Jonathan Zimmerman: When Athletes Praise God at the Super Bowl and Other Sports
[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. He is the author, most recently, of “Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory”]
“God is great.”
So said Drew Brees, the most valuable player in last Sunday’s Super Bowl, after leading the New Orleans Saints to an upset victory over the Indianapolis Colts.
Such comments have become commonplace on American television, where athletes routinely thank God in postgame prayers and interviews.
Is this a problem? I think it is. And to see why, try to imagine if Brees had made a slightly different statement: “Allah is great.”
While some of us might not see anything wrong with that, would network television announcers have applauded Brees as a “man of faith,” as he is frequently called?...
You already know the answer. The problem here isn’t the players’ “faith”. It’s the not-so-subtle assumption that every person of faith adheres to the Christian faith – and to a highly traditional version of it, at that....
...In 2007, when 30 members of the Detroit Lions started praying after practice – and concluding with a shout, “One, two, three... JESUS!” – other players raised their eyebrows. “You can’t bring religion up in most workplaces; you can’t do a team prayer at the office,” explained one player, who didn’t participate in the prayer. “So this is something unique that we have to deal with.”
He’s right. The true victims of sports prayers are in the faith groups that get left out.
Consider the fate of three Muslim football players at New Mexico State University, where a new coach instituted the Lord’s Prayer after practices in 2005. When the Muslims chose to pray on their own, the coach repeatedly asked one of them what he thought of Al Qaeda. He eventually dismissed all three Muslims from the team, calling them “troublemakers.”
But the real trouble was the prayer, of course, not the players. They sued the university, which settled with them out of court.
Read entire article at Christian Science Monitor
“God is great.”
So said Drew Brees, the most valuable player in last Sunday’s Super Bowl, after leading the New Orleans Saints to an upset victory over the Indianapolis Colts.
Such comments have become commonplace on American television, where athletes routinely thank God in postgame prayers and interviews.
Is this a problem? I think it is. And to see why, try to imagine if Brees had made a slightly different statement: “Allah is great.”
While some of us might not see anything wrong with that, would network television announcers have applauded Brees as a “man of faith,” as he is frequently called?...
You already know the answer. The problem here isn’t the players’ “faith”. It’s the not-so-subtle assumption that every person of faith adheres to the Christian faith – and to a highly traditional version of it, at that....
...In 2007, when 30 members of the Detroit Lions started praying after practice – and concluding with a shout, “One, two, three... JESUS!” – other players raised their eyebrows. “You can’t bring religion up in most workplaces; you can’t do a team prayer at the office,” explained one player, who didn’t participate in the prayer. “So this is something unique that we have to deal with.”
He’s right. The true victims of sports prayers are in the faith groups that get left out.
Consider the fate of three Muslim football players at New Mexico State University, where a new coach instituted the Lord’s Prayer after practices in 2005. When the Muslims chose to pray on their own, the coach repeatedly asked one of them what he thought of Al Qaeda. He eventually dismissed all three Muslims from the team, calling them “troublemakers.”
But the real trouble was the prayer, of course, not the players. They sued the university, which settled with them out of court.