Gods and games: From the Super Bowl to the Winter Olympics

Posted on February 2nd, 2010

Archived in Current edition, Doctrine & practice, Sports & games, Writing, popular culture

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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. Nowhere will that be more evident than on Super Bowl Sunday on Feb. 7 and during the Winter Olympics that run from Feb. 12-28.Football

Some 130 million American adults are expected to tune in to this Sunday’s NFL championship between the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV (that is the number “44″ for those who find Roman numerals challenging). Some three-quarters of all men will watch, and more than half of American women as well — numbers that U.S. houses of worship would love to see on any given Sunday.

The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver are also expected to draw huge numbers of visitors and even more viewers. Both these events highlight the role of religion in athletics, from the sacred beginnings of the Olympics in Greece to the religious fervor among modern-day sports fans — and the very public nature of faith among many football players.

The controversy over a Super Bowl ad against abortion that will feature Florida Gators star quarterback Tim Tebow — an outspoken evangelical Christian who wears his faith on his eye-black in the form of Bible verses — has underscored the nexus between Christian faith and football.

Yet scholars, religious leaders and the general public are also 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 — and sometimes, 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.

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 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. 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.

What’s new

  • The 30-second Super Bowl ad that features Tim Tebow and his mother explaining how she rejected medical advice that she consider an abortion due to complications while pregnant with him was sponsored by Focus on the Family, a leading conservative Christian lobby. The  controversy over the television spot was heightened because the network, CBS, said it has changed its policy against accepting advocacy advertising. Yet the network also rejected a gay-themed advertisement submitted for the 2010 Super Bowl, just as it had rejected a United Church of Christ ad in 2004 that highlighted the UCC’s welcome mat for homosexuals.
  • The cover story of the February 2010 issue of Christianity Today is by author Shirl J. Hoffman and is titled “Sports Fanatics: How Christians have succumbed to the sports culture — and what might be done about it.” The article takes a critical look at the growing overlap between American Christianity and American sports.
  • The magazine also features three responses to the cover story: “Amen, and a Foul” is by Mark Householder, president of Athletes in Action, an international sports ministry; “Stay in the Struggle” is by Benjamin J. Chase, a former lacrosse player at Wheaton College; and “The Joy of Sports” is by Ted Kluck, author of the book The Reason for Sports: A Christian Fanifesto.
  • Read “And God Created Football,” an essay in the January/February edition of Books & Culture that reviews two books on football and asks “is football a religion or even religion-like?”
  • Read a Feb. 1, 2010, New York Times story, “Flock Is Now a Fight Team in Some Ministries,” about evangelical churches that are integrating martial arts and “extreme sports” into their ministries to attract young men and to help counter what many conservatives fear is a “feminization” of American Christianity.
  • The Oscar-nominated film Invictus was viewed by many as paean to the power of sports to improve the world — in this case, the post-apartheid nation of South Africa, which was led by Nelson Mandela, whose effort to integrate the country’s national rugby team provided the movie’s plot.  “Sport has the power to change the world,” the real-life Mandela once said. “It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. Sport can awaken hope where there was previously only despair.”

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

OLYMPICS

  • Read a Beliefnet column on how religions see sports.
  • Read “What Olympic Ideal?” an Aug. 8, 2004, article in The New York Times Magazine that argues that there are many differences between the ancient Greek games and the contemporary Olympics.
  • Read an Aug. 12, 2004, Beliefnet.com article on the religious origins of the Greek Olympics. It’s by Agapi Stassinopoulos, author of Gods and Goddesses in Love: Make the Myth a Reality for You.
  • Read a Zenit.org story posted by Beliefnet.com about the religious roots of the modern Olympic creed.
  • Read a Feb. 3, 2001, Salt Lake Tribune story about the religious origins of the Olympics. It’s posted by the Corinth Computer Project of the University of Pennsylvania.

National sources

Regional sources
  • Northwest Northeast Northwest West Southwest Midwest South Southeast East

    William Baker is professor emeritus of history at the University of Maine, where he specialized in sports and religion. His books include If Christ Came to the Olympics and Playing With God: Religion and Modern Sport. He argues that religion and sport have made peace with each other. Contact 207-581-1911, william.baker@umit.maine.edu.

  • Christopher Hodge Evans is a professor at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, N.Y, and co-editor of The Faith of 50 Million: Baseball, Religion and American Culture, a collection of essays on religious motifs in baseball. Contact through the main switchboard, 585-271-1320, or cevans@crcds.edu.
  • William R. Herzog is vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton Centre, Mass. He co-edited The Faith of 50 Million: Baseball, Religion and American Culture. Contact 617-964-1100 ext. 215, wherzog@ants.edu.
  • Tom Krattenmaker is associate vice president for public affairs and communications at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore. A former reporter, he writes frequently on religion and public life for USA Today and Salon. His books include Onward Christian Athletes (2009). Contact 503-768-7960, tkratt@lclark.edu or tjkratt@aol.com.
  • 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. Contact 607-255-6750, rlm8@cornell.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. 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.
  • Frank Reich is a former college and NFL star quarterback and from 2003 to 2006 was 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.
  • Michael R. Stevens is an English professor at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Mich. He wrote the 2007 annual baseball preview article for Books & Culture magazine. Contact 616-949-5300 ext.1332, Michael_R_Stevens@cornerstone.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, is president and CEO. 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.

Regional sources

IN THE NORTHEAST

  • 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, 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.
  • 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, regarded by many as a definitive work on the relationship between Protestantism and sports in America. Contact 781-891-2285, cputney@bentley.edu.

IN THE EAST

  • The Rev. Kent Berghuis is senior 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 online poker sites such as PokerStars.com. Contact 215-855-3457, kberghuis@fbcl.com.
  • John Fitzsimmons Mahoney, author of The Tao of the Jump Shot: An Eastern Approach to Life and Basketball, 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.

IN THE SOUTHEAST

IN THE SOUTH

  • 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,” which 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.
  • 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, 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. 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.

IN THE MIDWEST

  • James A. Mathisen is a sociology professor 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. He also co-wrote the book Muscular Christianity: Evangelical Protestants and the Development of American Sport. Contact 630-752-5059, James.A.Mathisen@wheaton.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 also had an article in the January 2005 issue on the downside of Catholic schools’ catering to sports. Contact 612-926-8835, johnrosengren@qwest.net.
  • Christopher Thomforde is a former 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.

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.
  • Blake Burleson, senior lecturer in religion at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, has expertise in sports ethics. Contact 254-710-3940, Blake_Burleson@baylor.edu.
  • Kirk Wakefield, professor of marketing at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, has expertise in sports ethics and marketing and fan behavior. Contact 254-710-4267, Kirk_Wakefield@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, 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.
  • 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.

This updates an edition from April 2, 2007.

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