UK law is changing. We would like to place cookies on your computer to help us make this website better. We've always done this (it's how websites work!), but the law now says I must ask your permission first. To find out more about the cookies, see the privacy notice.

I accept cookies from this site

UK Registered Charity 1117093
Company Number 5947088

"Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play…it is war minus the shooting."

George Orwell

Sport as Liturgy: Towards a radical Orthodoxy of Sport – Andrew Edgar

Return to the book list for this category.

The abstract summarizes the paper as follows:

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that sport can be understood as a form of engagement with the fundamental contingency and vulnerability of the human condition, and as such that it expresses a yearning for meaning in a modern society that offers only the illusion of meaning. Sport, at its most profound, is argued to be a negative liturgy, in the sense that it highlights an absence of meaning, rather than offering a positive alternative. The paper draws on an analysis of contemporary society, and resultant defence of the potential role that liturgy might play in restoring meaning and a sense of transcendence to society, that is offered by the Radical orthodoxy theologian Catherine Pickstock.

The paper did not help my understanding of sport and Christianity significantly.



Weekly sports email

Leave your email address if you wish to receive Stuart's weekly sports email: