And God Created Football - Books & Culture

A fair amount of recent scholarship argues that American football—and perhaps American sports in general—has become a religion. What's interesting is that the very people who have a vested interest in this issue seem uninterested, or at least unconvinced. A recent article in Books and Culture by Mark Galli has some interesting thought about the past time that seems to have such a powerful draw on our culture and which Christians sometimes see as a rival to be excoriated instead of understood. For the full article, I would encourage you to read: And God Created Football - Books & Culture

Two quotes from the article, I believe help us learn about reaching out to our communities and still maintaining our integrity and witness as the Body of Christ.

"Miracle and Rees quote anthropologist Clifford Geertz, who believed that religion acts to "establish powerful, persuasive, and long lasting moods and motivations" by "formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing those conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the morals and motivations seems uniquely realistic." They conclude, and Hamilton seems to concur, that "Sport has done this for American culture in a way that traditional religion could not."

Galli concludes: "Some Christians do practice civil religion, and for some, football has become an idol. Such is the nature of the human heart, that desperately wicked thing (Jer. 17:9). But one reason many Christians are not concerned about football as religion is that what seems to make it a religion to some scholars is precisely the thing that makes it another sign of God's presence in the world, a sign that comes in the most mundane ways—through ritual, physical sacrifice, a sense of brotherhood, shared joy and despair over little things (like if our team wins or loses).

This is the reason Christians participate freely and fully in all of life. For we, of all people, have eyes to see and ears to hear God's elusive presence, to discern his handiwork and love everywhere. The clearest revelation of God's love comes to us in the preaching of the Word and the sharing of the sacrament, but it is precisely because we've learned to make out the outlines of the God-man Jesus with repeated participation at these specifically religious events that we can spot him in a glass of fine wine, in the startling lines of a skyscraper, in conversation with friends, in a timely block or a well-executed screen play.