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Religion and Sports in North America
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Religion and Sports in North America

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 February 2020) | Viewed by 30135

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Annie Blazer

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of William and Mary, Sadler Center, Williamsburg, VA 23185, USA
Interests: North American religions; religion and sports; anthropology of religion; gender and sexuality; critical race theory; lived religion

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Over the past decade, the field of religion and sport has expanded, and new scholarship has emerged to engage the wide variety of intersections of religions and sports. The focus of this Special Issue will be to highlight new and emerging contributions to the field and to pull together the threads and avenues of new scholarship into one collection. While the scope is limited to North America, we encourage submissions that consider North American sports and religions in a global perspective. This issue will provide a collection of new scholarship and illuminate further directions for the study of religion and sport.

Previous scholarship in the field of religion and sport focused on the question: Can sport be considered a religion? Scholarship in this vein examined different definitions of religion and applied these to aspects of sport like fandom (Bain-Selbo, 2009), arena spectacle (Higgs, 1995), and temporal cycles (Price, 2001). While this scholarship revealed interesting similarities between some aspects of sport and some definitions of religion, other scholars investigating religion and sport in North America have focused on the religious lives of athletes and coaches (Blazer, 2015), religious institutions’ use of sport (Putney, 2001), and sporting institutions’ treatment of religious minorities (Albert, 2011). Some edited volumes have pursued a global scope for these investigations (Magdalinski and Chandler, 2002; Benn, Pfister and Jawad, 2010). This vein of scholarship tends to include critical analyses of consumerism, politics, and social and cultural dynamics. Works in this direction have pushed the field of religion and sports to examine religions’ and sports’ complicity in race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and economic oppressions. This Special Issue will showcase critical analyses in order to illuminate the multiple ways that the relationship between religion and sport is tied to disciplinary and resistant power dynamics.

Essays on any aspect of the relationship between religions and sports in North American are welcome. We hope to include a range of methodologies and theoretical approaches. We hope that you will take advantage of this opportunity to showcase your scholarship alongside other critical sports scholars.

Prof. Annie Blazer
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sports
  • athletics
  • North America
  • athletes
  • coaches
  • fans
  • religious experience
  • play

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 196 KiB  
Article
Dabo Swinney, Universal Whiteness, and a “Sin Problem”
by Jeffrey Scholes
Religions 2020, 11(4), 191; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11040191 - 15 Apr 2020
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3195
Abstract
Clemson University head football coach Dabo Swinney was asked to respond to Colin Kaepernick’s protest of police killings of unarmed black men and women by kneeling for the national anthem. Swinney’s response was surprisingly comprehensive and illuminating into his stance on race, religion, [...] Read more.
Clemson University head football coach Dabo Swinney was asked to respond to Colin Kaepernick’s protest of police killings of unarmed black men and women by kneeling for the national anthem. Swinney’s response was surprisingly comprehensive and illuminating into his stance on race, religion, and sport. He crystallizes his overall interpretation of societal problems with the statement, “It’s so easy to say we have a race problem, but we got a sin problem.” In this essay, I examine “whiteness” as that which endows whites with a kind of universal authority to establish norms as well as provide a protective cloak of invisibility that effectively hides the identity of those constructing the norms. I argue that Swinney’s unconscious display of his own whiteness coupled with the additional cloak of universal sin, that purportedly knows no color, serves to downplay and dismiss Kaepernick’s call for racial justice. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and Sports in North America)
16 pages, 272 KiB  
Article
Foucault for Heisman: College Football and the Liturgies of Power
by Jason M. Smith
Religions 2020, 11(3), 122; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11030122 - 11 Mar 2020
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2709
Abstract
This essay attempts to give a new sort of answer to the question of whether or not sport and sports fandom are a religion through the work of Foucault on “power.” Looking specifically at college football in North America, I examine the ways [...] Read more.
This essay attempts to give a new sort of answer to the question of whether or not sport and sports fandom are a religion through the work of Foucault on “power.” Looking specifically at college football in North America, I examine the ways in which Foucault’s different variations of power have and still do function within what we call “big-time” college football. I thus proffer that Foucault’s oeuvre helps us to see the sport and religion question in a new way—not as two phenomena similar in practice but in modes of power. I conclude by offering suggestions for how Foucault’s work might offer suggestions for imagining new configurations of collegiate athletics and its governance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and Sports in North America)
13 pages, 221 KiB  
Article
An Invitation to Suffer: Evangelicals and Sports Ministry in the U.S.
by Annie Blazer
Religions 2019, 10(11), 638; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10110638 - 19 Nov 2019
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4026
Abstract
When American evangelicals sought to use the tools of sport for religious outreach in the mid-twentieth century, they began to wonder if the essential features of sport—competition and hierarchy—conflicted with their approach to salvation. For most evangelical Christians, salvation is an option for [...] Read more.
When American evangelicals sought to use the tools of sport for religious outreach in the mid-twentieth century, they began to wonder if the essential features of sport—competition and hierarchy—conflicted with their approach to salvation. For most evangelical Christians, salvation is an option for every human and each person must make an individual decision to accept or reject the salvific power of Jesus Christ. This is a worldview that relies heavily on separating believers from non-believers, but, importantly, the means of distinction is individual choice. There is not a competitive aspect to this framework; salvation is theoretically available for all. This article traces sports ministry’s struggle over time to unite the competitive world of sport with their vision of salvation. By illuminating different approaches to the ethical challenge of uniting evangelicalism and sport, we can see that sports ministry is a field of complexity that invites believers to grapple with intense theological dilemmas without offering easy solutions. I argue that the struggle to reconcile sport and evangelical theology can be meaningful religious work. I will show that the kinds of suffering that athletic competition entails can align with the evangelical theodicy that God uses suffering to communicate with humans. It may be this feature of sport, the opportunity to experience meaningful suffering, that continues to motivate evangelicals to attempt to unite their religion with sport. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and Sports in North America)
19 pages, 2398 KiB  
Article
Training for the “Unknown and Unknowable”: CrossFit and Evangelical Temporality
by Cody Musselman
Religions 2019, 10(11), 624; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10110624 - 11 Nov 2019
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 8010
Abstract
This article looks at the relationship between the U.S. military and CrossFit, a functional fitness training method and sport, and focuses on how their affinities coalesce around the idea of preparedness. CrossFit makes a sport and spectacle out of preparing for the “unknown [...] Read more.
This article looks at the relationship between the U.S. military and CrossFit, a functional fitness training method and sport, and focuses on how their affinities coalesce around the idea of preparedness. CrossFit makes a sport and spectacle out of preparing for the “unknown and unknowable” challenges of life. This approach to life and fitness is attractive to service members, first responders, and average citizens alike who live in an age of constant anticipation, awaiting unknown threats. This article draws from fieldwork observations, interviews, CrossFit videos and articles, social media posts, and discussion board threads to argue that CrossFit, with its emphasis on preparedness, exhibits an evangelical temporality that is particularly symbiotic with American militarism. This article introduces two new terms, “evangelical temporality” and “generic evangelicalism,” to discuss a disposition towards time marked by a sense of expectation; by the anticipation of rupture and change that necessitates a state of constant preparedness; and by a firm conviction that time is running out. In three acts, this article explores how CrossFit, as a militaristic sport and a lifestyle centered on preparedness, benefits from and adds to the prevailing sense of uncertainty, expectation, and preparation that characterizes evangelical temporality in America. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and Sports in North America)
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17 pages, 291 KiB  
Article
Postures of Piety and Protest: American Civil Religion and the Politics of Kneeling in the NFL
by Jeremy Sabella
Religions 2019, 10(8), 449; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10080449 - 25 Jul 2019
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 11487
Abstract
Over the past ten years, athletes Tim Tebow and Colin Kaepernick have become famous for kneeling on the NFL football field. However, public reactions to these gestures varied significantly: Tebow’s kneeling spawned a lightly mocking but overall flattering meme, while Kaepernick’s stoked public [...] Read more.
Over the past ten years, athletes Tim Tebow and Colin Kaepernick have become famous for kneeling on the NFL football field. However, public reactions to these gestures varied significantly: Tebow’s kneeling spawned a lightly mocking but overall flattering meme, while Kaepernick’s stoked public controversy and derailed his NFL career. In order to interrogate these divergent responses, this article places the work of sociologist Robert Bellah and philosopher Michel Foucault in dialogue. It argues that spectator sports are a crucial space for the negotiation and contestation of American identity, or, in Bellah’s terms, civil religion. It then draws on philosopher Michel Foucault’s concept of the docile body to explore the rationales behind and cultural reactions to the kneeling posture. I argue that Tebow and Kaepernick advance divergent civil religious visions within the “politics of the sacred” being negotiated in American life. In this process of negotiation, American football emerges as both a space for the public cultivation of docile bodies and a crucial forum for reassessing American values and practices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and Sports in North America)
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