Slate is carrying hymns of praise to Café favorites Bull Durham, and Friday Night Lights. Perhaps it is only coincidence, but we prefer to think it is a manifestation of our vast influence over public discourse.
College sports are fun, exciting, adrenaline-producing spectacles. They also create ample opportunities for breaking Commandment Number One: Thou shalt have no other gods before me. The gods of college sports, be they the God of Football, the God of Hockey, or omigod, the God of Basketball, seem to demand ever-grander displays of devotion from their faithful followers.
A Muslim girl from a Washington, D. C. high school was disqualified during an invitiational meet in neighboring Montgomery County after meet officials ruled the unitard she wears for religious reasons violated National Federation of State High School Associations standards. The girl’s coach pointed out that she has competed in that uniform for two years without incident.
Whatever we make of it, today competition dominates our ideology, shapes our cultural attitudes, and sanctifies our market economy as never before. We are living in an age that prizes competition and demeans cooperation, an era more narcissistic than the Gilded Age, more hubristic than the age of Jackson. Competition rules.
David Kuo of Beliefnet suggests that the sporting public’s response to cheating is becoming increasingly ambiguous. And that’s bad.
While we were focused on the House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans and its aftermath, sane people everywhere were spending their time in other pursuits, such as listening to the new Bruce Springsteen album, watching last night’s season premier episode of Friday Night Lights, and finding other soul-nourishing fare in the sometimes toxic stew of our popular culture.
If you love baseball—the church of baseball—then don’t miss the Rev. Anne Gardner’s piece in today’s Boston Globe. In addition to being a correspondent for the paper and chaplain/director of community service at Endicott College, she’s a loyal Red Sox fan—and a staff member at Fenway Park.
This fall, hundreds of thousands of Ohio State University (OSU) football fans will receive a little something extra in their game programs — an invitation to any of the more than 80 congregations in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio.
Beliefnet is exploring Barry Bonds’ assault on Hank Aaron’s career home run record from a religious point of view. Today, Michael Kress, who says he finds himself “overcome by a deep sense of sadness and more than a little outrage when contemplating Bonds’s achievement.”
A basketball referee is alleged to be on the take. A star quarterback is allegedly mixed up in dog fighting. And baseball most hallowed record will soon be held by a cheater. But, there’s good news from the world of sports, courtesy of Olympic speed skating medalist Joey Cheek, who is challanging the Chinese government over it support to the genocidal regime in Sudan.