What is the Relationship Between Religion, Race and Sports in America?

Sports is everywhere in America, as we all know: the Super Bowl, the Masters, the World Series, the Stanley Cup, the Olympics, the NBA, MLB, NFL, youth travel sports, and the list goes on and on. So if we understand sports, we may understand America. For us on the podcast series, the question is “does religion factor into sports”? It seems the answer is a loud “yes.”

 

In 1976 Sports Illustrated published a three-part essay by the famed sports commentator Frank DeFord titled “Religion in Sport” in which he analyzed the cozy relationship between Christianity and sports in the United States, and it was in this article that he coined the term “sportianity”, writing this: it is almost as if a new denomination had been created: Sportianity. While Christian churches struggle with problems of declining attendance, falling contributions and now even reduction in membership, Sportianity appears to be taking off.” That same year Michael Novak published The Joy of Sports, articulating the religiosity embedded in the playing and cheering of sports.

 

This discussion will help us better understand what religion has done to America, and what America has done to religion, and we trust that as a result, listeners will see how indispensable the idea of religious freedom as a governing principle, is, to the United States and its ability to fulfill its purposes in the world.

 

Today to talk about religion and sports we have with us Jeffrey Scholes, associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Colorado – Colorado Springs, and author of the book Christianity, Race and Sport, to be published next year by Routledge Press. Professor Scholes’ research interests center on the relationship between religion and sports, and American political theology. He is the author of Vocation and the Politics of Work: Popular Theology in a Consumer Culture and co-author of Religion and Sports in American Culture.

 

Join us in building The National Museum of American Religion in the nation's capital, to open in 2026, on the 240th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's immortal words "Almighty God hath created the mind free", by donating at storyofamericanreligion.org/contribute.

 

For a contribution of $200 or more you will receive a free copy of the book When Sorrow Comes: The Power of Sermons from Pearl Harbor to Black Lives Matter, by Melissa Matthes, professor of government at The United States Coast Guard Academy. Her forthcoming book reminds us that in the face of national crisis, faith leaders have incredible power to help Americans endure, even flourish, and further the work of improving the imperfect yet noble American experiment in self-government.