"I love the sense of satisfaction that I get when I’ve done a swimming workout or race, and know that I gave my whole being and heart to God in every moment of the swim. It’s the best worship I can offer him."
Theology of Sport (Object, sources and method).
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Thomas Emilio Bolaño Mercado, Unpublished, 2012
This unpublished paper is a summary of answers to 6 questions by 11 people on the subject of Theology of sport. I have to declare an interest as I was one of the 11.
Jim Penrice writes in the preface: “when we truly understand how limitless God’s love for us is, it becomes clear that there Is no such thing as an activity too ‘trivial’ for God not to be interested and involved. God cares deeply about every aspect of our lives, and he wants to be included in our every activity”.
One of the early questions asked is whether theology of sport is a branch of theology or a practical application of theology.
Rather than try to summary the arguments, let me give a flavour of the contents.
Theology of sport is “the contemporary Christian view of sport” (Michael Kerrigan)
“the study of human spirituality expressed in games and sports”. (Susan Saint Sing)
The author sums up at the end: “The theology of sport is a field of study that applies or relates the reflection, foundation, and vision of Christ liar anthropology to the culture of training, practice, and competitive sports. On the one hand, it obtains the revealed data from such sources as Sacred Scripture, Patristics, and the Magisterium and Tradition of the Church; as well as from the controlled publications of its theologians; and on the other hand, the data from the human experience, captured by the investigations of the other sciences applied to sports”.
This is another helpful contribution to the debate.