Sport and Spirituality

Book excerpt: This comprehensive volume explores the interface between sport and religion, or more broadly, sport and spirituality. While most of the contributions come from Western and Christian traditions, the volume raises broader questions about the kinds of impact that spirituality can and should have on sport, and equally, that sport can and should have on spirituality. The authors put forth an anti-dualistic message, one that argues against any vision of sport and religion existing in separate domains. Mind interpenetrates body, faith and love interpenetrate competition, spirituality and the Divine can interpenetrate secular games. This positive book has powerful implications for reforming contemporary sport, particularly crass, extrinsically-driven, win-at-all-cost versions of competition. It is a book about the incarnation, the paradoxical existence of the spirit in the flesh, love in competition, the myth-making power and meaning of games to engage the world, transcendent hope found in kicking a ball around, and how sport as a liturgy can mediate divine presence. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Sport, Ethics and Philosophy.