Which fire are we burning?

A few weeks ago, the Olympic torch was lit in Greece to begin the ceremonial "run" towards China, where the 2008 summer games will commence. This year's trip towards Beijing is anything but ordinary, however. Instead of running straight from Greece to China, the torch is going around the world in the longest torch run in Olympic history.

However, the run is not going as planned. Several protests in London and Paris have caused chaos on the torch's path. In fact, the torch has been extinguished by authorities in Paris 5 times! The demonstrators have gotten so close that for the safety of the torch and the runner, the flame is put out and the torch is put on a bus for short periods of time.

According to the yahoo news story linked in the previous paragraph, similar protests are expected when the Torch passes through America, especially in San Francisco.

The Olympics are truly a special event. The summer and winter games are something that I look forward to every 2 years. The world comes together and competes in all sorts of events. We see the top athletes from every country. Most importantly though, the world is united as we all watch these games. As a Christian aspiring to see this type of community happen every day it is truly an amazing time in my eye. This is how we should live with everyone every day.

Well that's the attempted idea. I've grown uneasy with how American coverage of the Olympics only watches athletes from America, Canada, England and Australia. We keep a medal count and try to make sure that America takes home the most medals. We don't watch other nations unless their athlete is breaking the world record in their sport.

This "selfish" coverage of the Olympics is more upsetting to me than the "social injustices" that are being cited by the protesters when they gather. In Philippians Paul instructs us to "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves." (Chapter 2, verse 3, NASB)

Don't get me wrong. I do need to factor in the fact that I don't understand why these protesters are gathering, and I have not looked into the reasons they are upset with China. There may indeed be some terrible social injustices happening there. Perhaps if I knew more about this story I would have a different opinion.

However, in my mind's eye right now, protesting China through the Olympic games just doesn't seem like the proper avenue. It seems to me there are other ways to do this. If this is such a big issue, why wait until the Olympics to bring it up?

If we aspire to live as Christ did, then we must formulate our response to issues like this with that in mind. Jesus didn't speak up against social injustices or protest the way some people were treated. Instead he went to the downtrodden and loved them. In fact he instructed us to do likewise. He said "whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." (Matthew 25:40)