Second Annual High School Essay Contest Winners
The winning entry was "Faith, Tradition, and Basketball on Sundays: The Transformation of Christianity in America" by Samuel Lee
The Salient is pleased to announce the results of our second annual high school essay contest. Winning entries were selected by the editorial team and Professor Emeritus Harvey Mansfield for their thoughtfulness, compelling rhetoric, and strong reasoning. Congratulations to the top three contestants:
1st Place: Samuel Lee, homeschool, 10th Grade
2nd Place: Jack Woodiel, St. Thomas More College, 11th Grade
3rd Place: Daniel Staudt, Rosary College, 11th Grade
The winning essay, by Samuel Lee, is below. More information about the contest and its prompts can be found here.
Faith, Tradition, and Basketball on Sundays: The Transformation of Christianity in America
By Samuel Lee
Basketball on Sunday—I can almost see the Puritans rolling over in their graves. Every Lord’s Day, as sure as the sun will rise—assuming it is sunny and at least a tick above 40 degrees—brothers from our church gather together to duke it out on the court. For many, this is their one chance in the week to play—objectively speaking—the greatest game in the world. But as the name implies, this Basketball Fellowship is more than just a time for fun. It is an opportunity for fellowship with our brothers in Christ, an opportunity to witness to nonbelievers, some of whom come to church only for the basketball games they know will follow. It’s a chance to put into practice the messages we heard only a few hours before—appeals to love others as Jesus loves us—still ringing fresh in our minds. On the court, cursing, trash-talking, and cheating—all parts of almost every game of basketball in the world—are replaced by encouragement, honesty, and generosity.
They say actions speak louder than words, and for many basketball-loving non-Christians, there is no better way to share our faith than by admitting a foul or congratulating an opponent for making a shot. Yet, despite the religious faith that our church basketball is built upon, I can only imagine how our forefathers, who banned such worldly pursuits as cooking, walking, making beds, and kissing one’s children on the Sabbath, would react to our Sunday “fellowship.”1
The Pilgrims were among the first Christian settlers in America—the spiritual forefathers of American Christianity. It is their faith that established the Christian foundation that America, whether people like it or not, is founded upon. Yet, if these models of Christianity forbade any type of recreation or work on Sundays, why does my church—which views the Pilgrims as only slightly below the Apostles—so blatantly disobey the Sabbath rules and traditions they held sacred?
Too many young Christians have replaced a powerful legacy of faith and tradition with a lukewarm religion that focuses entirely on God’s love and mercy—while ignoring His righteous hatred of sin.
The Puritans had a very two-dimensional view of life on this earth: God good, world bad. In other words, for anything to be holy, it had to be completely separate from this world. To truly honor and glorify God, Sunday had to be totally cut off from this sinful world, which meant that kissing babies on Sunday was a no-go. Yet, there was one crucial piece of information they neglected—or intentionally ignored. God made this world. He created nature with all its beauty and wonder, and placed inside of us our longing for fellowship and community with other humans. Despite man’s corruption of this world, it remains a work of God and reflects His goodness. That is why we play basketball; in the game, we see the blessings God created for man to enjoy: fellowship with others, physical activity, being outside in nature.
What the Puritans condemned as worldly and evil, today’s believers now enjoy and use to strengthen their faith. At the same time, though glorifying God in today’s post-Christian world may mean rejecting some of the historic believers’ traditions, their values and faith must remain ours. There is a deadly poison seeping into contemporary Christianity, a growing belief that it is possible to serve two masters: God and this world. While the Puritans may have overemphasized outward works, many of today’s modern churches are going to the opposite extreme: teaching that it is possible to be a Christian at heart yet not live like one in deed, that religion is a completely personal matter between God and the believer, and that it should not affect daily life.
Too many young Christians have replaced a powerful legacy of faith and tradition with a lukewarm religion that focuses entirely on God’s love and mercy—while ignoring His righteous hatred of sin. Born into a country with one of the highest standards of living outside of Heaven, Christianity, with its message of hope in a broken and terrible world, has little effect on many American youth. Instead, for millions of young people, Jesus has become little more than spiritual Advil—a temporary fix in times of pain. Many say the Puritans went too far, that their traditions led to division and intolerance in our society that exists to this day. Modern Christianity, however, has only replaced it with something far weaker—and far worse. Too many young American believers have refashioned the faith of their fathers into a meaningless practice that requires nothing more than saying a prayer before every meal, attending service once every Sunday, and volunteering at a church event every couple weeks before being free to live just like the rest of the world. As A.W. Tozer, the celebrated Christian author, once wrote, “Modern Christianity has been watered down until the solution is so weak that if it were poison, it would not hurt anyone, and if it were medicine, it would not cure anyone.” The faith and commitment of the first Pilgrims are imbued in the very bones of America and have led to it becoming the greatest nation on Earth. While modern Christianity has evolved from the restrictive traditions of the Puritans, it must never forget the values behind them. A team that forgets its fundamentals is bound to lose the game—and a nation that forgets the faith that built it is bound to fall.
Earle, Alice M. n.d. “The Sabbath in Puritan New England, Chapter 17.” The Reformed Reader. Accessed April 14, 2025. https://www.reformedreader.org/puritans/sabbath.puritan.newengland/sabbath.puritan.newengland.chapte r17.htm.