Jesus Was Xtreme Too

The UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) is the fastest growing and most notoriously violent sports organization in the country. As the sport grows, so too do its subcultures, the newest of which are evangelical Christian groups determined to use MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) as a tool of reaching out to possible converts, particularly young men.

One would think that the extremely violent and bloody sport wouldn’t fit very well with Christian Doctrine, but regardless, many evanelicals are identifying with it. The attraction of these groups to men may help Evangelical groups grab hold of a slipping demographic. Statistics show that male involvement in U.S. congregations has been shrinking; right now the national average is two men for every three women. Many prominant evangelical leaders view MMA as a way to inject some much needed machismo into church, and raise the number of men attending. However, by their account, it isn’t because churches need men, but because families need them.

The supporting pastors feel that a well rounded healthy family needs a stable male role model. “The man should be the overall leader of the household,” said Ryan Dobson, 39, a pastor and fan of Mixed Martial Arts who is the son of James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus On The Family, a prominent evangelical group. “We’ve raised a generation of little boys.”1 The underlying message of the movement? Christian culture is too effeminate and MMA is a way to change that.

The pastors in support of this idea are pushing the positive influence of “fighting” in context of faith and life. They feel that while the church is teaching valuable lessons, these messages are often lost on males because of the way in which they are taught. In an intervue with the New York Times, Brandon Beals, 37, the lead pastor of the Seattle based Canyon Creek Church said, “Compassion and love — we agree with all that stuff, too, but what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter.” And he isn’t the only pastor that feels that way. John Rankin, who is both a pastor and an MMA teacher, believes that fighting in a competitive and controlled environments is the key to avoiding gang violence in schools, and creating a disciplined environment for young men. 1 Rankin also asserts that by nature men are full of aggression and when anger is not released in a controlled environment it finds its way out in harmful ways.

Today the UFC is growing faster in popularity then any other sport in the country, but only a decade ago it was barely able to officially function. Back then the sport was banned in “nearly every state” and was blacklisted by several politicians including John McCain.1 Despite being hampered by the initial controversy, the UFC has gathered an enormous following, its value grown from $2 million in 2001 to $1 billion dollars in 2007. The UFC now has legal regulation in 42 states.2

Of the pastors intervewed by the New York Times, several put the number of churches taking up mixed martial arts at roughly 700 of an estimated 115,000 white evangelical churches in America. The sport is seen as a legitimate outreach tool by the youth ministry affiliate of the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents more than 45,000 churches.1 When one looks at how quickly the sport has grown in the past decade it seems likely that Christian MMA culture will grow with the same momentum, especially if the National Association of Evangelicals definetively targets the evangelical MMA community that has already sprouted.

Churches, social networking sites, and even clothing brands that are directly targeting the evangelical MMA culture are appearing all over the internet. Not only are churches forming MMA groups, MMA groups are forming churches. One such MMA founded church, Xtreme Ministries of Clarksville, Tennessee, built around MMA as a way of both glorifying god, and reaching out to young men.3 The group prioritizes rigorous training and competition, and is run in conjunction with the Clarksville Mixed Martial Arts. The heading of the CMMA website reads “Where Feet, Fist and Faith Collide.” Looking at the two organizations’ websites, it is pretty clear that they were designed to look the same.4

One social networking site devoted to the marriage of MMA and evangelicalism is anointedfighter.com, a place where fans and fighters alike can congregate to discuss the role of Christianity in the sport, and vise versa. Beyond building community, the wesbite serves as a medium for evangelical MMA advertising. “Christ Jit-sui“, a good example of advertisement on “Anointed Fighter”, is a comic and soon-to-be-released children’s cartoon.5 Several clothing lines have sprouted that directly market to the Christian MMA fan base, two of which are entitled In God’s Hands Clothing and Jesus Didn’t Tap. (Referring to the act of “tapping out,” the equivilent to “throwing in the towel” in boxing.) The front page of jesusdidnttap.com communicates the ideology very well:

“In the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, to “tap” is to quit or give up. The message of the Jesus Didn’t Tap line is that Jesus didn’t quit after going through unimaginable suffering and pain when he was crucified on the cross. The company aims to represent both the competitiveness of MMA and honoring God in all of their designs and hopes it will help spread the Christian message of salvation to a whole new audience.”6

Looking at the success of the UFC, it is very possible that churches will greatly inscrease their pools of male attendees if they continue with their support of MMA on local and national stages. But despite all of the positive things MMA can do for American evangelical culture, there are evangelicals in the U.S. that do not support the message of the sport. In reference to MMA, a Seattle based pastor told the New York Times “I don’t live for the Jesus who eats red meat, drinks beer and beats on other men.” It is unlikely that any large rifts will be formed in evangelical culture in terms of support for MMA, especially if this paster remains only one of few to speak out against Christian involvement in the sport. In his blog, however, he wrote that he does not totally condemn MMA and sometimes watches UFC matches with his friends. When he does so, he likes for them to refer to him by his “UFC fight name, the Ragin’ Asian.”7