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Brian Troutman
Religion and Sports: an Analytical Comparison Both religion and sports are major elements of culture in America. Religion is generally seen as a substantial guiding force in people’s lives, while sport is viewed as a less important recreational pursuit. While you would never expect to see “In Shaq We Trust” on a coin, or hear “Griese Bless America” being sung at a patriotic event, many Americans treat religion and sports with similar reverence. But does the American public really hold religion at a higher level of esteem than sports, and how is this illustrated by the similarities and differences between the two? As a significant component of human society, sport has been the cause of violence between groups of people, just as religion has also had the same effect. In modern times, many people point to the Israel/Palestinian conflict or the violence in Northern Ireland as a situation of substantial religious violence. News reports also tell us about riots following sports events. In Canada, riots follow hockey games, in much of Europe and Latin America, riots spread across cities after soccer games, and many of these riots cause extensive damage to property and injure innocent people (Burstyn 10). Conversely, sports and religion share the ability to unify a group of people. Just as religions can unite individuals of different races who originate from nations all over the world, so to can sports bring a diverse group of people together. Sports can unite people, provide them with strong feelings of group unity, and provide them with an identity to rally behind (Coakley 22). Fans of sports teams come from different socioeconomic groups, live in geographically separated areas, and work in varied blue-collar and white-collar occupations (Coakley 23). Religion has numerous historical connections to sport, such as in ancient Greece, where athletic competition was a key element of major religious events. Each Greek city state paid homage to a patron god, and Greek athletes called upon this god in the fierce physical contests of the day (Janson 97). The original Olympic games, which were held in ancient Greece, were filled with references to Greek religion. The games themselves were named for Mount Olympus, the mountain home of the Greek gods (Janson 102). This connection between ancient Greek religion and sport lives on in the modern world; Nike, the name used by an American sports equipment manufacturer, is the one of the names used by Athena, the Greek goddess of victory. Comparing sports and religion reveals a great deal about people’s attitude toward the two, and author Varda Burstyn illustrates many similarities in her essay, “Sport as a Secular Sacrament.” According to Burstyn, the feeling and identification associated with sports are closer to that of religion than any other practice in human culture (Burstyn 10). Sport is a “secular sacrament,” and the fanfare and ritual that is associated with sport has reached a level which rivals the societal promontory which religion has occupied in societies for thousands of years. These ceremonies, rich with tradition and protocol, have the fundamental purpose of transmitting information about ideal social arrangements (Burstyn 12). They establish rules for action and perpetuate tales of heroic success and abysmal failure, much as religions teach moral lessons through parables and accounts of the distant past. Religion and sports are compared easily by conflict theorists (those who believe that the elements of a society work against one another in pursuit of supremacy). Religion and sports can both be used similarly by the economically and socially powerful to suppress the working public. Many of the world’s religions teach renunciation of material goods, denial of personal physical pleasures, and intense focus on morality and spiritual salvation. The conflict theorists’ evaluation of religion indicates that its primary purpose is to make the public content with their decreased level of material possessions and more submissive to the authority of powerful leaders (Coakley 29). Sport, when viewed from this same perspective, has a very similar effect. Being spectators of large sporting events takes the public’s minds off of the drudgery that marks their day-to-day lives. Sports also shows them the importance of following rules, and like religion, sport makes the common person more likely to accept the judgments of people with power and influence (Coakley 29). Even though sports and religion share many similarities, their differences are quite significant. Sports have been the impetus of violent riots in history, but the strength and severity of these outbursts cannot rival the quantity and intensity of warfare which has occurred because of religion. Broken windows and looting in Toronto after a hockey game cannot rival the thousands of people killed annually in Israeli and Palestinian bombings. Allegiance to sports teams can unite groups of people, but the fans often tend to be segregated by geography, and this is much less true of religion. Ancient Greeks closely connected sport and religion, but the athletic competition was a part of their religious ceremonies, and that type of association between sport and religion is nearly extinct in the modern world. Conflict theorists may see religion and sports as two tools of cultural suppression but their claim does not address that neither sport nor religion is entirely controlled by a government agency or single business cartel, and furthermore, the sports leagues and the various religions in the world are not controlled by a single group of people. Their leaders of sport and religion are as diverse as the people who inhabit the ranks of their followers. Religion and sport share a long roster of undeniable similarities. The two also have a long list of differences that separate and distinguish them from one another. Aside from these major distinctions, one fact remains clear: sports and religion are both elements of human culture in all nations of the world. While many people believe that sports are much less important than religion, and this may be true in a moral or spiritual sense, the actions of the multitudes speak louder than their words. People have shown their endless and tireless dedication to the vast world of sports through large investments of their time and disposable income, and to overlook this investment would be tantamount to ignoring an immense element of our human society. Works Cited Burstyn, Varda. “Sport as a Secular Sacrament” Sport in Contemporary Society. Sixth Ed. D. Stanley Eitzen. New York: Worth, 2001. 10-11. Coakley, Jay J. “Sport in Society: An Inspiration or an Opiate?,” Sport in Contemporary Society. Sixth Ed. D. Stanley Eitzen. New York: Worth, 2001. 2036. Janson, H. W. History of Art. New York: Prentice Hall, 2001. 94139
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