The Sacred and Modern Sports

Robert J. Higgs and Michael C. Braswell

Are sports religious?

An Unholy Alliance offers a dissenting view to the claim by a growing number of scholars that Sports are a new religion. The last few years have seen a spate of books that might be classified by a genre called "Sports Apologetics," that is, arguments defending or celebrating in one way or another the familiar and ongoing alliance in America between sports and religion. Recently, claims have been made by scholars that sports are an authentic religion in and of them-selves. They make this startling assertion not by showing connections with the teachings of Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, or Moses, but by parallels between the rites of modern games and those of preliterate man that were "religious" in nature because they were designed to propitiate powers and to ward off evil for the tribes employing them.

In this evocative book, Higgs and Braswell suggest that while sports may often be good things, they are not inherently divine. They do not focus on wide-spread abuse in sports as evidence for their counterargument. Rather, they question the use of mythological parallels from prehistory as justification for viewing sports as a religion.

Robert J. (Jack) Higgs attended Vanderbilt University and graduated from the United States Naval Academy. After military service he earned his Ph.D. at the University of Tennessee. For twenty-seven years he was professor of English at East Tennessee State University teaching courses in American literature, Great Books, and the Literature of Sports. He is the author of Laurel and Thorn: The Athlete in American Literature and God in the Stadium: Sports and Religion in America.

Michael C. Braswell is a former prison psychologist for the Georgia Department of Corrections. He is a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at East Tennessee State University and is a licensed marriage and family therapist. He has authored or coauthored twelve books on such topics as Criminal Justice ethics, Peacemaking, Correctional Counseling,and the Spiritual Journey

Joseph L. Price is the editor of the Sports and Religion Series.

Sports and Religion Series

The Great God Baseball: Religion in Modern Baseball Fiction

From Season to Season: Sports as American Religion

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Religious Studies

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