"Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play…it is war minus the shooting."
Sacramentally Imagining Sports as a Form of Worship: Reappraising Sport as a Gesture of God
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John Bentley White, Sport, Ethics and Philosophy ,Volume 12, 2018 Pages 94-114
John White reflects on how sport can be seen as worship. He summarizes his argument: “A sacramental understanding of sports aims to give an alternative stance to how Christian traditions conceive of sports. A sacramental understanding intimates how this worldview helps us reckon that sports can be an acceptable form of divine worship, because of how sports can participate in and point to God. I argue that, when sport is understood as a material mode of worship, sport can serve as an iconic indicator which reflects and imparts something of divine presence”.
At times the argument is a bit complex as in the statement: “Finally, by bringing the two kinds of liturgy together, we can see how the autotelicity of worship and sport as play overlap. In both practices, the ludic element of autotelicity looms large for it essentially orders their very nature.
Much of the paper is taken up with a discussion of Lincoln Harvey’s book, A Brief Theology of Sport. While White writes of Harvey “our difference is minor” his critique of Harvey is substantial and well argued.
White makes an important contribution to the issue of how “religious” worship relates to worship in sport. His position is summed up in the following three quotes:
“Since everyday life can be considered worship, the liturgy of sport is an extensive liturgy,
while worship in church is an intensive liturgy”.
“If formal worship and sport are pictured on a continuum, there will be gradations of the
sacramental presence of God from one end to the other”. And
“a sacramental worldview does not see a stark theological difference between ecclesial
worship and sport. Even if there are differences in their modes of liturgical celebration, both
can be to and for God, since God is generously present in these sacramental contexts and
actions”.
Arguing against false dichotomies between pitches and pulpits, White suggests that
sports can mediate a sense of divine presence.
An important and helpful paper although the argument is often complex.