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"God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast and when I run, I feel his pleasure."

Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire

The World of sport today

Return to the book list for titles beginning with 'T'.

The World of sport today: A field of Christian mission, Libreria Editrica Vaticana, 2006

The book is the proceedings of a Vatican seminar on sport in 2005. As an protestant evangelical Christian, I approached this book with some scepticism. How wrong I was! The book consists of 19 chapters in three sections - introduction, Problems and challenges in sports today and Sport: frontier of the new evangelisation. Like all collections of papers, some are better than others and some topics of more interest.

The underlying theology is expressed on page 12 in a quotation from a prayer by Benedict XVI at the 20th Winter Olympics, that the incarnate Word, the light of the world, "may enlighten every dimension of humanity, including sport. There is nothing human, save sin, which the Son of God by becoming flesh, has not valorised... sport is one of the human activities which is also waiting to be enlightened by God through Christ, so that the values it expresses may be purified and elevated at both the individual and the collective levels".

I resonated with Edio Costantini, when he argued that "Catholic sports associations must be committed to bearing witness to the Christian values that sport promotes, to act as a critical conscience, to openly voice opposition to the negative things which are affecting the practice of sport, and make a positive impact in those forums which are responsible for promoting and enhancing the social function of sport". (Page 47)

And with Carlo Mazza when asked "how does the Church realize her mission in sport? in as much as the Church as a community of witnesses of the Risen Christ announces the message of salvation even within the world of sport". (Page 62) Mazza continues "the Church asks sport not only to respect the identity of the person, but also to allow the individual to develop his or her full potential with regard to God's plan for his or her life". (Page 63)

I said a loud Amen to Kevin Lixey: "The Church cannot be absent from this important sphere. In fact, we have heard from the testimony of athletes during the course of this seminar that the world of professional sport needs the Church much more than the Church needs the world of sport!" (Page 78)

There are interesting section on being a professional sport chaplains or an Olympic chaplain (Pages 131-42). Many evangelical chaplains would wholeheartedly agree with Hans-Gerd Schutt's comment: "Professional and Olympic athletes can often feel left all alone in their search for the spiritual, especially when coaches or trainers neglect this aspect altogether. For this reason, sport chaplains can help athletes to make a connection between their intense experiences of a major sporting event- with all the related challenges, extreme situations, triumphs".

Jeff Suppan, former major league baseball player, writes helpfully on the challenges of sustaining your faith on the road and on the pressures of like in professional sport as well as the opportunities form evangelism: "One opportunity available to a professional athlete is media exposure which is definitively a means to reach a lot of people. It is such a responsibility and I want to be the best role model I can in order to lead them to follow Jesus". (Page 144)

This is a book that I would commend to anyone who is serious about thinking through the relationship between sport and faith.

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