"God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast and when I run, I feel his pleasure."
Playing with God
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Playing with God, William J Baker, Harvard University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-674-02421-2
The first paragraph of the introduction gives us an interesting insight into the author's journey. He played varsity baseball, basketball and (American) football while engaging in "youth evangelism and dreamed of becoming a Baptist minister". He does not tell us why he moved into academic life rather than church ministry. One suspects he does not currently have the same evangelical he once had.
The book gives a good overview of sport and religion. Much of the material on sport and evangelicals can be found elsewhere. For me the greatest value of the book was the material on Catholics and other religions. (See Pages 171-74 on Mormons and sport, 175-78 on Catholics ,180-88 on Jews and sport and 218-239 Athletes for Allah
I had not previously come across the quote from Bishop William Manning in the 1920s: "I believe that a well-played game of polo or of football or of any other game is, in its own place and in its own way, just as pleasing to God as a beautiful service of worship in a cathedral, and what we want is both of these things in our lives in right and true proportion."(Page 162)
Nor had I heard the Max Hellerman quote on the value of sport in the universe: "God says to man: 'I have created a universe were it seems that everything matters, where you will have to grapple with life and death and in the end you will die anyway and it won't really matter'. So man says to God: 'Oh Yeah? Within your universe we are going to create a sub-universe called sports, one that absolutely doesn't matter and we'll follow everything that happens as if it were life and death'" (Page 1)
Anyone who has bought into Ladd and Mathisen's theory of disengagement between sport and Christianity in the early 20th century will find in Chapter 4 evidence to the contrary.
I found Chapter 8 "Development of Sunday sport in USA" interesting. Baker notes 5 ways sports bodies got around the law and church opposition:
1 Change venue at short notice;
2 Move to neighbouring, more liberal state;
3 Donations not admission;
4 Admission free - food, drinks, etc expensive;
5 Give pastors free season tickets to stop complaints!
The chapter quotes Reverend J. Frank Norris, a Baptist minister in Fort Worth, Texas, "It is impossible to believe that Jesus would endorse sports on the holy day of His resurrection", and Archbishop Manning who wanted to "make it unmistakably clear" that there was nothing inherently wrong in playing tennis, golf, or polo on Sunday, "provided that we do not let this take the place of our proper religious duties." (Page 163)
Baker's often pithy interpretations of the material are always interesting.
"Religion and sport especially are joined at the altar of commercial interest". (Page 4)
"When Tom Brown broke from the scrum in midcentury America, he saw nothing but an open field." (Page 34)
"For all their focus on the athletic arena, evangelicals have yet to produce anything approximating a theology of sport" (Page 217)
Baker ends the book with: "The eagerness to make a public, demonstrative sales pitch for Jesus is a first cousin, if not a twin brother, of the tendency of athletes to call attention to themselves by preening, gesturing, and taunting opponents. Dropping to a knee or pointing skyward after a touchdown, in fill view of the television camera presumably gives God the glory. In fact it calls attention to oneself. Ultimately, the Thee Squad and the Me Generation play the same game. They are soul mates". (Page 252)