or recreations.

Q. 117. How is the sabbath or the Lord’s day to be sanctified?
A. The sabbath or Lord’s day is to be sanctified by an holy resting all the day, not only from such works as are at all times sinful, but even from such worldly employments and recreations as are on other days lawful; and making it our delight to spend the whole time (except so much of it as is to be taken up in works of necessity and mercy) in the public and private exercises of God’s worship: and, to that end, we are to prepare our hearts, and with such foresight, diligence, and moderation, to dispose and seasonably dispatch our worldly business, that we may be the more free and fit for the duties of that day.

Q. 119. What are the sins forbidden in the fourth commandment?
A. The sins forbidden in the fourth commandment are, all omissions of the duties required, all careless, negligent, and unprofitable performing of them, and being weary of them; all profaning the day by idleness, and doing that which is in itself sinful; and by all needless works, words, and thoughts, about our worldly employments and recreations.

Now, sometimes men’s objections to the so-called “recreation clause” (should be clauses since you can see above that the concept is more or less reiterated five times) is that the stodgy old Divines would have banned going for a walk with children or pitching a Nerf ball in the backyard. Many exam committees will say that what the Divines had in view were the organized sporting activities encouraged by a 17th-century king, not harmless, informal activities of families, thus no real difference with the Standards exists. Nevertheless, exceptions are often allowed to the “recreation clause.” Once granted this exception is taken by some to license nearly anything the grantee considers to be, well, fun.

Fun, no doubt, is hard to legislate, as are private family activities. And, as mentioned above, most PCA churches have one morning service which leaves lots of hours for recreation of one kind or another. But what about the public, announced activities of an elder-led presbyterian church? And what about the actual Fourth Commandment, not just the Standards’ exposition thereof?

(One notable thing about the Fourth Commandment is that it carries a good deal of explanation with it, which is why it’s the longest commandment by word count. It’s almost as if the Holy Spirit anticipated our difficulties with understanding and applying it.)

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

What constitutes appropriate recreation on the Christian Sabbath is arguably subjective. What it means to keep the day holy is also a little difficult to pin down. That’s why I say the main issue with church-sponsored Super Bowl parties at bars or other commercial establishments is WORK.

The Reformed have long understood that prohibitions on “any work” by “you” extend to all the other “yous” who might be under your roof, in your employ, or who otherwise serve you. Simply put, there is little about the Super Bowl experience that does not involve someone working to entertain or “recreate” you. The production of the all-day event requires untold thousands to labor for the entire day. Food and service staff, TV crews, security guards, janitors, even the players—all labor at unnecessary tasks for pay on the Lord’s Day. Everyone is obligated to spend the day in worship; all need rest. Do some deserve rest and the freedom to worship on God’s appointed day more than others?

For PCA church members this may be a simple matter of conscience. No one is being disciplined for Lord’s Day recreational activities (as far as we know) unless those activities prevent regular attendance. For officers and session, though, the various Lord’s Day issues are (or ought to be) more serious. Conscience comes into play again, but maybe not in the way you’d assume.

IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME. PCA elders ought to remember that if the church plans an activity on the Lord’s Day many members will feel obligated to come. The collective conscience of church leadership may be at ease with a Sunday night Super Bowl party, but why assume the same of the consciences of the members? PCA church members don’t take vows concerning confessional agreement and fidelity as officers do, but members can read. And many have read the Westminster Confession and Catechisms and try to order their Christian living and thinking according to them. Members may also question an outreach or fellowship event that would confuse not only some of their Christian neighbors but also nearly every previous generation of presbyterians. There are still presbyterians around whose consciences are pricked by the prospect of thousands of people (Christians and pagans alike) working on the Lord’s Day for the sake of “recreation.” For them, obvious violations of the Fourth Commandment take all the fun out of America’s biggest Sunday.

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ADDENDUM: "I have come to the conclusion that the two institutions which Germany most needs are (1) The Sabbath; and (2) American Football." -- J. Gresham Machen, quoted in the Stonehouse biography, based on his experiences in Germany in the early 20th century when dueling was still common. The sort of Sabbath-compatible football he had in mind was college football which was played on Saturdays or weekdays. Machen often took train journeys to see college games…on Saturdays.

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You may wish to check out a show we did on this general topic.

1. This Christianity Today article is notable for two things: First, its mentions of J. Gresham Machen’s love of college football, and second, its lengthy discussion of football and the church with no mention of the Lord’s Day.

2. I do not refer to the Lord’s Day doctrines of the Continental Reformed churches which adhered to the Three Forms of Unity, for their teaching was very similar to that of the Westminster Divines or proponents of a so-called “Puritan Sabbath.” Instead, I refer to the looser practice already prevailing in much of Europe in the 19th century. See Wes Bredenhof: “Historically speaking, the so-called ‘Continental (Reformed) view’ is much stricter than many modern people realize.” https://bredenhof.ca/2019/05/14/the-synod-of-dort-and-the-sabbath/  

3. Here’s a way to evaluate recreation for its appropriateness for the Lord’s Day: Does someone else have to work so that I may engage in this particular form of recreation?