"Is Hedonism the True American Religion?"

Being an observer of the coverage of the extravaganza that makes up Super Bowl Sunday in America is an interesting thing. As a Lutheran pastor in the United States, what I saw yesterday was hedonism in all of its starkest and deistic forms. To be honest, hedonism is a creed that is adopted in the United States at other times of the year-- for example, Oscar parties on Academy Awards Night or St. Patrick's Day. These days of worship of pleasure, along with the gradual decline of following of the one true God, are indications that perhaps now the true American religion is hedonism. We are essentially a pleasure-seeking people who, when we are not seeking pleasure, are feeling good about denying ourselves. But, of course, self-denial is just the one hundred-eighty-degree opposite of pleasure-seeking-- and is done for many, until the next big bash comes along. Then we can just let loose again!

Listening to the Super Bowl musings begins with the pre-Super Bowl recipe and cooking plans. Although there is always some pre-Super Bowl on-air preparations that are calorie and nutrition conscious, most of them admit that this is the one time when you can just let loose! It continues with the game day look-ins at how people are being gluttonous. But the macro lens view is the day after when people show what their "Super Bowl" Sunday eating and drinking day was like.

A good example was a little look-in given by ABC on-air personality Sara Haines for today's installment of The View. Done in the Biff Henderson David Letterman Late Show style, it showed her attending her first Super Bowl in Houston. But what it lifted was the normally "watch everything you eat and work out" news person "pigging out" on the Super Bowl food that was available outside at the tailgaters and inside during the game. There was even a short segment done by ESPN commentators on her first half totals for calories and projections into the end-of-the-day records she might reach. Although the presentation was effervescent, the message was this is the one day you can just let it all go!

I do not think this is an isolated case, but is indicative of what Super Bowl means to the American public. It raises the question, which connects to many other trends today: "do we essentially worship the god of hedonism?" Do we share essential "no filter" pleasure-seeking with animals lower than us? Or are we able to exercise some self-control when we want to do it?

Christians would without exception claim that their God is the true God who will not worship false idols like pleasure-seeking. Many Scriptures would speak to the good stewardship that we are to exercise with all that we have. The commandments to not covet what someone else has and to "give us this day our daily bread," taking what is sufficient for today would apply. In 1 Corinthians 6:9 Paul would also remind us that if anyone is bothered by our eating and drinking (for example, someone who cannot control a habit like drinking alcohol) we should abstain from doing it. We are not to indulge in the works of the flesh (which include licentiousness and drunkenness and "things like these" in Galatians 5), but to walk by the fruit of the Spirit, which includes self-control (Galatians 5:23). But do we often speak volumes with our actions, while doing lip service to our faith?

The Greek Stoic philosophers had a simple phrase that some ethicists advocate and follow: medein agein-- "live in the middle. Nothing in excess, but everything in moderation." While Hedonism may seem to win the day on Super Bowl Sunday, most of the time principle-following, level-headed Americans will keep the balance between gorging themselves and denying themselves. If Christians have a hard time getting back to normal everyday life after yesterday, at least we know in three short weeks on March 1st Ash Wednesday will give us the chance to get back on track. Of course, there is that religious day for gluttony which will precede it called Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras. "O dear, maybe we do naturally worship the god of hedonism?!?!" "God, forgive us!"

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