God In The Stadium: Sports and Religion in AmericaUniversity Press of Kentucky, 2021年10月21日 - 400 頁 From the worship of Michael Jordan to the downfall of O.J. Simpson, it has become clear that sports and sports heroes have assumed a role in American society far out of proportion to their traditional value. In this powerful critique of present-day American popular culture, Robert J. Higgs examines the complex and increasingly pervasive control that sports wield in shaping the national self-image. He provides a thoughtful history and analysis of how sports and religion have become intertwined and offers a stinging indictment of the sports-religion-media-education complex. Beginning with the place of sports in Puritan life, Higgs traces the contributions of various individuals and institutions to the present circumstances in which sports and religion are joined. He discusses the transfer of the Puritan ideal to the New World and then moves to the revolutionary period of the national hero and manifest destiny, through the classic period of education for a sound mind in a sound body, to the imperial phase of American supremacy. In the process of tracing this history Higgs makes clear the growing influence of "muscular" Christianity, from circuit-riding evangelists to pulpit-pounding televangelists, from Billy Sunday to Billy Graham, from the YMCA to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Finally he arrives at our present Low Roman or "bread and circuses" period in which sports simultaneously serve the purposes of entertainment, religious proselytism, distraction of the masses, and political propaganda, all under the colorful banner of Christian knighthood as seen in the stadium revivals of Billy Graham and the sporting enthusiasm of Jerry Falwell. In brief, sports and Christianity have followed similar paths. In the beginning they were nationalized, then Hellenized, then Romanized, and, in our own time, televised. The result is that spectator sports have become the reigning American religion, one sharply at odds with a traditional shepherd ethos. This well-written and innovative book makes clear the dangerous power wielded by the sports-religion-media-education complex over the minds and energies of the American people. It is a call for recognition and reevaluation of our present situation that will concern anyone interested in the future of American culture. |
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... competition for an extrinsic cultural prize, in contrast to play, the indulgence in physical or mental activity for an intrinsic natural gift (not to be confused, at least in my mind, with what have been called spiritual gifts). It may ...
... competition with God's word or order but disobedience, recognized as such either before, during, or after the act.) I take the difference between competition and communion to be clear and significant: play seems to me more innocent and ...
... competition. Shepherds can be heroes, of course, but such status is not sought, nor is it celebrated, as a confirmation of desert. Shepherds do not collect trophies. Shepherds can also be violent, but theirs is a violence in the service ...
... compete in an imaginary 'Christians vs. Lions Bowl' he couldn't find enough genuine heathens to field a squad” (Hoffman 67). In baseball Mike Royko was more successful in such an endeavor. Puzzled and perhaps even mildly offended by all ...
... games in colleges and high schools as in boxing matches at “Caesar's Palace.” More teams pray before competing than don't, according to William S. Flynn, athletic a director at Boston College in 1985 (Monaghan 37). Obviously.
內容
The Consecration of College Sports | |
Manliness Moves West | |
Builders of Character and the YMCA | |
Cloning West Point on the American Campus | |
Symbols of the Union of Caesar and Christ | |
Power in the Sweat | |
Field Generals of the Crusade | |
Power in the Tube | |
The Knight and the Shepherd | |
Works Cited | |