When sports becomes a religion: 10-28-15
October 28, 2015
The World Series, as surely everybody knows, opened last night in Kansas City as the charming and all-that-is-good Royals took game one 5-4 in 14 innings from the repulsive and all-that-is-evil New York Mets.
It may take seven battles to determine the outcome of this confrontation, but eventually the Royals, blessed by God to represent the divine will, will crush the sinister East Coasters and there will be joy in Mudville.
If what I've just written sounds a little far-fetched and full of crazy religious symbolism, you're right. And the only reason I have written it that way is that it behooves us to remember what constitutes religion and what constitutes idolatry.
Over the years, various writers have tried to find ways in which religion and sports overlap and even turn into one another. Here, for instance, is an Atlantic piece from 2013 asking how much sports fandom is like religion.
And here is a 2009 Psychology Today piece asking if sport is itself a religion.
I am not here making the argument that being a sports fan automatically makes one an idolater. Sports, after all, can teach important and useful moral and social lessons. But let's also be honest about the reality that sports can become an idol, that sometimes sports leaders engage in behavior that is morally appalling and that it's easy for both sports and religion to be corrupted by money.
As I describe in my book, Woodstock: A Story of Middle Americans, being a Cubs fan from early in my childhood on has taught me a lot about humility and the benefits of losing. An appreciation of such matters can keep us from diving headlong into a worship of sports that any person of faith would recognize as idolatry. And all God's people said: "Go, Royals."
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WHAT 50 YEARS HAVE MEANT FOR JEWS, CHRISTIANS
I mentioned here yesterday that today is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Nostra Aetate, a Vatican II document that removed blame from Jews for the death of Jesus. Rabbi A. James Rudin, who once worked in Kansas City, has written this essay about that document and why it's so important in the tumultuous history of Jewish-Christian relations. The problem with such a document is that as the years go by, new generations are not introduced to it and why it was necessary. So sometimes they fall back into the exact kind of prejudicial behavior and views that the document was written to begin to correct. We have an obligation not to let that happen.
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P.S.: My latest National Catholic Reporter column now is online here.
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