Glenn Hoddle Story – Karma or Grace?

The Story

Glenn Hoddle was born in the suburbs of London in 1957. He became one of the most exciting and gifted footballers ever to play for England. In 1998 he was sacked from his job as the manager of the England team because of the following comments he made in an interview –

You have to come back to learn and face some of the things you have done, good and bad. You and I have been physically given two hands and two legs and half-decent brains. Some people have not been born like that for a reason. The karma is working from another lifetime. I have nothing to hide about that. It is not only people with disabilities. What you sow, you have to reap.

In Italy, Rome’s La Republica, below the headline, “Sacked Because of Karma,” suggested that Hoddle may be the first man of the modern age to lose his job for his religious beliefs. Can you imagine a manager being sacked for being an atheist?

The Worldview

A woman living in India was asked why she wouldn’t take her baby son to the doctor. He was very ill. She replied that the illness was part of the boy’s karma and he was being punished for something he had done in a previous life. She asserted that it was the boy’s fate to suffer! Many Hindus and Buddhists believe in reincarnation and karma. When people suffer in this life they are being punished for deeds they have performed in previous lives.

Creative Evangelistic Spiel

“With karma you always get what you deserve, reincarnation in a rat, a shrimp or a deaf person. With Jesus you get what you don’t deserve: God’s love, the forgiveness of your sins and eternal life.”

There are four way of looking at this story!

• When you die you rot! (Materialist view)
• When you die you get the afterlife you want (Relativist view)
• When you die you come back disabled if you have bad karma (Hoddle’s view)
• When you die you are waiting for the resurrection if you love and follow Jesus. (Jesus’ view, study John 6:35-59)

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Mark Roques

Mark taught Philosophy and Religious Education at Prior Park College, Bath, for many years. As Director of RealityBites he has developed a rich range of resources for youth workers and teachers. He has spoken at conferences in the UK, Holland, South Korea, Spain, Australia and New Zealand.

Mark is a lively storyteller and the author of four books, including The Spy, the Rat and the Bed of Nails: Creative Ways of Talking about Christian Faith. His work is focused on storytelling and how this can help us to communicate the Christian faith. He has written many articles for the Baptist Times, RE Today, Youthscape, Direction magazine and the Christian Teachers Journal.

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