Lebanon’s 5 Stones Fight Club, an MMA academy that teaches the sport with a Christian influence, recently came under fire from a reader of their local newspaper. The letter didn’t sit well with 5 Stones’ Alicia Haag – who is on the Central Pennsylvania Warrior Challenge 9 card in York on 11/12 – who wrote an intelligent and eloquent rebuttal. have a read:
“If it furthers the Cause, then I will be the exception to the rule, the example to follow, or the spectacle to behold.
So raise your voice in objection or your fist in protest, but be willing and able to state your position. Act, don’t react. Believe in something. Stand for something, or step aside.”
That was my initial response to one woman’s letter to the editor regarding a recent feature article in the Lebanon Daily News about 5 Stones Fight Club
You can read the original article online at:
http://www.ldnews.com/lebanonsports/ci_15047612?source=email
The letter to the editor read:
“As a long time reader of the Lebanon Daily News, born-again Christian and Bible Student, I was shocked and disgusted that a picture was on the front page of section b on May 10th of a man and a woman in an un-Christian and compromising position” …she goes on to say “the story of David and Goliath has nothing to do with this “5 Stones Fight Club”. Young David faced Goliath with prayer and faith in God, and a small slingshot. God blessed him by overcoming evil. If this is the way one depicts God helping us with our “Giants” in life, I am cancelling our subscription –Elizabeth Smith Myerstown, PA
There are two retrogressive opinions at play here, both of which I find equally and at once inspiring and motivating–something about an unenlightened critic that strengthens my resolve and prompted my (somewhat lengthy) response.
Dear Elizabeth,
The idea that a man and a woman cannot engage in a physical training such as grappling, in close proximity to one another, without sexual innuendo or act taking place is close-mined and absurd. Would 5 Stones Fight Club offer its members anything other than fighting, be it volleyball, softball, even yoga…any other activity in use by churches as part of their fellowship and outreach programs, I wonder would you have the same reaction? Elizabeth, this type of thinking leads me to believe that not only did you NOT burn your bra in the 1960′s, you may just have that same bra on just a bit too tight.
The year is 2010. Many women have replaced those antique underwires with sports bras–Yes, women compete in combat sports, too. The male partners I train with on a consistent basis not only give me a competitive edge, they also look out for me the way older brothers do. In unrelated news, Elizabeth, women are now allowed to get jobs outside of the home. We can even vote!
Back to my point. What if everyone covered their eyes to the unsightly, or covered their ears to any objectionable word? What understanding might we lack? What truths might we never come to know about ourselves, about each other?
Elizabeth, you can cancel a subscription to the newspaper but that doesn’t stop the newsworthy from happening. For all your crass assumptions, you cannot stop a shift in thinking, a movement, or a revolution. It’s happening all around you. While you turn up your nose in disapproval, it’s happening in your sleepy little Central PA town. While you cover your eyes, it’s happening in your country. While you cover your ears, it’s happening all over the world in cultures traditionally less progressive than our own. And while you blurt out rants about an article read out of context, minds are changing. Hearts are changing. Lives are changing. The world, you guessed it, is changing.
When change happens you have two options–get on board, or get out of the way.
Elizabeth, in all your worldly pursuits, you’ve no doubt missed the recent article in the New York Times which describes the desperate state of the Christian church and its decline in active membership among (mainly) males ages 18-29. You may not have read how hundreds of churches across America are using mixed martial arts as a legitimate outreach tool to reach (predominantly) young males who are simply non-present within their church congregations. You may not make the connection that 5 Stones Fight Club is part of this outreach. You may not also realize that two churches each with numbers in the hundreds as well as dozens of area businesses have come forward in support of our mission.
Elizabeth, You can ‘unsubscribe’ from this shift in thinking, but you cannot silence the collective voice of a younger, more progressive generation. A generation hungry for the Word. A generation willing not only to hear that Word it and apply it to their lives, but a generation willing to pursue it at all costs.
At 5 Stones Fight Club, we share that hunger because we too are all broken in some way or another and our “giants” come in all forms–family problems, marital issues, broken relationships, broken hearts, depression, temptation or addiction. At 5 Stones, we’ve helped members to fashion their own slingshots through fellowship. We’ve given them the weapons necessary to defeat their own personal “foes” through the blood, sweat and tears we shed in training, together.
And so, Elizabeth, all this was to come to one simple, final point. I’ll pray for you. Pray for your willingness to open your mind to the changing hearts and shifting minds around you. I’ll pray that you see 5 Stones Fight Club for what it is–a ministry by any means necessary, one dedicated to improving the lives of all whom we’re able to reach. I’ll pray you’ll accept my sincere invitation to not simply take my word for it, but see for yourself. Come visit us, join our Saturday morning bible study, even stay and workout with us, then voice any opinion you see fit. Oh, and if you still want to cancel that newspaper subscription, don’t bother…the next year is on me.
God Bless.
Alicia
