Article
Character
Creed
Sport
6 min read

Letter to the Olympians

A veteran sports chaplain writes a letter to Christian Olympians, on how they can find joy amid the 'funerals and weddings' of the games.

Ashley Null serves as a chaplain to elite athletes and coaches. He is also a priest and an academic.

A swimmer at the end of a race, looks to the result screen.
Adam Peaty after an Olympic race.
BBC.

Dear Friend, 

Congratulations on being selected to compete in the Olympics - the greatest games in the world! I’m sure you can’t wait to get out there and show the world what you’ve got - your amazing talent and skill and all the hard work and dedication that has gone into becoming an Olympian. 

Now, it has been said that being at the Olympics is like experiencing 10 funerals for every 1 wedding. You know this if you’re in elite sport - every one person’s victory is at the expense of many others’ agony of defeat. 

These next few weeks will be full of the strongest emotions and potential challenges to how you think about your faith. What does it look like to integrate your faith and your sport in the midst of such pressure? 

First, God has called you to the Olympics to experience true joy. 

The first reason God gave the good gift of sport is for it to bring joy. 

“In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course,” writes the Psalmist. 

God compares our sport to a honeymoon - both physically and emotionally satisfying - what high praise for the joy of sport! 

Every race, every match, every competition, is an opportunity to experience this God-given joy. 

This joy will help you in the ups and especially in the downs over the next few weeks. The Bible makes this clear again and again, that it is joy that helps us endure the difficulties in life. 

These next few weeks, make a conscious effort to count every blessing, thanking God for the joy of sport and the amazing experience he has given you. 

As you compete you can witness to many the wonderful joy of sport... By not torturing yourself in defeat with self-loathing and shame, instead rejoicing with those who win and weeping with those who don’t. 

Second, but Elite Competition isn’t only about joy. It includes uncertainty, fear, and even loss. God can use all aspects of sport, both the highs and the lows, to draw you closer to Himself. 

The second reason God give gifts to his people is to use them as a school of discipleship. 

St Paul writing to Christians in Ephesus said: “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."  

God has given you this vocation as a ‘school of discipleship’ to learn what it looks like to love God and love others. 

As you compete and lean on the promises of God, you have endless opportunities to grow in living out your faith. 

  • To remember your identity is based on the cross and not your success and failures 
  • To remember the power you have to compete does not come from your own strength but from Christ who is at work in you 
  • To remember your standing before God does not change because of God’s grace, whether you win or lose, fail or succeed 
  • To remember that if you do lose, God will be there with you and use your pain, but that the pain will not have the last word in your life - God will work all things for good 

Third, you can serve others as you compete. 

As you compete you can witness to many the wonderful joy of sport: 

  • By competing drug-free and within the rules you can show an alternative to the winner-takes-all attitude so prevalent in all sport. 
  • By not treating your opponent as the enemy but valuing them as a ‘co-worker’ you can push each other on to excellence. 
  • By showing humility and thankfulness in victory, recognising that other Christian athletes have worked just as hard and prayed just as much, but that God has set aside gifts other than Olympic success for them. 
  • By not torturing yourself in defeat with self-loathing and shame, instead rejoicing with those who win and weeping with those who don’t. 

In all this you can show the wonderful, transforming news of the gospel at work in your life as you experience joy in the midst of the funerals and weddings seen at the Olympic Games. 

But what if things don’t work out as you hoped? God will be there for you and with you in the midst of the pain. As you grieve, look for Jesus. 

He will give you the comfort you long for. 

He will remind you that his love for you is stronger and will last much longer than your present pain. 
He will assure you that he still has good things for you. 

Ask his help to hold on to this truth. Because when you are hurting, it is so easy to listen to lies. You see, it’s a real danger to view God as your ultimate coach. 

The lie says that if you make good spiritual choices then you will be on God’s winning team and blessed with success. But when success doesn’t happen, the lie says it’s because you have made bad choices and don’t deserve to be on the team, at least not until you can prove yourself spiritually good enough again. 

In all of your sporting career you’ve probably been taught to only feel good about yourself when you’re winning, that if you lose, you’re nothing. Your coaches may have told you to use the shame of losing to motivate you to success. 

Friend, you need to separate your sense of worth, your identity, from your performance. Equating significance and achievement will always leave your self-esteem at the mercy of the natural ups and downs of being a top-level sportsperson. But only love has the power to make humans feel significant, performance never will. 

The good news of the gospel is that in God, you have unconditional love, not based on any of your performance. You are valued and loved not because of the talents you have or the way you compete. Your worth and value is seen in the love God proved he had for you when he died for you on the cross. 

St Paul tells us: 

“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

Now, as people reconciled to God there is no condemnation, nothing can separate us from God’s love and we are adopted as God’s children - this is who you are. This is where you identity alone can be found. This is where you can find peace, even in the midst of a major loss. 

Friends, enjoy these next few weeks and the amazing opportunity it is. If you feel the pain of loss, know that with Jesus pain never has the last word. His love always does. If you win, know that it is a wonderful gift of God to be thankful for, and he will make good use of it, long after you have retired, giving you decades of joy. 

Solo Deo Gloria! 

 

Adapted by Jonny Reid, for Christians in Sport, from Pastoral Care in the Olympic Village by Ashley Null in Sports Chaplaincy: Trends, Issues and Debates. 

 

Article
Character
Culture
Film & TV
Purpose
6 min read

Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt offers a blueprint for life

The latest in the Mission:Impossible franchise dares to ask some surprisingly existential questions

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

Tom Cruise runs.
What happens we he stops running?

When it comes to action movies, most of us aren’t looking for philosophical musings as much as a dose of adrenaline-fuelled escapist entertainment. Few franchises understand this better than  Mission: Impossible, which has consistently delivered on that front—train wrecks, car chases, gun battles, bomb blasts, submarine fights, knife fights, fist fights, dog fights, and, of course, running. Lots of running. 

The latest blockbuster in the franchise, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning — which Tom Cruise has suggested may be his last outing as Ethan Hunt — is no exception. But alongside its brilliantly choreographed action scenes, the film also dares to ask some surprisingly existential questions. 

Who wants to live forever? 

Tom Cruise has achieved legendary status not just for his acting, but for his relentless dedication to performing the most technically demanding stunts in cinema history. Over the years, he’s scaled the Burj Khalifa, clung to the side of a plane during take-off, parachuted from 25,000 feet, flown helicopters through perilous terrain, and held his breath underwater for more than six minutes—without a stunt double in sight. 

Now 62, Cruise would be forgiven for taking it easier. Instead, after performing in what one director has called the most ambitious stunt in cinematic history: launching a motorcycle off a cliff, a mid-air dismount, followed by a parachute drop in the previous movie, Cruise has upped the ante again by engaging in an aerial battle atop a biplane flying at 10,000 feet. This involved climbing onto the wing of a moving aircraft travelling at 145 mph enduring hurricane-force winds, while the pilot performed manoeuvres designed to dislodge him. 

Cruise has become something of a cultural symbol of immortality. His character, Ethan Hunt, continually evades death, rarely stopping to mourn the losses of others—even those closest to him. But this film feels different. It asks how long someone—real or fictional—can continue to outrun death. 

Watching Hunt - and Cruise - cheat death time and again may be entertaining, but it also taps into something deeper. A recent COMRES survey revealed that the top four human fears are all death-related: dying in pain (83 per cent), dying alone (67 per cent), being told they’re dying (62 per cent), and dying in hospital (59 per cent). Final Reckoning doesn't just distract us from these fears—it subtly forces us to confront them. No matter how fast, fit, or famous we are, none of us gets out alive. 

What is life really about? 

Because the line between Ethan Hunt and Tom Cruise is now so thin, Dead Reckoning plays almost like a eulogy to both. The film opens with a message of thanks from the President of the United States: 

“Good evening, Ethan. This is your President. Since you won't reply to anyone else, I thought I'd reach out directly. First, I want to thank you for a lifetime of devoted and unrelenting service… Every risk you've taken, every comrade you've lost, every personal sacrifice you’ve made, has brought this world another sunrise.” 

The sentiment feels a little self-indulgent. The camera rarely leaves Cruise, and nearly everything and everyone else feels like a garnish to his character. He gets the best lines, the best cars, the best love interests, the best scenes. At times, Dead Reckoning feels a little like Mamma Mia! — a loose thread of a plot connecting a series of spectacular set-pieces rather than musical numbers. 

Still, as the franchise nears its end, it’s bittersweet to say goodbye to a character who’s become part of global popular culture. And it prompts a deeper question: If we can’t look back on our lives and say we gave the world another sunrise, what does make a life well-lived—for those of us who don’t defuse nuclear bombs before breakfast? What have we personally sacrificed for the greater good?  

Who Is expendable? 

With a body count hovering around 500, the Mission:Impossible series has never shied away from collateral damage. Ethan Hunt has always been portrayed as someone willing to expense the few to save the many. 

But The Final Reckoning confronts that idea. It reintroduces William Donloe, a minor character from the original 1996 film, who was the CIA analyst that got reassigned to a remote outpost in the Bering Sea after Hunt famously infiltrated his high-security vault - in that iconic scene where Cruise is suspended from the ceiling, inches above a pressure-sensitive floor, and drops his commando knife, point-first, into the desk. Now, decades later, Hunt seeks him out to apologise. 

Surprisingly, Donloe responds with grace. He says the reassignment was the best thing that ever happened to him: it led him to meet the love of his life. Though he had lost everything in a house fire caused by Hunt’s team, he had managed to salvage the commando knife from the original vault heist and gives it back to Hunt as a token of his appreciation. 

This could have been a moment of genuine reflection for Hunt—a chance to reckon with the unintended consequences of his actions. Instead, it serves to reinforce the idea that even Hunt’s mistakes are somehow for the best. Hunt is presented as almost messianic—an infallible saviour whose instincts are always right. 

But this portrayal contrasts sharply with the biblical Messiah, who taught that no one is expendable. In Jesus’ teaching, every life matters, enemies are to be loved, and compassion is both the means and the end. The ends never justify the means. Love is the mission. 

Who Is my neighbour? 

One of the deeper themes of the film is the tension between loyalty to those closest to us and responsibility to the wider world. Hunt’s enemies consistently try to exploit his love for friends and family, exposing it as a vulnerability. On a number of occasions, the villains kidnap or threaten someone close to Hunt in order to manipulate him. He is faced with the dilemma - to save the one he loves, or to save everyone else? 

At one point, a character offers this reflection: 

“We all share the same fate—the same future. The sum of our infinite choices. One such future is built on kindness, trust, and mutual understanding, should we choose to accept it. Driving without question toward a light we cannot see. Not just for those we hold close, but for those we’ll never meet.” 

It’s a powerful line—one that challenges narrow tribalism in favour of a universal compassion. In recent years, some have tried to co-opt Christian ethics in support of nationalism, prioritising loyalty to family, faith, and country above all else. But this film’s ethos cuts across that narrative. 

In an age of toxic patriotism and growing division, it’s striking that an international superspy like Ethan Hunt seems to offer a profoundly global vision: act not only for those we love, but for the good of the whole world—even at great personal cost. 

Hunt’s worldview echoes a deeply biblical theology: every person has worth, and we’re called to love our neighbour—including those who don’t speak our language or share our culture. The franchise promotes a genuine Christian ethic of sacrificial love. And why not? At the heart of Christianity is the story of a God who sent His Son on a seemingly impossible mission to save the world. 

It’s hard to miss the moral and theological framework that underpins Final Reckoning. It is, perhaps, this foundation that makes Ethan Hunt’s character not only thrilling but deeply human. Amid the explosions, stunts, and spectacle, Mission: Impossible makes us think, and subtly reminds us that the greatest mission of all might be love. 

Support Seen & Unseen

Since Spring 2023, our readers have enjoyed over 1,000 articles. All for free. 
This is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.

If you enjoy Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?
 
Do so by joining Behind The Seen. Alongside other benefits, you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing my reading and reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

Graham Tomlin
Editor-in-Chief