Living the Gospel, Sharing our very Lives: TV Discussion Guide: God, Life, Sport

TC533. Theology and Television

Rubén Fernández Morales

TV Discussion Guide: God, Life, Sport

“Friday Night Lights”

Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t loose!

If you had been introduced to the critically-acclaimed “Friday Night Lights” [1] by watching its 2011 Emmy Awards intro clip (see below) you would easily have judged it as merely another show about Texan pride, more football and dysfunctional teenagers. Quite not just the case, and the failure to satisfy the industry assumption of audiences eagerness of more violence in sport and hyper sexualized teenagers actually threatened the continuity of the series after the end of the first season. [2]

Friday Night Lights 2011 Emmy® Awards trailer:

Kyle Chandler won the “Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama TV Series” in competition with Michael C Hall (Dexter), Timothy Elephant (Justified), Steve Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire) and Hugh Lowrie (House) and John Hamm (Mad Men).

What is this show then about? (content summary below, #6)) What does the Panthers HS Football Team and the people of Dillon’s vision need to be clear of and for what? What kind of self-emptiness and new filling can offer them uncontested victory? Coach Taylor says it loud and clear from the outset, “we are vulnerable, we will fall, we will all fall, we will all now fall”, “we must carry this in our hearts, that what we have is special, and it can be taken from us”, “we will be tested to our very souls”, “it is this pain, it is these times that allow us to look inside ourselves.”

An excellent "thesis" of FNL series can be found on its “Farewell Promo”:

From first to last frame, each of the characters face the transitoriness of this life—all it is “chasing after wind”; they search for purpose and value just to experience unsatisfying knowledge and foolishness at its best. All they find proves to be ephemeral and meaningless. But as Kohelet does in Ecclesiastes, some of our Dilloners are uplifted by beauty “one that both corrects and recanters the dominant wisdom of his day”. [3] Life is God’s gift, and even given the paradox—life sucks with misery, injustice and death). Matt Saracen acts out this “rebirth and baptism” brilliantly in the memorable scene (below), “Everybody leaves me, what is wrong with me”. We are to enjoy our relationships, food, wine, talents, and works in worshipful attitude and in appreciation for God's generosity and care for His (already-but not yet) restored creation.

“Everybody leaves me”:

The pervasive theology of FNL is not one of individual superheroes, not even antiheroes. Instead of subversive “Jesulogies”, we are compelled to experience God’s self-revelation and wider presence in an overarching and dynamic theology of Deification (Theosis) [4], [5] God here is not the Wholly One, but the Missio Dei instead the transcendent, and the resurrected and glorified Christ acts as New Adam in whose incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, and Triune deity, by the Spirit, we are on a journey to become like God (deified). In his perfect freedom and pure delight, the Triune God created us in His image (Imago Dei), he made us little gods. In the Garden, we will walk with God as friends and in a mutual relationsip. Theosis is not enacted as soteriology in terms of penal-substitution but more as a movement from imperfection to perfection.

FNL seeks to make meaning engaging while moving its viewers with the profound consequences of self-absorption and pursue of disordered desires, including self-righteousness. And maybe another reason some have criticized the series is that all the brokenness, injustice, despair, disappointment and betrayal in life is not merely an opportunity for fatalism, stoicism or self-blame but rather it is encountered and embraced through friendship and fidelity with forgiving grace, as well as by the prophetic, redemptive and transformational impact such faithful and covenant-keeping relations have on community life and hopeful future.

Life is beautiful. The Taylor’s:

As we watch the pilot episode, the conviction, ownership and praxis of “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t loose” in all FNL protagonists is still raw, myopic, self-centered, but nevertheless partaking in a dynamic and shared journey of transformation. Every human life at Dillon matters, the outcasts and the self-righteous, God makes the sun raise up over all of them. So, in the hopeful journey from useless beauty to restored full and abundant life, God’s presence and kingdom not so much in an individual redemptive figure of a hero, but in the shadow of the perfect relations in the Triune God, the Taylor’s family shines as a beacon of grace, love and justice, in God’s incomplete but thriving likeness.

It’s not that they do not experience their own parenting problems…or that they do not experience their own marital valleys, says Olson [7], “rather, when these problems threaten to collapse their commitments, they have an anchor to remain steady.”

Eric & Tami Taylor:

Episodes and questions

“Pilot”. E1, S1.

New coach, Eric Taylor and his family start to experience Dillon and its community, home of the Panthers, best American football HS team in Texas.This episode sets the tone for the whole series. The righteous order of some and the messiness of others can mislead you. You will be surprised, just stay on. Pay attention to Tim Riggins comment, “I am the caretaker” and follow him through the series. At Dillon clear vision and wholeheartedness seems to be lacking.

Discussion questions:

Did watching this episode with theological lens and attentiveness help you embrace the revealed experience of God in life and relations? How?
How did you feel with Jason Street’s accident and injury? Have you ever been or have you cared for someone in a critical situation?
Does God like football? How does God relate to our love and relation for sport and play?
What do you see in the different dating and marital relations in the episode?
How does the absence or the abuse of parents affect their teenagers in FNL?
Is it possible to love anybody or anything else more than football? Are you attentive to love as they those that matter in your live as you should?
How does the pressure to perform affect the coach? How does it affect the Taylors? How does pressure in sport affect our most important relations?
How did the expectations of coach Taylor, the team, the officials and sponsors… make you feel? What are some of the performance expectations you struggle with?
The meaning of “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t loose” matures with its characters and story along the series, but how did it resonate with you on this occasion? What heart and motivation seems to embody at this early stage?

“Always”. E13, S5.
A good choice if you have seen the series already or do not plan to watch it.

Discussion questions:

What do you see as the conducting thread in this finale?
How is God’s kingdom and newness pictured over the episode, in individuals, marriages, friends, parents and children, the team?
What impressed you and why from Tyra and Tim’s picnic conversation?
How is a dynamic journey into faithfulness, truthfulness, equality, mutuality, happiness in the joy of the other painted in the Taylors’?
What does the final scene tell you theologically?

Biblical texts in conversation with FNL:

Since you are sportspeople who's identity and destiny sets in relevant and regular conversation performance and achievement with grace and hope and this series not being (just) about sports but certainly full of context and meaning for the needs, the challenges, the opportunities for those whose lives exist exist in a world of striving and thriving, we will watch and discuss not only considering the overarching theme of God's self-revelatory presence but how does that makes meaning in our lives and dedication to sport. Here's some passages and possible themes for our dialogue:

Eccles.: 1:2-18; 3:l2-14: God’s revelatory presence and life paradoxical meaning
Gen. 2:18-25; 1 Peter 1:13-21; Col. 3:17-4: Relations, marriage, family.
Matt. 26:39-46; Phil. 4: 1-19; Lk. 4:1-14: Pressure.
Phil. 2:1-7; 1 Peter 5:1-3; I Timothy 4:7-8: The role of a coach.

FNL, God, Life and Sport in conversation:

God’s wider Presence:

How do we learn to gaze on the useless beauty of this world and our lives with our whole selves? How do we humbly, acquire knowledge and love, and serve others conscious and content with our ephemerality?
How do we enjoy the gifts, great and small, that God sends our way in awe of Him? How do we see this perspective making sense in our worship and participation with God in mission?

Relations, marriage, family:

Why does Paul say a man must “leave his father and mother and be united to his wife?” What else do we have to leave to have a good marriage?
The Ephesians passage is in the context of being filled with the Holy Spirit, which is allowing the Spirit of God to teach you, mediate for you, and convict you. This requires being open to Him. What prevents you from being open to God’s Spirit in your life?
If a husband and wife endure in love for each other and respect each other, what effect will that have on family, community, team? What does it mean that husbands should love their wives as they love their own bodies?
Find more questions and Bible studies on Conflict Resolution, Marriage, Team Unity and LGTB teammates, and a related theological framework on Relations at SportLIFE.

Pressure:

What pressures do you think Jesus felt as He headed to the cross? What outside pressures that caused of this internal turmoil?
How would you rephrase verse 42 in your own words? What does this say about Jesus’ relationship with His Father?
When Jesus felt the weight of the world on His shoulders and His disciples did not support Him, where did He get his strength and perspective?
Find more questions and Bible studies on Self Talk, Anger, Grief and Loss, Dealing with Pressure, Fear of Failure, and a related theological framework on Emotions at SportLIFE

The role of a coach:

What in this passage speaks to us the most?
Describe the characteristics found in Jesus that we are to imitate.
3. In what ways can coaching be selfish? How could being a servant and other-centered help you become a more transformational coach?
Jesus was God in the flesh and still He did not hold onto His power for Himself. List three ideas where you might serve your athletes physically, emotionally, and/or spiritually?
Do you know other coaches you could lead toward this type of coaching philosophy? Or others who could help us to become a transformational coach?
Find more questions and Bible studies on Conflict Resolution, Marriage, Team Unity and LGTB teammates, and a related theological framework on Relations at SportLIFE.

FNL Content Summary:

If you are interested, Nick Olson offers a good summary of characters and narrative of the series along with an insight theological perspective in his article at the blog Christ and Pop Culture. [8]