ReligionLink

After organized worship, athletic competition is perhaps the oldest communal impulse known to mankind, and today sports and religion mirror each other as never before, experts say. “Super Bowl Sunday” on Feb. 6, 2005, is a case in point: a Sabbath-day event that will bring thousands to a contemporary cathedral - and tens of millions more via television - to watch gridiron gladiators who call on God’s help for their success.

But more than ever before, scholars, religious leaders, and the general public are wondering whether the intimate connections between religion and sports are such a good thing. Drug scandals, violence on the playing field and in the stands, recruiting violations and ethical lapses are clouding sports at every level, from the pros to college to kids’ leagues. Money seems to be the ultimate goal, and good sportsmanship often seems a thing of the past for fans as well as athletes, not to mention the excesses of parents and coaches. And though religious traditions often praise athletes for their displays of skill and virtue, “sports” in the modern context often denotes a winner-take-all competitive mentality that is anathema to many religious teachings.

At the same time religion seems to be becoming more prominent than ever in the sporting world, and arenas are a virtual pulpit. Athletes routinely thank God for their victory or use their post-game interviews as an opportunity to witness to their faith. Post-game prayer circles are regular features, and athletes wear expressions of their faith on sweatbands and protective gear. NASCAR races, heavyweight boxing bouts, professional golf tournaments and even poker games have become forums for faith.

Many worry about the effects of this dynamic. Does invoking God on behalf of one’s team cheapen the tradition of prayer, especially when there is so much suffering in the world? Is religion in America taking on the uglier aspects of hyper-competitive sports in a race for converts? Is the enormous respect accorded athletes uncomfortably close to the worship of fame and wordly success rather than faith? And why is it that sports has become so acceptable that many believers think nothing of spending their Sabbath watching games, or sending their children to play in them?

Why it Matters

Experts say the symbiosis between religion and sports shows how deeply religion is embedded in American culture, and vice versa. Sportsplexes are used as worship centers, and pro athletes’ testimonies may be the most-widely seen expressions of faith in the public square. Not every intersection of sports and religion is without contention, however. The Dec. 26, 2004, death of Reggie White, a fearsome defensive lineman and full-time pastor since his retirement, reminded many of White’s controversial statements about the Bible and homosexuality. The comments a few years ago by NBA point guard Charlie Ward, a born-again Christian, about Jews and salvation also drew national headlines. Some dislike the proliferation of prayers at school sporting events while others resent the intrusion of children’s weekend sports schedules into worship time. Yet the two impulses seem inextricable.

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National sources

• William Baker teaches history at the University of Maine and specializes in sports and religion. His books include If Christ Came to the Olympics (University of New South Wales Press, 2000), and he is completing work on a new book, Playing With God: How Religious Folk Learned to Embrace Modern Sport. He argues that religion and sport have made peace with each other. Contact 207-581-1911, william.baker@umit.maine.edu.

• Michael Novak is a philosopher, theologian and public policy commentator at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C, and author of The Joy of Sports: End Zones, Bases, Baskets, Balls and the Consecration of the American Spirit (Madison Books, 1976, revised 1993). Many consider his book on sports and religion the first and best on the topic. Contact through his assistant at AEI, 202-862-5839, mnovak@aei.org.

• Pastor Herb Lusk is a former Philadelphia Eagles tailback who is thought to be the first NFL player to kneel and pray in the end zone after scoring a touchdown, in 1977. Since 1982 Lusk has headed the congregation at the Greater Exodus Baptist Church in Philadelphia. Contact 215-234-1394, hhl32@gebch.com.

• R. Laurence Moore is a professor of American studies in the history department at Cornell University and author of Touchdown Jesus: The Mixing of Sacred and Secular in American History (Westminster John Knox, 2003). Contact 607-255-6750, rlm8@cornell.edu.

• Frank Reich is a former college and NFL star quarterback and since 2003 president of the Charlotte, N.C., campus of the Reformed Theological Seminary. Reich has spoken frequently about the relationship between prayer and athletic contests, often in the context of his own record of “miraculous” comeback victories. Contact 704-366-5066, freich@rts.edu.

• Christopher Hodge Evans and William R. Herzog are professors at the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, N.Y, and editors of The Faith of 50 Million: Baseball, Religion and American Culture (Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), a collection of essays on religious motifs in baseball. Contact both through the main switchboard, 585-271-1320, or cevans@crcds.edu or bherzog@crcds.edu.

• The Fellowship of Christian Athletes, based in Kansas City, Mo., is the leading Christian organization for professional and student athletes. The ministry aims to evangelize through sports and has members sign a “Competitor’s Creed” to be on “Team Jesus Christ.” The FCA was founded in 1954, and its “huddles” meet regularly on nearly 8,000 junior high, high school and college campuses for prayer, Bible study and other activities. Les Steckel, a former National Football League coach, was named president and CEO in January and will take over in March from Dal Shealy, who is retiring. Steckel was head coach of the Minnesota Vikings and was the offensive coordinator for two teams that reached the Super Bowl: the New England Patriots in 1986 and the Tennessee Titans in 2000. Contact the FCA World Headquarters in Kansas City at 816-921-0909, fca@fca.org. You can also locate FCA leaders in your area or through local FCA web sites.

Background

Ancient civilizations elevated athletics to a spiritual plane, and Christianity, probably more than any other faith, continued that tradition. The Jewish world that Christianity sprang from disdained the mixing of worship and sports, as Judaism was concerned with distinguishing itself from the Greek and Roman polytheistic cultures. But experts say that as Christianity spread through the classical world its leaders naturally adapted Christian customs to that culture. That is evidenced, they say, by the many athletic images in the New Testament. (See I Corinthians 9:24-27, Galatians 2:2 and 5:7, Philippians 2:16 and 3:14, 2 Timothy 2:5 and 4:7, and Hebrews 12:1-2.)

But early Christians also rejected the blood sport of the Roman gladiator competitions, and of course Christians - as well as others - were often sacrificed at ancient “games.” So organized sport was not a Christian priority for centuries.

The emergence of leisure as a middle-class passion in the 19th-century gave rise to organized sports at the same time that evangelical Protestantism was enjoying its heyday. The two came together in the “Muscular Christianity” movement in England and America that gave birth to the YMCA network and other efforts to join sport and faith.

The alliance only grew closer in the 20th century. The famous evangelist Billy Sunday was a former baseball player who used sports as a tool for conversion, and other evangelists have followed the same tack. The Promise Keepers men’s movement was founded in 1990 by a football coach in a football stadium and is in keeping with the American evangelical tradition of combining sports and faith to attract men to church. Catholic colleges also rode sports success to acceptance in the American mainstream.

The comfort level among Christians with sports is such that few think twice about watching - or playing - sports on Sunday, or on other holy days - activities that would have once been considered taboo. Contrast that with the continuing debates over whether Jewish players (such as the Dodgers’ Shawn Green in 2004) should play on holy days such as Yom Kippur, or the struggles that Muslim athletes have in fasting during Ramadan while continuing to compete.

While Christianity remains the principal arena for the mixing of sports and faith, American athletes are increasingly reflecting the introduction of other religious traditions. The ancient Hindu discipline of yoga has become a fitness craze for mind and body, while Eastern martial arts practices such as karate, kung fu and tai chi (which were started to get sedentary Buddhist monks into better shape) have become enormously popular as means to fitness and to athletic success.

ARTICLES

• Read a December 2004 Associated Press story posted by the Chicago Sun-Times, “Churches are changing their schedules to help football fans keep the faith,” about “holy huddles” that churches are using to keep the faithful at church on Sundays.

• Read a Sept. 3, 2004, Religion News Service article about how megachurches are increasingly using sportsplexes as worship centers. It’s posted by the Baptist Standard.

• Read about a June 2004 seminar at St. Olaf College, a Lutheran-affiliated school in Minnesota, titled “Sport and Religion: An Inquiry into American Cultural Values.” Read a June 28, 2004, Minneapolis Star-Tribune story about the seminar.

• See this Dec. 18, 2004, Philadelphia Inquirer story about an NFL Films program about the growing role of religion in the National Football League.

• Read a Sept. 29, 2003, San Francisco Chronicle article, “America and the Church of Baseball.”

• Read a review in the fall 2002 Journal of Religion and Popular Culture of With God on Their Side: Sport in the Service of Religion (Routledge, 2002), edited by Tara Magdalinski and Timothy J.L. Chandler.

• Read a January/February 2001 Sojourners article, “Is God a Rams Fan?” by Randall Balmer, a religion professor at Barnard College and author of Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey Into the Evangelical Subculture in America (Oxford University Press, 2000).

• Read an excerpt from Andrew Cooper’s book, Playing in the Zone: Exploring the Spiritual Dimensions of Sports (Shambhala, 1998) posted by Beliefnet.com.

• Beliefnet.com lists an index of books about religion and sports.

Regional sources

IN THE NORTHEAST

• Clifford Putney teaches American religious history at Bentley College in Waltham, Mass. He is the author of Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920 (Harvard University Press, 2001), regarded by many as a definitive work on the relationship between Protestantism and sports in America. Contact 781-891-2285, cputney@bentley.edu.

• Warren Goldstein teaches American history at the University of Hartford, where he chairs the history department. He is the author of Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball (Cornell University Press, 2001), and he wrote an essay in the Nov. 1, 2003, Christian Century magazine titled, “Winning Isn’t Everything: Baseball as a Theological Discipline.” Contact 860-768-4630, wgoldstei@hartford.edu.ngland. Contact 617-884-4227, mcnaa@aol.com.

IN THE EAST

• Charles Prebish is a professor of religious studies at Penn State University and editor of Religion and Sport: The Meeting of the Sacred and Profane (Greenwood Press, 1992). Prebish wrote several of the essays, and other sports and religion experts provided the others. Contact 814-865-1121, csp1@psu.edu.

• John Fitzsimmons Mahoney, author of The Tao of the Jump Shot: An Eastern Approach to Life and Basketball (Ulysses Press, 1999), is a former high school basketball coach in New Jersey and author of books on Eastern religions who uses both sport and religion to illuminate each other. Contact 973-482-3546, john_mahoney18@msn.com.

• The Rev. Kent Berghuis is a pastor at First Baptist Church in Lansdale, Pa., and until fall 2004 was a professor of systematic theology at Dallas Theological Seminary. He co-authored a paper, with Matt Blackmon, titled, “Would Jesus Play Texas Hold-Em? Reflections on Religion and the World Poker Tour.” The paper explores intersections between religion and the growing popular phenomenon of poker-playing, including a World Poker Tour pro who looks like and calls himself “Jesus,” and religious computer icons chosen to identify players on popular on-line poker sites such as PokerStars.com. Contact 215-855-3457, kberghuis@fbcl.com.

IN THE SOUTHEAST

• John Wilson is a professor of sociology and director of graduate studies at Duke University in Durham, N.C. He has written widely about religion and leisure, and he teaches a class on sport and society. Contact 919-660-5622, jwils@soc.duke.edu.

•Shirl J. Hoffman is a professor of sports science in the school of health and human performance at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is the editor of Sport and Religion (Human Kinetics Press, 1992), which reflects a long-standing interest in the topic, and is writing a book about sports and evangelicals. Contact 336-273-4382, sjhoffma@uncg.edu.

IN THE SOUTH

• Robert Higgs is a professor emeritus of English at East Tennessee State University. He is the author of the book God in the Stadium: Sports and Religion in America (University Press of Kentucky, 1995), as well as numerous articles on sports and cultural history. His latest book, written with Michael C. Braswell, a professor of criminology at East Tennessee State, is An Unholy Alliance: The Sacred and Modern Sports (Mercer University Press, 2004). Counter to the prevailing views, the authors argue that recent scandals and abuses in sports show that athletics today are the opposite of divine. Contact Higgs at 423-926-1215, rjhigger@aol.com. Contact Braswell at 423-439-5963, braswell@etsu.edu.

• Donna Bowman is a professor of religious studies at the Honors College of the University of Central Arkansas and has written on the role of sports and faith. At the American Academy of Religion meeting in 2002 she presented a paper titled, “The Sacred Game: Representing Religious Experience in the Baseball Film,” that looked at movies from Bull Durham to Field of Dreams and included the Ken Burns documentary of baseball. Contact 501-450-3631, DonnaB@uca.edu.

IN THE MIDWEST

• James A. Mathisen is a professor of sociology at Wheaton College in Illinois and the author of an essay, “American Sport as Folk Religion: Examining a Test of Its Strength” in From Season to Season: Sports as American Religion (Mercer University Press, 2001). He also co-wrote the book Muscular Christianity: Evangelical Protestants and the Development of American Sport (Baker Book House, 1999). Contact 630-752-5059, James.A.Mathisen@wheaton.edu.

• Christopher Thomforde is president of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., which hosted a June 2004 seminar on “Sport and Religion: An Inquiry Into American Cultural Values.” A 6-foot 9-inch former Princeton University basketball star, Thomforde spoke about the danger of sports becoming a civil religion unto itself. Contact 507-646-3000, president@stolaf.edu.

• John Rosengren is a Minnesota writer and author of several books about sports and religion. His January 2004 essay in U.S. Catholic magazine, “Let Us Play,” examined the relationship of sports to sacramental faith. Rosengren has an article in the January 2005 issue on the downside of Catholic schools’ catering to sports. Contact 612-926-8835, johnrosengren@qwest.net.

IN THE SOUTHWEST

• Matt Blackmon is a doctoral student teaching systematic theology at Dallas Theological Seminary and co-author with Kent Berghuis of a paper titled, “Would Jesus Play Texas Hold-Em? Reflections on Religion and the World Poker Tour.” Contact in Garland, Texas, at 972-495-7116, blackmon@cs.utk.edu.

• Kirk Wakefield, chairman of the department of marketing at Baylor University in Waco, has expertise in sports ethics and marketing and fan behavior. Contact 254-710-4267, Kirk_Wakefield@baylor.edu.

• Blake Burleson, senior lecturer in sports at Baylor University in Waco, has expertise in sports ethics. Contact 254-710-3940, Blake_Burleson@baylor.edu.

IN THE WEST/NORTHWEST

• Joseph L. Price is a professor in the religious studies department at Whittier College in Whittier, Calif., and editor of From Season to Season: Sports as American Religion (Mercer University Press, 2001), a collection of 14 essays, six of which Price wrote. They include “The Super Bowl as Religious Festival” and “The Final Four as Final Judgment: The Religious and Cultural Significance of the NCAA Basketball Championship.” Contact 562-907-4803, jprice@whittier.edu.

• Stephen G. Miller is a classical archaeologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of Ancient Greek Athletics (Yale University Press, 2004). He is an expert in the origins of the games and their religious significance. Contact 510-642-5924, sgmnemea@socrates.berkeley.edu.

• John Savant is a professor emeritus at Dominican University of California and author of an essay, “The Saving Grace of Sport: Why we watch & play” in the Sept. 26, 2003, edition of Commonweal, an independent Catholic magazine. Contact ojsavant@yahoo.com.