God did not win a national championship

Last night Auburn University's football team won the BCS National Championship. After the game, their coach, Gene Chizik, said, "God was smiling on us tonight." Once again, sports personalities make these kinds of comments, and once again, we theologians have to come in and clean it up. Obviously, God was not smiling on Auburn football: What Chizik saw in the sky was a quarter moon!

But obviously God was not smiling because God does not have a face, God does not have human emotions, and God is likely not even a personal being like us humans. In this regard, we have done the opposite of what our sacred texts tell us: We have created God in our own image. From what I read in the OT, God is anything but recognizable. God is not even nameable. God is elusive and mysterious. Of course, I realize that making these claims in some way violates everything I just said about God.

Let's imagine for a second that God indeed has these kinds of human emotions (like smiling for a particular team in football). There are many problems with this claim. If God was smiling on Auburn, why was God angry at the team that lost? They played well; they worked hard, too. And why would God be concerned with a game rife with ethical dilemmas? The winning quarterback was the center of much contraversy when his Pentecostal, preacher father was caught trying to "sell" his son to Mississippi State. He claimed throughout that he knew nothing of this. And Auburn and the NCAA allowed the quarterback to remain eligible and he eventually won the Heisman Trophy and now has won a national championship. So would God really favor a team with so many ethical inconsitencies? Wouldn't God be more concerned about other more important matters like the shooting in another part of the state where this game was held?

I wish sports people would not use God-talk after winning. It makes theology look bad, it makes God look bad, and it makes themselves look bad. Leave the God-talk off the field. It does not belong there and even if God really could smile, I doubt very seriously it would be about such a trivial thing as a college football game. Maybe the moon was smiling on Auburn, but not God. I am already preparing for more damage control: The Super Bowl is just weeks away!