Super Bowl

What the Super Bowl and Olympics Reveal About the Human Heart

This past weekend, a pair of events drew global audiences. The Opening Ceremonies of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics and Super Bowl LX in San Francisco are the most recent installments of events that have become contemporary cultural flashpoints and feature the clash of worldviews. 

Thankfully, this year’s Opening Ceremonies were tame compared to recent Olympics, especially the debauched 2024 Paris debacle. This time, Grammy-winner Mariah Carey performed the Italian classic “Volare,” invoking much online discussion centered about whether she was lip-syncing. With that as the biggest controversy, parents could breathe a sigh of relief and say to themselves, “Well, at least it wasn’t Paris.”  

And it’s a good lesson for future host nations: avoid overt desecration of things much of the world considers holy. Instead, as the iconic Olympic rings came together in the arena, NBC announcers noted how these games focused on “harmony between seemingly dueling ideals,” symbolizing an emerging global unity. 

Seattle fans are happy, but the pre- and post-game buzz of the Super Bowl had far more to do with the dueling halftime shows than the game itself. The NFL’s official halftime show was headlined by Bad Bunny while an alternative show, produced by Turning Point USA, was described as entertainment “without parents having to worry about shielding their children’s eyes.” That’s been a very real concern since the infamous 2004 “wardrobe malfunction” and several provocative performances since. Many also noted the irony of Kid Rock being the family-friendly alternative, but he was. The Bad Bunny performance featured homoeroticism and, for those who understand Spanish, sexually charged lyrics. 

As expressions of worldviews, both the Opening Ceremonies and the Super Bowl, in distinct ways, demonstrate a reality of the human condition. God made people to yearn for something larger than themselves. This longing, which can take the form of athletic struggle and triumph, national pride, or an idealized vision of global harmony, is embedded in humanity’s created nature. As C.S. Lewis observed in Mere Christianity:  

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. . . If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. 

The Olympic ceremonies reflected this human longing specifically. The theme of peace and the joining of the rings presented a dream for harmony and unity that recalled the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, in which John Lennon’s “Imagine” served as a theme song of the Opening Ceremonies: 

Imagine there’s no countries / It isn’t hard to do / Nothing to kill or die for / And no religion too

The song, which is often played at nostalgic cultural moments, captures the utopian vision of progressivism: a world without borders, conflict, or transcendent authority, in which humanity is perfectible and human nature is inherently good. Of course, the dissonance between the song and the reality of the human condition, especially given the nation hosting those Olympics, was palpable. At the time, Beijing was actively persecuting Uighur Muslims, clamping down on churches, and violating the 50-year agreement about Hong Kong.  

In fact, from the Tower of Babel onward, history is full of the futility and dangers of seeking unity above everything else. Often, it is sought by replacing God with government. Scripture describes how God “put eternity into man’s heart,” and how creation “groans” waiting for Christ’s redemption to be complete. So, what humanity actually longs for is not a utopia, but for our Creator. When that longing is sought outside of Christ, it manifests in what is profane, idolatrous, and futile. 

Unity and cooperation are high ideals but remain fleeting and incomplete when pursued apart from God. Christians have the opportunity to bring clarity and meaning to these human longings. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5, “Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” Christians who are anchored in the truth of what Christ has accomplished and the assurance that He is making all things new are empowered for faithful engagement in this world.  

Lewis captured well the paradox that intentional and continual looking to the eternal “does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history,” he continued, “you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.” 

Humans always hunger for more meaning, purpose, and transcendence than fleeting spectacles such as the Olympics or the Super Bowl can provide. Today, in addition to the deep-seated longing etched into every human heart are the failed utopian visions that promised what they could not deliver. Thus, Christians have both the opportunity and responsibility to respond with courage and clarity to point people to the true Reconciler, the Prince of Peace. Only Jesus Christ can fully satisfy the eternity God has placed within us.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Andrew Carico.

Some Super Bowl Ads Were Actually Pro-Life and Pro-Family

At the cost of $8 million for 30 seconds of airtime during Sunday’s Super Bowl, advertisers had a lot riding on their investments. 

Who came out on top, and who missed the mark?

Art and advertising are in the eye of the beholder, of course, but according to the annual USA Today Ad Meter, Budweiser’s 90-second, $24-million spot slightly edged out Lay’s 60-second, $16-million touching “Little Farmer” commercial.

It’s a sign of the times that many parents hold their breath and maybe even the remote when the game goes to break each year. This year’s offering had its share of cringy and crass. From Hellmann’s Mayonnaise and WeatherTech floor mats to Novartis, plenty of mothers and fathers reached to mute, pause, or change the channel on Sunday evening.

But there were bright spots, no pun intended. In many of the instances, they were pro-life, pro-child and pro-family.

The NFL’s “Somebody” commercial drove home the importance of encouraging young people, stressing the need for them to be respected and protected. The 60-second ad ended with these white words on a black screen:

Everybody can be somebody if they have somebody to show them the way.  

Dove Soap featured a carefree three-year-old girl on the run, noting it was her “unstoppable” chubby lugs that made it possible and how she might consider those same legs “unbearable” at fourteen. It’s up to mothers and fathers to help their children see their bodies as gifts from God. 

Google’s “Dream Job” made clear that parenting, and in this case, fatherhood, is a role as important, if not more so, than any Fortune 100 CEO. Practicing for an upcoming interview, the dad talked about homelife as long hours working with a small team, multi-tasking, negotiating and collaborating.

Rocket, the “fintech” platform company probably best known for its mortgages, used the Super Bowl to launch a new campaign titled “Own the Dream.”

John Denver’s emotive “Take Me Home” was the soundtrack to the beautiful spot that began with a mother talking to her preborn baby, showed another baby being bathed in the sink, a father feeding his child, and a couple walking into their new house, which they proceed to fix up and turn it into a home.

In the same commercial, we see deployed military personnel showing off photos of their children, kids living, laughing, and playing – all in the warm glow of a family home. The spot ends with the tagline:

Everyone deserves their shot at the American Dream.

At 82 years-old, Harrison Ford made a surprising appearance in a two-minute-long commercial for Jeep. 

Sitting in a stone cabin in the woods with a fire burning beside him, Ford begins, “The longest thing we ever do is live our lives. But life doesn’t come with an owner’s manual … But that means we get to write our own stories.”

So far, so good.

“Freedom is ‘Yes,’ or ‘No,’ or ‘Maybe,’” he continues. We then see scenes from war. “There are real heroes in the world, but not the ones from the movies.”

Still very good – but then a bit of a turn, literally and metaphorically, as we see several Jeeps drive in two separate directions.

“The most sacred thing in life isn’t the path,” Harrison Ford declares. “It’s the freedom to choose it … So, choose, but choose wisely. Choose what makes you happy.”

Everybody wants to be happy, but Christians aren’t called to make decisions based on their quest for personal happiness alone. Instead, we’re called to pursue God’s call on our lives to love and serve Him and others. 

Believers recognize that the Christian faith is paradoxical: we find our true life when we lose it (Mark 8:34-35), God is strongest in us when we’re weakest (2 Cor. 12:10), and it’s the humble who will be exalted (Matthew 23:12).

Our Founding Fathers declared our right to pursue happiness, but Christian happiness can often be different than what many in the world consider it to be. The world says happiness is a big bank account, Christians says it’s giving until it hurts. Many will say happiness is a large house with few or no children – Christians will tell you that a large family in a small house represents true happiness.

We need to be careful reading too much into advertisements, but Madison Avenue is often a reflection of what they think consumers care about. If this year’s batch of Super Bowl ads are any indication, American companies see us as a divided nation with competing loyalties and priorities. It would be difficult to disagree with that assessment. 

Image credit: Rocket