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JAN. 18, 2005 SPORTS 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 Skip to background
• 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. 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
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