Lee, who was formerly the coach of South Korea's archery team and brought in to help the US kickstart its flailing national team, became a Christian in 1999. According to the article, his "proselytizing" consists of praying with his Christian athletes, inviting his athletes to go to church with him, and giving newcomers to the team a copy of The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.
Richard Lapchick, the director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport felt that Lee crossed the boundaries, citing Lee's “responsibility to be inclusive and to embrace diversity, and we often think of diversity as a racial or gender thing. But religion is definitely a big part of it as well.” Lapchick goes on to say, “An athlete has a hard time resisting a coach. There’s always a fear that you won’t get picked. You won’t have much support if a coach doesn’t like you.”
Here's where there's a massive double standard when it comes to diversity. Lapchick has made it clear that there's a responsibility to include religion as on par with race and gender when it comes to diversity categories. At the same time, the United States Olympic Committee (U.S.O.C.) promotes athlete-generated religious gathering (e.g. Bible Studies) but encourages the coach not to attend, much less lead.
Ridiculous. So essentially, if a number of black athletes wanted to create an African-Amercican Track & Field Network, black coaches would be expressly forbidden to participate because of the appearance that being part of that group would imply preference and a lack of objectivity towards non-black teammates? From everything I've seen, and I've been active in diversity and inclusion circles, senior (management) participation and leadership in racial-based, gender-based, and sexual orientation-based diversity group is highly encouraged. Why? Because in the name of diversity, there's a desire for people to be "Hispanic and proud" or "gay and proud", and seeing senior leaders and role models exhibiting that pride promotes this.
There's the double standard. If religion is truly an area of diversity, be consistent in terms of the guidelines.
For those who would claim that Christians don't comprise a true diversity group due to its "majority status", I'd challenge that, especially if you take into account that those who wish to congregate tend to be evangelical in nature, which is definitely a minority in the United States. Women (which I'd point out is a majority population in the United States) have their "diversity" status largely on the merits on their marginalized status as manifested by their delayed rights to suffrage and glass ceiling issues. For those who don't think evangelical Christians are marginalized and mocked by society, try watching some television for a few hours (e.g. Ned Flanders).
Finally, let's look again at what Lee is actually doing and judge the proselytizing "punch" in each of these actions:
- Praying with his Christian athletes - we touched on this before, but are you seriously going to forbid a coach to meet by invitation with athletes who share a common affinity simply because he's the coach?
- Inviting his athletes to go to church with him - should this be any different than inviting people than going to any event specific to to their ethnic or sexual-orientation? Should I write up my Indian friend for inviting me to a Diwali festival dinner?
- Giving newcomers to the team a copy of The Purpose Driven Life - this is arguably the most brazen act, but this book didn't top the New York Times best seller list because it only appealed to evangelicals or only Christians for that matter. It's a broad-market appeal book - we're not talking about Grundem's Systematic Theology here.
Sadly, the "diversity and inclusion movement" has some blind spots that hinder its inclusiveness.
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1 comment:
Mike, I agree generally with what you have said. However, I think this matter is more nuanced than just he did a, b, c and a, b, c is not overstepping boundaries. The problem lies in the context in which he was proselytizing. Was he proselytizing during a time period when he is officially supposed to be coaching archery or was he proselytizing after-hours, i.e. when coaching was over and it was casual talk time. It does not seem clear from the article the exact time period of his proselytizing.
One way to check if proselytizing has gone over-board is to ask how you would feel if a coach of another faith would have done the same thing. Let's say, instead of giving me “The Purpose Driven Life”, he gave me “8 Steps to Create the Life You Want: The Anatomy of a Successful Life” on the first day at archery camp during official archery training time: well, doesn't sound so bad except I'd be very disappointed in choice of book and that money went to Creflo Dollar. Next, let's say that he announced on the second day of archery camp (again, during official training time) that he is going to go hear Creflo Dollar speak and he encouraged us to go with him: hmmmm, a little bit disconcerting and distracting but since he is not forcing it on me, it is perhaps still OK. Third day, I notice that he is using “heath and wealth”-like lingo while at the archery range during official practice time: OK, now that is distracting and annoying. I'm hear to improve my archery skills ... so teach me archery, not something else. If you want to teach or talk about something else, do it after official archery practice is over for the day, not during it. And don't try to sneak it in ... be honest ... and don't try to rub it in ad infinitum thinking that I'll eventually be brainwashed.
I don't think Kisik Lee was like the hypothetical described above. However, I fathom that the Committee might have had this scenario in mind and was seeking to avoid the possibility of proselytizing gone-over-board. And if I had a child who was in a similar scenario, and the faith being shared was not that of the Gospel, then I'd be highly cautious as well.
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