Religion and Sport: Future Directions for the Field

Abstract

Religion and Sport: Future Directions for the Field Terry Shoemaker Gaining traction the last four decades, the field of religion and sport advances several different methodological and theoretical directions for understanding these cultural phenomena. Primarily focusing on sport as religion or religious case studies in sporting spaces, scholarly input demonstrates how valuable analyzing both religion and sport can be particularly within Western societies. These contributions to the academic field lay a strong foundation for critical reflection and movement forward while also contributing significantly to broader discussions in religious studies. In the following, I quickly review some of the important scholarly additions to understanding the relationships between religion and sport and then utilize these previous directions to offer some suggestions for ways to progress the field forward. Obviously, the literature review and the suggestions are not exhaustive but an attempt to contribute to a discussion regarding the advancement of the field of religion and sport. Where We’ve Been Within the field of religious studies, the focus of much of the religion and sport research offers several discussions around two areas: religion as sport and religion in sport. These two areas supply numerous case studies and individual examples of how the cultural phenomena of religion and sport intersect, overlap, and mimic each other. The first, religion as sport, supposes a significant overlap in what religion and sport do for humans while the second, religion in sport, analyzes the many ways religious expressions, identities, and motivations find their way into sporting arenas [End Page 39] and athletes’ public lives. The first presupposes something about human nature while the second shows how porous the public and private divide is. Each area compels further consideration regarding the essence of what it means to be human and about human social structures, theoretically and practically. Examining sports as religion, scholars like Eric Bain-Selbo and Gregory Sapp (2016), Joseph L. Price (2001), Onaje X.O. Woodbine (2016) and Paul O’Connor (2020) argue sports are or functionally are religious. There is a slight nuance to these two positions worth considering, but primarily the theory states sport functions as or similar to religious activity. Whether it be with mirroring rituals, identity development, community formation, or cultivated superstitions, it is difficult to argue against the idea that sport commitments are religious for some people. These scholars point to the ways in which secular sporting calendars (i.e., baseball) displace religious calendars (i.e., Christian liturgical calendars) or how fans’ journeys to special sporting sites across the globe epitomize religious pilgrimages to holy sites or sacred centers. Another example focuses on how sports fans, teams, and athletes adopt and bicker about mascots and logos. These emblematic symbols represent something meaningful much like a Jewish Star of David, Christian crucifix, or Hindu Ohm. In sum, many sports fans practice their commitments to their favorite teams, organizations, and sports like religious adherents practice their commitments to religious traditions. Many of these arguments hinge on the idea that humans are homo religiosus, or that there is something about human nature needing religious expressions and commitments. Whether there is something essentially homo religiosus about humans or an evolutionary development of religious needs, the understanding within the sport as religion or functionally religion arguments supposes that as religion loses its authority in secular or secularizing countries, humans still need an outlet for religious expression. In this way, sport replaces religion as the mechanism to exercise religious needs. Thus, sport might be functionally religious if humans need to experience something like Durkheim’s (1995) collective effervescence. Although statistical trends might show an increase in disaffiliation with religious traditions, humans still need to experience the energy from gathering together in unity. To take it further, the sport as religion position speculates, even without a deity necessarily, sport is [End Page 40] commiserate with religious devotion. Both of these positions presuppose that human nature requires religiosity. Thus, religion isn’t dying, religion is simply changing. This echoes Durkheim’s famous line “the former gods are growing old or dying, and others have not been born” (429). From this vantage point, sport is the latest god and, thankfully so, because humans would be lost otherwise. There are counter...