[quote author="Rowen Atkinson"]Can’t we just learn to all play on the same field together?  After all we all have the same referee and are all going toward the same end of the paddock.. does it really matter that some chase the round ball while others the oblong one?

INFIDEL!!

Must...control...fist...of...death!

The rules of AFL are how they were when they were handed down from God!

*Ducks incoming lightning bolt & runs away snickering* :)

Glenn

The trick to playing AFL (or any sport) isn’t to play by your rules, or my rules, but to play by the umpire’s rules.  ;-)

‘Twas a great article - I sent it to my mother, who mentioned she heard Spong on the radio. 

SJK.

Spong on the sofa-bed

The story of Spong changing the rules of AFL into soccer rules reminds me of a sermon by Phillip Jensen, (I think it was him) some year ago.

He likened the gospel message to a football. It was our task to pass it on to the next generation of believers without changing it in any way. Colossians 1:5-6

We should not remodel the ball by adding wings, or aerials or anything else, but that ball should be by all means passed on intact. Ephesians 1:13

Sorry, this idea has nothing to do with Spong, please ignore it.
Galatians 1:9

Ken

Reason #3454

*groan*

With all this talk about football, I just thought I’d remind y’all that some people like to play hockey. Hockey players use different equipment, let boys and girls play together in some places, and have a rather different understanding of the term ‘ball’. Instead of seeing the rules of football as the only way to achieve fitness and camraderie, they are trying an alternative method of achieving the same end - cause some people have been hurt or excluded by footballers, or no longer feel comfortable with the assumptions that accompany that game. They bear no ill-will to footballers, but are getting a little sick of being told they are not real athletes.

OK Chris lets change the game to hocky.

There are still the rules of the game to play, you cannot mix hocky and football together and call it hocky.

Thats what spong is doing, trying to mix humanism, secualarism and Christianity all into one game. As Christians we need to play by the Christian rules.
If you want to be humanistic, fine go for it, play that game, don’t confuse it with “Christianity” though.

The two are totally different.

craig

Indeed. No-one’s saying hockey players aren’t real athletes, nor that they don’t have the right to choose hockey over football.

But I would insist that hockey players are not real footballers.

And I would be very annoyed if a footballer rose to the position of captain/coach and then pulled out a hockey stick and started to beat his own team on the head with it.

I still want a rugby illustration in here somewhere ;)