"It matters a great deal who is going to win, but not at all who won"
Sport and spirituality
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Sport and Spirituality, Jim Parry, Simon Robinson, Nick J Watson and Mark Nesti, Routledge, 2007. ISBN10-0-415-40483 5
The book is 266 pages including 52 pages of bibliography, notes and index. The material is arranged in 4 sections, each with three chapters:
Sport and spirituality;
Religion and sport;
Existential psychology and sport;
Ethics, Olympism and spirituality.
This review will tell as much about the reviewer as the book. I have very little interest in spirituality, less in psychology but a great deal in Christianity and sport.
I enjoyed, "Winning at all costs in modern sport: reflections on pride and humility in the writings of CS Lewis" by Nick Watson and John White. Their aim (with Jim Mathisen) is to encourage more people to "think biblically and theologically about sport". Pages 63-67 deal with the problems caused by the win at all cost mentality in sport. Pages 68-71 give an excellent account of the problem of human pride in modern sport. "In sport, when winning is the primary aim of the athlete or coach, we see the desperate and even bizarre attempts by athletes and coaches to address the angst of their human predicament by doing anything and everything to reach their goal and bolster their identity and sense of significance." Page 68
"Jesus' teachings clearly instruct us to protest against injustice in all aspects of life and work together to address what is not right, including the moral and ethical problems in sport". Page 75
They conclude the chapter: "We do, however, hope that all those involved in sport may search their hearts and perhaps consider what CS Lewis famously called "the deep magic" [CS Lewis "The myth that became fact"] - the story of a God who humbled himself in the most unimaginable way that we might know his love and guidance in every dimension of our lives, including love." Page 78
Scott Kretchmar's view is quoted that things that used to be deemed wrong in a moral sense are not consider largely (if not wholly) in terms of their efficacy - do they work? One of the outcomes of instrumental thinking is the loss of the notion of 'meaningful victory' in the quest to 'win at all costs'. Page 216 note 14.
Nick Watson's Muscular Christianity in the modern age aims "to examine the historical and theological development of Muscular Christianity particularly in Victorian Britain and how this has impacted the relationship between sport and Christianity in twenty-first century Britain and America, particularly under the guise of 'sports ministry'. (Page 92-93). I am not convinced that he has reached many significant conclusions. The article is a development of joint article the reviewer wrote with Nick and a colleague. Perhaps the book that we have toyed with writing together is needed to do justice to the subject.
Quite where CT Studd fits into Muscular Christianity is less clear to me than it is to Nick. Equally some of his assertions about the motivation of modern sports ministry are debatable. However, I applaud him for writing on this neglected subject.
Jim Parry's The 'religio athletae' gives a good summary of the religious undertones and background of the modern Olympics.