How Would Jesus Fight?

Part 2 of a 2-part online series designed to explore issues surrounding a cover story written for the September 2007 issue of Plugged In magazine about the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

The official question-and-answer biography for Quinton Jackson, the Ultimate Fighting Championship's recently crowned light-heavyweight titlist, reads as follows:

Q: Why did you start training for fighting?
A: So I could beat up folks without getting into trouble, and get paid for it.
Q: Do you have any heroes?
A: Jesus Christ.

It's an exchange that nicely captures a UFC paradox: While the sport itself seems to go far afield of Christianity's "turn the other cheek" credo, some of its most popular figures are Christians.

They'd be quick to remind us, of course, that it's not as if God and fighting are mutually exclusive. After all, the Bible boasts its fair share of tough tangles and physical conflict. Jacob, for instance, wrestles with God and comes away with a limp in Genesis 32. In Psalm 3, David beseeches God to "strike all my enemies in the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked." And in the New Testament, Paul uses boxing techniques as a way to illustrate the need for spiritual discipline (1 Corinthians 9).

The Spiritual Gift of ... Fighting
Rich Franklin, a former UFC middleweight champion and still a top contender, takes to heart Psalm 144:1, which says, "Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle." A former high school math teacher, Franklin used mixed martial arts as a way to connect with the teens in his class. But he was so good at it that eventually he quit his teaching job and took up the sport full time.

"God granted me with a gift for fighting and it snowballed into a career," he said.

But does God dole out gifts for fighting? The UFC's often brutal matches and gladiatorial spectacle feel decidedly un-Christian. That's partly because of Matthew 5 and Luke 6's instruction to "turn to him the other [cheek] also," and partly because believers' spiritual ancestors didn't fare well in the Roman Colosseum. Thus, these cruel contests that so regularly take place in the UFC's Octagon—what with its chain-link cage and almost-anything-goes ethos—make many Christians queasy.

Franklin has no such qualms, though.

"I do not think my beliefs and my profession contradict each other," he told Plugged In Online. "I am doing an interview about God and beliefs right now. I have been given the opportunity to speak to youth in several churches all over the country, as well as youth in the secular community."

Franklin is, to his great credit, unabashed in professing his beliefs, going so far as to help open the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky. Pictures of opening day appear on his Web site—just below photos of his latest fight victory.

"I am not one to press my beliefs on anyone, but fighting gives me the opportunity to influence anyone interested," Franklin said. "When I taught high school, I was not allowed to speak to my students about God. I used to complain, and look at the position I am in now. In which job am I really providing a better service to the Lord?"

UFC and the Great Commission
Franklin's hardly alone. Several champions or top contenders say they are Christians, including heavyweight champ Randy Couture, middleweight titlist Anderson Silva and legendary welterweight Matt Hughes.

Hughes, a former All-American collegiate wrestler, was busy taping The Ultimate Fighter 6 while I was writing this story, so he couldn't talk. But his Web site turned up a wealth of information.

Like Franklin, Hughes has a Bible verse tacked onto the top of his site. His is Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." But Hughes' most telling spiritual comments arrive online via blog. In one entry, he mulls over God's place in the murder/suicide of professional wrestler Chris Benoit and his family:

"There is so much that we do not know or understand, but I do know that God knows best," he writes. "That God has a plan for everything."

He ruminates on Scripture, passes on prayer requests and talks about temptation and sin. And, at one point, Hughes indicates that the UFC can be a conduit—albeit a curious one—for the Great Commission.

He relays an e-mail he received from a fan who says he "drifted away from the Lord," but got hooked on the UFC watching Spike TV's The Ultimate Fighter, a reality show on which Hughes was featured as a coach (as was Franklin). The writer was particularly intrigued by Hughes' admission on the show to being a born-again Christian.

"So I started watching your fights and at the end of them you are thanking Jesus Christ for being in your heart—the emotions that stirred up inside me were of so much joy and happiness," the e-mail read. "I have tears of joy running down my face while I'm typing this, 'cause I have asked Jesus back into my heart, and I have you to thank for that."

"I Do Not Fight Like a Man Beating the Air"
The Apostle Paul, in that same chapter of 1 Corinthians in which he talks of refusing to "fight like a man beating the air," but instead beating his body and making it a slave "so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize," says he has "become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel." Paul goes so far in Philippians 1 to say that God will even use the "selfish" efforts of those who preach the gospel out of a sense of "envy and rivalry."

Does that mean the UFC is A-OK with God, though? And would Jesus really want to sit down with you in your house and watch a fight on Spike? Would He strip down to shorts and fingerless gloves to go the distance in the Octagon? Would He want you to?

I'm not convinced. We are, after all, God's creations, precious in His sight. We are masterpieces, more valued than gold and diamonds and far more fragile. It seems, then, obscene—even sinful—to send God's treasures into the Octagon to be punched, kicked and brutalized to entertain others. Whether they go willingly or not.

Part 1 | Part 2 | You and the UFC