Abstract
Religion often designates locations that are considered sacred, marked off from ordinary space. Sporting venues also take on a significance for players and supporters that is seldom adequately explained in solely sporting terms. Can theological understandings of place illuminate the way in which players and spectators relate to the ‘sacred space’ of their sporting endeavors? In this paper, I explore and assess the theological and religious significance of sporting space by reflecting upon descriptions of both religious and sporting special places. I use a range of types of descriptions of experiences of such spaces together with theological ideas and concepts, including Christian notions of incarnation, sacrament, and Trinity, which are found to be useful resources, undermining a strict binary of ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ space. I then build upon previous theological and empirical work with sports participants to explore a theological understanding of special sporting places and the experiences of those who play and support sporting endeavors in them.
Highlights
Religion often designates ‘special’ places—locations that are considered sacred and are marked off from ordinary space
Can the notion of ‘sacred space’ help us understand special sporting places and can it further help to explain the apparentlyreligious experiences that sports participants often have in these locations? In this paper, I explore and assess the theological and religious significance of sporting space and raise the question for future work of whether such an understanding of sporting places sheds light back upon religious locations
Béres herself describes a contrast between this ‘thin place’ and the ‘thicker’ place from which she had come: Iona felt like home
Summary
Religion often designates ‘special’ places—locations that are considered sacred and are marked off from ordinary space. For Smart, the material dimension of religion encompasses triptychs, crucifixes, and fonts, as well as the elements of oil, bread, wine, and water deployed in sacramental observance It includes complex sites, such as the Ganges or Jerusalem, as well as locations such as white-washed dissenting chapels and baroque Cathedrals. Can the notion of ‘sacred space’ help us understand special sporting places and can it further help to explain the apparently (quasi-)religious experiences that sports participants often have in these locations? The doctrine of the Trinity is useful, in particular, because it underlines the way in which God may be affirmed as present and active in the world while still allowing for clear differentiation between God and the world These three doctrines undermine a strict binary between the ‘sacred’ and the ‘profane’, but the designation of especially holy places (‘sacred space’) is still useful. I tend to speak about ‘place’ rather than ‘space’ and use the term ‘sacred space’, recognizing that this expression is part of our vernacular
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