The sporting arena is often thought of as an apolitical site. Seemingly outside of the realm of sociohistorical forces, players simply play a game predicated on following rules and competing fairly. Yet to the contrary, sport has never been this alone—it is frequently the place where contentious political issues are laid bare, disputed, and left unresolved. This session addresses the role that religion plays or has played in political expression through sport.
This presentation critically considers the mobilization of “military multiculturalism” (McAlister, 2005) by Christian combatives practitioners. Based on fieldnotes from an ethnographic study of Christian combatives I present combatives as an affective technology through which Christians feel themselves into a global multicultural “Christianhood” patterned on the bonds of military camaraderie and kinship. I engage theorists of affect and racialization to suggest that combatives are technologies that entrain subjects into racialized affect positions, instructing in the “political distinctions that the faithful come to feel” by producing “felt distinctions between us and them” (O’Neal, 2013) in ways that articulate religion as a component of gendered, racialized, and classed hierarchies of value. The imagined global and multicultural army of God relies on this simultaneous production and erasure of difference.
Following the trend of increases in those identifying as Spiritual or Spiritual But Not Religious (SBNR), I tested the viability of adopting spiritual or spirituality when conducting qualitative and quantitative research on sport participation. Based on two different studies, I investigate the benefits and challenges of using "spiritual" (instead of religious) methodologically. After providing context for the emergence of "spiritual," the spiritual marketplace, and the spiritual revolution (Heelas and Woodhead) this presentation reviews collected data asking respondents directly and indirectly if they consider sport participation as a spiritual practice. These emic studies demonstrate that perceiving sport as a spiritual practice might require qualifiers and/or reconsiderations.
In 1980, when the Dallas Mavericks began play as the 23rd team in the National Basketball Association (NBA), they had an agenda that went beyond basketball. This paper analyzes the early efforts of Mavericks owner Don Carter and general manager Norm Sonju to build a born-again franchise, one that could spearhead the infusion of evangelical religion into the league while presenting to the United States a symbol of the possibilities for success and national renewal represented by the blending of evangelical faith and conservative politics.
By tracing both the goals and failures of the Mavericks’ evangelical experiment, this paper highlights the ways religion, race, and politics intersected with professional basketball in the 1980s.