"God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast and when I run, I feel his pleasure."
Sports and Christianity (Historical and Contemporary Perspectives),
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Shorter review
Sports and Christianity (Historical and Contemporary Perspectives), Nick J Watson and Andrew Parker, New York, Routledge, 2012. ISBN 978-0-415-89922-2
This significant book is a welcome addition to the growing literature on sport and Christianity. It is hard to think of two people in the UK who have done more to encourage and stimulate such thinking than Nick Watson and Andy Parker.
The book’s purpose is to “illustrate is the way in which this relationship has developed in specific social and cultural contexts and how we might think further about the intimate connections (and disconnections) between sport and the Christian faith”.
The book’s ten chapters cover history, philosophy, sociology and theology. The authors include such eminent scholars as Robert Higgs, Shirl Hoffman, Scott Kretchmar, Kevin Lixey Hugh MacLeod and Tracy Trothen.
The longest and most significant chapter is the authors’ “Sports and Christianity: Mapping the Field” which is the most systematic introduction to the academic literature in the field which is available. The authors survey and contexualize what has been written in a chapter which will undoubtedly become a standard text in the field.
This is followed by a table of key resources to help the reader take it further. There is a list of 35 key texts as well as a 32 page bibliography, with enough material there to keep you reading a lifetime.
An extremely useful book which will be essential reading for anyone who is serious about understanding the relationship od sport and Christianity for some years to come.
For a more detailed review, chapter by chapter,