Sports and Play in Christian Theology 2020944704, 9781978711433, 9781978711440

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Sports and Play in Christian Theology

Sports and Play in Christian Theology, edited by Philip Halstead, and John Tucker, Fortress Academic, 2020. ProQuest Ebook

Theology and Pop Culture Series Editor: Matthew Brake The Theology and Pop Culture series examines the intersection of theology, religion, and popular culture, including, but not limited to, television, movies, sequential art, and genre fction. In a world plagued by rampant polarization of every kind and the decline of religious literacy in the public square, Theology and Pop Culture is uniquely poised to educate and entertain a diverse audience utilizing one of the few things society at large still holds in common: love for popular culture.

Titles in the Series

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Sports and Play in Christian Theology, edited by John Tucker and Philip Halstead Theology and Prince, edited by Jonathan H. Harwell and Rev. Katrina E. Jenkins Theology and the Marvel Universe, edited by Gregory Stevenson

Sports and Play in Christian Theology, edited by Philip Halstead, and John Tucker, Fortress Academic, 2020. ProQuest Ebook

Sports and Play in Christian Theology

Copyright © 2020. Fortress Academic. All rights reserved.

Edited by John Tucker and Philip Halstead

LEXINGTON BOOKS/FORTRESS ACADEMIC

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Sports and Play in Christian Theology, edited by Philip Halstead, and John Tucker, Fortress Academic, 2020. ProQuest Ebook

Published by Lexington Books/Fortress Academic Lexington Books is an imprint of The Rowman & Littlefeld Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom

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Copyright © 2021 The Rowman & Littlefeld Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available Library of Congress Control Number: 2020944704 ISBN 978-1-9787-1143-3 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-9787-1144-0 (electronic) ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Sports and Play in Christian Theology, edited by Philip Halstead, and John Tucker, Fortress Academic, 2020. ProQuest Ebook

Contents

Acknowledgments

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Introduction John Tucker and Philip Halstead

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PART I: THEOLOGICAL AND BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVES

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1 “We Played the Flute for You and You Did Not Dance”: A Theology of Play Myk Habets

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2 Sporting Identities: What We Play, and Who We Think We Are Robert Ellis

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3 Child’s Play in the New Testament Sarah Harris

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4 Identity Formation as an Antecedent to the Practice of Sports Chaplaincy Steven N. Waller 5 Sacred Pilgrimage in Playful, Digital Spaces Stephen Garner PART II: HISTORICAL AND APPLIED PERSPECTIVES 6 An Enemy to be Fought or a Tool to be Used?: Baptists and Sport in New Zealand, 1882–2011 John Tucker

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Contents

7 Sport and the Bible Class Movement Peter Lineham

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8 The Role of Sports Chaplains in Australia B. Grant Stewart

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9 The Winter Game in the Autumn Season: An Exploration of Motivations, Masculinity, and Faith among Older Christian Male Rugby Players in Aotearoa New Zealand Simon Moetara 10 Helping Churchgoers to Develop a Healthy Relationship with Sport: Pastoral Stories from the Hospital Wards, the Slow Lane, and the Mountain Tops Philip Halstead

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193 211

About the Contributors

221

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Index

Sports and Play in Christian Theology, edited by Philip Halstead, and John Tucker, Fortress Academic, 2020. ProQuest Ebook

Acknowledgments

The editors would like to take this opportunity to thank several people who have contributed to the creation of this book. To the contributors to this ­volume and those who participated in the conference at Carey Baptist College from which this project was birthed, thank you for your time, effort, expertise, and enthusiasm. To Suzanna Irwin who formatted the text and subedited the manuscript, thank you for your expert work and kindness. To our peers within the wider Carey community, thank you for your support of research that integrates faith, context, and practice for the sake of the church and God’s mission in this world. To Neil Elliott, Gayla Freeman, and Matthew Brake at Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, thank you for your tireless support and astute assistance. And to you, the reader, thank you for choosing to read and refect on this book. We pray that you fnd it both stimulating and enriching.

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John Tucker Philip Halstead Doctor Serviens Ecclesiae

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Sports and Play in Christian Theology, edited by Philip Halstead, and John Tucker, Fortress Academic, 2020. ProQuest Ebook

Copyright © 2020. Fortress Academic. All rights reserved. Sports and Play in Christian Theology, edited by Philip Halstead, and John Tucker, Fortress Academic, 2020. ProQuest Ebook

Introduction John Tucker and Philip Halstead

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Everyday millions of people around the world concern themselves with sport. They watch it on television, read about it in various media outlets, and in many cases participate in it themselves. From young to old, sport has captured the hearts, minds, and bodies of people the world over. It is a worldwide phenomenon that is no respecter of age, race, gender, nationality, or socio-economic status. Sport is everywhere. Which is why it is interesting that one is not likely to fnd many Christian theological treatments of sport. It seems to be a reality that theologians tend to be as uninterested in the ideas of sport as athletes are about the fner points of Christian doctrine.1

With these words, Michael Shafer highlights a surprising phenomenon. Sport is a major preoccupation of the modern world. It consumes the time and energies of millions of people around the globe. It shapes the identity of individuals, communities, and nations.2 In fact, for many participants, it operates much like a functional equivalent of religion, giving them a way to interpret and understand the world.3 Sports stadia are the cathedrals of our time. Sports stars are the saints or demigods through whom we access the transcendent. Members of the sports media serve as religious scribes, and sports fans are the worshiping faithful. Nevertheless, and quite remarkably, Christian theologians and religious historians have been surprisingly slow to recognize the cultural and spiritual signifcance of sport, and surprisingly reluctant to engage in the study of sport.4 What is true of sport is also true, more generally, of the concept of play. Paul Heintzman notes that while Protestant Christians have produced a large body of theological literature to provide ethical guidance on work, there is very little theological and ethical guidance on leisure or play.5 According to 1

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Ben Witherington III, there is hardly any ethical and theological discussion from a biblical perspective on rest and play and their importance in Christian life.6 This is concerning. Without a theology of play, Christian understanding of play can merely refect secular understandings. Indeed, James Houston argues that Christian conceptions of play, as a pause between work, do far too often simply mimic secular notions.7 Conscious of the way sport and play have evaded the attention of Christian theologians, we decided to convene a conference in 2017 at Carey Baptist College in Auckland, New Zealand. The conference drew together theologians, historians, ministry practitioners, sports chaplains, sport coaches, elite athletes, and gamers from a range of Christian traditions. The presentations explored the relationship between sport and play, on the one hand, and Christian faith and practice on the other. They addressed the following questions:

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• How have Christians historically thought about sport and recreation? • What does the Bible say about play and sport? • How can our play and recreation refect God’s character and purposes? • What are the issues faced by sports ministry in a post-Christian context? • How can pastoral theology resource sports chaplaincy today? • What can we learn about leadership from the world of elite sport? • How can sport and play be a vehicle for discipleship and worship? • What are the pastoral needs of athletes? • How can sport and play become idolatrous? • What are the ethical issues involved in sport and gaming today? • How should Christians respond to injustice in the world of professional sport? • What is the place of competition in the Christian life? That conference was the genesis of this book. The contributions which follow are divided into two sections. The frst is entitled Theological and Biblical Perspectives. At the blow of the whistle, Myk Habets (chapter 1) starts our game by presenting a theology of play and in so doing legitimizes and encourages appropriate play. Robert Ellis (chapter 2) takes us forward by exploring how human identity is formed and considering the ways in which sport allows people to form and express identity. In so doing, Ellis makes four interlocking assertions: we are what we play; we are how we play; we are who we play; and we are where we play. The ball is then passed to Sarah Harris (chapter 3), who explores how children played in the frst-century world. Steven N. Waller (chapter 4) then reveals how the process of identity formation, and particularly that of Christian identity formation, impacts the practice of sports chaplaincy.

Sports and Play in Christian Theology, edited by Philip Halstead, and John Tucker, Fortress Academic, 2020. ProQuest Ebook

Introduction

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Stephen Garner (chapter 5) closes the half by connecting the concept of sacred pilgrimage via online games with those of identity formation, community development, and people’s different modes of living. After a change of ends, our game resumes under the title Historical and Applied Perspectives. John Tucker (chapter 6) then discusses how New Zealand Baptists have related to sport over time. He examines three classic Christian views of sport—namely, sport as a fallen system that needs to be redeemed, sport as an ally in the cause of mission, and sport as a good gift from a gracious God. Peter Lineham (chapter 7) maintains our momentum by assessing the place of sport in New Zealand’s historic Bible Class movement and argues that the group’s largely positive view of sport has contributed to sport becoming a dominant activity among youth today. Next, B. Grant Stewart (chapter 8) and Simon Moetara (chapter 9) explore a variety of reasons why people participate in sport, as well as some of the consequences of their involvement, by depicting their frst-hand experiences in sports chaplaincy (Grant) and playing rugby at an older age (Simon). Philip Halstead (chapter 10) concludes our game by outlining a pastoral strategy that is designed to help churchgoers develop a healthy relationship with sport and play. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes, “whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him” (2 Cor 5:9). The apostle is referring to the Christian hope of eternal life and the promise of a new spiritual body. In a playful spirit, the athletes of Spurgeon’s College in London during the 1980s adopted and adapted this text as their motto. They were saying, wherever we play—whether at our home ground or away at another venue—our goal is to please the Lord by the way we play. They were aspiring, in other words, to integrate their faith with their sport, their discipleship with their play. Our prayer is that this book will assist you to do just that—to locate sport and play in Christian faith and practice, for the pleasure and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. NOTES 1. Michael R. Shafer, Well Played: A Christian Theology of Sport and the Ethics of Doping (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2016), 1. 2. Greg Ryan and Geoff Watson, Sport and the New Zealanders: A History (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2018), 1–2. 3. For the religious nature of modern sports see Joseph L. Price, From Season to Season: Sports as American Religion (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2001); Robert J. Higgs and Michael C. Braswell, An Unholy Alliance: The Sacred and Modern Sport (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004); Kevin R. Ward, Losing

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our Religion? Changing Patterns of Believing and Belonging in Secular Western Societies (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2013), 204–224; Robert Ellis, The Games People Play: Theology, Religion, and Sport (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2014), 108–22, 177–89; Jeremy R. Treat, “More than a Game: A Theology of Sport,” Themelios 40:3 (2015): 392–403. 4. Nick J. Watson, “New Directions in Theology, Church and Sports: A Brief Overview and Position Statement,” Theology 121(4) (2018): 244; Treat, “More than a Game,” 392; Nick J. Watson and Andrew Parker, “Sports and Christianity: Mapping the Field,” in Sports and Christianity: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Nick J. Watson and Andrew Parker, Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society 19 (New York: Routledge, 2013), 9. 5. Paul Heintzman, Leisure and Spirituality: Biblical, Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), xxiv. 6. Ben Witherington III, The Rest of Life: Rest, Play, Eating, Studying, Sex from a Kingdom Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), vii. 7. James Houston, “The Theology of Work,” in Looking at Lifestyles, Professional Priorities: A Christian Perspective, Proceedings from the Conference for Physicians and Dentists, Banff, May 2–8, 1981 (Vancouver: Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada, 1981), 45–46, quoted in Heintzman, Leisure and Spirituality, xxv.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Ellis, Robert. The Games People Play: Theology, Religion, and Sport. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2014. Heintzman, Paul. Leisure and Spirituality: Biblical, Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015. Houston, James. “The Theology of Work.” In Looking at Lifestyles, Professional Priorities: A Christian Perspective. Proceedings from the Conference for Physicians and Dentists, Banff, May 2–8, 1981. Vancouver: Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada, 1981. Quoted in Heintzman, Leisure and Spirituality, xxv. Higgs, Robert J., and Michael C. Braswell. An Unholy Alliance: The Sacred and Modern Sport. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004. Price, Joseph L. From Season to Season: Sports as American Religion. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2001. Ryan, Greg, and Geoff Watson. Sport and the New Zealanders: A History. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2018. Shafer, Michael R. Well Played: A Christian Theology of Sport and the Ethics of Doping. Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2016. Treat, Jeremy R. “More than a Game: A Theology of Sport.” Themelios 40 no. 3 (2015): 392–403. Ward, Kevin R. Losing our Religion? Changing Patterns of Believing and Belonging in Secular Western Societies. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2013.

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Introduction

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Watson, Nick J., and Andrew Parker. “Sports and Christianity: Mapping the Field.” In Sports and Christianity: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, 9–88. Edited by Nick J. Watson and Andrew Parker. Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society 19. New York: Routledge, 2013. Watson, Nick J. “New Directions in Theology, Church and Sports: A Brief Overview and Position Statement.” Theology 121 no. 4 (2018): 243–251. Witherington III, Ben. The Rest of Life: Rest, Play, Eating, Studying, Sex from a Kingdom Perspective. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012.

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Part I

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THEOLOGICAL AND BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVES

Sports and Play in Christian Theology, edited by Philip Halstead, and John Tucker, Fortress Academic, 2020. ProQuest Ebook

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Chapter 1

“We Played the Flute for You and You Did Not Dance” A Theology of Play Myk Habets

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LEARNING TO DANCE “To be a follower of Christ is to learn to dance when children play the fute.”1 Stanley Hauerwas writes this in a commentary on Matthew 11 where Jesus is asked by John the Baptist’s disciples if he is the Messiah. Hauerwas focuses upon Matthew 11:16, 17: “But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places, who call out to the other children, and say, ‘We played the fute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’” Hauerwas also draws on the wider context, which teaches us that only the Son can reveal the Father because we cannot know that God is Father unless we know that Jesus is the Son. “That is what it means for the Son to reveal the Father to infants,” Hauerwas writes, “To learn to dance to the fute means that we are so caught up in the dance that questions about those who are not part of the dance do not arise. At least they do not arise as a question of power. Rather they arise only because we so desire to share with others the wonder of the dance.”2 H. L. Mencken once defned Puritanism, which was a sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestant revival movement, as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”3 That, sadly, may be closer to truth than fction. Writing throughout the mid-twentieth century, Karl Barth had a

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Myk Habets

very dismal view of theology and theologians of his day, and not without reason one might add. “The freedom and joy that Mozart expressed in his music resembles the freedom and joy Barth sought for theology, which had become flled with ‘sulky faces, morose thoughts and boring ways of speaking,’ characteristics Barth held to be ‘intolerable in this science,’ for ‘the theologian who has no joy in his work is not a theologian at all.’”4 Be that as it may, to think that Christianity is tantamount to being a joyless religion would be a fundamental mistake. It is Jürgen Moltmann’s contention that “Christianity is a unique religion of joy.”5 He argues this, in part, based upon the Christian feasts and festivals such as Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, all of which are occasions for rejoicing and feasting, events which embrace the whole of creation. Moltmann concludes, “with the coming of Christ into this world, his death and resurrection, and the outpouring of the divine Spirit, the spring of eternal life begins for human beings, all living beings, and the earth. Mortal and earthly life is taken up into the divine, eternal, and heavenly life.”6 Joy, as historic Christianity consistently attests to, is not ignorant of pain or injustice; joy is its basis and condition, for without joy we would call evil good and pain justifable. “Why then is Christianity such a unique religion of joy, even though at its center stands the suffering of God and the cross of Christ? Because,” Moltmann reminds us, “we remember the death of Christ in the light of his resurrection, and we remember his resurrection in the splendour of the divine, eternal life that is embracing our human and mortal life already here and now.”7 Or as N. T. Wright says, “The fact of the resurrection and exaltation of the crucifed Jesus opens up a new world, launches the new creation, over which Jesus himself is sovereign; that is the root cause of joy.”8 The movement of God to creation and then creation to God is a familiar theme in Christian theology but one that needs to be constantly applied to all aspects of human endeavor if the genuinely receptive and ecstatic nature of the human creature before God is to be faithfully upheld. Once more, Moltmann reminds us that “In true joy, the ecstatic nature of human existence comes to expression.”9 The idea of joy being bound to the ecstatic nature of humanity is a helpful and profound one. Charles Mathewes, in providing a theology of joy, defnes joy as “the central action of the human, the selftranscending act in which we begin to participate in our fullest fourishing.”10 Mathewes further explains the eschatological pull involved in the joyful act of praising God when he states: “We are called to become participants in the endless joyful round of love that is the Trinity, and though in this dispensation that round has been splintered into a fugal structure, it has not been severed from that end; and so our lives here are a matter of learning to receive rightly the proleptic gifts of eschatological joy today.”11

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“We Played the Flute for You and You Did Not Dance”

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Lest this be misunderstood, it is worth reminding ourselves that the pursuit of true joy is no easy task, rather, “True joy is only possible with one’s whole heart, whole soul, and all one’s energies.”12 As an introduction, we have here the following elements: frst, the Triune God who reveals his oneness in a perichoretic dynamism of love (often referred to by the rather mistaken but popular metaphor of the Divine Dance); second, the Creator-creature distinction, so central to Christian theology; third, the ecstatic nature of theological anthropology; fourth, the concept of joy as a metaphor for the life that fourishes before the living God (even in a fallen world of sin); and ffth, a teleological and eschatological orientation to theological discourse. Each of these fve elements deserves brief mention as we contemplate a Christian theology of play. I will argue that once these fve elements are rightly coordinated, then we can see play as a subcategory of joy (not work!), and only in that way can we respect the freedom of play to be play and not anything else (like work!). Johnston summarizes a biblical theology of play as follows: The evidence for “play” in the Bible is extensive. Yet we have for the most part failed to recognize it or act upon it because our work-dominated culture has biased our interpretation. We have questioned how a book as cynical and pessimistic as Ecclesiastes could have found its way into the canon, failing to see the text’s central affrmation of our work and play as gifts from God to be enjoyed. We have mistakenly interpreted the Song of Songs to be about God’s love for his people, unable to consider that it could actually be a song in praise of lovers at play. We have limited the Sabbath to that necessary pause that refreshes, failing to understand its prior rationale as refecting the pattern of God himself. We have failed to note the playful counterpoint that festival and feasting, music and dance provided—and are meant to provide. Somehow such descriptions and commands have been thought of as relevant only to the ancient cult and no longer of concern to the Christian Church. We have failed to see their function to be that of surprising us with joy. We have understood the Old Testament custom of hospitality solely in ethical terms, viewing it as necessary for a traveller’s well-being but failing to note also its wider context in play. We have overlooked the importance of simple friendship to Jesus, interpreting kindness to him in terms of his role as Saviour. In all of these ways we have been guilty of misunderstanding the biblical record. As Christians we have failed to let Scripture speak authoritatively to us about our need to play.13

Such a dogmatic orientation will also allow us to comment on the nature, scope, and limits of play. It will be argued that play is an aspect of joy and joy is the emotional enticement toward a more complete pleasure: participation

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in the life of God. Play is thus transcendent and ecstatic in itself. The work of C. S. Lewis will be used to account for and illustrate these points.

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THE DANCING GOD? It is a common staple of orthodox Christianity that the chief end of humanity is to glorify God. Protestantism, at least, speaks this way in, for example, the Westminster Shorter Catechism. In the East, the same view is restated in terms of creaturely participation in God, centered around a vision of God’s oneness articulated in terms of perichoresis. Given the much discussed but little understood doctrine of perichoresis, it will pay us to examine this in brief detail in order to make a series of claims about the place of play in the doctrine of God. Perichoresis is a theological term which describes the necessary “beingin-one-another” or circumincession of the three divine Persons of the Trinity because of the single divine essence, the eternal procession of the Son from the Father and of the Spirit from the Father through the Son. The fourth Gospel frequently speaks of the existence of the Father in the Son and of the Son in the Father (John 10:30, 38; 14:11, 20; 17:21; 8:29. c.f., Rom 8:27; 1 Cor 2:10–11). Such an important factor as this “in-existence” was bound to have a deep effect on the minds of Christians. Although the words perichoresis and circumincession may not occur as such in the writings of the earliest Fathers, the idea certainly does. It was frst applied to Christology and then to the Trinity. The term perichoresis entered the theological vocabulary on the Christological level. Gregory of Nazianzus used it in relation to the union between the divinity and the humanity of Christ (Ep. 101 and Or. 38.13).14 While the notion is much older, the term perichoresis was frst used in relation to the Trinity by Pseudo-Cyril followed by John Damascene (700–749 AD).15 The noun perichoresis is derived from the verb perichōreō, which means to encircle or encompass (peri = “around”). Both the noun and verb in turn are derived from perichorein, a word linked to the Stoic concept of mixture, krasis di’holon, which means a complete mutual interpenetration of two substances that preserves the identity and properties of each intact (hence its use in defning the two natures of Jesus Christ). Pseudo-Cyril combined the senses of perichoresis and choreo and utilized it in his Trinitarian theology: The word χωρεῖν (contain) had for centuries been accepted as a technical expression for the pervasion of all created things by God. Originally it could either mean to be extended and fll space, or, transitively, to ‘hold’ a certain

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measure …. God, as all-pervasive Spirit, is omnipresent in all space and ‘holds’ all extended matter; He “contains” the universe. It was by a most valuable extension of this conception” that Pseudo-Cyril now used it “and applied it to the mutual relations of the divine Persons.”[1] John of Damascus took up and popularised the doctrine of perichoresis, but added nothing distinctive to it.

Yves Congar defnes the term in the following way: Perichoresis in the theology of the Trinity points to the in-existence of the persons within each other, the fact that they are present to each other, that they contain one another and that they manifest each other. This in-existence is based on the unity and identity of substance between the three, even in the teaching of the Greek Fathers.16

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Concerning the Greek use of perichoresis and the Latin equivalents Leonardo Boff writes: The Greek word has a double meaning, which explains why two words were used to translate it into Latin. Its frst meaning is that of one thing being contained in another, dwelling in, being in another—a situation of fact, a static state. This understanding was translated by circuminsessio, a word derived from sedere and sessio, being seated, having its seat in, seat. Applied to the mystery of the communion of the Trinity this signifed: one Person is in the others, surrounds the others on all sides (circum-), occupies the same space as the others, flls them with its presence. Its second meaning is active and signifes the interpenetration or interweaving of one Person with the others and in the others. This understanding seeks to express the living and eternal process of relating intrinsic to the three Persons, so that each is always penetrating the others. This meaning was translated as circumincessio, derived from incedere, meaning to permeate, compenetrate and interpenetrate.17

From very early on the concept of perichoresis caught on and was associated with the idea of dynamic movement rather than some form of static being. Hence, a modern analogy of the Trinity is that of the “divine dance.” The compound antiperichōreō is also related and means to “encircle” or “encompass,” and carries a sense of revolution or alternation (hence the analogy of ‘dance’ or “dancing around” was popularized). Technically, this confuses two words. Choreō (from chorein) is often confused with a completely different word, choreuō which means to dance as in a Greek chorus. This is where the language of the divine dance has (mistakenly) come from and has unfortunately caught on.

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But it is in fact C. S. Lewis who is thought to have been the inventor of the analogy. Jensen reminds us that “One of Lewis’s favorite ways to describe this divine acceptance was through the image of the dance, a fgure that hints at heaven’s order and sanctity as well as its frolic and festivity.”18 The image of participating in the divine dance is of course a clear reference to the divine perichoresis and human deifcation.19 Paul Fiddes suggests that Lewis was the frst to use the image of the dance in reference to the Trinity.20 The most developed and creative adoption of the dance metaphor in Lewis’s works must surely be the extravagant scene occupying chapter 17 of Perelandra in the Cosmic Trilogy.21 But Lewis was clear in his original use of the term that this is merely an analogy and as soon as it is unhelpful, we should trade it for another. Sadly, much popular work on the Trinity today forgets this is an analogy and simply argues that perichoresis comes from choreuō and literally means “to dance.” The doctrine of perichoresis thus allows us to make a series of dogmatic claims regarding a theology of play. In the frst instance, we can affrm that strictly speaking, God does not play. God is one being in dynamic relationship with himself. This is best recounted by the Johannine affrmation that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). But perichoresis teaches us, especially in its Latin derivation of circumincessio, that God is always on the move, as it were, in a dynamic interplay of love and relationality. While not play, this is an instance of pure joy, and play is a derivative, as we will come to see, of joy. Divine joy is thus expressive of the divine Being, and as such human joy is determined by divine joy such that human play can be viewed as one instantiation of joy that enables the human participants to transcend their creaturely limitations. But more of that later. In summary, even if God doesn’t dance, his dynamic triune being does provide the foundation for thinking more about human participation in the divine life in joyful and playful ways. “Fun, the joke proper, and fippancy,” writes Terry Lindvall, “can be planned and produced by any person. But joy can be received only from the One whose presence is absolute joy.”22 What type of being, then, is created by this ever-joyful one? THE GRACE OF CREATION The Christian tradition has a long and developed theology of creation, and as part of that, a theology of creatures. The fact that God is free and complete gives rise to critical refection upon the works of God, his creation, and creatures. Central to such theologies have been the necessary Creator-creature distinction and the ways in which meaningful relationship is established across this ontological divide.

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When addressing the question: Does God play? Hugo Rahner says, yes, in that “When, therefore, we speak of God the Creator “playing,” there lies concealed in that phrase the metaphysical truth that the creation of the world and of man, though a divinely meaningful act, was by no means a necessary one so far as God himself was concerned.”23 Does this contradict my earlier claim that God does not, strictly speaking, play? No, for the freedom of God does not have to be equated with play, as even Rahner goes on to say. This is, rather, a metaphor. Creation is an expression of God’s love which works in creative freedom. “The whole game of the Logos which he enacts upon the earth to the delight of the Father, his cosmic dance on the globe of the world, is only a playful hint of what has reposed since before the beginning of time in the divine archetypes of Eternal Wisdom, and of what will be revealed when the earthly dance has come to an end,”24 writes Rahner. Humans are homo ludens (man the player) because they are made in the image of Deus ludens (God the player).25 Similar to Rahner, Moltmann points out that God did not create the world out of necessity or obligation, nor is there any purposive rationale for why something exists rather than nothing. Creation, therefore, must have its ground in the good will and pleasure of God. “Hence the creation is God’s play, a play of groundless and inscrutable wisdom. It is the realm in which God displays his glory.”26 The metaphor of creation as an aspect of God’s play is useful to the extent that we see it as a metaphor only and can see through the image to the reality—the freedom of God and the contingency of creation. When we do this, we see that creation is graced from the beginning and as such, it is created for the higher purposes of God and is established in an orientation to perfection, development, and maturity. This applies to humanity no less than it does to the rest of creation. As one writer reminds us: The heavens teem with life, singing the glories and joys of God. Thunder resounds the cosmos’s hearty laughter . . . from the throne room of God, and lightening could be the fash of wit. Laughter reigns in the heavenlies in unmasked and unmeasured abundance; there is celestial joy forevermore. When Ransom, Lewis’s protagonist in Out of the Silent Planet, is on the way to Malacandra (Mars), he is overwhelmed by a joyous “exaltation of heart,” which spins out of his realization that space is not dead and empty, but rather that the heavens are as alive and nourishing as a womb.27

All the works of God are fecund and become vehicles for God’s selfpresentation. The activity of God the Father is one of love that is ecstatic both in the intra-Trinitarian relations and in God’s external acts in the economy of creation. The reason for creation is traced back to the love of God. It is of the nature of God to will to exist for others and it is out of this divine love that the

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rational order of the creation is to be understood. The order inherent in creation is a result of the prior love of God. Love therefore is a constituent element of contingent creation universally, not just of human creation specifcally. The economic activity of God the Son proceeds in tandem with that of God the Father, albeit in a distinctive way. The Son incarnate in Jesus Christ is the Word and Wisdom of God, the one through whom all that is has come to be and who sustains the creation itself, the one who has imparted to the universe its rational order and has come to restore it to the law of his divine love. Scripture paints a grand picture of the reordering of a fallen world in or through the incarnate Son as omnipotent grace. In the identity and mission of Jesus Christ, the purposes of God for all of creation, especially humanity, are realized. The goal of creation is thus conceived as a communion with the Triune God.28 The activity of the Holy Spirit as Creator in union with the Father and Son also takes on a distinctive cast—that of transcendent and unlimited freedom as the Spiritus Creator. The Spirit creates communion between God and humanity by irreversibly binding the created universe to his own Existence and his own Existence to the universe.29 This is not to imply a pantheistic or panentheistic vision of the relation between God and the world. The creature is always contingent on the Creator as appropriate to creaturely reality. The Holy Spirit binds creation and creatures to God through a holy communion (koinōnia), upholding and sustaining its existence beyond its own power in an open-ended relation toward God in whom its true end and purpose as creature is lodged. In Nicene fashion we may assert the Holy Spirit is “the Lord and Giver of Life” and it is through the presence of the Spirit that “we live and move and have our being” in God (Acts 17:28). From this basis in the Divine love comes the purpose of the created realm, most vividly epitomized in the ability of human beings to return God’s love for them in a ftting response of love for him. Beyond creation, however, we can comment more specifcally on the transcendental makeup of humanity and the nature of ecstatic existence. LIVING ECSTATICALLY What, then, is life for? It is for living, of course, but as Socrates said, “what is the life worth living?” A properly Christian reply has to be, “A Christ-like life is the only life worth living.” And so Christology becomes the controlling norm for anthropology, as the doctrine of God becomes the controlling norm for Christology. The God of triune life and love creates out of nothing for the sole purpose of ecstatic love. The creature exists to experience the love of God and refect this love back to God and all of creation. It is not that God needs creatures or their love, the Triune God is replete within his own

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triunity. It is out of such infnite and boundless love that God creates in the frst place. And it is within the life and love of God that creatures fnd their being, their purpose, and their ends. It is this theology which might explain the saying of Jean-Luc Marion that, “The Son took on the body of humanity only in order to play humanly the trinitarian game of love.”30 Seen in this light, the human creature stands before God in freedom, empowered to live for the other in love and in such other-loving, to fnd true freedom. Orthodox theologian John Zizioulas calls this the ecstatic aspect of personhood.31 Reformed theologian Thomas Torrance refers to this as the transcendental aspect of our personhood.32 The human person is created with a goal (telos) in view, to participate in the life of the Trinity. This transcendental determination of the Spirit impels the human toward God.33 A central impetus for this ecstatic and transcendental movement toward others and ultimately God is joy and a central aspect of joy is play. Both joy and play deserve specifc comment.

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CULTIVATING JOY In the mind of C. S. Lewis, play is a form of expressed joy which opens one up to something greater and grander, something transcendent. Robert Johnston provides us with a brilliant entrée into the way Lewis conceived of imagination and play as vehicles to the transcendent.34 First it began in Lewis’s own life, when he picked up at a bookstall George MacDonald’s Phantastes, a Faerie Romance. Reading that book Lewis had an inkling of something more and as he states, “that night my imagination was, in a certain sense, baptized.”35 This “baptized imagination” was then utilized by Lewis in his many playful works. Through such play experiences as reading stories, Lewis believed we could recapture a sense of the transcendent, of what’s to come, of God’s presence in the world and his call to an even greater world to come. Johnston tells us that: Lewis thought that one’s play experiences offered the possibility of being transformed by Joy as one entered fully into the play event. In play, Joy’s “bright shadow” might reveal to the participant that indefnite, yet real, horizon of meaning beyond his normally perceived world. In play one sometimes glimpses pre-critically . . . a more ultimate reality as he breaks out of his “normal modes of consciousness.”36

Refecting on these experiences further, Lewis realized that not only do we enjoy God but God also expresses his joy toward us, most fully in Jesus Christ, and thus joy most fully manifests itself in our union and communion

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with the Son. Joy is thus a vehicle for holiness, for participation in God. We see this theme played out across Lewis’s works. In The Pilgrim’s Regress, Lewis has the character John hear these words near the canyon: “For this end I made your senses and for this end your imagination that you might see My face and live.”37 In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lucy frst discovers Narnia by playing in the wardrobe. By the end of the novel, all the Pevensie children have learned how to play and have themselves entered Narnia and then returned to Britain. But how to get back, they ask the Professor; how to fnd and experience Joy again and again? How? The Professor speaks for Lewis when he replies that they won’t return to Narnia by means of the wardrobe. Indeed, they shouldn’t try to get to Narnia at all. “It will happen when you’re not looking for it.”38 As Johnston says, “The players cannot manipulate their experiences to make them produce the numinous. They can only play, suggests Lewis, confdent that Joy will come in its own season.”39 A fnal example is provided, this time from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The children, along with Reepicheep of course, sail to the end of the world hoping to reach Aslan’s land. There they encounter a lamb who changes form into Aslan, who tells them they can’t enter his land from Narnia but only from their own world and only when they have learned what his name is in their own world. In fact, says Aslan, “I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”40 And here we fnd Lewis’s account of play—it is a path to lead us to the truth, to Jesus, and to our eternal home. By taking us out of the world, play has the potential to lead us to the real world by means of our own. “[I]t is enough to suggest that in play God can, and often does, meet us and commune with us,” writes Johnston. “The result is a new openness to the religious more generally, our experience of the sacred in play serving as a prolegomenon to further encounters with God.”41 The way Lewis spoke and wrote of joy had a defning characteristic of longing, a yearning, pining, or even craving quality that made the pursuit of joy painfully abstruse. As is well known in Lewis circles, the name given to this sense of yearning for joy is Sehnsucht, from the German. According to Lewis, this underlying quality of joy was “that of an unsatisfed desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.”42 This sense of joy as poignant longing fts nicely with what has already been discussed: the perichoretic God, the graced nature of creation, and the ecstatic quality of human personhood. Ultimate joy is only found in fully participating in the life of the Trinity. Until then, all else is proximate joy, hence the longing for

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and the illusiveness of the life well-lived. Lindvall captures this well with these words: The old ache and inconsolable longing will be gloriously healed as we are summoned and ushered into the bright and luminous joy. We shall be bathed in the beauty of God’s presence (and, as children know, a bath can be a hilarious thing). But for now, we travel the long, dusty road as a company of Chaucerian pilgrims on our way to Canterbury.43

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Evident in much of Lewis’s fctional writings is the idea or sense that this life is but a children’s game compared to the true life to come. As a result, we are to “play with reality” in light of the eschaton and the provisionality of the present. This is as true for art as it is for literature or sport or cinema. Commenting on Karl Barth’s theology of culture, Jessica De Cou notes, “The purpose of art is to look into the future and to return to the present ‘in order to create it anew and to see it changed.’”44 The same is true of sport, games, cinema, and other playful pursuits. Play, as a way to approximate joy, has both an archeological and an eschatological aspect to it as it looks back to creation and beyond that to the self-existent God, and forward to existence in the new heavens and earth. As such, “The awareness of the provisionality of our present time and our future existence as children of God, and thus the gift of relaxation and play are the fruits of the Spirit . . ..”45 If we take Lewis’s concept of ecstatic joy understood as Sehnsucht and combine it with the eschatological provisionality of the present, then we also fnd here a way to address the question of how we can play and fnd joy in a world so ravished by evils. Jeremy Treat writes in this regard: Jürgen Moltmann once asked whether it is appropriate for Christians to be playing games while war is ravishing the nations, children are starving, and the innocent are being oppressed.46 It is a weighty question, but I concur with Moltmann when he answers with a resounding “yes,” because in playing we anticipate the eschaton, a time when there will be no war, a time when sin will not corrupt the goodness of which we are to delight, and a time when our longing for freedom and childlike joy will be satisfed. Play foreshadows the joy of the kingdom when Christ reigns over all, and decay, disease, and death will be no more. This is not merely a glimpse of the future; it is the in-breaking of the future. As Ben Witherington says, “The foreshadowing of better times is itself a foretaste of better times, and this is in part the theological function of play.”47

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Sehnsucht, then, is the partial experience of joy in the present which creates in us a longing for our real home and true existence, in the presence of the Lord, in resurrection glory, in the eternal state. This eschatological orientation is the fnal element in our theology of play which deserves brief comment. TO PLAY IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD Defning play is complex, as it involves a retinue of features. Johnston defnes play, aware of all the ambiguities and diffculties of doing so, as follows:

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I would understand play as that activity which is freely and spontaneously entered into, but which, once begun, has its own design, its own rules of order, which must be followed so that the play activity may continue. The player . . . treats other players . . . as personal, creating with them a community that can be characterized by “I-Thou” rather than “I-It” relationships. The play has a new time (playtime) and a new space (playground) which function as “parentheses” in the life and world of the player. . . . Play, to be play, must be entered into without outside purpose . . . But though play is an end in itself, it can nevertheless have several consequences. Chief among these are the joy and release, the personal fulflment, the remembering of our common humanity, and the presentiment of the sacred, which the player sometimes experiences in and through the activity. One’s participation in the adventure of play . . . fnds resolution at the end of the experience, and one re-enters ongoing life in a new spirit of thanksgiving and celebration. The player is a changed individual because of the playtime, his or her life having been enlarged beyond the workaday world.48

Johnston’s defnition has several distinct elements to it but one in particular deserves comment, namely the nonutilitarian, yet productive, nature of play. Johnston speaks of play having a “non-instrumentality which is nevertheless productive.”49 This perspective on play has not gone unchallenged, and is itself offered as an alternative to medieval notions of the virtue of eutrapelia: that play is what we do to rest in order to get back to work (to put it very crudely). Like Johnston, Jeremy Treat argues that “To play is to creatively enjoy something for its own intrinsic good.”50 Treat does not mean to imply that play is nonproductive of other goods, merely that it should not be instrumentalized and so turned into work. He writes: At the core of the defnition of play is that it is autotelic; it is for its own purposes. Play need not be justifed by its effects, be it psychological (peace of

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mind), physical (better health), social (learning teamwork), etc.; it is simply creatively delighting in and enjoying God’s good creation for its own sake.51

Understood in this way one can see how play is an aspect of joy, and sports are an aspect of play. As Treat defnes it: God’s image bearers are called to develop God’s creation for the good of others and to delight in God’s creation because of its intrinsic good. Within this context of playfully developing and delighting in God’s creation we can say that sports are part of God’s intention and design for creation.52

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Clifford and Feezell offer a similar and yet more concise explanation: sport is “a form of play, a competitive, rule-governed activity that human beings freely choose to engage in.”53 As an example of this principle of “non-instrumentality which is nevertheless productive,” Johnston turns to the professional athlete and notes they are “a player according to our description only so long as he or she fnds the nature of the sport complete and satisfying apart from the money and fame.”54 Additionally, an important outcome or consequence of play is community, another is joy or delight; and both speak to a common sense of transcendence. In regard to transcendence, according to Gerardus Van der Leeuw, “The game points beyond itself: downward, to the simple, ordinary rhythm of life; upward, to the highest forms of existence.”55 As Johnston defnes play above, we could be defning our eternal life in the new heavens and earth. There is an eschatological orientation to play which the notion of Sehnsucht represents. Our partial experience of joy now entices us toward its satisfaction in the presence of God reminiscent of Jesus’ words in John 16:20–22: Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

It is this sense of coming home that Lewis so compellingly adopted into his own literary works. When we see Jesus again, we will be home, and our joy will be complete. Lewis paints a picture of this fnal homecoming, this great dance, in his science fction novel Perelandra. The queen, having resisted the temptation of Watson, is reunited with her king and a holiday of joy and splendor is unleashed—a coronation, wedding, and a birth are all celebrated

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at once as the whole creation participates in the festivity. Then Lewis interrupts the grand ceremony with the following: Unexpectedly the King laughed. His body was very big and his laugh was like an earthquake in it, loud and deep and long, till in the end Ransom laughed too, though he had not seen the joke, and the Queen laughed as well. And the birds began clapping their wings and the beasts wagging their tails, and the light seemed brighter and the pulse of the whole assembly quickened, and new modes of joy that had nothing to do with mirth as we understand it passed into them all, as it were from the very air, or as if there were dancing in Deep Heaven. Some say there always is.56

CONCLUSION: ON BEING A GOOD SPORT And so, we are back to the Great Dance, Lewis’s metaphor for joyful play in the presence of God, the vehicle for transcendence and ecstatic personhood. And like all good dancing, there are rhythms and movements, choreography and relationships, all of which must be negotiated and respected. The dance is an image or symbol of life lived in joyous play to the Triune God of grace and glory. I see the game is almost up and the clock is ticking down to the fnal whistle. It is time to fnish, and I do so with one fnal comment. Be a good sport and play the game right. Life’s too serious to not have any fun along the way!

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NOTES 1. Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew, SCM Theological Commentary on the Bible (London: SCM, 2006), 117. 2. Hauerwas, Matthew, 117. 3. Alistair Cooke, ed., The Vintage Mencken (New York: Vintage Books, 1955), 233. 4. Jessica De Cou, Playful, Glad, and Free: Karl Barth and a theology of Popular Culture (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 102, citing Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, II/1 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1957), 656. 5. Jürgen Moltmann, “Christianity: A Religion of Joy,” in Joy and Human Flourishing: Essays on Theology, Culture, and the Good Life, ed. Miroslav Volf and Justin E. Crisp (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 6. 6. Moltmann, “Christianity: A Religion of Joy,” 8–9. 7. Moltmann, “Christianity: A Religion of Joy,” 15. 8. N.T. Wright, “Joy: New Testament Perspectives and Questions,” in Joy and Human Flourishing: Essays on Theology, Culture, and the Good Life, ed. Miroslav Volf and Justin E. Crisp (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 59. “Compassion is the other

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side of the living joy. We don’t accuse God because there is suffering in the world. Rather, we protest in the name of God against suffering and those who cause it,” Moltmann, “Christianity: A Religion of Joy,” 14. 9. Moltmann, “Christianity: A Religion of Joy,” 11. 10. Charles Mathewes, “Toward a Theology of Joy,” in Joy and Human Flourishing: Essays on Theology, Culture, and the Good Life, ed. Miroslav Volf and Justin E. Crisp (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 65. 11. Mathewes, “Toward a Theology of Joy,” 65. 12. Moltmann, “Christianity: A Religion of Joy,” 11. 13. Robert K. Johnston, The Christian at Play (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 123–24. 14. The frst use of the term is attributed to Macarius of Egypt in de pat. Et discr. 5, by G.L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (London: SPCK, 1964), 291. 15. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought, 289. 16. Y. Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 3 vols. (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 3.37. 17. L. Boff, The Trinity and Society (New York: Orbis, 1988), 135–136. 18. Chris Jensen, “Shine as the Sun: C.S. Lewis and the Doctrine of Deifcation,” The Road to Emmaus: A Journal of Orthodox Faith and Culture 8 no. 2 (2005): 46. Jensen cites C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (London: Collins, 2012), 148–150, and notes how often Lewis ends his work with the image of the Divine Dance (e.g., The Problem of Pain (London: Collins, 2012), Perelandra, The Cosmic Trilogy (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 2005)). 19. See for example, J. Meyendorff, “Theosis in the Eastern Christian Tradition,” in Christian Spirituality II (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 475; R. Cross, “Perichoresis, Deifcation, and Christological Predication in John of Damascus,” Mediaeval Studies 62 (2000): 69–124; R.E. Otto, “The Use and Abuse of Perichoresis in Recent Theology,” Scottish Journal of Theology 54 (2001): 366–384; and A. Choufrine, Gnosis, Theophany, Theosis: Studies in Clement of Alexandria’s Appropriation of his Background (New York: Peter Lang, 2002). 20. Paul Fiddes, “On Theology,” in The Cambridge Companion to C. S. Lewis, ed. Robert MacSwain and Michael Ward (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 91. 21. Lewis, Perelandra, 260–282. 22. Terry Lindvall, Surprised by Laughter: The Comic World of C.S. Lewis (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1996), 49. 23. Hugo Rahner SJ, Man at Play Or Did You Ever Practise Eutrapelia?, trans. Brian Battershaw and Edward Quinn (London: Buns and Oats, 1965) 11. 24. Rahner, Man at Play, 24. 25. The language of honmo luens comes from Dutch historian and cultural theorist Johan Huizinga. 26. Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Play, trans. Reinhard Ulrich (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 17. Jeremy R. Treat, “More Than a Game: A Theology of Sport,” Themelios 40 no. 3 (2015): 395. 27. Lindvall, Surprised by Laughter, 50.

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28. T.F. Torrance, “The Atoning Obedience of Christ,” Moravian Theological Seminary Bulletin (1959): 65–66. 29. See T.F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1996), 217. 30. Jean-Luc Marion, God Without Being, trans. Thomas A. Carlson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 177. 31. For a concise account see Marc Cortez, Christological Anthropology: Ancient and Contemporary Approaches to Theological Anthropology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), 238. 32. For an overview and discussion see M. Habets, Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 37–39. 33. See Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, 151. 34. Johnston, The Christian at Play, 75–79. 35. C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1955), 238. 36. Johnston, The Christian at Play, 76–77 citing Lewis, Surprised by Joy, 220. 37. C.S. Lewis, The Pilgrim’s Regress (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958), 171, cited in Johnston, The Christian at Play, 78. 38. C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1970) 185–186, cited in Johnston, The Christian at Play, 78. 39. Johnston, The Christian at Play, 78. 40. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1970), 209. 41. Johnston, The Christian at Play, 80. 42. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, 20. 43. Lindvall, Surprised by Laughter, 54. 44. De Cou, Playful, Glad, and Free, 94. 45. De Cou, Playful, Glad, and Free, 95. 46. Moltmann, Theology of Play, 2. 47. Treat, “More Than a Game,” 403. See Ben Witherington III, The Rest of Life: Rest, Play, Eating, Studying, Sex from a Kingdom Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 57. 48. Johnston, The Christian at Play, 34. Johnston largely accepts John Huizinga’s widely used description of play in his Homo Ludens: “Summing up the formal characteristics of play we might call it a free activity standing quite consciously outside “ordinary” life as being “not serious” but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no proft can be gained by it. It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fxed rules and in an orderly manner. It promotes the formation of social groupings which tend to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from the common world by disguises or other means.” Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955), 7, cited in Johnston, The Christian at Play, 33. 49. Johnston, The Christian at Play, 42. Johnston is rightly arguing here against a wholesale acceptance of the medieval theological virtue of eutrapelia. See

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Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. J.A.K. Thomson (London: Penguin Books, 2004), 1128a. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, English Dominican Province Translation edition (Notre Dame: Christian Classics, 1981), 2a2ae, 168.2. F.L.B. Cunningham, The Christian Life (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010), 740–741. Johnston disagrees with this Aristotelian inspired view of eutrapelia when he argues that play is an “end in itself,” it is “an activity with its own purposes and inner rewards. It needs no justifcation beyond itself. To move too quickly to play’s consequences is to risk aborting the play activity, turning it into a disguised instance of work.” Johnston, The Christian at Play, viii. 50. Treat, “More Than a Game,” 395. 51. Treat, “More Than a Game,” 395. He continues, “Play, as noted above, is the unstructured, autotelic activity that creatively enjoys the gift of creation. Play turns into a game when rules are added and teams are formed (in some cases). Sport, then, is when the rules of a game are universalized and there is the added element of agon, moving it from a mere game to a contest,” Treat, “More Than a Game,” 396. 52. Treat, “More Than a Game,” 396. 53. Quoted in Nick J. Watson, “Special Olympians as a ‘Prophetic Sign’ to the Modern Sporting Babel,” in Sports and Christianity: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Nick J. Watson and Andrew Parker (New York: Routledge, 2013), 169. 54. Johnston, The Christian at Play, 42. 55. Gerardus Van der Leeuw, Sacred and Profane Beauty: The Holy in Art, trans. David E. Green (New York: Abingdon Press, 1963), 112, cited in Johnston, The Christian at Play, 48. 56. Lewis, Perelandra, 265–266.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. English Dominican Province Translation edition. Notre Dame: Christian Classics, 1981. Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by J. A. K. Thomson. London: Penguin Books, 2004. Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics, II/1. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1957. Boff, L. The Trinity and Society. New York: Orbis, 1988. Choufrine, A. Gnosis, Theophany, Theosis: Studies in Clement of Alexandria’s Appropriation of his Background. New York: Peter Lang, 2002. Cooke, Alistair., ed. The Vintage Mencken. New York: Vintage Books, 1955. Congar, Y. I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 3 vols. New York: Crossroad, 1997. Cortez, Marc. Christological Anthropology: Ancient and Contemporary Approaches to Theological Anthropology. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016. Cross, Richard, “Perichoresis, Deifcation, and Christological Predication in John of Damascus.” Mediaeval Studies 62 (2000): 69–124. Cunningham, F.L.B. The Christian Life. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010.

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De Cou, Jessica. Playful, Glad, and Free: Karl Barth and a theology of Popular Culture. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013. “Eutrapelia.” New Catholic Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia​.co​m. (March 5, 2017). http:​ /​/www​​.ency​​clope​​dia​.c​​om​/re​​ligio​​n​/enc​​yclop​​edias​​-alma​​nacs-​​trans​​cript​​s​-and​​​-maps​​/ eutr​​apeli​a Fiddes, Paul. “On Theology.” The Cambridge Companion to C. S. Lewis. Edited by Robert MacSwain and Michael Ward, 89–104. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Habets, M. Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. Hauerwas, Stanley. Matthew. SCM Theological Commentary on the Bible. London: SCM, 2006. Hugo Rahner S.J. Man at Play Or Did You Ever Practise Eutrapelia? Translated by Brian Battershaw and Edward Quinn. London: Buns and Oats, 1965. Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955. Jensen, Chris. “Shine as the Sun: C.S. Lewis and the Doctrine of Deifcation.” The Road to Emmaus: A Journal of Orthodox Faith and Culture 8 no. 2 (2005): 40–63. Johnston, Robert K. The Christian at Play. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983. Lewis, C. S. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1970. ———. Mere Christianity. London: Collins, 2012. ———. Perelandra. The Cosmic Trilogy. London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005. ———. The Pilgrim’s Regress. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958. ———. The Problem of Pain. London: Collins, 2012. ———. Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Harvest Books, 1955. ———. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1970. Lindvall, Terry. Surprised by Laughter: The Comic World of C.S. Lewis. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1996. Marion, Jean-Luc. God Without Being. Translated by Thomas A. Carlson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Mathewes, Charles. “Toward a Theology of Joy.” In Joy and Human Flourishing: Essays on Theology, Culture, and the Good Life, 63–95. Edited by Miroslav Volf and Justin E. Crisp. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015. Meyendorff, John. “Theosis in the Eastern Christian Tradition.” In Christian Spirituality: Post-Reformation and Modern, 470–476. Edited by L. Dupe and Don E. Saliers. New York: Crossroad, 1989. Moltmann, Jürgen. “Christianity: A Religion of Joy.” In Joy and Human Flourishing: Essays on Theology, Culture, and the Good Life, 1–15. Edited by Miroslav Volf and Justin E. Crisp. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015. ———. Theology of Play. Translated by Reinhard Ulrich. New York: Harper & Row, 1972. Otto, Randall E. “The Use and Abuse of Perichoresis in Recent Theology.” Scottish Journal of Theology 54 (2001): 366–384.

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Prestige, G.L. God in Patristic Thought. London: SPCK, 1964. Torrance, T.F. “The Atoning Obedience of Christ.” Moravian Theological Seminary Bulletin (1959): 65–81. ———. The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1996. Treat, Jeremy R. “More Than a Game: A Theology of Sport.” Themelios 40 no. 3 (2015): 392–403. Van der Leeuw, Gerardus. Sacred and Profane Beauty: The Holy in Art. Translated by David E. Green. New York: Abingdon Press, 1963. Watson, Nick J. “Special Olympians as a ‘Prophetic Sign’ to the Modern Sporting Babel.” In Sports and Christianity: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, 24–48. Edited by Nick J. Watson and Andrew Parker. New York: Routledge, 2013. Witherington III, Ben. The Rest of Life: Rest, Play, Eating, Studying, Sex from a Kingdom Perspective. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012. Wright, N.T. “Joy: New Testament Perspectives and Questions.” In Joy and Human Flourishing: Essays on Theology, Culture, and the Good Life, 39–61. Edited by Miroslav Volf and Justin E. Crisp. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015.

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Chapter 2

Sporting Identities What We Play, and Who We Think We Are

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Robert Ellis

In the early hours of the morning of June 24, 2016, waking, I checked my phone. Though the exit poll that I had seen before going to bed had confdently predicted a referendum win for “Remain,” it seemed that Britain had in fact voted narrowly to “Leave” the European Union. Refecting later on the gloom in which I was soon enveloped and discussing this with friends and colleagues who reported similar reactions, it seemed to me that my problem was one of identity. My perception of who I was, and the community of which I believed myself to be a part, had changed dramatically. It was as a citizen of Europe that I had believed myself to be British. Looming large, apparently, in the minds of “Leavers” was the issue of immigration—the Other, against whom one’s identity must always be defned, but now perceived as threat rather than neighbor.1 On October 15, 2011, in Auckland, Wales was having a good Rugby World Cup. The hosts seemed to be struggling with the pressure of performing at home, and Wales had had a fne generation of players reaching maturity. In the nineteenth minute of the semifnal against France, Wales leading 3-0, captain Sam Warburton was sent off. Tight rugby games are diffcult to win from sixty minutes out with fourteen players; France edged it 9-8. The deep melancholy that descended on me that morning was fueled somewhat by a sense of injustice, but it was also linked to another key aspect of who or what I understand myself to be: Welsh. When I lived for a year in the United States forty years ago, I spent twelve months correcting people who introduced me as English. “You may describe me as British,” I explained, “or Welsh—but not as English.” The curious thing about this sense of Welshness is how it is related in peculiar ways to sport, and very specifcally, to rugby. I say very specifcally because I am happy to support England at football; and England’s cricket team is really England and Wales (or even Britain). But when England 29

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play rugby I discover to my shame—and I am rather ashamed of this—that I want almost everybody to beat them. My Welshness, complex as it is, is also linked to a sense of the Other, the neighbor over against whom I know myself. Both of these stories of dejection connect identity with community. Our sense of identity is shaped both by those with whom we share it, and by those with whom we do not (the Other). It is when we become most acutely aware of those who are closest to us but do not share our identity that we are often most keenly aware of our own. Sport, what we play, can be an important form of expression for identity. Perhaps it might sometimes even create this identity. I say that I am a little ashamed of my attitude to English rugby. I am serious about this. It seems to me that this is not a particularly Christian way of responding to the Other; nor is it particularly Christian of me to want my team (and therefore, as we shall see, my identity) to win by fair means or foul—if and when I do. Needing to win in order to bolster esteem and identity is a problem for Christian ethics and theology. In this chapter, I am going to explore and refect theologically upon, aspects of identity and sport. In so doing, I will speak to four rather simplistic statements regarding identity and sport: 1. We are what we play 2. We are where we play 3. We are who we play 4. We are how we play

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However, frst, I am going to step back a little and look at issues of identity more broadly. THINKING ABOUT IDENTITY Personal Identity The quest for personal fulfllment, which it could be argued has taken over from the search for a personal salvation (or defned it), is closely connected to our sense of who we are and might become. The concept of personal identity has traction in a variety of disciplines, including psychology, sociology, philosophy, and theology.2 For psychologists, questions of identity are often questions of human development, and are particularly associated with the key period of infancy and adolescence. But while a focus on adolescent developmental work is important, it can perhaps underestimate the identity negotiation that continues throughout our lives. Most especially at moments

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of transition or crisis, but at other times too, human persons fnd their sense of who they are continually reexamined and renegotiated. A person’s sense of who they are is challenged, undermined, reinforced, and consolidated through life events. The identity of each human person is not fxed but somewhat plastic, or—more positively—organic.3 Also, put in terms of my summary a moment ago, where identity is seen as the “work” of an individual, we may be inclined to underestimate the extent to which personal identities are socially produced or achieved.4 Identity appears to have both a public and a private aspect: the roles we play in social settings constitute a public aspect to identity (some would argue that identity is “performed”), while our own refective and refexive sense of who we are is a more private one.5 As Lawler indicates, the public and private aspects of identity, however we describe them, are clearly in some kind of relationship with one another—albeit not always a straightforward one.6 In both aspects, certain ways of categorizing individuals are helpful to a point—though they also tend to mask complexity, overlap, and the downright contradictory nature of our identity/identities. Thus, to speak of ethnicity, gender, class, nationality, religious commitments, marital status, and so on, only takes us so far. The sense that we each have a number of identities—which may be overlapping, or even contradictory—may impinge upon our sense of having a stable identity. Being a parent and being a worker, for instance, may occasionally be in tension; as may being a cricketer and a parent, or a Christian and an Olympian—as in the famous case of Eric Liddell. Liddell’s decision not to run on a Sunday—however quaint it may now appear to most contemporary Christians—was forced upon him by a sense of conficting identities. He had to choose; sometimes, we simply live with the friction as these identities interact with one another. These tensions will be felt in different ways, and with different degrees of discomfort, by different people. Our concepts of identity depend upon notions of both sameness and difference. The Latin word idem, from which we also derive identical, means “same.” Speaking of identity is to speak of sameness—there is some element of commonality underpinning all our individualities. Hence the categorical descriptions already mentioned: female, male, white, black, British, New Zealander, etc.7 But speaking about identity also requires that we speak of difference. Sociologist Michael Jackson puts it like this: “one’s humanity is simultaneously shared and singular.”8 While noting this we may also want to observe that, in the contemporary yearning for individuality, we are often tempted to play up minor differences into much bigger ones—to give an impression of difference where similarity is actually strong. Diplomats, religious leaders, and sports people, know that it is often those with whom we actually have the most in common that we set ourselves over against most bitterly: there is no rival like a local rival.

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It is time now to blend-in some specifcally theological resources to our discussion. In general, Christian anthropology gives a central place to the imago Dei, though consensus on what this means is not always easy to fnd. Explanations for it include the functions of rationality, dominion, relationality, and creativity—and it is creativity that interests us particularly when discussing sport. Some have spoken about God’s act of creation as a kind of “play,” or playful creativity,9 and this would give further reason to see play as part of our imago Dei nature. This theological perspective echoes the infuential understanding of play proposed by Johan Huizinga. Huizinga argued that the “play-factor” has produced all the most basic cultural forms. Civilization, he argues, “does not come from play like a babe detaching itself from the womb: it arises in and as play, and never leaves it.”10 I have argued elsewhere that sport is a subset of play, adding distinctive elements of its own, including crucially its character of agon, or contest. Competition is fundamental to sport, and sporting competition dramatizes elements of the identity question with its sharp binary opposites and demarcation between self (or “us”) and other. We can also root this competition in the imago Dei. Early theologian Irenaeus (c.130–202 CE) believed that the falling from grace in the Genesis story that we usually call the fall was not so much a moral failure by Adam and Eve as a lapse precipitated by immaturity. Humanity is made open to God and also open to its own growth and fourishing. Irenaeus insisted on interpreting the imago Dei in Christological terms. Adam’s imperfect and immature response to God’s calling us into relationship is perfected by Christ, who recovers and restores the good relationship between humankind and the Creator. It is into this mature, perfected, restored relationship that men and women are called and enabled in Christ. There is in humankind made in the image of God, according to this understanding, an openness and potential, a continual reaching beyond itself, and reaching toward God, its counterpart. This fnds expression in sport through the quest for perfection and the competitive impulse. The reaching-out-ness of our human state fnds one of its most potent articulations in our sporting endeavors. Individual people are, we know, more or less competitive in this situation or that, but competitiveness is close to the heart of who and what we are. We have spoken of the kind of social categories by which identity is conceptualized; and we have also considered theological markers for human identity. Christian theology fnds such tools useful. However, it also suggests that they have been undermined. When Paul writes to the Galatians that “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus,”11 he means to suggest that all such markers, categories, or characteristics, are abolished

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by or, perhaps better, subordinated to the identity given in Jesus Christ. Paul knew, of course, that in the reality of lived human existence these categories still existed. As a Roman citizen who availed himself of the privileges due to him as such he would have been very aware that such distinctions as that between Jew and Greek were alive and well—and sometimes, perhaps, useful. But such binaries no longer take on ultimate status—they are only ever penultimate, and individuated identities such as slave or free are always trumped by our sameness in Christ Jesus, which establishes a new corporate identity. Some Christians will doubtless argue that these distinctions now have no meaning and are always to be discouraged or downplayed. Our awareness of diversity and difference may lead us, however, to celebrate these penultimate sources of identity as evidence of the richness of God’s creation. When Revelation’s John sees “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb,”12 the people utter a united hymn of praise, but they appear to retain their differences too.

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Social Identity We can now make some remarks more briefy about social identity. A good deal of what has already been said about the way in which we conceptualize identity applies here too, though the “sense of self” is clearly different. Western notions of the individual have tended to underplay the signifcance of the community in the formation of personal identity. While more recently cultural critics and social scientists have been keen to stress the “situatedness” of human life, and therefore the social and contextual factors impinging upon us, the dominant discourse still tends to stress the autonomous individual. If we compare this, for instance, with the African notion of Ubuntu, we fnd a worldview which sees the corporate as more real than the individual, and in which my being is constituted in part at least by yours—and vice-versa. John Macquarrie’s theological anthropology insists that the dialectic between personal and social identity be held in tension and not dissolved: Each human being then has a self-identity that differentiates him [sic] from every other . . . But however impressive is the individuality of each human being, equally striking is the essential sociality of each one . . . it would be no more correct to say that society is prior to the individual in an ontological as distinct from a chronological sense, than to say that the individual is prior to society. Both the social and individual poles seem equally original in the being of man [sic], and that tension is there from the beginning as one of the factors contributing to the dynamics of human life. 13

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One aspect of the imago Dei that we did not explore earlier was its Trinitarian dimension. The creation narrative reads: “God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness . . .’ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”14 What are we to make of the plural “Let us make,” and of the plurality of male/female in the act of creation? While it is likely that the former refects the royal “we” of ancient courts, and the latter is more concerned with the rhythm of poetry than detailed theological content, from earliest times Christian interpreters found here an indication of a Triune God, a God-in-Community, who creates humankind in and for community. That human persons have individual identities that are socially formed, and that their identities are formed in interaction with other persons, appears uncontroversial. But human persons also have social identities—a term we use even while accepting that it has no agreed or settled meaning. Some of the categories that we used earlier—those based on gender, ethnicity, nationality, for instance—not only tell us something about the individual concerned, but also about the wider group or community with which they identify. There is an inevitable binary element about such social identities. Those who share a collective identity share a similarity: gender, race, religion, leisure pursuit, and team support. Once we can identify this, however slender or illusory it may appear, we have a collective identity of some kind. But “logically, inclusion entails exclusion, if only by default. To defne the criteria for membership of any set of objects is, at the same time, also to create a boundary, everything beyond which does not belong.”15 In sport this can lead to a strong sense of community, or to an unsavory tribalism. Sport, with its oppositional character, provides a ready way for individuals and communities to fnd, produce, and express identity. The “other” is part and parcel of the sporting experience. But some of the identities formed in sport are not straightforward. Think, for instance, of the way certain sports have tended to reinforce class relations—either by their conventions, membership rules, or governance structures. The whole professional/amateur debate, offcially resolved only relatively recently in rugby union, for instance, is saturated in class.16 One of the most interesting forms of identity in sports relates to the identity of a team with a location, and of the supporters with that location. In professional sport, this has become sharpened at club and/or provincial level, though still retains meaning at international level despite the fexibility of passports and qualifcation. What I have termed elsewhere “vicarious sport”17—the close identifcation of supporters with players and teams—is an important aspect of this kind of identifcation between supporters and team in a new enlarged community. The rhetoric of clubs (especially when trying

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to sell tickets) encourages paying customers to think of themselves not as consumers (though, at one level, this is what we are) but as part of the team. Our contemporaries engage with sport for a variety of reasons, conscious and subconscious. Some of these reasons appear at least quasi-religious, if not actually religious.18 The dramatizing of human instincts, the inhabiting of a rhythm of life (both micro and macro), the participation in life-shaping ritual, the articulations of values and loyalties, and the construction of personal and communal identity appear to be among them. My empirical work certainly seems to bear this out. The fact that sport is regularly used by major projects run by governments, international organizations, and charitable bodies indicates, in part, that they have value in helping with questions of identity. Sport helps establish or bolster self-esteem and confdence for the individual and can foster strategies of social inclusion that assist individuals and communities, as well as creating safe places for vulnerable groups. Tess Kay’s research shows how young Muslim women negotiate skillfully between the expectations and desires of their families and the Islamic tradition on the one hand, and the expectations and desires common in the host culture (in this case, the United Kingdom) on the other when entering sports projects designed to open up access into higher education. In doing this, the women are juggling identities—or possibly even creating a new identity through sport in dramatic fashion. Here sport is a force for good.19

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FOUR STATEMENTS I turn now to my four statements. We will fnd overlap between them and in some respects the order is random. One of the questions in mind in beginning my empirical work20 was “would my respondents give any grounds for believing that sport in general makes an important contribution to their self-understanding and sense of identity?” Nested within this question were slightly more specifc ones: about personal and social identity, and about the playing of sport (especially at local level, though I did also get a small amount of data regarding elite sport), and about watching or supporting sport. My four statements begin an elaboration of how sport impinges on our identity/ies. We Are What We Play My frst statement contends that in the act of engaging with a particular sport—rather than just sport in general—our identities are shaped. I do not mean to say that we mark ourselves out as having an identity as a cyclist or sailor or hockey player, though we might (just as we might have overlapping

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identities as all three), but that there is something about the particularities of our sports which shapes us in particular ways. The muscular Christians, to whose work in elite public schools in nineteenth century England we owe such a debt for the development of modern sports, believed that codes of football in particular had a morally formative effect. The fact that they were team games was signifcant, and they helped the masters at these schools turn a rowdy rabble into a better disciplined group in which their own personal needs or desires were not always to take precedence. Charles Kingsley and Thomas Hughes made a positive connection between physical activity and moral well-being. This was novel as hitherto in mainstream Christian thought sporting pastimes had been generally viewed with suspicion.21 Hughes’ famous portrait of life at Rugby School links sport with moral fber, heroism, manliness, and the Christian preference for the neighbor (expressed in terms of favoring the team over the individual). When the YMCA was fnally persuaded to drop its own suspicion of sports and adopt them within its own program, it did so with a similar formative understanding and often couched in the motto “body, mind, spirit” (Deut 6:5).22 Team sports, we see even now, have a particular formative ethos. Cycling is a fne example: the team riders gather to shield the star performers so that their energy can be preserved for the fnish. In sports where there is pain involved, in this preference for the team, we see vividly how the collective or social identity has been internalized by the individual and given some kind of priority.23 In general, then, we might say that our identities will have different formative pressures upon them when we play rugby compared with when we are golfng or skiing. There are team variations on these sports, but they are also individualistic in ways that rugby is not. If sport has a formative effect upon us, we might expect that playing different sports will make us different people. It is possible to argue that different sports shape us in different ways—but the difference is greater between team and individual sports, and perhaps between contact and noncontact sports. The element of preparation and training involved, and its nature, is also signifcant—and marks a line between local or social players, and higher grade or elite players. My survey showed a variety of responses to questions around the effects of sports participation on character. It is important to note, of course, that we cannot here examine whether or not the respondents’ engagement with sport actually had the effect they claimed—only that they believed it did. A runner at a major UK national club opined that his sport makes him disciplined and persistent in general and that it teaches a lesson for life—that good things require effort, and that the more effort put in, the greater the reward. It also gives him, he said, a respect for the opponent who puts in the work—“no matter what walk of life they come from.” The meaning of this last comment

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is opaque but suggests that participation in his sport alongside competitors has given him a respect for others that he would not otherwise have. Another runner spoke of being more appreciative of long-term goal-setting because of their sporting participation. A young rower spoke of a more fundamental production of identity through sport. She talks of “reinventing” herself through rowing, changing her self-perception from “chubby asthmatic” to someone with healthier medical, psychological, and physiological characteristics. These health benefts may be real but, allied with the reported rich social life that she now enjoys, they suggest a striking change in her self-identity: a young person’s sense of social isolation has been transformed through the production of a new identity in sport. A different respondent notes how in working for a common goal they feel a sense of responsibility toward others working with them; another reports on the need to trust and be trusted in a team context. The matter of self-discipline is regularly reported. One respondent makes a direct connection between the disciplines of training (working at it even when you do not feel like it) and the disciplines of religious faith and practice: even when training does not appear to make a difference they keep at it, just as their religious practices do not always appear to make a difference. One formative infuence still not perfected in me is what one reports as a greater willingness to accept the decisions made by others, even when imperfect. Such decisions form a good deal of the narrative of sport and seem to be a proper part of the sporting world. It appears to be true that the most effective players are those able to shrug off the bad refereeing decision and the mistakes of teammates. Supporters will also fnd peace more quickly by learning to do the same. Many sports appear to offer this life skill because of the way they dramatize our imperfections. One rugby supporter speaks of the way in which they believe that their sport manifests, reinforces, and nourishes certain values. Thomas Hughes would be pleased to hear that team-spirit, fair-play, dedication, etc., appear both embedded in the game and transmittable to its players and spectators. A rugby-playing respondent spoke of the incomparable way in which rugby builds solidarity—a claim impossible to substantiate with any rigor, but seriously made and heard. A rugby league fan suggests that their sport “represents and encapsulates the values to which, I believe, most human beings aspire.” He speaks of “great skill and effort, allied with fortitude, courage and grace,” in “a hostile and often brutal environment.” One Christian respondent wrote that their sport, climbing, “defnes me and my outlook on life (to myself, anyway) almost as much as my Christian faith.” Among the things which climbing appears to give him are both mental and physical exertion and challenge, and a sense of community. Insofar as climbing is competitive, the main competition appears to be against self and

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the rockface; but it is also a “team” exercise, and one where mistakes can be fatal: like faith, this climber saw their sport as life and death. There are some more sinister aspects of identity production in sport that we must consider. Class distinctions in sport may be less signifcant than they were a few generations ago, but they still exist. Golf and tennis were once highly class segregated in England and the United States. This legacy continues to taint these sports’ present perception, and perhaps realities. The place of rugby in Britain is illuminating in this regard also. Rugby League came into being in class war, and as the middle-class elite in England struggled to keep control of “their” game. Elements of this appear to remain. The respondent quoted a few paragraphs ago continues that “rugby league cannot truly take root in the more affuent, decadent and complacent corners of the land” because “it demands honesty.” Life, it appears, is more real in the north of England. Football has been the working man’s game in England, in part because the amateur ideology lost out much earlier in the game’s history. One of the complaints now about the cash-rich English Premier League is that “ordinary fans” are being priced out of the market by the richer “prawn sandwich brigade.” Playing and supporting sport still has elements of class identity, though a number of respondents comment that playing/watching sport allowed them to communicate across social groups and break down social barriers. Insofar as it does this, sport perhaps offers a valuable social service.24 But playing particular sports also has the effect of reinforcing gender identities. For some men, their identity as men is established or reinforced through sport—and not always in a healthy way. When a rugby player responds to my survey by saying that playing his sport satisfes “my need to compete physically,” this appears to be a gender identity need.25 One of the explanations for the rise of sport in the second half of the nineteenth century is what has been called a crisis of masculinity.26 In an increasingly civilized and genteel world it is argued that men were fnding their gender identity to be in question—and so the often-violent forms of sport offered a way to reassert a particular kind of masculinity. This also goes some way toward explaining the corresponding initial discouragement of women’s sport in the period. Physiology was often cited as a reason for this, but it looks increasingly to our eyes like the reifcation of social relationships which was excluding women from a domain being marked out by men as their terrain. Progress for women’s sport has been patchy. What discussions of progress are in danger of masking is the issue often hidden in a discourse dominated by male voices and perspectives: that sociocultural difference might be passed off as biological difference. “The physical body holds social meaning . . . . Physical sex differences become cultural—they are used, modifed, reinforced

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and accentuated as part of cultural beliefs about the real and the ideal attributes of men and women.”27 Given the subliminal associations of sport with a sweaty kind of masculinity, for adolescent girls the choice often appears to be between femininity or sports; sports are often tied up with and complementary to an emerging male sexuality. In this world, women who are competitive and strong at sports can be branded “butch” or “unfeminine.” Coakley is not alone in suggesting that new defnitions of masculinity (that do not stress domination and violence, or use military metaphors, for example) and femininity (that allow for competition, striving, and visible strength) may need to emerge for wholesome gender relationships to be nurtured in and through sport.28 That men tend to do better at sports is hardly surprising when one considers that most have been designed for and by men. As Jay Coakley has remarked, if sports had been created by and for women, the Olympic motto might not be “faster, higher, stronger,” but “balance, fexibility, ultraendurance.”29 We have considered issues of class and gender but might have easily discussed ethnicity and consumption. The ways in which we construct and/or express identity through sport are various, overlapping, and often subconscious.

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We Are Where We Play We have mainly been speaking of personal identity so far, but when we move to consider the where of our sport, questions of social and community identity come very clearly into view. Celtic identity is an odd thing, partly rediscovered but signifcantly invented. Sport has become a remarkable vehicle for this identity in the past 200 years. Owen Sheers captures something of this in his poem, Now and then30—the sense of the sacredness of the turf subject to some transubstantiating change from mere grass into something else. Sheers’ poem has two groups in view: the players for whom history beckons, and also the supporters—within and without the stadium—a “nation becomes a stadium,” he says, and all “gaze and speech tightens in one direction.” My notion of “vicarious sport”31 goes some way toward explaining this solidarity. Watching sport draws supporters into the game. We move with the players, wincing at tackles, sitting forward or standing as the action quickens. As Allen Guttmann says, “The process of identifcation is a complex one . . . Vicariously, we can maul a staggered boxer or shudder to receive a knockout punch. We are what we watch.”32 In “representational sport,” he notes, the individual’s identifcation with sportsmen/women has superadded the collective membership of community. Sport promotes communication, gathers people together, gives them shared symbols and identity, and ties people to place. “It is the modern analogue to traditional religious ritual,”33 he observes.

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Sport is inherently involving, and when the game is over we are often exhausted, our mood affected. When we consider this involvement alongside the way sports tie people to place, we see how where we play is an important function in the production of identity. I never feel more Welsh than when I am watching Wales play rugby; I only ever really feel anything like homesickness when I refect upon this. My New Zealand friends in the United Kingdom report something similar about the All Blacks. Communal identity often has its focal points, and Cardiff Arms Park—now the Principality Stadium, like a new Cathedral being erected on an already sacred site—is one such place. Communal identity also has its shared story, often linked to the place. The banners waved by fans on Liverpool’s Kop34 tell the story of the club through great days and desperate ones, but each sporting community fnds its own way of retelling and living its ongoing story. Sport has been particularly important for national identity and has inevitably become embroiled in politics. In the Cold War period, sport became a tool of confict: when the USSR met the United States in the 1980 Olympic ice hockey fnal, it was not simply a medal that was at stake. This is because winning is—well—more than winning a game. Winning, Francesco Duina argues, “often serves as an objective and external validation that we are right.”35 By a strange logic we seem to feel that winning means that we have a better grasp of the world, that we are right in all sorts of ways—that we are clearheaded, correct, sharp. By contrast, losers are wrong in a general sense, and have soul-searching to do.36 Furthermore, winning makes us feel good about everything and losing makes us feel correspondingly bad. Both the Soviets and Americans saw sporting victory during the Cold War as demonstrating the superiority of their whole way of life, not just their athletes. In the same way, “teams winning national titles in American football, baseball, and basketball make the residents of the cities and localities where they come from ‘proud’—not of their athletic abilities but of their way of life.”37 As Duina shows, this dynamic does not just apply at national level, but at local too—it works when our local club or region win, and when our own Wednesday night cricket team wins in the park. Duina demonstrates the very close—we might say reciprocal—relationship between players and supporters at elite level. It is remarkable that this continues into the present day. The Glasgow Celtic team that won the 1967 European Cup seems quaint now, with all eleven players born within thirty miles of Celtic Park, and ten of them within nine. Now professional sportsmen and women may have only a limited and transitory relationship to the team’s locality. The Welsh rugby regions formed in 2003 represent imaginary areas, and often try to combine former historic rivals within the one regional identity. Streamlined from its range of historic club teams because of the need to spread fnancial resource across fewer teams in the professional era,

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supporters have struggled to love the four regions and total attendances have shrunk. Respondents in my survey speak of “needing a connection” to nourish identifcation. Sporting clubs proliferated in Britain at a period of massive migration into cities. The rapid growth of the town of Middlesbrough illustrates this need to fnd new coherent forms of identity. From a population of 25 in 1801 and 154 in 1831, it grew to 5463 in 1841 and more than 100,000 by 1901. During that time the football club, founded in 1872, became a major focus for the rapidly growing community.38 These two respondents capture the identifcation with the team and the scope of that winning feeling: “I feel elated when my team wins as if I had played myself” and “when my team wins I feel a sense of community and accomplishment. This feeling of ‘we did it’ with both the team and fellow supporters.” Another speaks of their engagement with sport as an investment in the local community frst and the sport itself only secondarily. Once again, my rugby league respondents give some of the most vivid testimonies. One says that their team is “a cultural cornerstone; the major part of my living in a town which, for me, is otherwise bereft of excitement, entertainment, endeavor and respect.” Another says that “I support my local town team because I think the team represents the town and therefore represents me.” A rugby union fan says “I buy three season tickets and new shirts every year. I’m proud to live in the city and the club is part of that identity.”39 A similar sense of bonding comes from local players, who speak of their pride in the shirt and the strong community formed with other players and club members. One suggests that their club “gives me a sense of identity and the values of the club refect my own.” And there is clear evidence also of an intergenerational element to community both in the stands and the dressing room. When communities come close together around their team, they also project the Other—sometimes despised—especially when they are local rivals. A Bristol rugby fan notes that assessing whether winning is all-important depends in part on who you lose to. “If it’s to a better team on the day then OK I can live with that as long as my team tried their best. However, any loss to Bath or Gloucester hurts that little bit more.” And from St Helen’s: “losing to Wigan is up there with the worst feelings I have ever had. It makes me sick.” In passing, I mention a soccer fan—is this tongue in cheek? Asked what motivates his support he responds, “Confrontation and violence with like-minded others.” Of course, tribalism lurks near at hand. Human beings are social beings. We are made for one another. While the nations of the world appear at Babel to be part of the curse of fallenness, Scripture also suggests that they act as some kind of restraint on human evil or hubris,40 and also offer opportunity for the cultural developments that

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enrich God’s creation. Most of us need to belong to something near and local, as well as something as grand as the human race. These shared identities provide cohesion for communities and an important sense of being part of something bigger for individuals. Stories and symbols are signifcant bearers of this identity. Churches could learn from studying these processes, and they also know how easy the slide into tribalism is. This leads me to consider, very briefy, the third statement. We Are Who We Play We move from the question of where we play to the related one of who we play. It seems odd to say that we are created by our opponents, but our identity is in large part constructed by who and what we are not—so the paradox holds. Identity, it will be recalled, implies difference. Welshness only means anything over against non-Welshness—and perhaps particularly or especially, over against Englishness. The pain of St Helen’s losing to Wigan, of Bristol losing to Bath, and of New Zealand losing to Australia testifes to this. In some sports stadia, fans sing insults to their near rivals even when they are not playing them—an Arsenal fan is, in part at least, anti-Spurs; a Celtic fan, anti-Rangers. Much of the data deployed above could be recycled here. Insofar as this “anti-” becomes an over-important feature of our identity in sport (or in religion, for that matter), a strength of feeling toward the other that amounts to hostility, then the Christian must have some cause for concern. It is not satisfactory that we always want our closest rivals to lose— whoever they are playing. Earlier we considered Galatians 3, and I suggested that the differences between us, our separate identities, are not abolished in Christ. Alongside this now we consider Ephesians 2: For [Christ] is our peace; in his fesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.15 . . . that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace,16 and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.

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14

In Christ our diversity is not abolished, but feuds and distrust, enmity and hostility are. This provides something of a challenge to Christians in playing and supporting sport, and I suspect those who underplay this are being disingenuous or self-deceiving. This leads us to the next statement. We Are How We Play It is at this point that Christians and Christian communities might have particular traction on the question of identity in sport. Positively, there is much

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to be said here, but we also have to bear in mind the negative pressures acting upon and within sport. Sport, including its competitive element, should not be singled out for disapproval among aspects of our common life. Competitive elements exist in education and business—and everywhere. They are often the engine that drives development. It is not the competitiveness itself which is the problem, but its distortion. A few initial, mitigating observations. Things are often more complex than a dispassionate analysis from one’s desk can make them sound. I recall a conversation with a young sprinter who spoke of the diffculties in being offered performance-enhancing supplements—legal and illegal. The pressures on such young sports participants are huge, and sometimes those who should advise and protect them are themselves caught up in a disordered world of grey rather than living in neat compartments of black and white. On feld and in the heat of the moment individuals do things that they might later refect were unwise, unkind, un-Christian. We are sinners, and however much grace is at work in and among us, that truth still applies. Simul justus et peccator.41 However, this is not a catch-all to excuse poor behavior and shoddy acts. We can play as though playing is a divine gift. A number of respondents to my survey spoke of their playing in this way, of their playing as a charism. In the more secular use of the terms charism and charismatic, we refer to someone who is attractive and infuential in their feld.42 Sportswise, it is possible to see some individuals “come alive” when playing sport, to see someone who is quiet and inarticulate off the pitch suddenly become animated, powerful, and dominant on it. Some sports players also think of their own ability to play as itself a gift, a charism. According to one footballer in my survey, “I have some level of God-given ability to play so it is rewarding to do so . . . I play because I feel that sport can be an arena to honor God.” Similarly, there is some evidence that players see their play as a form of worship. In his primer on worship, Chris Ellis argues that an important part of Sunday worship is an act of dedication in which we offer to God the rest of our lives. When we worship, we offer all that we have and are to God in Christ—our prayers and praise, our gifts and possessions, our relationships with others, and our aspiration to follow Jesus. He says that “this offering of ourselves to God isn’t the dedication of some kind of disembodied self, it is the offering of who we are—our social selves, our lives at work and play and in relationship, it is the offering of our lives in the world, not just some spiritual self at worship ‘in church.’”43 Sunday worship and the living of a worshipful life are thus seamlessly connected. Evangelicals are sometimes swift to dismiss the footballer who crosses himself as he runs on to the football feld as superstitious, whereas they tend to see the famboyant act of prayer after a touchdown as just a bit showy. But we should not be too swift to judge either way: for some players, their play

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represents some kind of offering. Their play is worshipful. Interviews with a number of elite sports players support this. A typical example is found in an interview with Cameroon World Cup footballer, Eyong Enoh. Asked whether he can worship God in football, he replied, “Of course, I do it all the time . . . my relationship with God is all the time. And I am constantly conscious of his presence and his voice wherever I am . . . on the pitch playing football, I am aware of his presence . . . It is with me everywhere and I am very conscious of it. I constantly worship him everywhere I am. Anything I am doing.”44 We might think that this is reminiscent of the line attributed to Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire: “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel his pleasure.”45 Often Christian sportsmen and women play as though their playing is a form of discipleship. Euan Murray, former Scottish and British Lion tighthead prop, “found God” in the winter of 2005–2006 while recovering from severe injury—a collision had resulted in a seizure on the feld. His faith is most well-known for his refusal to play rugby on Sundays, but there is more to it than that. Murray sees his tight-head rugby, often associated with the “dark arts” of scrummaging, as a form of Christian living. A journalist reports that a preacher he heard:

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asked [another] man what it meant to live as a Christian in this world and the [other] man said it meant that “as a Christian I’m going to out-work you, outfght you and I’m going to out-love you.” I realised that’s what I should be doing . . . Over the last few years I’ve found out what a Christian should be. A Christian should be the hardest worker of all.

The interviewing journalist struggles to understand Murray, but concludes with what is probably seen as a compliment: “he may be a very good guy but, when needs arise on the rugby feld, he does a thoroughly convincing impersonation of a very bad man.”46 Stuart Weir’s notion, that we love our neighbor by tackling them hard and so make them better players,47 is not so fanciful. Murray does not put it quite this way, but his view seems similar. Playing hard and fair within the rules is a form of living the Christian life, and it is all apiece with Luther’s downto-earth views on loving our neighbors by fulflling our ordinary duties and obligations:48 when we play sport these obligations to neighbor look like this. Murray thus manages to hold his identities as Christian and rugby international in tandem, despite the Sunday strains. Not every scrum infringement is a deliberate piece of foul play, but some are. Christian life is marked by certain dispositions. Recognition of our own and others’ imperfections must be connected to a sense of our living

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in and by grace—as people who are forgiven and are forgiving. Playing “Christianly” means being able both to say sorry and accept it from others as well. But players and coaches are sometimes as mealy-mouthed as politicians, perhaps insisting on mind games or just playing up to some idea of true masculinity, when all they need to say is sorry. It is part of what Christians do. Christians will commit fouls, and sometimes they will do so deliberately. It inevitably goes with Murray’s “working hard” because we are fesh and blood. But they should have self-awareness in such matters, and recoil from the kind of conscious and premeditated cheating that goes with an overemphasis on winning and an insecure need to defne ourselves through success. Hard work becomes problematic when it becomes obsessional. Linked to this are the responses from my survey about winning. They were paradoxical. Winning is the point, winning is everything, why play if not to win? But most of us cannot win all the time, and sometimes things happen which make us realize that winning is not so important after all. Winning turns out to be not ultimate but penultimate—and there was plenty of evidence for this. Many respondents spoke of the need to learn to lose well, and of what a life skill this was. Christians tackle hard as they love their neighbors, but perhaps sometimes they might also delight in their neighbor’s success—even if not willing it from the outset. This is paradoxical when we want to be winners, and it sits alongside the paradox of wanting to win very badly, but not allowing this desire to possess us. Such an attitude can be placed into a positive evaluation of play which has a fne pedigree. Augustine believed that “a good life is lived by a person who loves what ought to be loved properly,”49 and Aquinas argued that play in general was good, but that “we should take care not to lose our poise”—by which he appears to mean that in our playing we should not dissipate the personal formation established in our living Christian lives in other ways.50 Playing sport should not allow us to lose our identity as Christians “lest we dissolve the harmony made up by good works in concert.”51 As such, “a settled disposition to act accordingly is a moral virtue,”52 to which Aristotle had given the name eutrapelia. The person who possesses this virtue is, says Aquinas, “a pleasant person with a happy cast of mind, who gives his words and deeds a cheerful turn.”53 There are clear glimpses of eutrapelian individuals in my sports survey—those whose competitive sport gives them a “happy cast of mind” and a “cheerful turn”; who remember that sport is important, that winning is everything—and nothing. Thus played, Christian identity in sport takes on the form of witness. It could also then be itself a character-forming, virtue-producing action—just as Thomas Hughes of Rugby School believed.54

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CONCLUDING REMARKS We can no longer avoid a critical question about identity in Christ and identity in sport. Identity in Christ is identity through grace; identity in sport risks too often being a works-based, achievement-oriented identity. Loving our neighbor by tackling hard is one thing. But, while Murray’s emphasis on striving rather than winning is helpful (and connects with my own notion of transcendence55), agreeing that “a Christian should be the hardest worker of all” could make Christian identity in sport appear distorted. We may recall here Duina’s interpretation of the signifcance of winning and losing, and note that it fnds an echo in the work of American psychologist B. J. Houltberg who has worked with young athletes (elite and recreational), and identifed the perils of “performance-based identity.”56 He reports that

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It is the natural trajectory of a gifted adolescent to form a central part of their identity around being an athlete and, more specifcally, how they perform in their sport . . . [which] can lead to a performance-based identity that can undermine the emotional health of youth and ultimately prevent young athletes from performing at their best. Even more, a performance-based identity is often celebrated in our culture and reinforced by adults within the young athlete’s developmental context.57

When an athlete fails, their identity is affected, and it becomes not just a failure of sporting performance, but of the whole person. The Christian athlete might be especially vulnerable, because their inadequacy apparently lets others down too—fellow Christians, and perhaps even their gift-giver, God.58 Houltberg instead encourages athletes to fnd a “purpose-based identity.” An identity “grounded in feeling loved and based in purpose” is empowering, and persons with such an identity may view “participation in sports as a gift from God that refects God’s unchanging love for the athlete and provides a source of joy and an opportunity to serve others. Thus, sports are another way to experience God’s love and pleasure and connect to something greater than self.”59 If we locate the “point” of sport in God’s purposes for the world—in creation and redemption—we must note that these are ultimately grounded in love and reconciliation. The competitive streak in sport, grounded in our imago Dei openness to and reach for God, may incline us always to judge ourselves and others by winning alone. Instead we might see our trying to win and our enjoying trying to win as the key divine gifts in sport. This trying and enjoying, rooted in our creatureliness and transformed in God’s desire to bring us all to himself in Christ, is a gift we can relish whatever the scoreboard says.

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We spoke earlier of the self’s affrmation and worth that comes through victory, the sense of being right and in the right; it contrasts with the feeling of dissolution of the self that can be the aftermath of defeat. At the heart of the Christian good news is a story of affrmation (God’s “yes” to Jesus) that puts him, and those who, through baptism, are identifed with him, “in the right,” establishing their worth and their identity in Christ by free gift—not by merit of success in performance. Paradoxically, it is a victory given in defeat. We recall Duina’s remark that we believe that the outcome of a competition tells us something important about our worthiness in general. When human persons participate in the victory of Jesus, they also share in this established identity, in this being in the right; they fnd here a ground spring for selfworth and identity that allows them to compete in a Christian way in sport and live lives oriented toward God.

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NOTES 1. On this see, David Goodhart, The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics (London: Hurst, 2017). Jonathan Freedland’s review offers both a summary and critique of the main arguments: “The Road to Somewhere by David Goodhart—a liberal’s rightwing turn on immigration,” The Guardian, 22 March 2017, https​:/​/ww​​w​.the​​guard​​ian​.c​​om​/bo​​oks​/2​​017​/m​​ar​/22​​/the-​​road-​​to​-so​​mewhe​​ re​-da​​vid​-g​​oodha​​rt​-po​​pulis​​​t​-rev​​olt​-f​​uture​​-poli​​tics 2. As examples of the literature: for a seminal contribution from psychology, see James E. Marcia et al., Ego-Identity: A Handbook of Psychosocial Research (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1993); for sociology see Steph Lawler, Identity: Sociological Perspectives, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Polity, 2014) and Peter L. Callero, “The Sociology of the Self.” Annual Review of Sociology 29 (2003): 115–133; for a range of philosophic perspectives see David Hume (1739), A Treatise on Human Nature, ed. P. H. Nidditch, P. H and L.A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978), John Locke (1689), An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. P.H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975), Peter Geach, “Identity.” Review of Metaphysics 21, no.1 (1967): 3–12, Richard Swinburne, The Evolution of the Soul (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997); for theology, see the essays collected in Richard Lints, Michael Horton, and Mark R. Talbot, Personal Identity in Theological Perspective (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 2006), and David F. Ford, Self and Salvation: Being Transformed (Cambridge: CUP, 2009). 3. Berger, Berger and Kellner explained more than forty years ago in Homeless that our contemporary identities are less stable because of our experience of a “plurality of social worlds” as opposed to the more coherent social worlds in the pre-modern era. Peter Berger, Brigitte Berger, and Hansfeld Kellner, The Homeless Mind (New York: Random, 1973). 4. Lawler, Identity, 2. 5. Erving Goffman tried to navigate this complexity by speaking of three different kinds of personal identity: “personal identity” (an individual’s unique characteristics),

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“social identity” (identifying a person by the various social categories to which they “belong”), and “felt” or “ego identity” (who or what an individual person believes themselves to be). More recently some writers have distinguished between “identity” and “subjectivity” to try to capture this dynamic. See Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1968). 6. These theories, including Goffman’s, are discussed in Lawler, Identity, 8. 7. Some of these categories are produced by discriminatory practices and attitudes—and our acceptance of them colludes with these practices. 8. Michael Jackson, “The exterminating angel: refections on violence and intersubjective reason.” Focaal: European Journal of Anthropology 39 (2002): 142; quoted in Lawler, Identity, 10. 9. Thinkers as diverse as Harvey Cox, The Feast of Fools: A Theological Essay on Festivity and Fantasy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), Peter Berger, A Rumour of Angels (Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1971), and Jürgen Moltmann, Theology and Joy, trans. Reinhard Ulrich (London: SCM, 1973) have made this connection explicitly. For a fuller discussion of the imago Dei in this context see Robert Ellis, The Games People Play: Theology, Religion, and Sport (Eugene OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014), 129, 140–141, 229–232. 10. Johann Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture (Boston MA: Beacon, 1955), 173, italics his. Among the forms produced by and through play he includes ritual, poetry, music, dance, warfare, and even philosophy. 11. Galatians 3:28. 12. Revelation 9:7. 13. John Macquarrie, In Search of Humanity (London: SCM, 1982), 85. 14. Genesis 1:26–27. 15. Richard Jenkins, Social Identity, 3rd ed. (London: Routledge, 2008), 102; quoted in John Harris and Andrew Parker, Sport and Social Identities (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009), 4. 16. See Eric Dunning and Kenneth Sheard, Barbarians, Gentlemen and Players: A Sociological Study of the Development of Rugby Football, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2005). 17. Ellis, The Games People Play, 248–262. 18. Ellis, The Games People Play, 82–122. 19. Tess Kay. “Daughters of Islam: Family Infuences on Muslim Young Women’s Participation in Sport.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 41 no. 3 (2006): 348. 20. In the spring and summer of 2011 I undertook surveys of sports players and supporters in the UK and US. Almost fve hundred respondents returned my questionnaires which were couched in intentionally open (i.e., non-religious language) and which attempted to ascertain what signifcance engagement in sports activities had for those who responded. An account of the research, initial analysis of its results, and theological refection upon the returns, may be found in Robert Ellis, “The Meanings of Sport: An Empirical Study into the Signifcance Attached to Sporting Participation and Spectating in the UK and US.” Practical Theology 5 no. 2 (2012): 169–88; further refection became part of the argument in Ellis, The Games People Play.

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21. The Puritan critique of sports was still persuasive—and indeed, even now should not be too quickly dismissed. Ellis, The Games People Play, 19–22. 22. See Elliott J. Gorn and Warren Goldstein, A Brief History of American Sports (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, 2004), 170. 23. Rowing, research has shown incidentally, has a very strong incidence of teamsolidarity, and an indication that pain born collectively and simultaneously stretches our powers of endurance. See Emma E. A. Cohen et al., “Rowers’ High: Behavioural Synchrony is Correlated with Elevated Pain Thresholds.” Biology Letters 6 no. 1 (2010): 106–8. 24. In passing I note that historically cricket has had a complex relationship to class, at times undercutting and at times reinforcing class relationships. Robert Ellis, “Play up! Play up! And Play the Game! Cricket and Our Place in the World.” in Wisdom, Science and the Scriptures. Essays in Honour of Ernest Lucas, ed. Stephen Finamore and John Weaver (Oxford and Bristol: Regent’s Park College and Bristol Baptist College, 2012), 250–252. 25. A number of my rugby respondents might reinforce the point—many of the players noting that the game offered an outlet for aggression, for a form of masculinity which may be thought of as once again (or still) in crisis. 26. See Clifford Putney, Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880–1920 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2001). 27. John Horne, Alan Tomlinson, and Gary Whannel, Understanding Sport: An Introduction to the Sociological and Cultural Analysis of Sport (London: E. & F. N. Spon, 1999), 137. Italics mine. 28. Jay Coakley, Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies, 8th ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 2004), 275–276. For example, Gaddes suggests that adolescent girls construct an alternative femininity in sailing which is marked by skill and performance rather than appearance. Ellie Gaddes, “Gendered Identities: How Does Participation in Sport Affect the Construction and Performance of Gendered Identifes among Young Girls” (BA diss., University of Oxford, 2012). 29. Coakley, Sports in Society, 263–279. 30. Owen Sheers, Calon: A Journey to the Heart of Welsh Rugby (London: Faber & Faber, 2013), 45–46 and online at the author’s Facebook page, https​:/​/ww​​w​.fac​​ ebook​​.com/​​owens​​heers​​autho​​r​/pos​​ts​/10​​15059​​​52492​​80614​. 31. Ellis, The Games People Play, 248–262. 32. Allen Guttmann, Sports Spectators (New York: Columbia University, 1986): 180–1. 33. Guttmann, Sports Spectators, 181. 34. The Kop at Liverpool’s Anfeld stadium is a large single tier covered stand (originally a standing terrace) named after a Boer War battle location in which Liverpudlian soldiers fought and fell. Since the Shankly era of the 1960s especially it has become famous for the singing and chanting of fans, and some argue that modern football fandom was created during this period and on the Kop. Its banners, scarves and other “material culture” assist in the performance of identity of Liverpool supporters and narrate this identity with reference to signifcance events. For a brief glimpse of this in relation to the long campaign for justice for those Liverpool fans killed at the

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Hillsborough stadium disaster in 1989, see this clip from the BBC news programme, Newsnight: “The Anfeld Kop sings You’ll Never Walk Alone,” BBC Newsnight, 15 April 2014, Video, 1:36, https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/w​​atch?​​v​=2YX​​​kd8Wq​​ZiA 35. Francesco Duina, Winning: Refections on an American Obsession (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 35. 36. Research at North Carolina State University revealed that losers give more causal and introspective refections of their performance while winners are more matter-of-fact and less refective. Duina concludes: “victory, in other words, is liberating,” Winning, 36. 37. Duina, Winning, 41. Italics mine. 38. See Horne, Tomlinson, and Whannel, Understanding Sport, 43. 39. The reference to replica kit could open up a new line of discussion. 40. William Storrar, “Walking the tightrope.” Third Way 18 no. 2 (1995): 25. 41. The Latin phrase, which may be translated “simultaneously righteous and sinner,” is associated with Martin Luther. 42. Ellis, The Games People Play, 183–184. 43. Christopher J. Ellis, Approaching God: A Guide for Worship Leaders and Worshippers (Norwich: Canterbury, 2009), 32. 44. In Keith Shawn, Executive Producer, The Prize (Athletes in Action, 2014). DVD and online at http:​/​/www​​.athl​​etesi​​nacti​​on​.eu​​/eu​/r​​esour​​ces​/​t​​he​-pr​​ize. 45. Hudson, Hugh, Director, and Colin Welland, Screenplay, Chariots of Fire (Twentieth-Century Fox, 1981). 46. Tom English, “Euan Murray interview: Sunday dilemma for keeper of the faith,” The Scotsman, 31 January 2009, online http:​/​/www​​.scot​​sman.​​com​/s​​port/​​ scott​​ish​-r​​ugby-​​euan-​​murra​​y​-int​​ervie​​w​-sun​​day​-d​​ilemm​​a​-for​​-keep​​er​-of​​​-the-​​faith​​-1​-13​​ 03639​. 47. Stuart J. Weir, “Competition as Relationship: Sport as Mutual Quest towards Excellence.” in The Image of God in the Human Body: Essays on Christianity and Sports, ed. Donald Deardorff II and John White (Lewiston NY: Edward Mellen, 2008), 113. 48. Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), trans. Theodore Graebner (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1949), commenting on 5:14. Online: http:​/​/www​​.icln​​et​.or​​g​/pub​​/reso​​urces​​/text​​/witt​​enber​​g​/lut​​her​/g​​al​/we​​b​/​gal​​-inx.​​ html#​​cts. 49. Mark Hamilton, “An Augustinian Critique of our Relationship to Sport.” in Theology, Ethics and Transcendence in Sports, ed. Jim Parry, Mark Nesti, and Nick J. Watson (London: Routledge, 2011), 28. Italics mine. 50. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, vol. 44: 2a2æ, trans. Thomas Gilby O.P. (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1972), 217. 51. Aquinas quoting Ambrose, Summa, vol. 44, 219. 52. Aquinas, Summa, vol. 44, 219. 53. Aquinas, Summa, vol. 44, 219. 54. See Annie Blazer, Playing for God: Evangelical Women and the Unintended Consequences of Sports Ministry (New York: New York University, 2015), 20–21, 40–44.

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55. Ellis, The Games People Play, 233–248, passim. 56. For these insights I am indebted to Erik Dailey, The Fit Shall Inherit the Earth: A Theology of Sport and Fitness (Eugene OR: Wipf & Stock, 2018). 57. Benjamin Houltberg, “Moving from Performance to Purpose in Youth Sports,” Fuller Studio, 8 November 2016, https​:/​/fu​​llers​​tudio​​.full​​er​.ed​​u​/mov​​ing​-p​​erfom​​rance​​ -purp​​ose​-​y​​outh-​​sport​​s. 58. See Blazer, Playing, 43–52. 59. Houltberg, “Moving from Performance.”

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae, vol. 44: 2a2æ 155–170. Translated by Thomas Gilby O.P. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1972. “The Anfeld Kop sings You’ll Never Walk Alone.” BBC Newsnight. 15 April 2014. Video, 1:36. https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/w​​atch?​​v​=2YX​​​kd8Wq​​ZiA. Berger, Peter. A Rumour of Angels. Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1971. Berger, Peter, Brigitte Berger, and Hansfeld Kellner. The Homeless Mind. New York: Random, 1973. Blazer, Annie. Playing for God: Evangelical Women and the Unintended Consequences of Sports Ministry. New York: New York University, 2015. Callero, Peter L. “The Sociology of the Self.” Annual Review of Sociology 29 (2003): 115–133. Coakley, Jay. Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies, 8th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2004. Cohen, Emma E. A., Robin Ejsmond-Frey, Nicola Knight, and R. I. M. Dunbar. “Rowers’ High: Behavioural Synchrony is Correlated with Elevated Pain Thresholds.” Biology Letters 6 no. 1 (2010): 106–8. Cox, Harvey. The Feast of Fools. A Theological Essay on Festivity and Fantasy. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 1969. Dailey, Erik. The Fit Shall Inherit the Earth: A Theology of Sport and Fitness (PhD dissertation, Fuller Theological Seminary, 2017. Wipf & Stock, forthcoming). Dunning, Eric, and Kenneth Sheard. Barbarians, Gentlemen and Players: A Sociological Study of the Development of Rugby Football, 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2005. Duina, Francesco. Winning: Refections on an American Obsession. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011. Ellis, Christopher J. Approaching God: A Guide for Worship Leaders and Worshippers. Norwich: Canterbury, 2009. Ellis, Robert. “The Meanings of Sport: An Empirical Study into the Signifcance Attached to Sporting Participation and Spectating in the UK and US.” Practical Theology 5 no. 2 (2012): 169–88. Ellis, Robert, “Play up! Play up! And Play the Game! Cricket and Our Place in the World.” In Wisdom, Science and the Scriptures. Essays in Honour of Ernest

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Lucas, 243–61. Edited by Stephen Finamore and John Weaver. Oxford and Bristol: Regent’s Park College and Bristol Baptist College, 2012. Ellis, Robert. The Games People Play: Theology, Religion, and Sport. Eugene OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014. English, Tom. “Euan Murray interview: Sunday dilemma for keeper of the faith.” The Scotsman. 31 January 2009. http:​/​/www​​.scot​​sman.​​com​/s​​port/​​scott​​ish​-r​​ugby-​​euan-​​ murra​​y​-int​​ervie​​w​-sun​​day​-d​​ilemm​​a​-for​​-keep​​er​-​of​​-the-​​faith​​-1​-13​​03639​ Ford, David F. Self and Salvation: Being Transformed. Cambridge: CUP, 2009. Freedland, Jonathan. “The Road to Somewhere by David Goodhart—A Liberal’s Rightwing Turn on Immigration.” The Guardian. 22 March 2017. https​:/​/ww​​w​.the​​ guard​​ian​.c​​om​/bo​​oks​/2​​017​/m​​ar​/22​​/the-​​road-​​to​-so​​mewhe​​re​-da​​vid​-g​​oodha​​rt​-po​​pulis​​​ t​-rev​​olt​-f​​uture​​-poli​​tics Gaddes, Ellie. “Gendered Identities: How Does Participation in Sport Affect the Construction and Performance of Gendered Identifes among Young Girls.” (BA diss., University of Oxford, 2012). Geach, Peter. “Identity.” Review of Metaphysics Vol. 21, No.1 (1967): 3–12. Goffman, Erving. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1968. Goodhart, David. The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics. London: Hurst, 2017. Gorn, Elliott J., and Warren Goldstein. A Brief History of American Sports. Urbana: University of Illinois, 2004. Guttmann, Allen. Sports Spectators. New York: Columbia University, 1986. Hamilton, Mark. “An Augustinian Critique of our Relationship to Sport.” In Theology, Ethics and Transcendence in Sports, 25–34. Edited by Jim Parry, Mark Nesti and Nick J. Watson. London: Routledge, 2011. Harris, John, and Andrew Parker. Sport and Social Identities. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009. Horne, John, Alan Tomlinson, and Gary Whannel. Understanding Sport: An Introduction to the Sociological and Cultural Analysis of Sport. London: E. & F. N. Spon, 1999. Houltberg, Benjamin. “Moving from Performance to Purpose in Youth Sports.” Fuller Studio. 8 November 2016. https​:/​/fu​​llers​​tudio​​.full​​er​.ed​​u​/mov​​ing​-p​​erfom​​ rance​​-purp​​ose​-y​​​outh-​​sport​​s. Hudson, Hugh, Director, and Colin Welland. Screenplay. Chariots of Fire. TwentiethCentury Fox, 1981. Huizinga, Johann. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. Boston MA: Beacon, 1955. Hume, David. A Treatise on Human Nature. Edited by P. H. Nidditch, P. H and L. A. Selby-Bigge. Oxford: Clarendon, 1978[1739]. Jackson, Michael. “The Exterminating Angel: Refections on Violence and InterSubjective Reason.” Focaal: European Journal of Anthropology 39 (2002): 137–48. Jenkins, Richard. Social Identity, 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 2008. Kay, Tess. “Daughters of Islam: Family Infuences on Muslim Young Women’s Participation in Sport.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 41 no. 3 (2006), 357–73.

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Keith, Shawn, Executive Producer. The Prize. Athletes in Action, 2014. DVD and online at http:​/​/www​​.athl​​etesi​​nacti​​on​.eu​​/eu​/r​​esour​​ces​/t​​​he​-pr​​ize. Lawler, Steph. Identity: Sociological Perspectives, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity, 2014. Lints, Richard, Michael Horton, and Mark R. Talbot. Personal Identity in Theological Perspective. Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 2006. Locke, John (1689). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Edited by P. H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon, 1975. Luther, Martin. Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535). Translated by Theodore Graebner. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1949. Online: http:​//​www​​.icln​​ et​.or​​g​/pub​​/reso​​urces​​/text​​/witt​​enber​​g​/lut​​her​/g​​al​/we​​b​/g​al​​-inx.​​html#​​cts. Macquarrie, John. In Search of Humanity. London: SCM, 1982. Marcia, James E., Alan S. Waterman, David R. Matteson, Sally L. Archer, and Jacob L. Orlofsky. Ego-Identity: A Handbook of Psychosocial Research. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1993. Moltmann, Jurgen. Theology and Joy. Translated by Reinhard Ulrich. London: SCM, 1973. Putney, Clifford. Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880–1920. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Sheers, Owen. Calon: A Journey to the Heart of Welsh Rugby. London: Faber & Faber, 2013. Storrar, William. “Walking the Tightrope.” Third Way 18 no. 2 (1995), 23–26. Swinburne, Richard. The Evolution of the Soul. Oxford: Clarendon, 1997. Weir, J. Stuart. “Competition as Relationship: Sport as Mutual Quest towards Excellence.” In The Image of God in the Human Body: Essays on Christianity and Sports, 101–21. Edited by Donald Deardorff II and John White. Lewiston NY: Edward Mellen, 2008.

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Chapter 3

Child’s Play in the New Testament

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Sarah Harris

It is not easy to piece together the lives of children in the frst century as literature was written mainly by men and they had little cause to make children the topic of conversation. But through social reconstruction using literature and archeology, knowledge about levels of poverty and wealth, and locations in rural villages or larger cities, we can gain a workable understanding of the lives of children in the ancient world. This short chapter aims to explore the way children played in frst-century Palestine and in the Graeco-Roman world more generally. In this, we will fnd similarities and differences to our world today, and while the frst-century world is not something to reach back toward, there are aspects of play back then which may encourage us to think further about child’s play in the developed world today. Strategies that reveal children’s culture look to methods used in historical Jesus research.1 Such approaches consider ancient Jewish, Greek, and Roman writers and historians, together with archeology and ethnography. Incidental material in texts is unlikely to be fction, and the lives of children and the way they played fall into this category. Adult attestation of literary sources is most likely historic as is “non-elite” material such as jingles children sing in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas 8.1–2 (IGT).2 Tony Burke notes that literature which directly addresses children often presents stylized and idealized views,3 for they “reveal more what an adult wanted children to be than what children really were.”4 These sources will be treated with suspicion. Christian Laes notes the lack of sources on children and that the few we have refer mainly to boys; girls were seen as “insignifcant” for they would grow into women “who were seen as inferior to men in every possible way.”5 This means it is harder to fnd literary evidence for the lives of girls. The material world is, however, a feld of study which gives a clear window into children’s play and this will be drawn upon. 55

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The lives of children did vary somewhat according to their ethnic or cultural grouping. Due to the limitations of this chapter, we will focus on Jewish children in the Galilee and Graeco-Roman children in Rome. In the frst century, Christ-followers participated in Jewish worship until their expulsion from the synagogues later in the century (John 9:22).6 Thus, only occasional references to Christian practice for children will be mentioned. Another fertile area for research is that of the social sciences which focus on people in their contexts. This includes social, economic, cultural, and belief systems. Further, lives in urban settings were not the same as in rural areas, and climate, landscape, and values infuenced where people lived and what they did. These concerns are addressed in biblical studies to some extent, especially as the task becomes increasingly interdisciplinary, while the importance of the conversation produced by the social sciences is growing. This feld of study is fruitful for what I describe as “faithful imagining,” and this method is necessary for understanding children’s daily lives. THE CHILD IN THE GRAECO-ROMAN WORLD Our frst objective is to consider what constituted a “child” in the ancient world. A poem from the frst century contains these lines:

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Today, dear God, I am seven years old and must play no more. Here is my top, my hoop, and my ball: keep them all my Lord.7 Hippocrates (d. 357 BCE) was the frst to determine life in groups of seven years. Philo (De Mundi Opifcio), the Stoics, and rabbinic Judaism all agreed with him. Stoicism based this on the ability of a human to reason, which they determined was inactive until the age of seven.8 The poem’s expression that play stopped at this point is not defnitive because we have stories of children after the age of seven, and even of adults, engaging in various forms of play and leisure. However, from seven years of age, children began education and the task of growing up became paramount. The Graeco-Roman school day for those wealthy enough to be included “was long, beginning early and lasting into the evening with a break for a midday meal.”9 It consisted of rote memorization, was largely based on literacy and maths, and learning was “beaten into” Roman schoolchildren (Plutarch, Cat. Maj, 20.4; Martial, Epig. 9.68; Suetonius, Gramm. 9).10 This rigorous routine allowed little time for play. Neither Latin nor Greek languages had a term for “baby,” which says something about how infants were viewed. This term originated during Middle English in the thirteenth century and is derived from the verb “to babble.”11 Further, children in the Graeco-Roman world walked at a later

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age than today. Movement allows one’s world to be explored, itself a form of play, but there was little expectation this could happen at a young age. Aristotle claimed that the trunks of infants were too heavy for walking,12 and Plato suggested swaddling children until they were age two, prior to which they were carried around by wet nurses.13 In such situations, children’s play was limited to “ground time” when they could explore their world, interact more fully with people, and make choices for themselves. The ancient world believed that around 24–36 months a child could be weaned, walk, and could receive and understand a blow or threat as instruction.14 Finally, as we consider age and play, it is important to note that marriage for Jewish and Graeco-Roman girls occurred in early- to mid-teens,15 and so the progression from older child to adult happened quickly and without the modern Western understanding of teenage years.

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JEWISH CHILDREN’S LIVES Jewish children were valued as a blessing from God and their lives were intertwined with their parents. Life was based frstly around the household which might include three generations, slaves, and the occasional stranger who was included in the kinship unit. Children participated in family prayers because this occurred frst in the home, and second, in the synagogue (Deut 4:9; 6:7; Prov 1:8; 6:20–21; 4 Macc. 18:10–19; 1 Tim 1:5; Philo, On the Embassy to Gaius, 115). The synagogue was the community’s sole meeting place and used for education, prayers, judicial processes, and community meetings. Jewish children were incorporated into the adult world and were taught daily household and agricultural tasks (IGT 12.1; 16.1).16 In a typical village, the community was situated in a geographical space such as a valley or on a small hill and always by a water source. Children grew up and played within the family and community which was tightly tied together by their religious homogeneity. Each village would have only one winepress and beit bud (olive press), and the task of harvesting the family’s olives and grapes was an all-age activity. The winepress was a smoothed and bowlshaped rocky area with a carved lip where the juice would run down into a rocky pit. Feet rather than stones were used to extract the juice because they do not crush the bitter pips; stomping the grapes was a colorful activity for young and old alike. Today you can visit the Nazareth Village, a reconstructed frst-century village which relies on biblical scholarship to inform its design. It is built on land where Nazareth’s frst-century winepress and watchtower have been found and it is easy to picture Jesus and his friends having fun in the grape pit.

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The olive harvest and pressing process called for help from the whole household. Children used branches to beat the trees and laid cloth out to collect the olives. These were then taken to the beit bud where the olives were tipped into a large millstone tied to a beam. The beam was hitched to a donkey and a child placed on its back as it walked around and around the room. Wheat harvesting involved children who sat on the smooth side of the board, while a donkey walked the village’s threshing foor. The weight of the child was just enough to keep pressure on the board as the grain was extracted. Then the young children at home, and especially the girls, helped their mother grind the grain and make the day’s bread. This process took four hours while it was interspersed with other daily tasks such as collecting the water, and seasonal tasks of spinning, dyeing, or sewing.17 Water collection was a social time as people met down by the well, cistern, or river. Family members walked to the market or to gather water at the well, and on occasions when an important visitor entered their town, multi-generations came to listen and see the spectacle (Luke 4:40, 42 and 5:1). The liturgical fow of the Jewish calendar meant that festivals were central to a community’s rhythm and this marked the annual holidays for the family. Jewish men were required to participate in Passover, Booths (or Tabernacles), and Pentecost in Jerusalem (Deut 16:1–17; Lev 23:1–22). The law’s stipulation was clear but sheer economics and geographical distance meant that this was often not possible. At such times rural communities remembered the feasts in their hometowns, creating opportunity for Jewish households to celebrate together. The feast of Passover is described frequently in the Gospels, and on one occasion Jesus goes with his family “as was their custom” to Jerusalem (Luke 2:41–52). The feast lasted seven days while the travel to-and-fro added another three days each way, meaning families were away from the village and daily routines for two weeks. Communities traveled as a caravan and children intermingled among the travelers, creating a distinct color as against village life.18 The Psalms of Ascent (Pss 120–134) were sung by the pilgrims as they scaled the hill up to Jerusalem. Passover was a time of nationalistic fervor as the pilgrims looked back to God’s deliverance of their people out of slavery in Egypt, and with the expectation that God would act again in the present. The governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, lived in Caesarea Maritema where the Roman world of gods, games, theater, parties, and shopping abounded, but during the feasts he came to Jerusalem to ensure riots did not break out. For an outsider, the festivals were times of uncertainty, while for the Jewish people, the insiders, it was a celebration of God’s work in the world on their behalf. The Passover lamb was possibly the family’s meat for the year—only a small portion was given to the priests—and the rest was handed back to roast for their celebration.19 Passover is celebrated

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in the spring, and the clear days and cooler nights meant evening prayers and Torah reading was an occasion to gather in closely together and rest in each other’s company. The most favored of festivals for children though was the festival of Booths where people traveled again to the Holy City if circumstances allowed. The festival was at harvest’s end and each household built a makeshift shelter with an open roof to the stars, enacting the wilderness years. The festival lasted eight days and there was joyous dancing and singing, and ceremonies for water-pouring and torch-lighting. The dancing celebrated the completion of harvest; the water-pouring recalled the water which God miraculously brought out of a rock in the wilderness (Exod 17:6; Num 20:11; Pss 78:20; 105:41); and the torches signifed the pillar of fre which guided the Israelites by day and gave them light at night (Exod 13:21; Neh 9:12). In Jerusalem, the temple courts were alight with oil lamps in the evening and people danced long into the night. This was a festival that looked back to the past but also looked forward to God’s promises for the future. In the water-pouring ceremony, golden water jugs were carried in ceremonial procession from the Pool of Siloam at the bottom of the hill all the way back to the temple on top of the hill. This water was then poured over the High Altar in anticipation of the eschatological river that will fow out from the temple in Jerusalem bringing life back to the wilderness (Zech 14:8). Families who had come for the feast would join in procession for these occasions with the priests. Jewish people have a collective rather than individual identity, and so individuals are frst and foremost members of a group and celebrate (or lament) as such.20 This explains why community-wide celebrations took place when a lost sheep was found and returned (Luke 15:3–7) or when a family member was reunited (15:11–32). These were times when young and old gathered to rejoice by eating, drinking, and spending time together. Evidence also suggests children played with their friends in the local market or other communal spaces (IGT 17.4).21 Storytelling was an important part of play and recreation in the ancient world. For Jewish people, this was not restricted to the festivals as all signifcant community narratives were kept alive by careful and frequent retelling. At evening it was common for Bedouin villagers to gather for ḥafat samar which are informal meetings when stories and news are shared.22 These gatherings have no set leader or teacher, but community members (young and old) participate by offering proverbs, riddles, poetry, stories, parables, and legends about key fgures in the history of the village, thereby preserving valued traditions.23 There was no fexibility with poems or proverbs—they were quoted word-for-word, whereas parables and recollections of historical events signifcant for the community allowed for controlled fexibility. That meant that there could be no change to the central ideas, but less important details had

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around 15 percent of difference. This allowed for an individual’s personality and storytelling skills to change the color and shape of a story. Stories which had little bearing on the villagers themselves were also told; these had total fexibility and could be embellished or even fctional.24 Kristine Henriksen Garroway has showed that ancient Israelites enjoyed a good joke, and how jokes and playfulness were embedded in stories from the Torah.25 The tone of the ḥafat samar was likely to be similar. Jesus was a skilled storyteller and, when he came to towns and villages, he used children as examples to describe the Kingdom of God and the nature of discipleship (Mark 9:33–37; 10:13–16). Jesus took children in his arms and blessed them (Mark 10:16; Matt. 19:13–15), showing their value and his warmth toward them. As an itinerant Rabbi, this shows an intensifcation of welcome toward children in a public space.26 Jesus did not seek to change the perception of children as embedded in the family unit but he did affrm them and make them strikingly visible.27 Luke’s attention to the children in his Gospel is marked with their presence so common that it has been nicknamed “the gospel of little children.”28 Celsus notes that Christians used play as a method for evangelization. He says that Christian children and women encouraged other “playfellows to the wool-dresser’s shop, or the cobbler’s or the washerwoman’s shop. That they might learn perfection. And by saying this they persuaded them” (Origen, Contra Celsum 3.55).29 Missionary activity was a particularly Christian life rhythm, as was worship. This took place in synagogues where possible, but also in homes where children were in a natural environment, or in a workspace or by the river.30 This was a network where Christian playmates were able to grow.

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THE LIVES OF GRAECO-ROMAN CHILDREN While Jewish children were regarded warmly and welcomed into the family, this was not generally the case in Graeco-Roman culture. Philo viewed children younger than seven as innocent, but older than this as evil and overcome by passion (Her. 294). Plato also described them negatively as beasts to be tamed. He writes, “Of all the wild beasts, the child is the most intractable; for insofar as it, above all others, possesses a fount of reason that is yet uncurbed, it is a treacherous, sly and most insolent creature. Wherefore the child must be strapped up, as it were, with many bridles” (Leg. 808d). Aasgaard writes that “In antiquity, children were viewed as immature: they were undeveloped of character, bodily weak, emotionally unstable, and intellectually defcient, and were thus unable to reach the standard of the ideal human being, which was the (male) adult.”31 Seneca, a Roman Stoic philosopher in the frst century,

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comments that when there is uncontrolled grief at the death of a child it does “more harm than good” (Epist. Mor. 99). While Seneca’s view would not refect all Romans, it does show the lack of romanticizing where natal concerns lie. Mothers formed attachments with their adult children rather than their infants;32 this may have stemmed in part from the high mortality rates in the ancient world.33 Roman children lived and played primarily with the slaves’ families; they did not live with the parents in their part of the house. No children’s beds or separate rooms have been found in Roman houses.34 In the Roman world a few days after a child was born, it was laid in a quasireligious ceremony at the feet of the Paterfamilias, who chose if he would accept the child or not. The children who were rejected were left exposed outside the city or on temple steps.35 Such babies died of the cold, were eaten by animals, or taken up by someone to raise as their slave.36 Exposure is one practice Jews and Christians rejected and many children were rescued and brought up as part of the household or cared for as slaves.37 Stories were an important part of the Graeco-Roman world, although Plato urged care in relation to which stories were told to children. He says, “And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they grow up? We cannot.” (Rep. 2. 377–378.) The later Emperor Julian (the Apostate) declared that myth was for children while fables with moral aims were directed toward adults (Orat. 7.207A).38 Children were told stories by their parents and they formed part of the Graeco-Roman school curricula. Ovid (43 BCE–17/18 CE), a well know Latin poet, wrote Metamorphoses, a 15-volume collection of 250 myths. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey (8th century BCE) and Virgil’s Aeneid (70–19 BCE) were heroic stories which formed part of Graeco-Roman education, while the Torah supplied historical stories for Jewish children. The Fables of Aesop were well-loved stories credited to a slave in Greece (620–554 BCE) but which have been loved and retold throughout history.39 Such stories were fruitful for the imagination and for learning the art of narrative. Quintilian suggested children should not just hear them but learn to tell them (The Orator’s Education 1.9.2). For boys from wealthy families, Quintilian (1st century CE) advocated training in rhetoric from the time of the wet nurses and pedagogues, and devoted an entire book of his Institutio oratoria to the childhood years.40 The treatise De liberis educandis by Pseudo-Plutarch takes a similar approach. Both books curb childhood play, and seek to craft the child’s voice from earliest vocalizations.41 When there was time for play, children from wealthy families made use of the atrium or galleries of the peristyle (Lucretius, Res. nat. 4.400–403).42 In the frst century, wealth was found among the few while the vast majority of people in Rome lived around the poverty line. Peter

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Oakes defnes poverty as “the economically enforced inability to participate in the normal activities of life,”43 which includes time and space to play. The poor lived in inadequate housing, be that small dwellings in rural areas or tenement blocks in cities. Roman tenements had no sewerage system. Waste was thrown out into channels in the streets and water accessed from communal supplies. In this environment, disease fourished and with lack of access to nutrient-rich food, so too malnutrition; the urban poor lacked land and so could not grow their own crops.44 The lives of slave children constitute another discrete category. They belonged to their parents’ master and their daily life varied greatly depending upon their situation. Generally, they began working in the household or on the land as soon as they were able to do so, for “training for their future responsibilities [began] at a very young age.”45 This means their ability to experience play was severely restricted. If a slave-child was bright and the Paterfamilias needed someone to keep the books or carry out business, that child might receive an education alongside the Paterfamilias’ own children. Yet for most their work was manual; they could be anything from a child laborer, to domestic worker, to sexual “partner.” Pederasty was accepted as a suitable way for a man to fnd release and entertainment and it was accepted as a slave’s role, child or not (Marital, Epig. 3.73; Catullus, Carm. 15; Suetonius, Gramm. 23).46 A fnal point with regards to Rome is that some children were considered “playthings” or “child pets” and brought in at dinner parties to entertain the adults with their chatter and child’s play.47 Unfortunately, these delicia children were sometimes used as a sexual “partner.” Such children were sometimes chosen for their beauty and some for their deformity, for there was a belief that this might be accompanied by mystical powers. Alternatively, they might be considered monstrosities and as such fostered freakish adult entertainment.48 The lives of these children were devastated by human hubris. On a healthier note, Margaret MacDonald notes that children in the GraecoRoman world in general (not delicia children) were “small, silent, but ever present” in dinner parties and social occasions such as marriages and other ceremonies.49 They therefore would have been entertained or alternatively, if the dinner party had a symposium, would have been educated as they quietly listened in. The children of the Galilee, and Jewish children in general, fared better than Roman children as Jewish society disapproved of exposure and sexual intimacy outside of marriage. They also had lower levels of poverty, meaning the lives of children were of a higher standard.50 In the Galilee, there was fertile land and an abundant water supply, and people practiced almsgiving when there were people in need. High taxation did adversely affect these people,51 as did the Roman imperial system, but overall families fared better

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than many in urban Graeco-Roman areas. The children had greater opportunity and space to play and healthier lifestyles in the open air. Further, their communal ideology meant much time was spent within the kinship structures. These are requisite for healthy children.

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THE SIMILARITIES OF PLAY Ancient literature shows that toys and play for Jewish and Roman freeborn children were largely consistent while there were some aspects shaped by religious views. In the IGT 2.1, there is a story of children building dams in a river. Rivers and streams were places for playing and swimming in the heat of the day (B. Qidd. 30b). Children played games in the streets (Luke 7:31; Zech 8:5) and on the fat roof tops of ancient houses (IGT 9. 1). In the Galilee region, as in many parts of the Roman Empire, there were hills and trees to climb, branches to whittle into toys and space for imaginary games. Archeological excavations have uncovered ancient toys and pottery paintings, sarcophagus reliefs, monuments, and statues that depict toys.52 Garroway notes that “pretend play in particular has been established as a human universal [activity?], making play an important part of a child’s life experience.”53 Babies had rattles and they might be shaped into animals or daily objects like fruit. Girls might wear a simple chain or in a Roman household an amulet or medallion. Figurines of “four-legged animals (solid and hollow), Judean pillar fgurines, horse and riders, beds and other furniture models, chariots, birds/snakes, and other anthropomorphic fgures” have been recovered.54 A game of squares can still be found etched into the Roman cardo in Sepphoris and the frst-century pavement in Capernaum. This was a game played with small stones, nuts, or shells and has been found in a multitude of villages and even in cities like Jerusalem and Rome. Multiple die made from bone or clay have been found in many ancient sites, some including patterns of dots and some animals.55 Disks with two holes used for yo-yo like games have also been recovered. Many of these disks are crude and possibly made by the children themselves while some are clearly produced by skilled artisans.56 Play objects such as dolls, hoops, spinning tops, and hobby horses have also been recovered,57 as have sets of knucklebones made from animal bones, balls, kites, wooden swords,58 and even miniature chariots.59 Dolls varied in size and sophistication. The poorer children had dolls simply whittled out of wood while the wealthy might have an ivory carved doll bought in the agora. Some dolls had sexual differentiation (Mattel did not have the monopoly on Ken and Barbie) and some have been found wearing a wedding dress or fashioned as a Roman Vestal Virgin.60 Children used dolls in reenactments of religious or community rituals and in votive offerings

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in homemade sanctuaries and sometimes in rites of passage as they entered adulthood.61 Role-playing was popular and children played kings, leaders, judges, soldiers, orators, professionals, and even evil fgures such as demons in their games.62 The game of “Troy” was popular. In this game, one person resisted the other who tried to drag them across the line.63 Such games and toys have lasted the distance of time and are still popular today in one form or another.

CONCLUSION

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The lives of children in the ancient world and their time and scope to play varied greatly depending on their physical place in the Empire and the cultural beliefs of the household. In general, we can say that life in Rome was harsher for children than in the Jewish world; Jewish children had more time with family, physical space, and potentially more opportunity to play outdoors in nature. The play of Roman children was impeded due to adult attitudes to children, the way children were used for adult pleasure, and the limitations associated by their social place. Thus, their play was negatively impacted and their imaginations potentially limited. The simple factor of lack of time to play is notable for a wealthy child or a slave whose lives were heavily timetabled. What appears to have made the central difference between the two worlds was adherence to the Mosaic law and the belief that children are gifts of God and so to be cared for in a way that refects God’s relationship to Israel. The traditions of festivals within Jewish culture allowed for the seasons of life to bring change and color to domestic and agricultural patterns, which centered on the kinship relationships that stabilize life. This is a pattern that continued into Christianity.

NOTES 1. Reidar Aasgaard, “Uncovering Children’s Culture in Late Antiquity: The Testimony of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas,” in Children in Late Ancient Christianity, eds. Cornelia B. Horn and Robert R. Phenix. STAC 58 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 25. 2. Aasgaard, “Uncovering Children’s Culture,” 26. 3. Tony Burke, “‘Social Viewing’ of Children in the Childhood Stories of Jesus,” in Children in Late Ancient Christianity, eds. Cornelia B. Horn and Robert R. Phenix, STAC 58 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 35. 4. Burke, “Social Viewing,” 35.

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5. Christian Laes, Children in the Roman Empire: Outsiders Within (Cambridge: CUP: 2011), 2; originally Kinderen bij se Romeinen: Zes Eeuwen Dagelijks Leven (Uigeverij Davidsfonds: Universiteit Antwerpen, 2006). 6. In terms of dating this is uncertain but was in the later frst century and varied according to region and city. 7. Translation from Thomas Wiedemann, Adults and Children in the Roman Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press; London: Routledge, 1989), 153. 8. W. A. Strange, Children in the Early Church: Children in the Ancient World, the New Testament and the Early Church (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2004), 21. 9. D. L. Stamps, “Children in Late Antiquity,” in Dictionary of New Testament Background, eds. Craig A. Evans and Staley E. Porter (Downers Grove: IVP, 2000), 198. 10. C. Reeder, “Child, Children,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 2nd ed, eds. Joel B. Green, Jeannine K. Brown, and Nicholas Perrin. (Downers Grove: IVP Academic/Nottingham: IVP, 2013), 109–113 (100). 11. Laes, Children in the Roman Empire, 80. 12. Aristotle, Hist. an. 587b; Gen. an. 777. 13. Laes, Children in the Roman Empire, 80. 14. Stamps, “Children in Late Antiquity,” DNTB, 198. 15. Ross S. Kraemer, “Typical and Atypical Jewish Family Dynamics: The Case of Babatha and Berenice,” in Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue, eds. David L. Balch and Carolyn Osiek (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 140, 143. He notes that Berenice was married for a second time at age 16. 16. Naomi Steinberg, The World of the Child in the Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Bible Monographs 51 (Sheffeld: Sheffeld Phoenix Press, 2003), 45–63. 17. Miriam Feinberg Vamosh, Women at the Time of the Bible (Herzlia: Palphot, 2007). 18. This explains why Jesus’ absence was not noted immediately by his parents. 19. Robert J. Karris, Eating Your Way Through Luke’s Gospel (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2006), 5. 20. Carol Myers, Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (Oxford: OUP, 2013), 118–121. 21. Reeder, “Child, Children,” DJG, 109. IGT: Infancy Gospel of Thomas. 22. Kenneth Bailey, “Informal Controlled Oral Traditions.” Themelios 20 no. 2 (1995): 4–35; James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, Vol. 1 Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 205–10. 23. Bailey, “Informal Controlled Oral Tradition,” 6–8. 24. Bailey, “Informal Controlled Oral Tradition,” 8. Italics original. 25. Kristine Henriksen Garroway, Growing Up in Ancient Israel: Children in Material Culture and Biblical Texts, Archaeology and Biblical Studies 23 (Atlanta: SBL, 2018), 201. 26. Notably the disciples sought to stop them coming to Jesus. 27. Strange, Children in the Early Church, 64–65. 28. Joseph A. Grassi, “Child, Children,” ed. David Noel Freedman. The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 1:907.

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29. Margaret Y. MacDonald, “Was Celsus Right? The Role of Women in the Expansion of Early Christianity,” in Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue, eds. David L. Balch and Carolyn Osiek (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 158. 30. Edward Adams, The Earliest Christian Meeting Places: Almost Exclusively Houses? LNTS 450 (London: T & T Clark, 2013). 31. Reidar Aasgaard, “Like a Child: Paul’s Rhetorical Uses of Childhood,” in The Child in the Bible, eds. Marcia J. Bunge (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 260. 32. Lynn H. Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians: Illuminating Ancient Ways of Life (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 148–149. 33. Cohick, Women in the World, 134–135. 34. Laes, Children in the Roman Empire, 36–37. 35. Deformity and sickness were the main reasons for exposure while if the Father believed the family had enough girls, or he did not want them, or he took exception to the baby, no reason was expected or given for his choice. Erkki Koskenniemi, The Exposure of Infants Among Jews and Christians in Antiquity, The Social World of Biblical Antiquity, Second Series 4 (Sheffeld: Sheffeld Phoenix Press, 2009), 1–9. 36. See Koskenniemi, Exposure of Infants. 37. Koskenniemi notes that there were exceptions amongst Jewish and Christians in the ancient world, Exposure of Infants, 153–159. 38. The Works of Emperor Julian, trans. Wilmer C. Wright; LCL; 2 vols. (London: Heinemann, 1913–1923). 39. Aasgaard, “Children’s Culture,” 13; Christian Laes, “Children and Fables: Children in Fables in Hellenistic and Roman Antiquity.” Latomus 65 (2006): 912–4. 40. Laes, Children in the Roman Empire, 6. 41. W. Martin Bloomer, “Quintilian on the Child as a Learning Subject.” The Classical World 105 no. 1 (2011): 109–137 (113). 42. Laes, Children in the Roman Empire, 37. 43. Peter Oakes, “Methodological Issues in Using Economic Evidence in Interpretation of Early Christian Texts,” in Engaging Economics: New Testament Scenarios and Early Christian Reception, eds. Bruce Longenecker and Kelly D. Liebengood (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 9–34 (30). 44. Lynn Cohick, “Poverty and Its Causes in the Early Church,” in Poverty in the Early Church and Today: A Conversation, eds. Steve Walton and Hannah Swithinbank (London: T & T Clark, 2019), 16–27 (18). 45. Reeder, “Child, Children,” DJG, 109. 46. Reeder, “Child, Children,” DJG, 110. 47. Christian Laes, “Desperately Different? Delicia Children in the Roman Household,” in Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue, eds. David L. Balch and Carolyn Osiek (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 298. See also Christian Laes, “Delicia Children Revisited,” in Children, Memory, and Family Identity in Roman Culture, eds. Véronique Dasen and Thomas Späth (Oxford: OUP, 2010). 48. Laes, “Delicia children,” 302–303.

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49. Margaret Y. MacDonald, The Power of Children: The Construction of Christian Families in the Graeco-Roman World (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014), 33–65. 50. Cohick notes that archaeological evidence suggests that there were a higher number of stone jars found per capita and some domestic spaces had glassware. Further they were able to participate in religious purity rites and so practice their nationalist ideology. This all points to a higher-than-subsistence level of living. See Cohick, “Poverty,” 24. 51. Richard A. Horsley, “Jesus and the Galilee: The Contingencies of a Renewal Movement,” in Galilee Through the Centuries: Confuence of the Cultures, ed. Eric M. Meyers (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1999), 57–74. 52. Aasgaard, “Children’s Culture,” 9. 53. Garroway, Growing Up in Ancient Israel, 197. 54. Garroway, Growing Up in Ancient Israel, 202. JPF: Judean Pillar Figurine. 55. Garroway, Growing Up in Ancient Israel, 214–215. 56. Garroway, Growing Up in Ancient Israel, 218–219. 57. Aasgaard, “Children’s Culture,” 9. 58. Stamps, “Children in Late Antiquity,” DNTB, 198. 59. Reeder, “Child, Children,” DJG, 109. 60. Aasgaard, “Children’s Culture,” 10. 61. Roman boys received togas when they were twelve which signaled their move into adult life. Jewish boys had their own movement into adulthood at around the same time. This was when they had learned the Torah and were able to participate in religious activities as a reader. See Stamps, “Children in Late Antiquity,” DNTB, 200. 62. Aasgaard, “Children’s Culture,” 10; Reeder, “Child, Children,” DJG, 109. 63. Stamps, “Children in Late Antiquity,” DNTB, 200.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Aasgaard, Reidar. “Like a Child: Paul’s Rhetorical Uses of Childhood.” In The Child in the Bible, 249–277. Edited by Marcia J. Bunge. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008. ———. “Uncovering Children’s Culture in Late Antiquity: The Testimony of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.” In Children in Late Ancient Christianity, 1–27. Edited by Cornelia B. Horn and Robert R. Phenix. STAC 58. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009. Adams, Edward. The Earliest Christian Meeting Places: Almost Exclusively Houses? LNTS 450. London: T & T Clark, 2013. Bailey, Kenneth. “Informal Controlled Oral Traditions.” Themelios 20 no. 2 (1995): 4–35. Bloomer, W. Martin. “Quintilian on the Child as a Learning Subject.” The Classical World 105 no. 1 (2011): 109–137. Burke, Tony. “‘Social Viewing’ of Children in the Childhood Stories of Jesus.” In Children in Late Ancient Christianity, 29–43. Edited by Cornelia B. Horn and Robert R. Phenix. STAC 58. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009.

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Cohick, Lynn H. “Poverty and Its Causes in the Early Church.” In Poverty in the Early Church and Today: A Conversation, 16–27. Edited by Steve Walton and Hannah Swithinbank. London: T & T Clark, 2019. ———. Women in the World of the Earliest Christians: Illuminating Ancient Ways of Life. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009. Dunn, James D. G. Jesus Remembered. Vol. 1 Christianity in the Making. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003. Garroway, Kristine Henriksen. Growing Up in Ancient Israel: Children in Material Culture and Biblical Texts. Archaeology and Biblical Studies 23. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2018. Grassi, Joseph A. “Child, Children.” In The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, 904–907. Edited by David Noel Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992. Horsley, Richard A. “Jesus and the Galilee: The Contingencies of a Renewal Movement.” In Galilee Through the Centuries: Confuence of the Cultures, 57–74. Edited by Eric M. Meyers. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1999. Josephus. Translated by Henry St. J. Thackeray et al. 10 vols. LCL. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1926–1965. Julian. Translated by Wilmer C. Wright. LCL. 2 vols. London: Heinemann, 1913–1923. Karris, Robert J. Eating Your Way Through Luke’s Gospel. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2006. Koskenniemi, Erkki. The Exposure of Infants Among Jews and Christians in Antiquity. The Social World of Biblical Antiquity, Second Series 4. Sheffeld: Sheffeld Phoenix Press, 2009. Kraemer, Ross S. “Typical and Atypical Jewish Family Dynamics: The Case of Babatha and Berenice.” In Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue, 130–156. Edited by David L. Balch and Carolyn Osiek. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013. Laes, Christian. “Children and Fables: Children in Fables in Hellenistic and Roman Antiquity.” Latomus 65 (2006): 912–914. ———. Children in the Roman Empire: Outsiders Within. Cambridge: CUP: 2011; originally Kinderen bij se Romeinen: Zes Eeuwen Dagelijks Leven. Uigeverij Davidsfonds: Universiteit Antwerpen, 2006. ———. “Delicia Children Revisited.” In Children, Memory, and Family Identity in Roman Culture, 245–271. Edited by Véronique Dasen and Thomas Späth. Oxford: OUP, 2010. ———. “Desperately Different? Delicia Children in the Roman Household.” In Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue, 298–326. Edited by David L. Balch and Carolyn Osiek. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003. MacDonald, Margaret Y. “Was Celsus Right? The Role of Women in the Expansion of Early Christianity.” In Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue, 157–184. Edited by David L. Balch and Carolyn Osiek. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003. ———. The Power of Children: The Construction of Christian Families in the Graeco-Roman World. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014.

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Myers, Carol. Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context. Oxford: OUP, 2013. Oakes, Peter. “Methodological Issues in Using Economic Evidence in Interpretation of Early Christian Texts.” In Engaging Economics: New Testament Scenarios and Early Christian Reception, 9–34. Edited by Bruce Longenecker and Kelly D. Liebengood. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009. Reeder, C. “Child, Children.” In Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 109–113, 2nd ed. Edited by Joel B. Green, Jeannine K. Brown, and Nicholas Perrin. Downers Grove: IVP Academic/Nottingham: IVP, 2013. Stamps, D. L. “Children in Late Antiquity.” In Dictionary of New Testament Background, 197–201. Edited by Craig A. Evans and Staley E. Porter. Downers Grove: IVP, 2000. Steinberg, Naomi. The World of the Child in the Hebrew Bible. Hebrew Bible Monographs 51. Sheffeld: Sheffeld Phoenix Press, 2003. Strange, W. A. Children in the Early Church: Children in the Ancient World, the New Testament and the Early Church. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2004. Vamosh, Miriam Feinberg. Women at the Time of the Bible. Herzlia: Palphot, 2007. Wiedemann, Thomas. Adults and Children in the Roman Empire. New Haven: Yale University Press; London: Routledge, 1989.

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Chapter 4

Identity Formation as an Antecedent to the Practice of Sports Chaplaincy

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Steven N. Waller

I was casually driving home from work one evening after a long meeting, when my cellular telephone rang. The label “unknown caller” fashed onto the screen. My frst instinct was to not answer the call because I assumed that it was just another telemarketer who aspired to sell me something I did not want. On the fourth ring, my gut urged me to answer and so I pressed the answer button on my car’s audio panel and a voice came over the speaker system. The party, in an almost muffed voice said, “Hey, how are you? Sorry to call you this late. I found the card you gave me a few months ago and you said to call if I ever needed to talk.” I responded, “No worries. I was just driving home from a meeting.” What troubled me was the strange silence that followed for the next 10 seconds. Recognizing the voice as that of a former rugby player whom I had served fve or six years ago, I asked the natural question, “What’s on your mind?” The caller proceeded to tell me about his recent bout with alcoholism and that his wife had left him after he struck her in an intoxicated rage. In that moment of truth, my insights and instincts as a chaplain, not necessarily labeling myself as a sports chaplain, provoked me to stay on the telephone line and minister to the caller. That night I sat in my car, in my garage, tending to a wounded human being for more than two and a half hours. Crank citing Rev. Cameron Butler, an iconic sports chaplain and former executive director of Sports Chaplaincy Australia, states that “people don’t want religion but they do want authentic chaplains.”1 The authenticity that Butler speaks of begins with the professional identity of the chaplain. The purpose of this chapter is to elaborate upon the importance of identity formation in chaplaincy generally, and sports chaplaincy, specifcally. The discourse in this chapter also addresses how identity formation informs the practice of chaplaincy. 71

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THE CHAPLAINCY NARRATIVE Chaplains should celebrate the lore and history that are tied to the vocation of chaplaincy. Many recognize the powerful story emanating from a fourthcentury legend of St. Martin of Tours, a former Roman soldier, who at age twenty-one encountered an indigent man who was standing in the freezing cold near the gates of Amiens in Gaul (France). Legend has it that young Martin removed his cape and cut it in half. He kept half for himself and then proceeded to give the remaining half to the beggar. Martin, moved by this event, pondered it and subsequently later that evening had a revelation in which he came to understand that the mendicant was Christ Himself. As he conveyed the story to others, the half of the cape he kept became a relic and an object of value as a reminder of the event. The cape (Lt. cappa) was kept in a special container made for it. The container was called the cappella. Thus, we get the term chapel—that place where the robe of Christ is shared, not stored. The keeper of the cape was known as the cappellanus (the keeper of the cape). From this identifer, the word chaplain is derived, for chaplains are the ones who share God’s love and care with those in need wherever people are.2 This common narrative is transported into the foundational understanding of sports chaplaincy. The term chaplain, as used here, represents both men and women, ordained and non-ordained, of any faith tradition, religion, or spiritual path. Although the word chaplain originally referred to representatives of the Christian faith, it is now applied to men and women of other religions or philosophical traditions. In addition, the terms pastoral care, religion, theology, spirituality, faith body, and congregation are in the lexicon of chaplaincy as a profession. Most important, chaplains are visual reminders of the Holy through their presence in and involvement with the members of their institution. Perhaps the most important act of healing a chaplain can perform is to empower the client, patient, or family member to access his or her own spiritual and religious coping strategies. This is both the heart and challenge of chaplaincy. Through the centuries, chaplaincy has been recognized as an institutional ministry—ministry on behalf of a faith tradition or congregation, but outside a traditional religious setting—in places like hospitals, prisons, the military, corporations, and fnally sports. The Gift of Chaplaincy One of the gifts which chaplaincy offers the world is a witness to the ability of a remarkably wide range of religious communities to work together for the spiritual well being of the whole community. Chaplaincy has always been characterized by a common commitment to cooperation without compromise. While chaplains are religious leaders endorsed by a particular religious community,

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they are responsible to provide ministry and to facilitate the free exercise of religion for all the persons in their organization. They are never asked to violate their religious convictions, nor do they pressure others to violate their convictions. They are expected to remain sensitive to the personal, moral, and spiritual needs of all people for whom they have responsibility. . . . In recent years, many lay individuals have received training in chaplaincy and are now appointed as chaplains in schools, hospitals, universities, prisons, and elsewhere to work alongside or instead of offcial members of the clergy.3

Chaplaincy, as a profession, “has developed a variety of specialized forms in its various settings.” Military, hospital, and business chaplaincies “are generally viewed as distinct forms of specialized ministry with corresponding career tracks. . . . In these settings, the chaplain is generally recognized as a member of the institutional team functioning with specialized skills. Many chaplains, however, also consider it important to keep non-specialized care and concern for all persons related to the organization as the principal feature of their identity and work.”4 And then there is the case of the sports chaplain whose lineage is anchored in traditional, institutional chaplaincy. The focal point of this chapter is the primacy of identity formation for practitioners of chaplaincy generally, and sports chaplaincy, specifcally.

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IDENTITY FORMATION AND CHAPLAINCY Professional identity can be thought of as one’s professional self-concept based on attributes, beliefs, values, motives, and experiences. Identity formation is the development of the distinct personality of an individual in a particular stage of life in which individual characteristics are possessed and by which a person is recognized or known. This process defnes individuals to others and themselves. Pieces of the person’s actual identity include a sense of continuity, a sense of uniqueness from others, and a sense of affliation with a feld. Conceived of as a social space with distinct, objective properties, a feld is organized around behaviors and practices which are strongly patterned by traditions. These form part of a feld’s doxa; that is, the tacit, unexamined, taken-for-granted presuppositions which produce the feld’s habitus and determine its cultural practice. An internalized scheme, habitus is the habitual, patterned and thus pre-refexive way of understanding and enacting the social feld. Hence, identity and professional development entail habituation to a discursive and symbolic feld, the production of disciplined bodies, within which must be objectifed those “durable dispositions that recognize and comply with the specifc demands of a given institutional area of activity.”5

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Professional Identity in Ministry Cornwall suggested that the process of identity formation is continuous.6 In recent years, some commentators have criticized the language of formation, suggesting that it may be psychologically damaging. Ross Thompson comments: A minister is called not just to do certain things but to be a certain kind of person. This will be emphasized, of course, by those who stress the “ontological” rather than “functional” aspects of ministry . . . The gifts cannot simply be acquired by discipline and training, but require openness to the inward work of the Spirit. Indeed, “formation” has the unfortunate connotation of an external shape one receives like a mould.7

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Professional Identity and Self Psychologists including Erik Erikson and John Kotre have described identity formation via the continual generation of the self in relationship with what one creates. In Erikson’s typology, with maturity comes a capacity to generate and mentor others, which is grounded in hope for positive futures. The opposite of generativity is stagnation: a loss of capacity to hope in new futures and create new presents.8 Kotre expands on this, pointing to the signifcance of the integration of new cultures, which nourishes the self and leads to “cultural fertility.”9 It seems to me that these accounts chime with H. Richard Niebuhr’s concept of responsibility, that is, the capacity to respond to God and others from a place of accountability for one’s actions and their legacy, and to integrate new insights into the self.10 For Niebuhr, responsibility is not a condemnation to failure and guilt, but a positive and assured vehicle of conscious, cocreative activity with God. In the educational context, it means formation should not be construed as a psychologically destructive process or the imposition of alien identity; rather, it may be a collaborative and nurturing action. IDENTITY FORMATION IN CHAPLAINS AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION Samuel Park, in his book Pastoral Identity as Social Construction: Pastoral Identity in Postmodern, Intercultural, and Multifaith Contexts, suggests that identity for persons in caregiving vocations (e.g., pastors, chaplains) is a social construction.11 Generally speaking, a social construction is an invention of a specifc culture or society that exists exclusively because people agree to work as if it exists, or agree to follow certain predictable rules and

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regulations. Park further suggests that social structure and personal agency intersect during the process of identity formation. In addition, Park concludes that “from a Trinitarian perspective, pastoral care partners [chaplains] construct their identities through the dynamic interplay between agency and structure, between groundedness and openness to diversity [across multiple types of diversity—age, gender, ability, etc.] and human partners and the Divine.”12 Moreover, inferred in Park’s assessment of identity formation as a social construction for caregivers, is the fact that identity formation for chaplains is directly related to the relationships that are formed with people they serve, and how the caregiver learns to navigate the culture and power dynamics of institutions.13

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Identity Formation in Chaplains beyond the Health Care Model One of the major challenges for sports chaplaincy practitioners is establishing a professional identity outside of the dominant health care model. For more than seventy years, the identity of chaplains has been shaped by the clinical pastoral education (CPE) and seminary-based academic training.14 Traditionally, CPE and supervision in health care settings have been the primary mechanism for identity formation of chaplains. But, with the emergence of sports chaplaincy as a strand of chaplaincy, challenges have been raised about the ft and relevancy of the health-care-based CPE model. Subsequently, professional chaplaincy credentialing organizations in the United States, such as the Association of Professional Chaplains and the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE), allow for contextualized CPE (done in sport environments) as long as the experience is supervised by an ACPE supervisor and done in compliance with the association’s guidelines. As a person of faith, perhaps a former athlete, pastoral counselor, and caregiver for persons in sport, how does the sports chaplain’s professional identity emerge? It is commonly argued among sports chaplains that the identity of the chaplain begins to emerge as there is an acceptance of a call to ministry (chaplaincy) and a recognition of the chaplain’s shifting role in sport, which assumes that the individual was involved in sport. The identity is birthed at this point of convergence.15 One of the concerns with sports chaplaincy is that as a strand of professional chaplaincy, it has not effectively articulated a professional identity. The challenge is to establish an identity for sports chaplaincy on its own terms, and that requires a sensitive assessment of both the common ground that we share with others in professional chaplaincy, and the ways in which we must, out of necessity, be different.

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Tartaglia argues for a “rethinking” of traditional training mechanisms toward the end of building a stronger identity within chaplaincy and the individual context.16 Scholars such as Morin and Vaughn contend that there is a new resolve about the asking of questions, the defning of identity within chaplaincy.17 This includes sports chaplaincy as an emerging strand. Moreover, Burton, Stirling, and Swift suggest that there is a need for focus, precision, communication, not only among chaplains in their context, but also with those who do not share our language and must be persuaded of the worth of chaplaincy across settings (e.g., sports chaplaincy).18 The common core for all chaplains consists of the basic functions of pastoral care—reconciling, sustaining, guiding, and healing—as illustrated in fgure 4.1. There is a need for secure status, a defned role, and the respect of the professionals alongside whom we work. Yet, at the same time, room must be found for those aspects of the chaplain’s role which are often the least amenable to precision, explanation, evidence, and proof. This is especially the case when sports chaplains are included in collaborative care. One of the critical questions posed by institutional chaplains of sports chaplains is whether sports chaplains have an identity. This question remains an item of debate in the broader community of chaplains principally because of

Figure 4.1  Pastoral Functions of Chaplaincy.

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differences around formal training, CPE, and the general lack of understanding about the historical backdrop, role, and functions of sports chaplaincy.19 Moreover, the core identity of all chaplains is grounded in four key elements, attitude, ability, authority, and accountability. Attitude is the perspective from which caring activities are formed using the image of the Shepherd, with particular emphasis placed on those who are lost or separated from the community. Ability, relates to the capacity of the chaplain to perform the attitude of care through the execution of assigned duties and responsibilities. Authority, is concerned with carrying out the duties and responsibilities as a representative of the institution and religious body that endorses the ministry, the biblical mandate for the duties, and the conveyance of authority by legitimacy of the position through ordination and certifcation to practice. Finally, accountability addresses the issue of conduct and reporting requirements to the institution and/or ecclesial body, peers, and one’s self.20 In most cases, the ministry of chaplains emphasizes caring relationships with staff, institutional authorities, and family members as well as the organization’s primary or majority population. Since 1920, many chaplains have been clinically trained to function in their particular subdiscipline. Chaplaincy organizations have been certifying chaplains for competency to function in specialized ministries since 1940.21 Kevern and McSherry argued that personal refection on the ministry of chaplaincy is an essential element in the process of identity formation for chaplains.22 Taking sacred time to refect on the calling and vocational aspects of chaplaincy as well as refecting on the work or ministry of chaplaincy regularly can both shape and solidify the identity of the chaplain. Citing Swift et al., Kevern and McSherry posit that the “response of chaplains is shaped by the human reality they encounter, requiring them to deliver bespoke spiritual care services, which recognize the uniqueness of every situation.”23 In essence, the experiential aspects of chaplaincy ministry across sectors play an important role in shaping the identity of the chaplain. THE GROWTH OF SPORTS CHAPLAINCY Chaplaincy in sport contexts has grown markedly on a global basis over the past ffty years. At this point in history, there is no clear point of reference as to how many men and women are practicing chaplaincy in sport contexts across the globe. In the Unites States, at the interscholastic, amateur club, collegiate, professional, and Olympic levels of sport it is not unusual in this era to fnd one or more chaplains affliated with a team. In many regards, despite the separation of church and state, chaplains are closely tied to the team and are viewed as an important member of the “athletic machine.” In the United

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States, the separation of church and state refers to the philosophic and legal concept for defning political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and government.24 The aim is to avert the direct infuence of religion on government and vice versa. Building relationships with players, coaches, and families toward the end of exercising their gifts in the area of spiritual care is the cornerstone of their efforts. In this era of instant communication, where electronic and social media are dominant, chaplains are featured more prominently than ever. The presence and work of the sports chaplain is more noticeable than ever in many sport environments. In Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, Europe, the United Kingdom, and countries in South America, chaplains are also vital cogs in the machine of sports. They too are very present at the amateur, club, professional, and Olympic level of sports and their roles and functions are well defned. In the aforementioned countries, sport-based chaplaincy initiatives provide introductory training and continuing education for team chaplains to establish their roles and responsibilities as they serve people of sport. The key is the establishment of a “sacred” identity that evokes a sense of caring, trust, and professionalism as they carry out their roles and responsibilities.

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Renewed Emphasis on Identity Formation in Sports Chaplains The topic of identity formation rarely appears in the scholarly or popular literature regarding sports chaplaincy, nor is it discussed by practitioners or scholars. Identity formation not only informs the sports chaplaincy praxis but also is vital to the professional growth and development of sports chaplains. For example, it is highly irregular to fnd a hospital or military chaplain who has not focused on identity formation as a part of CPE in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, or the United States. A careful study of how identity formation has been positioned within the training regimen of sports chaplains divulges a gap in time and attention allocated for identity formation. Stirling suggested that There is a new urgency about the asking of questions, the defning of identity within a modern healthcare system. There is a need for focus, precision, communication, not only among ourselves, but also with those who do not share our language and must be persuaded of the worth of chaplaincy.25

In the past fve years, there has been growing recognition of the primacy of helping sports chaplains understand the high value of identity formation from the onset of their calling into this facet of ministry. Organizations such as Sports Chaplaincy Australia (SCA), Sports Chaplaincy New Zealand (SCNZ), Sports Chaplaincy United Kingdom (SCUK), Athletes in Action

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(AIA), and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) have imbedded training units on identity formation into their training curricular at the introductory and advanced levels of training. Moreover, the Global Sports Chaplaincy Association (GSCA), which serves as the coordinating mechanism for sports chaplaincy on a global basis, is a staunch advocate of identity formation as an essential element of training for sports chaplains. Clarity of identity is essential to the legitimacy, good standing, and survival of sports chaplains within the broader community of chaplains and the plethora of organizations that employ chaplains, whether volunteer or paid, globally. In the case of sports chaplains, identity as a chaplain can gravely impact the fdelity to the offce as well as impact the receptivity among people in the sporting community served by the chaplain.26 From a teleological perspective, according to Ainsworth-Smith, the identity of the chaplain must be suffciently formed to allow for success in negotiating three critical areas of chaplaincy work—religious, cultural, and spiritual.27 In the case of sports chaplaincy, an additional dimension is essential—sport (see fgure 4.2). Each dimension is exceptionally relevant to how the chaplain, especially the sports chaplain, provides individual and organizational care for people in sport.

Figure 4.2  Interrelated Areas of Sport Chaplaincy.

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Team Identity Formation Identity formation for sports chaplains inevitably must occur at a second level. In the current era, it is not uncommon for sports chaplains to fnd themselves working as a member of an interprofessional team. Working in an interprofessional manner does not mean an assimilation to one particular professional view but teamwork is of the essence, which means that skills and expertise need to be valued by the individuals involved. Wackerhausen elucidates that there are very good reasons why interprofessional collaboration should be cherished, namely from ontological, epistemological, and ethical perspectives.28 Thus, sports chaplains are united by a shared goal: to do what is best for the people they care for. This is their raison d’etre; it is their offcial reason for their existence, which must inform the identity of the chaplain regardless of the context. To attain this laudable goal, sports chaplaincy as a sub-feld of professional chaplaincy needs the highest possible level of skills and competence, which in turn requires, directly or indirectly, the highest possible level of knowledge about the domain of the profession in question. In sport environments, sports chaplains commonly work with team physicians, psychologists, nutritionists, and athletic trainers. Vargona et al. argued that “disciplines must move away from a ‘silo’ mentality to working collaboratively across disciplines.”29 Moreover, the researchers surmised that interprofessional teams generate a strong team identity, a sense of cohesion, and effective team performance.30 Gawande challenges chaplains to envision themselves not as “cowboys” but “pit crews.”31 This highlights not only the necessity of team collaboration in the future of health care, but also the use of a guiding narrative to infuence clinical practice. In Gawande’s economy, the solo, independent “cowboy” was the appropriate metaphor for the twentieth century. In contrast, chaplaincy in the twenty-frst century (including sports chaplaincy) will only be as successful as the highly coordinated, interdependent pit crews who produce specifc outcomes in a timely manner. According to Hess, team and individual guiding narratives are one such area of exploration.32 Adopting a team-guiding narrative that fosters meaning-making is but one way for sports chaplains to thrive in their work. Work as a Shaper of Chaplaincy Identity Despite the number of areas of specialization that have emerged in chaplaincy (e.g., institutional, public safety, corporate, or sports) there is a common set of duties and responsibilities that are well grounded in the identity of the chaplain regardless of the strand in which they are employed. Table 4.1 provides a comparison of key common responsibilities of institutional and sports chaplains globally.33 These are not all-encompassing, but include

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Table 4.1  Comparison of Responsibilities between Institutional and Sports Chaplains Institutional Chaplain ✓✓Conducts chapel services ✓✓Provides prayer assistance/support ✓✓Conducts spiritual assessments of patients ✓✓Spiritual guidance ✓✓Provides mediation support for relational challenges ✓✓Actively participates in the holistic care of patients/clients ✓✓Provides life skills workshops

Sports Chaplain ✓✓Conducts chapel services ✓✓Sets a positive example ✓✓Encourages athletes and coaches ✓✓Attends practices and games ✓✓Prays with athletes, coaches, and families ✓✓Emphasizes how spiritual development can help in sports ✓✓Emphasizes how sports can help in spiritual development ✓✓Encourages community service ✓✓Emphasizes the experience of playing sports rather than winning or losing

responsibilities that range from praying for others to advocacy to spiritual assessment and encouragement. Theologian-scholar-chaplain John Swinton, speaking to the power and location of chaplaincy, stated, “Chaplaincy offers not only a vital healing conduit which is crucial for the sustenance of a genuinely person-centered care system, but also a powerful prophetic challenge to the church in terms of the way in which it defnes and practices ministry.”34 Block and Waller in assessing the requisite formative experiences needed in chaplaincy suggested that there is a common pathway to service in the vocation of chaplaincy as illustrated by table 4.2.35

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Praxis-Related Factors That Shape the Sports Chaplain’s Identity What shapes the identity of a chaplain and more specifcally, a sports chaplain? Identity formation in chaplains is complex because identities are formed through a number of sources. First, in the case of sports chaplains, constant contact with people in the sport they serve is foundational to developing the ability to show compassion, assess the spiritual needs of patients, and demonstrate caregiving skills as part of a team. For example, Park argued that, “Pastoral caregivers [including chaplains] construct their identities through interactions with care-seekers.”36 Second, formal and informal training and continuing education will inform the identity and methods of practice for the sports chaplain. Ownership of continued training and professional development as a form of stewardship of the vocation of sports chaplaincy further expands and solidifes the chaplain’s role in the global community of chaplains. The third important work-related factor that infuences the identity of chaplains, across strands of chaplaincy, is the image of caregivers as seen in the

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Table 4.2  Conceptual Pathway to Professional Chaplaincya Milestones Faith life ↓ Discernment ↓ Religious training ↓ Internship ↓ Ordination ↓ Service work ↓ Endorsement ↓ Certification

Notes a.k.a. dedicated religious or spiritual identity and practice/ activity/worship Call to ministry, wish to contribute or be of service, engage one’s faith through societal activity Theological education; graduate level; related or particular to one’s faith identity or religious affiliation Clinical pastoral education, field placement, practicum— in contextualized (sports) or institutional setting, with supervision As minister or lay leader, often not the same as chaplain Employment, engagement, volunteer position, etc. in a variety of institutional settings As chaplain (as compared to minister), a.k.a. “specialized ministry” for some faith bodies, carries particular responsibilities As chaplain (as compared to minister), a.k.a. “specialized ministry” for some faith bodies, carries particular responsibilities

Sequences, requirements, components, lexicon, and duration can vary.

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a

Holy Writs across faith traditions. From the Torah to the Christian Bible, the Holy Scriptures, there are numerous passages of, and images that inform, the work of chaplaincy and which aid in identity formation. For example in the Bible, the Old Testament and New Testament are replete with examples of compassionate caregiving and the “shepherd” (Ezek 34:12; Ps 23:1ff; John 10:1–10; 1 Pet 5:1–5). Moreover, Nugent and Jones proposed that the integration of the chaplain’s personal awareness and professional viability—how one sees the prospects in being successful in one’s vocation—informs the identity of the chaplain.37 Fourth, the evolving “self-image” of the chaplain is also heavily infuenced by how one sees himself or herself within the context of the work of chaplaincy done in the community in which he or she operates.38 In essence, the professional mirror for sports chaplains are chaplains serving in other strands of chaplaincy but also established sports chaplains. Similarly, Spurgeon argued that one of the powerful litmus tests for professionals such as counselors and related professions (e.g., chaplains) is their understanding of their role and function in the therapeutic community and

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how their behaviors align accordingly.39 The sports chaplain labors alongside the physician, psychologist, social worker, and other helping professionals in the care of people in sport. The perceived value of how the chaplain provides spiritual care as a member of a collaborative care team becomes important. As others value the work of the chaplain, it reinforces the meaning assigned to the ministry of chaplaincy and serves to reinforce the identity of the chaplain. Finally, professional affliations contribute to the identity development of chaplains.40 For example, in recent months the GSCA (formerly the International Sports Chaplaincy Federation) has collaborated with CEDE Sports to create a network for sports chaplains globally.41 The CEDE network allows sports chaplains to be registered and then become part of the broader community of sports chaplains. Emanating from this network are opportunities for fellowship, training, and professional development. It is in this shared space that the identity of the sports chaplain becomes solidifed.

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IMPLICATIONS OF IDENTITY FORMATION AS AN IMPERATIVE FOR SPORTS CHAPLAINCY There are multiple implications for focusing on identity formation in chaplaincy generally, but more specifcally sports chaplaincy. Morgan-Clement offers a profound and meaningful statement about the power of identity in the feld of chaplaincy when she states “it is often easier to defne a chaplain by what she [he] is not.”42 In the case of the sports chaplain, applying MorganClement’s logic, the chaplain is not the medical doctor, athletic trainer, nutritionist, pit crew, or coach. The chaplain is the “keeper of the soul” and caregiver to people in sports. Second, as the chaplain understands his/her role and function as a part of their identity, the manner in which practice is done is greatly impacted. A strong identity as a chaplain helps to establish the prioritization of ministry tasks associated with chaplaincy. For example, the chaplain is often responsible for praying for and encouraging people in sport. Third, identity prescriptively reveals to the chaplain what to do and how to do it according to the norms, behaviors, and standards of practice. With an improved focus on identity formation, primacy is given to the key functions of chaplaincy such as shepherding, healing, sustaining, guiding, and reconciling versus raising support for the ministry. Finally, a well-developed identity as a sports chaplain can lead to active participation in the local and global communities of sports chaplains. One of the greatest challenges to sports chaplains in this decade of the twenty-frst century is practicing in isolation. The fellowship that is available within this community not only strengthens the individual identity of the chaplain but

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Figure 4.3  Identity Formation within the Broader Community of Chaplains.

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also serves to anchor the individual into the collective identity of the community of sports chaplains. Moreover, one of the byproducts of a strong community of sports chaplains is the sense of communitas—the sense of sharing and intimacy that is cultivated among persons who experience liminality as a group. Identity helps to create a harmonious space within the broader community of professional chaplains, across sectors, globally (see fgure 4.3).43 CONCLUSION Scholars such as Morin and Vaughn contend that there is a new urgency about the defning of identity within all strands of chaplaincy, including sports chaplaincy.44 Moreover, Burton et al. suggest that there is a need for focus, precision, and communication, not only among chaplains in their context, but also with those who do not share our language and must be persuaded of the worth of chaplaincy across settings (e.g., sports chaplaincy).45 Addressing the questions surrounding the identity of the sports chaplain not only as a called servant of God, and a member of a global community of chaplains, but also as an important advocate and participant in the

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holistic care of athletes, is foundational to our strand of chaplaincy.46 Waller elucidates, when speaking of a comparable experience with professional counselors, that grappling with the matter of counselor identity is a global imperative.47 Bringing this statement closer to home, as the globalization of sports chaplaincy continues, identity formation becomes of paramount importance. Sustaining the conversation about identity formation and then maintaining this professional identity must become a priority for practitioners within the community of sports chaplains, but also with students studying to become sports chaplains. The identity of the sports chaplain is important globally across different sports. The sports chaplain’s identity and work become the passport into interprofessional relationships that support players. In a recent New York Times article entitled “In an Unforgiving Sport, They Minister to Hearts and Souls,” author Rory Smith provides an amazing narrative about Sports Chaplaincy in the United Kingdom and the manner in which they train and dispatch chaplains to serve teams in the English Premier League.48 Smith, in great detail, chronicles the work of seven chaplains as they support players and coaches. What rings positive in each interview with the chaplains is how clear they are about their identities as chaplains frst, sports chaplains second, and then their various roles and functions. There is no sense of fragmentation; their identities, roles, and functions are beautifully integrated. The evidence of the integration is the high value that players, coaches, and owners place on having a team chaplain. In the “Final Four” round of the 2018 National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Basketball Tournament in the United States, two play-by-play announcers made a signifcant comment on the importance of sports chaplaincy. At the conclusion of the Loyola-Chicago versus Villanova basketball game, the announcers with full intentionality cast sports chaplains in a luminous light. The chaplain that received signifcant attention and notoriety was Sister Jean Dolores-Schmidt, who acts as the chaplain for the Loyola University Chicago Ramblers. She became one of the most recognizable fgures in US sports following the team’s back-to-back upset wins in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Tournament, college basketball’s end-of-season showdown that has Americans fastened to their television screens for nearly the entire month of March. In spite of the uniqueness of having a 98-year-old nun as the team chaplain, what was more powerful was her identity, role, and function as the team’s chaplain. The caregiving prior to and after each contest was acknowledged by the mass media in the United States as invaluable to the Loyola-Chicago athletic department and to the stability of the Loyola-Chicago players in this pressure-flled environment. Moreover, the soul care for the opposing team provided by Villanova chaplain Father Rob Hagan also caught the eye of the viewing public.

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Identity as a sports chaplain matters. For people in sport, the ministry of sports chaplaincy satisfes the hunger and thirst for something deeper that lies beyond the game. In a Christian context, sports chaplains stand in the shoes of the Great Shepherd and imitate the work of Christ (Imitatio Christi) as they highlight the importance of relationships, forgiveness, perseverance, and persistence that can be found in and through sport.

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NOTES 1. Warren Crank, The Unoffcial Chaplain: A Handbook for Everyday Service to the People Around You (Brisbane: CHI Books, 2017), 2. 2. International Association of Christian Chaplains, Standards and Code of Ethics, (Texas: IACC, 2001), 5. 3. Jennifer Block, “Chaplaincy: A Brief Introduction for the Called or Curious,” (2012), 2. http:​/​/jen​​nifer​​block​​.org/​​jbopr​​od​/wp​​-cont​​ent​/u​​pload​​s​/201​​2​/07/​​Chapl​​aincy​​ -A​​-Br​​ief​-I​​ntro.​​pdf 4. Block, “Chaplaincy: A Brief Introduction,” 8. 5. Hilary Sommerlad, “Researching and Theorizing the Processes of Professional Identity Formation.” Journal of Law and Society 34 no. 2 (2007): 193–194. 6. Susannah Cornwall, “Identity and Formation in Theological Education: The Occasion of Intersex1.” Journal of Adult Theological Education 12 no. 1 (2015): 268–269. doi: 10.1179/1740714115Z.00000000032 7. R. Thompson, “Academic Theology and Ministerial Formation: Towards a Contemplative Approach.” Theology 104 (2004): 268–269. 8. E. Erikson, Identity and the Life Cycle (New York: W.W. Norton, 1994), 103–04. 9. J. N. Kotre, Outliving the Self: Generativity and the Interpretation of Lives (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996), 260. 10. H. Richard Niebuhr, The Responsible Self: An Essay in Christian Moral Philosophy, Library of Theological Ethics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1999). 11. Samuel Park, Pastoral Identity as Social Construction: Pastoral Identity in Postmodern, Intercultural, and Multifaith Contexts (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2017). 12. Park, Pastoral Identity as Social Construction, 172. 13. Park, Pastoral Identity as Social Construction, 172–173. 14. John Swinton, “A Question of Identity: What Does It Mean for Chaplains to Become Health Care Professionals?” Scottish Journal of Healthcare Chaplaincy 6(2) (2003): 2–8. 15. J.P. Powell, “Call to Ministry,” in Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, eds. Glen G. Scorgie, Simon Chan, Gordon T. Smith, and James D. Smith III. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 325–326. 16. Alexander F. Tartaglia, “Refection on the Development and Future of Chaplaincy Education.” Refective Practice: Formation and Supervision in Ministry 35 (2015): 116–133.

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17. Marie-Line Morin, “Respecting the Dual Sided Identity of Clinical Pastoral Education and Professional Chaplaincy: The Phenomenological Research Model.” Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy 13 no. 1 (2002): 171–183; Cynthia V. Vaughn, “Is Chaplaincy Training Broken? I Don’t Think So: A Response to Kevin Massey.” Refective Practice: Formation and Supervision in Ministry 34 (2014): 159–162. 18. Meg Burton, Ian Stirling, and Christopher Swift, “Progress in Chaplaincy.” Health and Social Care Chaplaincy 1 no. 1 (2013): 5–9. 19. Steven N. Waller, “Chaplain or Sports Chaplain First?: Why Identity Formation Should Matter to Sports Chaplains.” Practical Theology 9 no. 3 (2016): 242–257. doi: 10.1080/1756073X.2016.1221643 20. John Patton, Pastoral Care in Context (Louisville: Westminster, 1993), 77–81. 21. Rodney J. Hunter and Nancy J. Ramsay, Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005), 136. 22. Peter Kevern and Wilf McSherry, “The Study of Chaplaincy: Methods and Materials,” in A Handbook of Chaplaincy Studies: Understanding Spiritual Care in Public Places, eds. Christopher Swift, Mark Cobb, and Andrew Todd (New York: Routledge, 2015), 55–56. 23. Kevern and McSherry, “The Study of Chaplaincy,” 55. 24. Linda A. Carpenter, Legal Concepts in Sport: A Primer (Champaign: Sagamore, 2008). 25. Ian Stirling, “Editorial,” Scottish Journal of Healthcare Chaplaincy 6 no. 2 (2003): 1. 26. Anthony Maranise, “Beyond Praying for Players: An Exploration of the Responsibilities and Practices of Sports Chaplaincy,” in Sports Chaplaincy: Trends, Issues and Debates, eds. Andrew Parker, Nick J. Watson and John B. White (New York, NY: Routledge, 2016), 135–145. 27. Ian Ainsworth-Smith, “The Spiritual and Pastoral Dimensions of Chaplaincy Work.” Journal of Interprofessional Care 12 no. 4 (1998): 385. doi: 10.3109/13561829809024945 28. Steen Wackerhausen, “Collaboration, Professional Identity and Refection across Boundaries.” Journal of Interprofessional Care 23 no. 5 (2009): 456–458. doi: 10.1080/13561820902921720 29. Lynn Varagona, Monica Nandan, Dwayne Hooks, Kandice Johnson Porter, Mary Beth Maguire, and Judith Slater-Moody, “A Model to Guide the Evolution of a Multiprofessional Group into an Interprofessional Team.” The Journal of Faculty Development 31 no. 2 (2017): 49. 30. Varagona et al., “Evolution of a Multiprofessional Group,” 52. 31. Atul Gawande, “Cowboys and Pit Crews,” The New Yorker. 26 May 2011. www​.n​​ewyor​​ker​.c​​om​/ne​​ws​/ne​​ws​-de​​sk​/co​​wboys​​-and-​​pit​-c​​rews 32. Denise Hess, “Narrative and Palliative Care Team Identity Formation.” International Journal of Whole Person Care 1 no. 2 (2014): 4–9. 33. Waller, Hardin, and Dzikus 2010; Waller 2016. 34. Swinton, “A Question of Identity,” 2. 35. Block, “Chaplaincy: A Brief Introduction”; Waller, “Chaplain or Sports Chaplain First?”

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36. Samuel Park, “Pastoral Identity Constructed in Care-Giving Relationships.” Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling 66 no. 2 (2012): 1. 37. Frank A. Nugent and Karyn D. Jones, Introduction to the Profession of Counseling, 5th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson). 38. Marcy Reisetter, James S. Korcuska, Melinda Yexley, Deborah Bonds, Holly Nikels, and William McHenry, “Counselor educators and qualitative research: Affrming a research identity.” Counselor Education and Supervision 44 no. 1 (2004): 2–16. 39. Shawn L. Spurgeon, “Counselor Identity: A National Imperative.” Journal of Professional Counseling: Practice, Theory, & Research 39 (2012): 2–17. 40. Spurgeon, “Counselor Identity”; Steven Waller, Lars Dzikus and Robin Hardin, “Collegiate Sport Chaplaincy: Problems and Promise.” Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics 1 no. 107 (2008): 107–123; Waller, “Chaplain or Sports Chaplain First?” 41. http://cedesports​.org​/network 42. Linda J. Morgan-Clement, “Betwixt and Between: Interstitial Dialogue, Identity, and Mending on a College Campus,” in College & University Chaplaincy in the 21st Century, ed. Lucy A. Forster-Smith (Woodstock, VT: Skylight Paths Publishing, 2013), 189–203. 43. Waller, Dzikus, and Hardin, “Collegiate Sport Chaplaincy”; Steven Waller, Lars Dzikus, and Robin Hardin, “The Collegiate Sports Chaplain: Kindred or Alien?” Chaplaincy Today, 26 no. 1 (2010): 16–26; Steven N. Waller, “Chaplain or Sports Chaplain First?: Why Identity Formation Should Matter to Sports Chaplains.” Practical Theology 9 no. 3 (2016): 242–257. 44. Morin, “Respecting the Dual Sided”; Vaughn, “Is Chaplaincy Training Broken?.” 45. Burton, Stirling, Swift, “Progress in Chaplaincy.” 46. Allison Kestenbaum, Jennifer James, Stephana B. Morgan, Michele Shields, Will Hocker, Michael Rabow, and Laura B. Dunn, “Taking Your Place at the Table”: An Autoethnographic Study of Chaplains’ Participation on an Interdisciplinary Research Team.” BMC Palliative Care 14 no. 1 (2015): 1–10. 47. Waller, “Chaplain or Sports Chaplain First?” 48. Rory Smith, “In an Unforgiving Sport, They Minister to Hearts and Souls,” The New York Times, 21 December 2017, https​:/​/ww​​w​.nyt​​imes.​​com​/2​​017​/1​​2​/21/​​sport​​ s​/soc​​cer​/c​​hapla​​ins​-s​​oc​cer​​-engl​​and-.​​html

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ainsworth-Smith, Ian. “The Spiritual and Pastoral Dimensions of Chaplaincy Work.” Journal of Interprofessional Care 12 no. 4 (1998): 383–387. doi: 10.3109/13561829809024945 Block, Jennifer. “Chaplaincy: A Brief Introduction for the Called or Curious.” 2012. http:​/​/jen​​nifer​​block​​.org/​​jbopr​​od​/wp​​-cont​​ent​/u​​pload​​s​/201​​2​/07/​​Chapl​​aincy​​-A​-​Br​​ief​ -I​​ntro.​​pdf.

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Burton, Meg, Ian Stirling, and Christopher Swift. “Progress in Chaplaincy.” Health and Social Care Chaplaincy 1 no. 1 (2013): 5–9. Carpenter, Linda A. Legal Concepts in Sport: A Primer. Champaign: Sagamore, 2008. Cornwall, Susannah. “Identity and Formation in Theological Education: The Occasion of Intersex1.” Journal of Adult Theological Education 12 no. 1 (2015): 4–15. doi: 10.1179/1740714115Z.00000000032 Crank, Warren. The Unoffcial Chaplain: A Handbook for Everyday Service to the People Around You. Brisbane: CHI Books, 2017. Dzikus, Lars, Waller, Steven and Hardin, Robin. “Collegiate Sport Chaplaincy: Exploration of an Emerging Profession.” Journal of Contemporary Athletics 5 no. 1 (2010): 21–41. Erikson, E. Identity and the Life Cycle. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994. Gawande, Atul. “Cowboys and Pit Crews.” The New Yorker. 26 May 2011. www​.n​​ ewyor​​ker​.c​​om​/ne​​ws​/ne​​ws​-de​​sk​/co​​wboys​​-and-​​pit​-c​​rews Gibson, Donna M., Colette T. Dollarhide, and Julie M. Moss. “Professional Identity Development: A Grounded Theory of Transformational Tasks of New Counselors.” Counselor Education and Supervision 50 no. 1 (2010): 21–38. Hess, Denise. “Narrative and Palliative Care Team Identity Formation.” International Journal of Whole Person Care 1 no. 2 (2014): 4–9. Hunter, Rodney J., and Nancy J. Ramsay. Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005. Ibarra, Hermina. “Provisional Selves: Experimenting with Image and Identity in Professional Adaptation.” Administrative Science Quarterly 44 no. 4 (1999): 764–791. International Association of Christian Chaplains. Standards and Code of Ethics. Texas: IACC, 2001. Kestenbaum, Allison, Jennifer James, Stephana B. Morgan, Michele Shields, Will Hocker, Michael Rabow, and Laura B. Dunn. “Taking Your Place at the Table”: An Autoethnographic Study of Chaplains’ Participation on an Interdisciplinary Research Team.” BMC Palliative Care 14 no. 1 (2015): 1–10. Kevern, Peter, and Wilf McSherry. “The Study of Chaplaincy: Methods and Materials.” In A Handbook of Chaplaincy Studies: Understanding Spiritual Care in Public Places, 47–62. Edited by Christopher Swift, Mark Cobb, and Andrew Todd. New York: Routledge, 2015. Kotre, J. N. Outliving the Self: Generativity and the Interpretation of Lives. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996. Maranise, Anthony. “Beyond Praying for Players: An Exploration of the Responsibilities and Practices of Sports Chaplaincy.” In Sports Chaplaincy: Trends, Issues and Debates, 135–145. Edited by Andrew Parker, Nick J. Watson and John B. White. New York, NY: Routledge, 2016. Morgan-Clement, Linda J. “Betwixt and Between: Interstitial Dialogue, Identity, and Mending on a College Campus.” In College & University Chaplaincy in the 21st Century, 189–203. Edited by Lucy A. Forster-Smith. Woodstock, VT: Skylight Paths Publishing, 2013.

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Morin, Marie-Line. “Respecting the Dual Sided Identity of Clinical Pastoral Education and Professional Chaplaincy: The Phenomenological Research Model.” Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy 13 no. 1 (2002): 171–183. Niebuhr, H. Richard. The Responsible Self: An Essay in Christian Moral Philosophy, Library of Theological Ethics. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1999. Nugent, Frank A., and Karyn D. Jones. Introduction to the Profession of Counseling, 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2009. Park, Samuel. Pastoral Identity as Social Construction: Pastoral Identity in Postmodern, Intercultural, and Multifaith Contexts. Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2017. ———. “Pastoral Identity Constructed in Care-Giving Relationships.” Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling 66 no. 2 (2012): 1–13. Patton, John. Pastoral Care in Context. Louisville: Westminster, 1993. Powell, J.P. “Call to Ministry.” In Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, 325–326. Edited by Glen G. Scorgie, Simon Chan, Gordon T. Smith, and James D. Smith III. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011. Reisetter, Marcy, James S. Korcuska, Melinda Yexley, Deborah Bonds, Holly Nikels, and William McHenry. “Counselor educators and qualitative research: Affrming a research identity.” Counselor Education and Supervision 44 no. 1 (2004): 2–16. Smith, Rory. “In an Unforgiving Sport, They Minister to Hearts and Souls.” The New York Times. 21 December 2017. https​:/​/ww​​w​.nyt​​imes.​​com​/2​​017​/1​​2​/21/​​sport​​s​/soc​​ cer​/c​​hapla​​ins​-s​​oc​cer​​-engl​​and-.​​html Sommerlad, Hilary. “Researching and Theorizing the Processes of Professional Identity Formation.” Journal of Law and Society 34 no. 2 (2007): 190–217. Spurgeon, Shawn L. “Counselor Identity: A National Imperative.” Journal of Professional Counseling: Practice, Theory, & Research 39 (2012): 2–17. Stirling, Ian. “Editorial.” Scottish Journal of Healthcare Chaplaincy 6 no. 2 (2003): 1. Swift, Christopher. Hospital Chaplaincy in the Twenty-First Century: The Crisis of Spiritual Care on the NHS. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2009. Swinton, John. “A Question of Identity: What Does It Mean for Chaplains to Become Health Care Professionals?” Scottish Journal of Healthcare Chaplaincy 6 no. 2 (2003): 2–8. Thompson, R. “Academic Theology and Ministerial Formation: Towards a Contemplative Approach.” Theology 104 (2004): 265–273. Tartaglia, Alexander F. “Refection on the Development and Future of Chaplaincy Education.” Refective Practice: Formation and Supervision in Ministry 35 (2015): 116–133. Varagona, Lynn, Monica Nandan, Dwayne Hooks, Kandice Johnson Porter, Mary Beth Maguire, and Judith Slater-Moody. “A Model to Guide the Evolution of a Multiprofessional Group into an Interprofessional Team.” The Journal of Faculty Development 31 no. 2 (2017): 49–56. Vaughn, Cynthia V. “Is Chaplaincy Training Broken? I Don't Think So: A Response to Kevin Massey.” Refective Practice: Formation and Supervision in Ministry 34 (2014): 159–162.

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Wackerhausen, Steen. “Collaboration, professional identity and refection across boundaries.” Journal of Interprofessional Care 23 no. 5 (2009): 455–473. doi: 10.1080/13561820902921720 Waller, Steven N. “Chaplain or Sports Chaplain First?: Why Identity Formation Should Matter to Sports Chaplains.” Practical Theology 9 no. 3 (2016): 242–257. doi: 10.1080/1756073X.2016.1221643 Waller, Steven, Lars Dzikus, and Robin Hardin. “Collegiate Sport Chaplaincy: Problems and Promise.” Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics 1, no. 107 (2008): 107–123. ———. “The Collegiate Sports Chaplain: Kindred or Alien?” Chaplaincy Today, 26 no. 1 (2010): 16–26. White, John B., Nick J. Watson, and Andrew Parker. “Conclusion: Game Over and Rewind.” In Sports Chaplaincy: Trends, Issues and Debates, 195–200. Edited by Parker, Andy, Nick J. Watson, and John B. White. New York: Routledge, 2016.

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Chapter 5

Sacred Pilgrimage in Playful, Digital Spaces

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Stephen Garner

A lone fgure hunches down into his cloak and continues his slow walk into the blizzard. Visibility is low and he picks his direction following the markers that emerge from the driving snow. After what seems an eternity, another fgure, similarly clad, appears beside him, and silently they support each other on their individual journeys toward the holy mountain in the distance. The scene changes and a young girl races across rooftops, slides down a washing line, and jumps over some barrels and comes to a beach. There she collects a scroll containing part of a missing story and returns it to the city’s library. The scene shifts again and we are in a stadium watching teams compete against each other, with passionate supporters, sponsors, and prize money. The tournament is watched in the stadium and broadcast live to a worldwide audience. A petal foats on the breeze and as it passes over the landscape life erupts below it. Then we are in the cockpit of a spaceship approaching a vast, rotating space station, bringing home a cargo that will allow the crew to upgrade the engines on the ship and explore deeper into space. Finally, a young boy wakes up on a beach, shipwrecked and with no idea where he is. As he searches for answers he befriends a magical fox who guides him through a series of puzzles left behind in the ruins of a past civilization.1 These are but a few of the many scenarios available in playful digital spaces that involve both the game characters and the players of the game themselves participating in various journeys. These characters and their players are in many ways functioning as pilgrims, not only in terms of being part of a journey in these playful digital spaces, but also in terms of the experience of playing the game. In these spaces, we fnd traits of pilgrimage in terms of meaningful choices, personal and communal development, self-narration, discovery and exploration, and often a social dynamic not only with other 93

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human players, but also with the computer-generated agents and worlds that we immerse ourselves in. Sometimes games have an overt theme of pilgrimage running through them. The games Journey (2012) and AER: Memories of Old (2017) intentionally play with the pilgrimage motif creating vast worlds in which a tiny pilgrim character is located as they quest for knowledge of themselves and their world. In other games, the playing experience mirrors the language of landscape, with the highs of the mountaintops, the aridity of the desert, and the mundanities of the valleys between those. Here, in the midst of these kinds of digital environments, we fnd the sacred, which in turn has the power to move and orient us in our everyday worlds. In this chapter, I will focus particularly on the motif of pilgrimage to explore this sense of sacredness, arguing that the playful digital spaces we create, inhabit, and which bleed into our analog lives, provide a very real location for sacred or spiritual journeys that parallel, in part, the physical pilgrimages found in wider human life.

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PILGRIMAGE The pilgrim traverses the landscapes of both religion and popular culture. He or she may be part of the masses journeying to Mecca, an individual walking the Camino de Santiago, a visitor to a battle site, football supporters at a World Cup, a family journeying to their ancestral home, the protagonist in a hero’s journey, participants in a road-trip flm, or someone describing their life as a journey. In each of these events, the journey is critical, functioning as something that orients and shapes travelers into particular kinds of identities, communities, and ways of living. Key to the concept of pilgrimage is the notion of journey or travel to a particular place. For some, this is a destination that has some sort of specialness associated with it, and so the pilgrim is, in Kevin Codd’s words, “a believer who travels to a holy place, a place where God seems especially close, to ask for pardon, to beg a favour, or to give thanks for blessings received.”2 Others though, see the destination as less important, with a particular emphasis upon the journey. For example, David Osborne comments, “The journey itself is important. One is going on a pilgrimage, not just getting to a certain destination. This may mean the journey is not the most direct or simple route, nor by the easiest means of travel. A pilgrim is one who makes a certain kind of journey, not one who arrives at a certain place.”3 For most, it is probably a mix of both journey and destination. The destination has something about it that lures the pilgrim on, while the journey itself works upon the pilgrim as they traverse the landscape. This, in turn, gives

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rise to the language of place and places providing both literal and fgurative descriptions of the pilgrim’s spiritual life, as Steven Lewis describes: Landscape metaphors provide a common language and familiar imagery through which to articulate and critique the Christian spiritual journey. Most people can imagine what a mountaintop spiritual experience is like, with its warm fuzzy feelings and renewed spiritual energy. The pure excitement of a close encounter with God stirs our imaginations and awakens us to the reality of God’s presence. On the other end of the emotional spectrum, most people also know the loneliness and fear of a spiritual desert. The spiritual deserts are often flled with confusion, fear, and empty spaces, which we interpret as divine abandonment. In addition, there is another, less recognized landscape—the valley, or the ordinary. By its very nature the ordinary goes unnoticed. The valley is the place where we dwell, grow, work, and play. It is our spiritual home, to which we return after our sojourns into the spiritual deserts or our visits to the mountaintops.4

So too in computer and video games where themes and motifs of journey are commonplace. Often these games as premised upon some form of journey, with the player (or the player’s proxy) commencing a journey, overcoming challenges, acquiring skills, “levelling up,” celebrating achievements, and lamenting failures. Players are shaped by both the game’s narrative, as well as their own self-narration of the journey experience found in the game.

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CLASSIFYING RELIGIOUS GAMES A common way of describing a game as religious is by identifying it as using game play combined with religious content to teach or reinforce particular religious truths or perspectives. This can often be the case if the games have been produced as a form of evangelistic or apologetic tool, or to provide a kind of safe religious version of a secular game. And so we get games like Bible Trivia instead of Trivial Pursuit; Bibleopoly in place of Monopoly; The Settlers of Zarahemla or The Settlers of Canaan instead of The Settlers of Catan; and Bible Pictionary replacing Pictionary, and so on. Historically, we can also note computer and video games, such as Super 3D Noah’s Ark (1994) and King of Kings (1991), where existing games were reskinned with religious veneers to appeal to religious markets. However, the history and location of religious games, and games that function in a sacred fashion, are more complicated than this. In terms of function, Jason Anthony provides a helpful typology for categorizing religious games, and by extension, digital religious games.

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Anthony’s four categories are didactic, hestiasic, poimenic, and praxic, with each category emphasizing a particular dimension of religious life related to education, festivals, divine guidance, and devotional life, respectively.5 Didactic or educational games fall into the group mentioned previously that includes evangelistic or apologetic functions, as well as for the instruction of the faithful. These games traditionally pass on religious truths, rules, and concepts through the medium of gameplay with an ultimate goal of cognitive development rather than a more experiential, sacred experience. Stock games such as Bible charades, memory verse challenges, and Bible quizzes fall into this category. In the digital space, didactic games are also concerned with communicating religious truths and content, typically through mechanisms or environments that mirror popular digital games. For example, Scripture Union England & Wales’ mobile device game Guardians of Ancora invites players to “[e]nter the wonderful world of Ancora and play your way through exciting Bible Quests. With a new Quest each month, the stories of the Bible are really brought to life in new and exciting ways.”6 Supplemented with quizzes, audio and video, the game borrows common platform gameplay mechanisms and sets them in the biblical world to draw the player into engagement with biblical characters and content. Alternatively, The Aetherlight: Chronicles of the Resistance reimagines the world of the Bible as an adventure game, inviting players to participate in a digital role-playing allegory of the Biblical story, promoting it as “Narnia for a Digital Generation.”7 As players and characters fulfll the roles of biblical characters in a series of adventures to save the world of Aethasia, they are exposed to the Christian meta-narrative in a digital context. The creators of the game state that: Our dream is to give everyone from preteens to families a chance to experience the Bible and the hope of Jesus with their families through the engaging medium of computer games. Discover what makes The Aetherlight one of the most engaging and entertaining Christian desktop and tablet games for families by creating a free account for yourself!8

This form of inviting the player to take part in a story that educates is a theme that Anthony also notes taking place in the real-time strategy game Left Behind: Eternal Forces (2006), which narrates a Christian dispensationalist apocalyptic vision of the end of the world with an overt purpose of confronting players with the choice to choose God or reject him. He notes that these games exist across religious traditions, from the recreation of Dante’s Inferno as a PlayStation game through to the Buddhist Asura’s Wrath (2012) and Cursed Mountain (2009), the latter drawing on the Tibetan Book of the

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Dead.9 To those we might add the console game, El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron (2011) which draws upon the Hebrew Scriptures and the extrabiblical text, The Book of Enoch, to set up a world where the protagonist, Enoch, is sent by God to retrieve the Grigori or Watchers, the angels sent to watch over humanity and who have now fallen. Anthony’s second category of games, hestiasic games, is perhaps the least developed, especially in relation to digital games and environments. These are games connected to the rhythms of religious life, such as liturgical seasons with their festivals and feast days which provide the opportunity for lively fun. Anthony suggests games such as mhaibis, played in parts of Iraq during Ramadan, as falling into this category, but in the digital game space he does not identify anything specifc, instead looking to media, such as flms connected to Christmas culture such as It’s a Wonderful Life or The Sound of Music.10 Hestiasic games abound though, associated with both festive and somber moments. The season of Lent is ushered in with Shrove Tuesday, pancakes, and pancake races. Good Friday is associated with hot cross buns and nursery rhymes, Easter Sunday with Easter egg hunts. Think, too, of traditions such as coins in the Christmas pudding, costumes and trick-or-treat at Halloween, in Australasia the annual Boxing Day cricket matches, and dragon dances at Chinese New Year. These kinds of activities might make us look again at digital spaces and their supporting environments. We might see hestiasic events around the launch of a new iPhone or games console, the scheduled annual releases of new editions of games based on sports (e.g., FIFA, NBA), or operating systems (e.g., Windows launch parties).11 The interactive and participatory nature of eSports tournaments with both streaming and real-world experiences, the place of cosplay in the various popular culture conventions, and the incorporation of a celebratory “fossing” dance into the game Fortnite Battle Royale (2017) all highlight how festal dimensions intersect with gaming.12 In the poimenic dimension to religious gaming, Anthony notes the role that games have in seeking divine wisdom and guidance, bringing a resolution to an uncertain situation. The classic example within the Christian tradition is the selection of an apostle to replace Judas Iscariot in Acts 1:23ff, with Matthias being selected through the casting of lots. Similarly, in digital spaces we see the development of smartphone apps that provide poimenic advice from Nordic rune tosses, tarot cards, and Buddhist Guanyin sticks, through to a “What would Jesus do?” app.13 The fnal category connects with orthodox forms of worship that are themselves playful or game-like. This praxic form of religious gaming provides a direct experience of the sacred through gameplay and the experience associated with that. Anthony notes this might include the Chinese court riddles

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posed and pondered for weeks, that developed into Zen koans (poignant and enigmatic stories and riddles told to initiates to Zen monastaries), and the game of Go where Pan Ku argues in the Book of Han that becoming an expert in the game would lead to insight into the Tao. You could also argue that forms of dance or physical activity such as liturgical dance, Suf whirling, and kapa haka (traditional Māori dances performed by a group standing in rows) also fall into this praxic dimension.14 In the digital spaces, we might see praxic games as those which intentionally set out to provide spaces and experiences where the divine might be encountered. This might be games that have a devotional aspect to them, such as Christian Dance Praise (2005–2009), a version of the game Dance Dance Revolution (1998–2016), which mixes console-style dancing games with Christian worship music instead of pop songs. Games that promote meditation and spiritual refection, typically through biofeedback or guided meditation also fall into this category, including Journey to Wild Divine (2001), the Deepak Chopra’s XBox game Leela (2011), and Guided Meditation VR (2016). Moreover, we might see the incorporation of digital games into the context of a worship service. For example, Andy Robertson has been experimenting with using the PlayStation game Flower (2009) to supplement the liturgy at Exeter Cathedral. In a service themed around God’s creation, congregants take turns to fy a petal across a landscape on the big screen that erupts with life as the petal passes, all the while singing and intoning the liturgy.15 Of course, these categories are not mutually exclusive. The practice of Godly play invites people to enter playfully into the biblical story using various props to connect their own story to the experience of the sacred while they play. Jerome Berryman describes it as “teaching the art of playing so one can come close to the Creator who comes close to us and even joins us when we are playing at any age.”16 While the practice of Godly play is primarily to assist people to experience God, thereby fulflling a praxic dimension, it also includes didactic and hestiasic dimensions in communicating the biblical story, sometimes as part of the rhythms of the religious community in which the participants belong. For Berryman himself, Godly play has several dimensions: the immediate context being introduced—a particular biblical story—as well as the broader story of human life. These combine to provide the purpose of Godly play: The goal of Godly play is to play the ultimate game for itself. The players are God, the self, others, and nature. The place for play is at the edge of knowing and being. The time has a very clear limit. It is our lifetime. The pieces of value in the game are the “pieces” of religious language by which we play. The rules

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that shape the play are found in the patter of the creative process in communication with the Creator.17

In many ways, this resonates with Rachel Wagner’s understanding of the place of play in religious contexts and opens the door to more creative ways of engaging with religious and theological material. Wagner notes: It seems most useful to think of play as experimentation and innovation in response to a rigid system or structure. In this case, then, we could think of theology as the most basic level of play with the biblical text, directing a flm about Jesus as exhibiting a greater degree of play with the biblical text, and a video game about the Bible as having the greatest degree of play with the biblical text. Play, then, can be a characteristic of stories, flms, games, and rituals. What differs is the degree of play, who is allowed to engage in play, and what results from play.18

So, religious games might attempt to draw their players into an encounter with the sacred, but what about games that exist outside of religious communities? How might they be a site for sacred encounter?

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WHAT MAKES A GOOD GAME? In her book, How Games Move Us, Katherine Isbister highlights several factors that contribute to what she thinks is a “good” game; that is a game that plays “a powerful role in creating empathy and other strong, positive emotional experiences.”19 These factors include the notion of meaningful choices, the relationship between challenge and ability located in the concept of ‘fow,’ and the signifcance of social play in various forms. These, I contend, provide some of the overlap with the idea of religious or sacred pilgrimage. For Isbister, “[c]ompelling games don’t happen by accident, any more than do gripping novels, movies, or music. In all these media, creators draw from a well-defned set of strategies and techniques to create a specifc emotional experience.”20 One of these key strategies is providing the game player meaningful choices, so that the choices that are made in the game infuence not only the events or shape of the game being played, but also the person playing it—either in the form of shaping the gamer’s representation or character in the game, or more deeply shaping the person playing the game. In addition to his four categories of religious games, Anthony also introduces the terms allomythic, allopolitical, and theopetic to describe particular characteristics of a game, and these are helpful for thinking about Isbister’s factors. Isbister’s notion of meaningful choices connects to what

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Anthony describes as an allomythic dimension to games, where the game’s creators build a mythos or worldview within a game which is revealed to the game’s players through their exploration of the game and the choices they make.21 Seemingly trivial decisions made at the start of a game can have deeper implications as the game is played, in turn shaping the narrative of the game, the character being played, and the player themselves. Being confronted by choices that are meaningful in a game often confronts the player with the question of whether or not to bring their own personal values and ethics into that game. Acting in a way in a game that is in confict, or perhaps in tension, with those deeply held values may engender a sense of dislocation, unsettling for the player. This, in turn, may spill over into the player’s life outside of the game. This aspect of meaningful choices is present within the world of pilgrimage or spiritual pursuit: which route do you take to your fnal destination?; what decisions do you make about how to live and act while on that journey?; and what are the consequences of these decisions? For Christians, Jesus’ call to take up their cross and follow him (Matt 16:24–26; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23) is a meaningful choice with immediate and long-term consequences. For the pilgrim looking back at their life and the journey to this point, myriad meaningful choices have been made, if not always consciously or with much thought, as well as those agonized over. Isbister’s second factor is that of “fow” located in the relationship between challenge and ability in forms of endeavor. Coined in 1975 by psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the term relates to a person’s immersion in a particular activity with a key set of distinguishing attributes described by Isbister as “a challenging activity requiring skill; a merging of action and awareness; clear goals; direct, immediate feedback; concentration on the task at hand; a sense of control; a loss of self-consciousness; and an altered sense of time.”22 When these things come together in a particular way, including the incorporation of meaningful choices, then the “fow” state emerges. Dianne Carr describes this as “when an activity involves escalating yet manageable challenges, options, decisions, risk, feedback and achievable goals. It is an intensely pleasurable, optimum state, incorporating focus, euphoria, and high levels of motivation.”23 It is the relationship between challenge and ability on which Isbister focuses. If the game is too challenging, then there is a higher probability of the player quitting the game. Similarly, if the game is too easy then the gamer can become bored. What games should do, she argues, is provide an experience that allows both increasing but manageable challenges for the player, combined with the opportunity for abilities and skills to be acquired and mastered. In doing so, the gamer does not give up because the game is too

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boring or too hard, but is drawn into an ongoing journey or narrative through the game. Increasingly, game designers aim to offer players interesting choices that fall within that sweet spot, generating fow. Flow theory has been a boon to the game design and research communities, moving discussion of what players feel and why away from the vague, if positive, notion of “fun” and into more nuanced emotional territory that can be shaped through design choices. When players discuss the emotions they feel when playing games, much of their vocabulary relates to fow (curiosity, excitement, challenge, elation, or triumph) or the lack thereof (frustration, confusion, discouragement). Thus, fow theory offers a useful lens for understanding the unique emotional power of games compared to other media.24

Jenova Chen uses these ideas in his games Journey, Flower, Flow, and Cloud to explore why and how emotional responses are generated in games, and to create worlds that draw their players in, allowing them to be continually challenged in a constructive way in immersive worlds.25 He says:

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I started to realize there is an emotion missing in the modern society, and of course missing in the online console games. It is the feeling of not knowing, a sense of wonder, a sense of awe, at the fact that you don’t understand, at the fact that you are so small and you are not empowered. And so our focus for Journey was to make the player feel small and to feel wonder, so when they run into each other in an online environment, rather than thinking about how am I supposed to use my gun on the other player, we wanted them to feel a connection to another player.26

This immersivity sometimes, but not always, allows the player to take the form of a “deity” in a game, resonating with Anthony’s idea that these games, such as Civilization (1991–2018) and SimCity (1989–2014), are theopetic. He draws that idea out more to suggest that this kind of theopetic dimension, of entering into the game, connects spiritual practices such as Ignatian meditation where you put yourself into biblical stories as a character—even as Christ.27 This immersivity might be the experience Chen is getting at in his games. So, too, in the world of pilgrimage. If the initial journey is too challenging, before the body and mind adapt to the road, or too easy, then the pilgrim may give up. But if the journey offers the opportunity for particular physical, emotional, and spiritual challenges to be negotiated, and for a new resilience to be developed, then the pilgrim presses on toward the fnal goal. According to Isbister, the third key dimension in game playing is the place of sociality, and in particular, social emotions such as affection, camaraderie,

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empathy, or even guilt, grief, and sadness based on the experience of that game. Once again meaningful choices feature, because unlike forms of media such as books or flms, the gamer’s choices in the game have consequences for the persona representing the gamer, computer-generated non-playing characters, and other characters being played by other fesh and blood human beings. As Isbister describes it, a form of para-social interaction develops where “[p]eople read or watch or listen, start to feel immersed in the situation being presented/described, and then feel as if they were there. They begin to care about the characters and situations as if they were real.”28 Thus, good games might also feature Anthony’s allopolitical dimension which refects the creation of digital social spaces, either by a game’s creator or by the gamers themselves, in-game or using networks outside of the game, to reinforce a relational change or component to gaming that has presence in the physical world.29 The road of pilgrimage locates not only the journey to a particular place of spiritual signifcance, but also a relational journey that takes place within the pilgrim (e.g., Teresa of Avila’s The Interior Castle and John of the Cross’s Ascent of Mt Carmel30), incorporating the pilgrim’s motivations for undertaking the journey, their ongoing personal self-refection, as well as the relationships they develop with others on the journey.

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SACRED ORIENTATION Pilgrimage and gaming in digital spaces resonate in terms of Isbister’s three categories of meaningful choices, fow, and social relationships, and we might map those onto a typology of religious gaming like Anthony’s. However, most gaming in digital spaces is outside of religious contexts, and the question is to what extent the presence of Isbister’s three elements of a good game and the language and imagery of pilgrimage and religious experience might create experiences in digital gaming that might be considered sacred, or at least point toward something sacred. By sacred, we do not necessarily reduce that to forms that replicate religious life outside of gaming, though those might also be present. For our purposes here, we will take Gordon Lynch’s notion of the sacred as: The sacred is an object defned by a particular quality of human thought, feeling and behavior in which it is regarded as a grounding or ultimate source of power, identity, meaning and truth. This quality of human attention to the sacred object is constructed and mediated through particular social relations, and cultural practices and resources. Religions are social and cultural systems which are oriented toward sacred objects.31

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So what might be considered the sacred in these digital games? It might be the replication of a pilgrimage journey of meaningful decisions, fow, and relationships around the notion of journey as sacred, even if that is not explicit. Perhaps it is the way that virtual worlds might give us a sense of the numinous and transcendent, as Daniel White Hodge puts it:

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Virtual worlds are rooted in the imagination, often in things unseen. The numinous encompasses elements in the experience of life that are holy, sacred, fascinating and mysterious. These are all elements of the gaming experience. For games, the numinous can give rise to a sense of the spiritually transcendent, especially in art or media, or evoke a heightened sense of the mystical or sublime. Gamers may experience this heightened sensibility in an awe-inspiring game, such as a complex role-playing game, where the player is surrounded by the numinous. Games like this can elicit the sense of some other being—namely, God.32

For Hodge, the digital gaming space provides the ingredients needed for this encounter with the numinous or transcendent, tied in with the theme of journeying. He contends that digital gaming spaces change our experience of time, perhaps creating a sense of time that has been set apart from our everyday, profane time; time that might be holy. Within many games there is also a strong sense of the unknown, the unreachable, and the unexplained that we strive to overcome, encounter, and know, and this is often wrapped up in narratives found in the game, as well as our own self-creation and self-narration located in playing—something which might turn into a pilgrimage experience. The language of landscapes noted earlier by Lewis as a way to articulate and critique the Christian spiritual journey also fnds resonances in the gaming space. There are the mountaintop experiences found through this sacred time, the encounter with the numinous, a shared sense of community, or the completion of a quest. There are the desert experiences where nothing seems to work, where the purpose and nature of the game is hidden from you or too hard to complete, or perhaps where an epiphany happens. And then there is the valley, the bits between mountains and deserts where you can be found grinding, doing the menial tasks you need to level up—planting crops, building structures, researching technologies, trading resources, exploring further afeld, and battling opponents—where there are no shortcuts or loot boxes to help you progress. The power of these spaces to connect to our own sense of self-narration and emotion can be seen in the following two examples from reviewers playing the game, Journey. In a later part of the game, I found myself both exhausted and tested. What must the wanderer be going through right now, I wondered? Such pain, such

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hardship. At that moment, I thought back to the joyful beauty I had witnessed merely an hour ago—leaping through the sand, warm sun on my shoulders, the energy and freedom of youth urging me to jump higher, higher! And now here I was, head down, teeth gritted, pushing through the cold, bitter trials of adulthood. Those lost moments of grace felt feeting even as they were happening, and they felt all the more feeting in retrospect. But there was no way to get them back; nothing for it but to push onward. And so I did, and so you will too. And round and round we’ll go.33

And,

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This reliance on one another that’s programmed into the game is what makes it so captivating. As I began to climb the fnal slopes and the wind and the dragons became more dire and my own situation more desperate, I found myself and this other anonymous person clinging to one another as we moved up the slope. When I was tossed aside by a dragon, left lying half-broken in the snow, the other traveler ran back for me. We climbed together. At this point, the idea of climbing alone had vanished from my thoughts entirely even though so often in games the solo route is the one I take. In a way that no other multiplayer game has done, I felt the necessity of companionship in Journey. In literally no MMO I’ve ever played have I felt that need, but in Journey that sense of struggle feeds directly into a sense of camaraderie. It’s deeply affecting.34

The pilgrim traverses the landscapes of both religion and popular culture, following sacred journeys that orient and shape people into particular kinds of identities, communities, and ways of living. While there may not be an exact one-to-one match between religious pilgrimage and digital games, many common features of pilgrimage can be found in digital games. Through the thrill of FTW—For The Win—mountaintop experiences, the aridity of deserts and permadeath, the boredom of valleys where you grind out your levelling up, and oases and places of sanctuary that resource and preserve you, playful digital spaces have much in common with the spirituality of pilgrimage and will, in my opinion, develop into deeply spiritual places for those who inhabit them. NOTES 1. The digital games mentioned here are, respectively: Journey [Video game] (Los Angeles, CA: Thatgamecompany, 2012); Guardians of Ancora [Video game] (England and Wales: Scripture Union, 2015); “LoL Esports,” Riot Games/League of Legends, https://watch​.lolesports​.com; Flower [Video game] (Los Angeles,

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CA: Thatgamecompany, 2009); Elite: Dangerous [Video game] (Cambridge, UK: Frontier Developments, 2014); Rime [Video Game] (Madrid: Tequila Works, 2017). 2. Kevin A. Codd, To the Field of Stars: A Pilgrim’s Journey to Santiago De Compostela (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Pub., 2008), x. 3. David Osborne, Pilgrimage (Cambridge: Grove Books, 1996), 4. 4. Steven Lewis, Landscape as Sacred Space: Metaphors for the Spiritual Journey (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2005), 1. 5. Jason Anthony, “Dreidels to Dante’s Inferno: Toward a Typology of Religious Games,” in Playing with Religion in Digital Games, ed. Heidi Campbell and Gregory P. Grieve (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014), 29–39. 6. Scripture Union England and Wales, “Guardians of Ancora,” https​:/​/gu​​ardia​​ nsofa​​ncora​​.com/​​learn​​-more​​/abou​​t​​-the​​-game​ 7. Scarlet City LP, “The Aetherlight: Chronicles of the Resistance,” https://theaetherlight​.com​/parents 8. Scarlet City LP, “The Aetherlight.” 9. Anthony, “Dreidels to Dante’s Inferno,” 34–35. 10. Anthony, “Dreidels to Dante’s Inferno,” 36. 11. Heidi A. Campbell and Antonio C. La Pastina, “How the iPhone Became Divine: New Media, Religion and the Intertextual Circulation of Meaning.” New Media & Society 12, no. 7 (2010): 1191–1207; Elizabeth Montalbano, “Microsoft Wants People to Throw Windows 7 Launch Parties.” PC World, 4 September 2009, https​:/​/ww​​w​.pcw​​orld.​​idg​.c​​om​.au​​/arti​​cle​/3​​17334​​/micr​​osoft​​_want​​s​_peo​​ple​_t​​hrow_ ​​ windo​​​ws​_7_​​launc​​h​_par​​ties 12. Matthew Cooper, “What Is Flossing? The Dance Craze Which Found Its Way onto Fortnite,” Manchester Evening News, 27 March 2018, https​:/​/ww​​w​.man​​chest​​ ereve​​ningn​​ews​.c​​o​.uk/​​news/​​uk​-ne​​ws​/fo​​rtnit​​e​-dan​​ce​-f​​ossin​​​g​-xbo​​x​-ps4​​-1446​​2835.​ 13. Anthony, “Dreidels to Dante’s Inferno,” 36–37. 14. Anthony, “Dreidels to Dante’s Inferno,” 37–38. Valance Smith, “Kapa haka – Māori performing arts,” Te Ara—the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http:​/​/www​​.TeAr​​ a​.gov​​t​.nz/​​en​/ka​​pa​-ha​​ka​-ma​​ori​-p​​​erfor​​ming-​​arts 15. Andy Robertson, “Cathedral Uses Playstation Game in Worship Service,” Wired, 9 May 2012, https​:/​/ww​​w​.wir​​ed​.co​​m​/201​​2​/05/​​cathe​​dral-​​uses-​​p​lays​​tatio​​n/; Andy Robertson, “Ps3’s Journey Blurs Attendance at Cathedral Service,” Wired, 17 August 2012, https​:/​/ww​​w​.wir​​ed​.co​​m​/201​​2​/08/​​ps3​-j​​ourne​​​y​-cat​​hedra​​l. 16. Jerome W. Berryman, Godly Play: An Imaginative Approach to Religious Education (Minneapolis: Augsburg Books 1995), 8. 17. Berryman, “Godly Play,” 12. 18. Rachel Wagner, “The Play Is the Thing: Interactivity from Bible Fights to Passions of the Christ,” in Halos and Avatars: Playing Video Games with God, ed. Craig Detweiler (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 54. 19. Katherine Isbister, How Games Move Us: Emotion by Design, Playful Thinking (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016), xvii. 20. Isbister, How Games Move Us, 1. 21. Anthony, “Dreidels to Dante’s Inferno,” 39–40.

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22. Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, 1st ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1990), 49; Isbister, How Games Move Us, 5. 23. Dianne Carr quoted in D. Brent Laytham, Ipod, Youtube, Wii Play: Theological Engagements with Entertainment (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2012), 127. 24. Isbister, How Games Move Us, 4–5. 25. Jenova Chen, “Flow in Games,” (MFA thesis, University of Southern California, 2006). 26. Kevin Ohannessian, “Game Designer Jenova Chen on the Art Behind His ‘Journey,’” Fast Company, 12 March 2012, https​:/​/ww​​w​.fas​​tcomp​​any​.c​​om​/16​​80062​​/ game​​-desi​​gner-​​jenov​​a​-che​​n​-on-​​the​-a​​rt​-​be​​hind-​​his​-j​​ourne​y 27. Anthony, “Dreidels to Dante’s Inferno,” 42–43. 28. Isbister, How Games Move Us, 7. 29. Anthony, “Dreidels to Dante’s Inferno,” 41. 30. The Interior Castle (1588); Ascent of Mount Carmel (1579). Translations: Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, trans. Anon. Stanbrook Benedictine Nuns, rev. Benedict Zimmerman (London: HarperCollins, Fount Paperbacks, 1995); John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, trans. David Lewis, ed. Benedict Zimmerman (Whitefsh, Montana: Kessinger Publishing, 2006). 31. Gordon Lynch, “What Is This ‘Religion’ in the Study of Religion and Popular Culture?,” in Between Sacred and Profane: Researching Religion and Popular Culture, ed. Gordon Lynch (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007), 138. 32. Daniel White Hodge, “Role Playing: Towards a Theology of Gamers,” in Halos and Avatars: Playing Video Games with God, ed. Craig Detweiler (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 174. 33. Kirk Hamilton, “Journey: The Kotaku Review,” Kotaku, 2 March 2012, http:​/​ /kot​​aku​.c​​om​/58​​89425​​/jour​​ney​-t​​he​-ko​​t​aku-​​revie​​w. 34. Erik Kain, “‘Journey’ Review: Making Games Beautiful,” Forbes, 4 December 2012, http:​/​/www​​.forb​​es​.co​​m​/sit​​es​/er​​ikkai​​n​/201​​2​/12/​​04​/jo​​urney​​-revi​​ew​-ma​​king-​​vide​ o​​-game​​s​-bea​​utifu​​l. Editors’ note: MMO: massively multiplayer online game.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Anthony, Jason. “Dreidels to Dante’s Inferno: Toward a Typology of Religious Games.” In Playing with Religion in Digital Games, 25–46. Edited by Heidi Campbell and Gregory P. Grieve. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014. Berryman, Jerome W. Godly Play: An Imaginative Approach to Religious Education. Minneapolis: Augsburg Books, 1995. Campbell, Heidi A., and Antonio C. La Pastina. “How the iPhone Became Divine: New Media, Religion and the Intertextual Circulation of Meaning.” New Media & Society 12 no. 7 (2010): 1191–1207. Chen, Jenova. “Flow in Games.” MFA thesis, University of Southern California, 2006. Codd, Kevin A. To the Field of Stars: A Pilgrim’s Journey to Santiago De Compostela. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Pub., 2008.

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Cooper, Matthew. “What Is Flossing? The Dance Craze Which Found Its Way onto Fortnite.” Manchester Evening News. 27 March 2018. https​:/​/ww​​w​.man​​chest​​ereve​​ ningn​​ews​.c​​o​.uk/​​news/​​uk​-ne​​ws​/fo​​rtnit​​e​-dan​​ce​-f​​ossin​​​g​-xbo​​x​-ps4​​-1446​​2835 Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. 1st ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1990. Elite: Dangerous. Video game. Cambridge, UK: Frontier Developments, 2014. Flower. Video game. Los Angeles, CA: Thatgamecompany, 2009. Guardians of Ancora. Video game. England and Wales: Scripture Union, 2015. Hamilton, Kirk. “Journey: The Kotaku Review.” Kotaku. 2 March 2012. http:​/​/kot​​aku​ .c​​om​/58​​89425​​/jour​​ney​-t​​he​-ko​​​taku-​​revie​w Hodge, Daniel White. “Role Playing: Towards a Theology of Gamers.” In Halos and Avatars: Playing Video Games with God, 163–175. Edited by Craig Detweiler. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010. Isbister, Katherine. How Games Move Us: Emotion by Design. Playful Thinking. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016. John of the Cross. The Ascent of Mount Carmel. Translated by David Lewis. Edited by Benedict Zimmerman. Whitefsh, Montana: Kessinger Publishing, 2006. Journey. Video game. Los Angeles, CA: Thatgamecompany, 2012. Kain, Erik. “‘Journey’ Review: Making Games Beautiful.” Forbes. 4 December 2012. http:​/​/www​​.forb​​es​.co​​m​/sit​​es​/er​​ikkai​​n​/201​​2​/12/​​04​/jo​​urney​​-revi​​ew​-ma​​king-​​ vid​eo​​-game​​s​-bea​​utifu​l Laytham, D. Brent. Ipod, Youtube, Wii Play: Theological Engagements with Entertainment. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2012. Lewis, Steven. Landscape as Sacred Space: Metaphors for the Spiritual Journey. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2005. “LoL Esports.” Riot Games/League of Legends. https://watch​.lolesports​.com. Lynch, Gordon. “What Is This ‘Religion’ in the Study of Religion and Popular Culture?” In Between Sacred and Profane : Researching Religion and Popular Culture, 131–142. Edited by Gordon Lynch. London: I.B. Tauris, 2007. Montalbano, Elizabeth. “Microsoft Wants People to Throw Windows 7 Launch Parties.” PC World. 4 September 2009. https​:/​/ww​​w​.pcw​​orld.​​idg​.c​​om​.au​​/arti​​cle​/3​​ 17334​​/micr​​osoft​​_want​​s​_peo​​ple​_t​​hrow_​​windo​​​ws​_7_​​launc​​h​_par​​ties Ohannessian, Kevin. “Game Designer Jenova Chen on the Art Behind His ‘Journey.’” Fast Company. 12 March 2012. https​:/​/ww​​w​.fas​​tcomp​​any​.c​​om​/16​​80062​​/game​​ -desi​​gner-​​jenov​​a​-che​​n​-on-​​the​-a​​rt​-​be​​hind-​​his​-j​​ourne​y Osborne, David. Pilgrimage. Cambridge: Grove Books, 1996. Rime. Video Game. Madrid: Tequila Works, 2017. Robertson, Andy. “Cathedral Uses Playstation Game in Worship Service.” Wired. 9 May 2012. https​:/​/ww​​w​.wir​​ed​.co​​m​/201​​2​/05/​​cathe​​dral-​​uses-​​p​lays​​tatio​​n. ———. “Ps3’s Journey Blurs Attendance at Cathedral Service.” Wired. 17 August 2012. https​:/​/ww​​w​.wir​​ed​.co​​m​/201​​2​/08/​​ps3​-j​​ourne​​​y​-cat​​hedra​l Scarlet City LP. “The Aetherlight: Chronicles of the Resistance.” https://theaetherlight​.com​/parents Scripture Union England and Wales. “Guardians of Ancora.” https​:/​/gu​​ardia​​nsofa​​ ncora​​.com/​​learn​​-more​​/abou​​t​​-the​​-game​

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Smith, Valance. “Kapa haka – Māori performing arts.” Te Ara—the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. http:​/​/www​​.TeAr​​a​.gov​​t​.nz/​​en​/ka​​pa​-ha​​ka​-ma​​ori​-p​​​erfor​​ming-​​arts Teresa of Avila. The Interior Castle. Translated by Anon. Stanbrook Benedictine Nuns. Revised by Benedict Zimmerman. London: HarperCollins, Fount Paperbacks, 1995. Wagner, Rachel. “The Play Is the Thing: Interactivity from Bible Fights to Passions of the Christ.” Pages 47–62 in Halos and Avatars: Playing Video Games with God. Edited by Craig Detweiler. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010.

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Part II

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HISTORICAL AND APPLIED PERSPECTIVES

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Chapter 6

An Enemy to be Fought or a Tool to be Used? Baptists and Sport in New Zealand, 1882–2011

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John Tucker

Historically, the church’s attitude toward sport has tended to oscillate between two poles: opposition and coalition. From pulpits, councils, and imperial thrones, the church has often denounced sport as an enemy of true religion. The early church fathers, for example, opposed the games because of their long association with pagan religious rituals. “The mother of all games,” wrote Novatian, “is idolatry.”1 The medieval Catholic Church banned jousting tournaments, largely because of the drinking, gambling, and cavorting that accompanied them. The English Puritans like John Bunyan and Richard Baxter vigorously opposed recreational sport because the concept of leisure was alien to the true Christian. More recently, Evangelicals have often seen sport as a rival, an enemy of vital religion. In 1896, for instance, the deacons of Linanus Baptist Chapel in Treherbert, Wales threatened excommunication to anyone connected with rugby.2 Sport was condemned as an idolatrous practice inconsistent with Christian faith or, at the very least, a dangerous diversion—a frivolous distraction—from the serious business of Christian discipleship. Alongside this pattern of opposition, the church has often also tried to coopt or use sport as an ally, a tool of religion. The very same church fathers who denounced the sporting arena as an idolatrous temple and “the seat of plagues” were quite prepared to use imagery from the arena where it served to enhance their preaching.3 The medieval Pope John XXII willingly overturned the ban on tournaments when it became evident that it had reduced the number of knights available for the crusades. Puritans like Baxter argued that vice only gets a foothold when pleasure becomes its own end. If exercise 111

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served a higher purpose, such as increasing one’s capacity for work or prayer, then the fun and pleasure of sport could be tolerated.4 And from the late nineteenth century Evangelicals embraced a form of Muscular Christianity: sport became a vehicle for communicating the Christian faith, a tool for discipleship and—supremely—evangelism.5 Historians, therefore, identify a double helix pattern in the church’s posture toward sport. The church has denounced sport as an evil to be avoided, and it has deployed sport as a tool to be used.6 This chapter traces New Zealand Baptist rhetoric on sport between 1882 (when the Baptist Union of New Zealand was formed) and 2011 (when New Zealand won the Rugby World Cup for the second time!). It demonstrates that this double pattern of opposition and instrumental use is evident within the New Zealand Baptist movement. It concludes with refections about discipleship and ministry in relation to sport and argues that the church needs to move beyond seeing sport as an enemy to be fought or an ally to be used.

SPORT AS AN ENEMY TO BE FOUGHT

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In October 1891, the New Zealand Baptist magazine carried an article entitled “Amusements.” It was an essay by a young minister who would go on to become arguably the most infuential leader in the New Zealand Baptist movement. The Rev. J. J. North argued that for amusements to be permissible they must satisfy two criteria: The frst requisite is that there shall be nothing in the amusement itself, or in its effects, which shall, to even the smallest degree, injure or demoralise any. It must not be productive of harm either to participators or producers, otherwise the spirit of the teaching of the New Testament, our acknowledged authority, will be opposed. The second requisite is that there shall be in addition to the relaxation some defnite gain. We cannot afford to loose [sic] precious time, to stagnate, as it were. In order to fulfl the ideal, the amusement indulged in must be proftable in some shape, and to some extent.7

These were the two key questions. Is it harmless? And is it proftable? On the basis of this twofold test, Baptists divided sport into two categories: “clean” and “unclean.”8 Clean sports, or “healthful, manly, and innocent” sports, were sports like rugby football and cricket. Unclean sports were “debasing” and “brutalizing” sports like boxing or prize fghting.9 The difference, apparently, was that boxing was inherently violent, cruel, and harmful, whereas rugby

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football was not. On this point, Baptists in New Zealand seem to have had a higher level of tolerance for violence than some of their cousins around the world. Baptists in the United States, by contrast, denounced football as a defnite evil. The editor of the Religious Herald in Virginia doubted that any legitimate pleasure could be gained from “that dirtily clad, bare and frowsy headed, rough-and-tumble, shoving, pushing, crushing, pounding, kicking, ground-wallowing, mixed-up mass of players, of whom any might come out with broken limbs, or be left on the ground writhing with ruptured vitals.”10 Such was the sport’s brutality, Baptists in Georgia called on the legislature to abolish football throughout the state.11 New Zealand Baptists, it seems, never came close to taking this position. Rugby—American football’s close relative—was a pure and pristine form of sport. God’s gift to God’s own.12

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RACING AND GAMBLING Their rhetoric suggests that Baptists in New Zealand generally regarded most sport as being harmless in and of itself. The object of their concern was the sin that so often accompanied it. That sin took three forms. Baptists opposed some sports, frst of all, because of their links with sinful social practices or structures. The one sport that New Zealand Baptists consistently opposed was horseracing.13 Why? It was closely—“inseparably”—linked with gambling.14 And gambling, as every Baptist well knew, was in its very “essence” immoral.15 The practice was “ruinous to the temper, honesty and fortune.”16 It was “the meanest of vices.”17 It injured the personality and “brought untold misery to individuals and homes.”18 It was a breach of two biblical principles, the principle of stewardship and the principle of love. Gamblers were not investing their money wisely, and nor were they loving their neighbors as themselves. Rather, they were attempting to gain something from their neighbors without giving anything in return.19 This is how the New Zealand Baptist put it: “Economically, gambling is ghastly waste, intellectually it is a laxative, morally it is a vice, religiously it is sin.”20 Indeed, the “unclean passion of gambling” was “the most atheistical vice which darkens the divine in man, and saps the moral vitals of a nation.”21 Not least of all, it “killed” sport, degrading every sport it touched,22 corrupting what were otherwise “innocent and manly games.”23 Horse racing, however, had been particularly corrupted. It was “eaten to the bone with frauds.”24 Baptists concluded, therefore, that “The race course lies beyond redemption point.”25 They consistently opposed racing whenever they could. So in 1914 the editor of the Baptist magazine vigorously condemned the Rev. Jasper Calder, an Auckland Anglican minister who claimed to regularly attend race meetings. By associating with men “among whom rascality

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fourishes,” he had “rubbed out the line which should ever separate Church and World. . . . Gaming and godliness ever have been, and ever must be incompatible. The Turf has never yet been an aid to piety, and no parsonic patronage can transform the totalisator into a means of grace. It has ruined multitudes by its specious allurements, and the only rightful attitude for any to take who love their land is an attitude of uncompromising hostility.”26 The Rev. Jasper Calder was “a parasite on the vices of other men.”27 When during World War I the Manurewa Children’s Home received a charitable donation from a jockey club, its board promptly returned the gift.28 When, in 1927, attempts were made to introduce “tin hare racing” (dog racing) to New Zealand, the national Baptist Assembly passed a strong resolution against this “threatened social, moral and economic menace.”29 Formal protests against any liberalization of gambling were common. The Assembly protested strongly against the government’s proposal to increase the facilities and inducements to gamble by the publication of race dividends in the daily press, and by allowing the money to be telegraphed to race meetings.30 In 1935, it opposed the licensing of bookmakers. In 1946, when the government appointed a Royal Commission to inquire into the laws and practices regarding gambling and racing, the Baptist Union Council urged the government to adopt “stricter and more adequate methods of control,” declaring that “gambling in all its forms is a public and private vice. Gambling produces deterioration of character and impoverishment of homes; it induces fraudulent practices and the loss of industrial effciency. Moreover, it corrupts every sport it touches.”31 The introduction of sports betting in 1996 again prompted comment within the New Zealand Baptist.32 By this stage, though, Baptists seemed to have reconciled themselves to the reality that they were fghting a losing battle. They have been relatively silent on the issue since. Besides horse-racing, there was no other single sport which Baptists—publicly at least—monolithically and consistently opposed. There were, however, occasions when Baptists in New Zealand spoke out against other sports because of their connection with sinful social, economic, and political systems. In the post-World War II era a number of Baptists raised their voices against what they saw as an unholy alliance between the alcohol industry and sport. They spoke often against the licensing of sports clubs and the sponsorship of sporting events.33 However, the one issue that provoked the greatest debate was apartheid and sports contact with South Africa. The debate centered on rugby. RUGBY AND APARTHEID New Zealand has a long history of rugby rivalry with South Africa. Rugby is the national sport of both New Zealand and white South Africa, where it

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has been followed with an almost religious devotion—rugby is “godlike.”34 Historically, the South African team, the Springboks, have been considered to be New Zealand’s most formidable opponents. The meeting of the All Blacks—New Zealand’s national team—and the Springboks was, therefore, “the pitting of giant against giant, god against god, a climax for sport and a celebration of culture.”35 From the 1960s, however, there was a growing conviction within New Zealand and the international community that any form of sporting contact with South Africa effectively constituted support for a regime built on apartheid. For many New Zealanders, though, a blanket ban on all tests between New Zealand and South Africa, the two leading rugby-playing nations, was unthinkable and inappropriate. Some emphasized the right of individuals to enjoy a decent game of rugby and argued that sport and politics should not mix. Others pointed to the inconsistency of New Zealand cutting sports ties with South Africa while it maintained economic relations with that country.36 Many argued that it was unfair to subject South Africa to special treatment without examining New Zealand’s relationship with other countries that were guilty of human rights violations.37 In the context of a Cold War, a number of New Zealanders were reluctant to place any kind of pressure on the white South African regime because it stood as a bulwark against the forces of “atheistic communism” in that part of the world.38 Then there were those who, though they despised apartheid, were not convinced that boycotts were the best response. An alternative and, for many, equally legitimate Christian response, was to build bridges rather than erect barriers, and undermine apartheid by positive example.39 Public opinion was, therefore, sharply divided. Nevertheless, a number of Baptist leaders were quite outspoken on the issue.40 Before the 1970 All Black tour of South Africa, the editor of the Baptist, H. E. Whitten, declared: “The All Blacks should not tour South Africa. All sporting ties between this country and South Africa should be broken. This is not to mix sport with politics. It is not a matter of politics at all. It is simply to refuse to let this country’s participation in sport be interpreted as an endorsement of that shocking negation of human rights which is apartheid.”41 On the eve of the tour Whitten was even more forthright in his attempt to rouse the Baptist conscience. He castigated the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) and its supporters, for whom “rugby is more important than human rights,” and the government for its Pilate-like “hand-washing attitude” toward the colored races of the world.42 Subsequently, when a Springbok tour of New Zealand was scheduled for 1973, the Baptist devoted its front page to the upcoming tour under the heading, “A Matter of Christian Concern.” The feature article argued that the gospel is concerned with the whole person, and that “in God’s name we

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must stop the tour.” This was more than an issue of sport, it was an issue of justice and humanity: “South Africa is in a state of siege between the oppressor and the oppressed. New Zealand, by maintaining social relations with the oppressor, becomes identifed with the forces of injustice and oppression.”43 Whitten’s editorial called on pusillanimous Baptists to “stand up and be counted on the side of righteousness and love and abhorrence of anything that helps us to perpetuate the crime of apartheid.”44 Before the 1976, All Black tour of South Africa, the Baptist Union Council did exactly that and issued a statement opposing the tour.45 The issue subsequently erupted again when the NZRU agreed to a Springbok tour of New Zealand in 1981. It divided the country in half.46 Many—if not most—Baptists probably supported the tour. Nevertheless, before the tour the national Baptist Assembly adopted a resolution calling on the NZRU “to withdraw its invitation to the Springboks as an expression of opposition to apartheid and of solidarity with oppressed people in South Africa” and urged the government “to take more active steps to discourage the tour.”47 The government did not intervene and the tour went ahead. It generated what James Belich calls “the worst civil violence in New Zealand since the Depression riots in 1932.”48 The country, according to one newspaper, was “thrown into a state of near civil war.”49 Among Baptists, there were a number who participated in protests to stop the tour. Several ministerial students at the Baptist Theological College— along with their lecturers—became deeply involved.50 Mike Riddell, Gaylene Jackson, and David Bromell were in charge of a potential second invasion of the rugby feld during the Hamilton test, should the frst invasion fail. Gaylene Jackson was in charge of one of the “battalions” into which the antitour protesters were divided for the fnal test at Auckland.51 Mike Riddell was arrested three times, for leading protestors onto the Auckland Airport runway, for obstructing traffc on the Southern motorway during one of the tour games, and for trying to hang a protest banner on the building where the Springboks were staying. (On this last occasion Riddell was charged with being in a building illegally without the intention to commit a crime. When his lawyer discovered that it was illegal to hang banners on buildings without permission, he argued that Riddell did actually have the intention to commit a crime—and got him off.)52 To be fair, most Baptists, however, chose not to get involved.53 James Belich has argued generally that the two sides of the tour debate were basically defending two different defnitions of a New Zealand identity that seemed under threat.54 Baptists, for their part, were divided between two very different defnitions of the gospel and Christian identity. Many Baptists felt that protesting against the tour was a dangerous distraction from Christ’s commission to preach a “strictly spiritual” or “personal”

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gospel.55 For others, though, protesting against the tours was a vital expression of the gospel.56

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SPORT ON SUNDAY Baptist critique of sport was, therefore, sometimes focused on the association with oppressive social practices or structures. A second focus of concern was the violation of the Sabbath. New Zealand Baptists inherited from their English and Scottish and Puritan forbears a stern sabbatarianism. Sunday was a day for worship and quiet rest; it was not a day for “feshly pleasures” or “prophane exercises.”57 In the nineteenth century and early twentieth century this view was enshrined in local council by-laws. By the 1930s, however, this consensus started to unravel. Baptist leaders raised their voices in protest against any moves to introduce sport on Sunday. In February 1930 the Auckland Baptist Tabernacle unanimously passed a resolution of protest against the government’s action in secularizing the Lord’s Day by opening the Rotorua Domain for Sunday sports.58 In June 1934 the New Zealand Baptist condemned the Supreme Court’s decision that town councils did not have the power to prohibit Sunday games.59 In 1939 the South Dunedin Baptist Church passed a resolution strongly deprecating “the increasing tendency to use the Lord’s Day for pleasure” in the form of organized sport. The resolution asserted that “this national sin must be repented of if God’s blessing is to be expected.”60 In the 1950s, the growth of organized sport on Sunday forced Baptists to address the issue with greater intensity. The minister and offcers of the Timaru Baptist Church wrote to the City Council expressing their grave concern over the playing of a special beneft rugby match on Sunday.61 The Canterbury Baptist Association passed a resolution against the calling together of representative teams for Sunday practice.62 And the national Baptist Assembly adopted a statement on Sunday observance. It recognized that “the Church has no right to require non-Christians to observe the Lord’s Day according to the Christian pattern,” but argued that “the community will inevitably suffer if it neglects [God’s] merciful provision” of a special day of rest for all. It therefore commended the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association for deciding against Sunday sport, and pleaded with civic authorities to use their powers to preserve Sunday as a day of rest for all citizens.63 Throughout the 1950s, the Baptist magazine featured a number of articles outlining a Christian response to “the Sunday question.”64 For the Christian, Sunday was a day for public worship, family life, deeds of mercy, and quiet rest. Sport was, therefore, “a serious hindrance to the right use of the day.”65 In the 1960s and 1970s, as more and more sporting codes embraced Sunday

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play, a number of leading Baptist athletes were forced to forego representative honors. They were celebrated as modern day “martyrs” for refusing to compromise their Christian convictions.66 The most famous of these were the three test cricketers—Victor Pollard, Bryan Yuile, and Bruce Murray—all of them Baptists who refused to play on Sundays and whose international careers suffered as a result. Their exclusion from the 1970 tour to Australia prompted the Baptist Assembly to pass a resolution expressing its “deep concern that young people of sincere Christian convictions should be debarred from representative honours” in sport, and urging Baptists to “maintain the right priorities in relation to religious, social and sporting interests.”67 From the early 1970s, however, the general consensus among Baptists as to the nature of these priorities started to break down. A growing number of Baptists refused to believe that Sunday sport was fundamentally inconsistent with Christian commitment.68 This was, no doubt, driven by changing social norms, but it also seems to have been the fruit of fresh theological refection. In 1975 the editor of the Baptist, H. E. Whitten, wrote a series of articles on “The Use of Sunday.” He argued, from church history and biblical theology, for a more spacious attitude toward Sunday sport. “We have no right,” he concluded, “to try to stop those who want to play sports on Sunday.”69 That did not stop some Baptists from continuing the fght to “Save Our Sunday.”70 It was, however, a rear-guard action that was ultimately abandoned shortly before the end of the century.

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SPORT IN EXCESS The struggle against Sunday sport intersected with a third major concern among New Zealand Baptists: the tendency of sport to displace more important Christian commitments. During the colonial period a number of Baptists expressed concern at the amount of time given to sport. In 1888 the Rev. Thomas Spurgeon, son of C. H. Spurgeon, made this a focus of his presidential address to the Baptist Union. One of the great “headwinds” confronting the denomination was, in his view, “an inordinate love of pleasure. We are not content with a due amount of recreation and amusement. Excitement and revelry have superseded healthy exercise and lawful pleasure.”71 The following year the Baptist carried an article about “Some of the Dangers Incident to Colonial Life.” One of these was the “undue love” for “outdoor amusements,” an “unreasonable indulgence” in sports like cricket and football, to which the reader believed colonial youth were “peculiarly prone.”72 Baptist leaders admitted that physical exercise had some beneft, but their preoccupation with sport meant that many young people in New Zealand did not give suffcient time to reading

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and “cultivation of the higher nature.”73 Moreover, sport and recreation were “usurping the place of church life and work.”74 They were interfering with the “more important and sacred duties” of Christian discipleship and service.75 This was a recurring theme within Baptist discourse. The love of sport must be kept in check.76 It became an increasing concern from the 1930s, when the introduction of a forty-hour work week meant increased leisure time for New Zealanders. The President of the Baptist Union in 1936 used his Assembly address to warn about the dangers of “excessive sport” and called for a return to “Puritanism.”77 The Assembly delegates, refecting on the advent of a fve-day working week, and the increase in leisure time, adopted a resolution which recognized “the peril involved in the misuse of such leisure” and “over-indulgence” in sport.78 It was not just that excessive investments of time and money in sport reduced the amount of time and money that could be given to family, friends, neighbors, or ministry. There was a very real concern that for many New Zealanders sport had become an idol.79 From the 1980s, Baptist commentators talked about sport as our “national religion.”80 Christians were not immune to the lure of this religion. As one minister admitted, “We’re developing our muscles but forgetting our ministries.”81 For many Baptists, then, the call was to “balance sporting interests with dedication to the kingdom of God.”82 Their concern focused not so much on sport’s association with sinful practices or structures (like gambling or apartheid). Their critique focused not on sport’s violation of the Sabbath principles. Rather, their anxiety centered on sport’s capacity to displace God in the believer’s affections and commitments. To the extent that it did this, sport was an enemy to be fought.

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SPORT AS A TOOL TO BE USED It is interesting, however, to identify another strand in Baptist discourse. From the mid-nineteenth century onward the church in England and America came to see sport as an important tool both for forming character and for communicating faith.83 This movement toward “muscular Christianity” impacted Baptists in New Zealand. While they sometimes denounced sport as an enemy to be resisted, they also often viewed sport as an ally to be embraced, an instrument to be used. The frst Baptists in New Zealand brought with them from England a strict Protestant work ethic.84 They believed that “nothing is more enervating and relaxing to the moral fbre of national character than an over-heated, diseased, longing for pleasure just for pleasure’s sake.”85 This was the view of Joan Mills, winner of a Baptist essay competition on “The Christian Use of Leisure.”86 In her words, “there is nothing more degrading than idleness, and

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for a Christian there should be nothing more impossible.” We should never use our leisure hours “solely in the pursuit of our enjoyment.” Rather, the purpose of leisure is to “ft ourselves further for Christ’s service.” According to this view, the only legitimate form of sport, therefore, was that which—as J. J. North put it—produced “some defnite gain.”87 This is how one young Baptist woman articulated it:

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A portion of leisure time spent on the sports feld is desirable for a Christian, provided that he keeps in view the fact that the sport is not an end in itself, but a means to health, self-control, character, alertness, physical power and mental discipline, all attributes necessary for the Christian to become a true servant of the Lord.88

For many Baptists, then, sport was not a gift from God to be enjoyed for its own sake. It was a tool, an instrument, a vehicle for physical, social, and moral development.89 For most Baptists, though, the greatest use to which sport could be put was evangelism. Colonial Baptists often talked about the evangelistic value of sport. For one thing, it demonstrated to a skeptical world that Christianity and manliness were not opposites.90 Participation in “clean sport” like rugby proved that “a virile and robust piety can be developed in these days when irreligion abounds.”91 It showed that “a full Christian manhood is neither pinched nor narrow.”92 This, perhaps, explains why Baptists sometimes took pains to describe the muscular appearance of athletic and sporty pastors. The Rev. W. White was introduced to the 1911 Baptist Assembly in these terms: “He has a fne physique; he broke two men’s collarbones during one season’s athletic sports in West Australia!”93 Joseph Clark, pastor of the Auckland Baptist Tabernacle, was described as a “real ‘man’s man.’ Broad-shouldered, tall and well-proportioned physically, he attracted men . . . to the church.” The young people regarded him, by virtue of his appearance on the football feld, as a “typical muscular Christian.”94 SPORTS EVANGELISM From the early twentieth century a number of Baptist churches set up sports clubs to attract young people to their Bible class programs.95 They entered in local competitions church cricket teams,96 football teams,97 men’s and women’s hockey teams,98 and ladies’ basketball teams.99 They established tennis clubs,100 badminton clubs,101 and harrier clubs.102 The primary goal was evangelism. When the Milford Baptist Church announced the formation of a church football club, it said: “We hope that it will bring before others the activities of our

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work for the Lord Jesus Christ.”103 When the Auckland Baptist Harrier Club was launched it required that members must attend Bible Class at least twentyfour times in the year.104 According to one speech at their annual prize-giving, Harriers meant “Healthy Athletes Raise Resolute Inspired Evangelists—Result: Souls.”105 One of the ways by which Baptists hoped to reap this evangelistic harvest was by setting an example of “Christian manliness and sportsmanship.”106 Occasionally they congratulated themselves on their reputation for sportsmanship.107 There is some evidence, however, to suggest that the on-feld witness of Baptist sportsmen was not always to be commended.108 A number of scholars have argued that “muscular Christianity,” with its emphasis on the body and sport, reduced the Christian gospel into humanistic moralism. Certainly, the conversion toward sport did have a secularizing effect on the YMCA and some of the mainline churches.109 Baptists in Britain sometimes voiced their concern about this drastic reformulation of mission.110 Some New Zealand Baptists also raised concerns.111 In 1922, the President of the Baptist Union addressed the national Assembly on the topic of “The Pre-Eminence of the Spiritual.” He conceded that sport could have a place in a church’s program but insisted that leaders must maintain their Bible Classes as “spiritual organizations and not allow them to drift into glorifed tennis or football clubs.”112 This was a widespread concern in the interwar years, but after World War II churches started shedding their sports clubs, some of them continuing as secular organizations.113 But that was not the end of sports evangelism. From the 1960s Assembly speakers and Union leaders regularly encouraged New Zealand Baptists to infltrate society by participation in secular sports organizations within their communities.114 A number of local churches, moreover, took steps to convert their facilities into sport and recreation centers for the wider community.115 Taumarunui Baptist built a quarter pipe for young skateboarders in the church carpark.116 Since World War II local churches also often used leading Christian sports personalities to present the gospel at evangelistic youth rallies, “Sportsmen’s Services,” and open-air beach missions.117 During the summer some churches like Milford Baptist ran beach missions that featured sports activities like windsurfng and kayaking and testimony from prominent Christian athletes like Anthony Mosse, an Olympic swimmer, and Ana Noovao, captain of the New Zealand netball team.118 The New Zealand Baptist also ran feature articles for its readers on the faith of elite Christian athletes such as the All Black, Michael Jones.119 A number of scholars have highlighted the inherent contradiction in this use of sports celebrities to proclaim the gospel. Shirl James Hoffman claims that: The dynamics of selling Christ are not much different than the dynamics of selling basketball shoes. The celebrity pitching the gospel, like the celebrity

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pitching athletic shoes, must embody an attractive image, and in the athletic world this means that he or she must be a winner. Physically attractive, successful, wealthy, nationally acclaimed athletes are in demand by evangelism groups, stumbling, error-prone, marginal players are not, even though they may be far superior models of the Christian life. . . . sport evangelism is fundamentally about image.120

According to Dominic Erdozain, this attempt to “preach a religion of grace from a platform of victory,” to preach poverty of spirit in the language of achievement and performance, actually subverts the gospel.121 Baptists in New Zealand have not, it seems, wrestled much with these issues—at least not in print. From the 1980s, Baptist interaction with sport has been increasingly shaped by the growth of modern interdenominational sports ministries in the United States and the United Kingdom. Baptists have received and supported sports evangelism teams from America, such as the Invaders Basketball team and the Impact World Tours team.122 Since the 1990s, a number of young Baptist athletes have traveled overseas with organizations like Sports Outreach New Zealand and SoccerPlus NZ.123 These short-term sports mission trips involved playing sport, providing coaching, mentoring young people, and sharing the gospel. Baptists have also provided signifcant leadership within a number of New Zealand’s interdenominational sports ministries. Kim Beale of Titirangi Baptist founded SoccerPlus NZ in 1998.124 Kevin Goldsbury and Steve Willis from Petone Baptist Church launched Ignite Sport in the Wellington region.125 Ross Georgiou and Martyn Norrie have played a leading role in Sports Chaplaincy New Zealand, and Andrew Kerr has served as Convenor of Christian Sports Network New Zealand.126 More recently, Grant Harris, senior pastor of Windsor Park Baptist, has served as chaplain to the New Zealand Breakers Basketball Club. During major sports events like the 2011 Rugby World Cup the Baptist magazine repeatedly urged churches to not “drop the ball” on the opportunity it presented. Baptists should use the event to “engage” with people who would not normally go to church.127 And many did.128 A SYSTEM TO BE REDEEMED So how can this story help us locate sport and recreation within Christian faith and practice? New Zealand Baptists have always seen sport as both an enemy to be fought and an ally to be embraced. By the beginning of the twentieth century, however, this second posture had come to dominate. Sport was a tool to be used in the cause of mission. The voice of critique had largely fallen away.

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Some Baptists recognized this and argued that their movement needed to recover their prophetic voice. It was not enough for the church to use sport. She must seek to redeem it.129 In an article entitled “The Price of a Person,” Scott Cadman refected on the price set on elite professional athletes. He noted that the French footballer, Zinedine Zidane, had recently been purchased by Real Madrid for 50 million pounds, and that Michael Jordan, the basketballer, was apparently paid more to promote the Nike brand in 1992 than the entire 30,000-strong labor force got paid to stitch the shoes in Nike’s factories in Indonesia. This might refect the market-driven ethos of our times, but, he said, “There’s something radically distorted with these perceptions of reality. So distorted from kingdom values and even general common sense that if we weren’t so caught up in our own adventures through the market we would laugh Monsieur Zidane and His Royal [Air]ness away.” Cadman concluded:

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I want to ask who does the critiquing of this distorted reality when so many of us buy into it willingly and blindly? . . . In many ways there are plenty of people and groups critiquing some of these false perceptions. The anti-globalization lobby, the Greens, Greenpeace, some big companies and parts of the church are starting to address these perceptions but what about us? . . . Maybe Zidane and co [are] calling us again to capture our prophetic voice of justice, where together we can be a voice that speaks Christ’s truth for and with those who suffer at the hands of all false perceptions.130

The British Baptist theologian, Rob Ellis, observes that there is a tendency among modern sports chaplaincies and ministries to construe their engagement with sports clubs and players in terms of evangelism or individual pastoral care, and even the latter can be for the sake of “seeking an opening for the gospel.” He writes: “While many Evangelicals would doubtless argue that this is the most urgent call on resources, it seems . . . that as an understanding of salvation it is as partial and unsatisfactory as one that would explain everything in the secularized terms of ftness and well-being. Salvation is bigger than this.”131 It is indeed. Salvation means both the redemption of individuals and the renewal of cultures or systems. Sport’s corruption runs deep. Hoffman has described the culture of the modern sporting world as “narcissistic, materialistic, self-interested, violent, sensational, coarse, racist, sexist, brazen, raunchy, hedonistic, bodydestroying, and militaristic.”132 The church’s historic cautions about sport, it seems, are justifed. Yet, as Lincoln Harvey notes, “blind celebration of sport is more common today than debilitating suspicion.”133 One of the primary challenges, then, for sports chaplaincy today is to broaden the concern of chaplains beyond an individualistic focus on pastoral care and evangelism to also address bigger structural issues. This, as Ellis admits, “will be

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an uncomfortable place to be, as prophetic locations usually are, not least because these chaplaincies are usually present more by grace than by right. To ask awkward questions might be a quick way to the exit, but a Christian concern for sport does not stop at instrumentalizing the game for the purposes of evangelism.”134

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SPORT AND GENDER Two areas, particularly, are in need of critique, two areas about which Baptists in New Zealand have had very little to say. The frst is the gendered nature of modern sport. This can be traced to its origins in the nineteenth century. Modern sport was birthed in or around elite male schools and colleges. The midwives were the proponents of Muscular Christianity, who used sport to promote an ideal of Christian manhood as an antidote to “the poison of effeminacy” infecting the church.135 The sports feld was the domain of men. The women’s sphere was the home. Their role, according to Pierre de Coubertin, father of the modern Olympic movement, was in offering applause for the achievements of male athletes. When women were eventually allowed to participate in the Olympics it was only in a limited range of events. Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that women’s participation rates in sport do not match men’s.136 “Given the subliminal associations of sport with a sweaty kind of masculinity, for adolescent girls the choice often appears to be between femininity and sports.”137 Beyond this historic connection between sport and masculinity, there are other factors which conspire to discourage girls from participating. Commercial and media interests have traditionally been controlled by men. Most presenters and commentators are men. Coverage is, not surprisingly, sometimes patronizing or titillating. Female athletes are often trivialized and sexualized. Women who are strong and competitive, like Serena Williams, are labeled butch or unfeminine. The denigration of women can also be seen in the levels of remuneration they receive. In 2016, only two women appeared in the top 100 earners in sport.138 Women’s elite sports events are also often less well attended than men’s elite events. One of the reasons given for this is that sport is about hitting the hardest or running the fastest and women aren’t as strong or fast. In other words, men are physically superior to women. But why is sport about being strong or fast? The American sociologist Jay Coakley comments: Of course, most people never wonder what kinds of physical skills would be needed by athletes if sports had been shaped by the values and experiences of women instead of men. It is certain that if sports had been created by and for

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women, the Olympic Games motto would not be Citius, Altius, Fortius (faster, higher, stronger); instead it might be “balance, fexibility, and ultraendurance”!139

The discourse of sport, the very structure of sport, is fundamentally patriarchal. In this respect it simply refects society. It refects the ingrained patterns of prejudice against women. Ellis makes the important observation: “If sport is considered a ‘good’—something that has intrinsic value, in forming character or in expressing creativity, or in some other way yet to be defned— social structures and stereotypes that act as a restraint on the participation of women have to be viewed with dismay.”140 SPORT AND ETHNICITY Besides gender inequality, sports also mirrors society in its structural racism. This has long been a problem. In the United States baseball was segregated for the better part of a hundred years. In England inter-racial sporting contests sometimes provoked ferce opposition. This occurred when the American boxing champion, Jack Johnson, was scheduled to fght an English challenger in London in 1911. Johnson was black. Many of his beaten opponents were white. In correspondence with The Times the leading English Baptist, J. H. Shakespeare, insisted that the fght must not go ahead:

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there can be no greater disservice to the negro race than to encourage it to see glory in physical force and in beating the white man. . . . It matters not to us if an Englishman is beaten, for we have proved our place in the realms of courage, endurance, service, art and learning. But to a race which has not yet achieved glory it is a crime to turn its ambition to such glory as can be found in a Prize Ring.141

Another leading Baptist minister, F. B. Meyer, agreed: “You must admit that the present contest is not wholly one of skill, because in the one side is added the instinctive passion of the negro race, which is so differently constituted from our own, and in the present instance will be aroused to do the utmost that immense animal development can do to retain the championship.”142 The judge who granted the injunction which prevented the fght from taking place was a member of Meyer’s Baptist church. Racism continues to fnd expression today in the practice known as “stacking,” whereby black athletes are kept out of the most strategically demanding positions, such as quarterback in American football. The logic behind this is summed up by an English football club chairman: “The problem with black players is they’ve [got] great pace, [they’re] great athletes, [but] I don’t think

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too many of them can read the game. When you’re getting into the mid-winter you need a few of the hard white men to carry the athletic black players through.”143 In Britain studies of black players in top-level football show that these crude racial stereotypes are alive and well. The great majority of black footballers play as forwards, while only a small proportion play in the mid-feld, which is considered the more strategic position. A similar study in rugby union found that two-thirds of black athletes played on the wing, a peripheral position that emphasizes speed over decision-making.144 Sport refects the structural racism of society in other ways. In the United Kingdom, it is often alleged that African athletes receive lower wages than white players of comparable ability. Relatively low numbers of black players go on to work in management or coaching after their playing career. In New Zealand participation in sports at non-elite levels by ethnic minorities continues to trail participation by the white majority population.145 Sport refects society in terms of its structural racism. The culture and structures of modern sport are fallen, and Baptists need to rediscover their prophetic voice.

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A GIFT TO BE ENJOYED I wonder, though, if they need to recover something else too: a sense that sport is not just a fallen system that needs to be redeemed, and not just a useful evangelistic tool that needs to be exploited, but a good gift from a gracious God that can simply be enjoyed. In a letter from his prison cell during World War II Dietrich Bonhoeffer once expressed his hope that the church might recover a spiritual sense of play and freedom in the area of art, music, games, or sport. “Only the Christian,” Bonhoeffer said, has the resources to do this.146 Most people tend to use sport as a way to justify themselves. They try to prove their worth or establish their identity through winning, through their performance.147 That is why winning is so important. It “often serves as an objective and external validation that we are right.”148 That is why losing can feel like death. The Christian gospel, however, is that we are not justifed by our own efforts on the sports feld or anywhere else. We do not earn our worth or identity by our own performance and achievements. Rather, our worth is given to us by a Creator who made us in his image and loves us without condition. Our true identity is found in Christ, who by his performance—his victory on our behalf—has put us right with God. Knowing this, Christians can play sport free from the desperate need to prove ourselves. And it is this joyful freedom in play that constitutes, perhaps, our most compelling witness to the truth and beauty of the gospel. New Zealand Baptists, however, have not generally talked about sport as a gift from God to be enjoyed and celebrated on its own terms. Rather, as

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we have seen, if sport was not a system to be critiqued it was an instrument to be used. It was a means to an end. So when one young Baptist woman asked, “Can we think that sport was designed merely to tantalize and tie men up [with] enjoyment?” the obvious answer was, “no!”149 The playing ground was “a school in elementary morals,” a place to “ft ourselves further for [Christian] service.” Even more importantly, sport was an instrument for evangelistic service, “an opportunity to open the doors to [our] communities” and share with them the good news.150 Dominic Erdozain argues that each of these attitudes to sport fnd their analogs in the flm Chariots of Fire.151 Jenny Liddell, Eric’s pious and devout sister, is suspicious of sport and denounces it as a dangerous distraction from the path of Christian discipleship. Eric Liddell, by contrast, sees sport not only as a form of worship but as an instrument for evangelism, a means to an end. “It’s not just fun,” he says to his sister. “To win is to honour God.” The other main character, Harold Abrahams, also uses sport, not to evangelize others but to justify himself as a Jewish man in an anti-Semitic world. Before each race, he says, “I look down that corridor; 4 feet wide, with 10 lonely seconds to justify my existence.” Baptists in New Zealand can certainly identify with each of these characters. But there is a fourth character, the swashbuckling fgure of Lord Lindsay, whose attitude to sport rises above all the others: Although Lindsay is not a man of obvious faith, his approach is a wonderful blend of intensity without ultimacy; commitment without the urge to build his identity on the sands of athletic achievement. Just as the Lutheran doctrine of the secular calling does not imply an identifcation of work and worship, it must be possible to interpret sport as a gift—and perhaps even a calling—without dressing it for service in the manner of Abrahams and Liddell, or demonizing it in the manner of the young Jennie Liddell. What is, for Abrahams, “a compulsion, a weapon,” and, for Liddell a mission “to honour” God, is for Lindsay a source of unencumbered delight. He runs with freedom and pleasure, and there is no training that cannot be leavened with challenges involving hurdles and glasses of champagne. Lindsay is the only character in the flm who grasps the concept of play. There is, dare I say, a deeply Christian extravagance in his approach. For while he is, of course, an aristocrat who can afford such fripperies, his freedom is no greater than that of a Christian whose cosmic certainty liberates her for that easy and unselfconscious enjoyment of the world that C. S. Lewis considered the mark of true humility: the ungrasping security that enables her “to enjoy life so easily.” The great thing about Lindsay is that he is not out to prove anything to himself or anyone else. He runs for pleasure, and there is generosity as well as gaiety in his outlook. When Liddell is agonizing over the decision not to run on

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Sunday, and facing a medal-less games, it is Lindsay who offers him the opportunity of winning a gold medal in the 400 metres by sacrifcing his place in the event, content with his silver medal in the hurdles. A true “inversion ritual”! The main narrative moves on to the triumphs of Abrahams and Liddell but here is a glimpse of a Christian approach to sport. It is one that somehow needs to fnd its way back into the church.152

Baptists in New Zealand have been right to see sport as a fallen system that needs to be redeemed. They should be commended for seeing sport as an ally in the cause of mission, an instrument that could be used to connect with people outside the kingdom. But churches, chaplains, and sports ministries also need to approach sport in the spirit of play, enjoying it for what it is: a good gift from a gracious God.

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NOTES 1. Novatian, The Spectacle. Quoted in Lincoln Harvey, A Brief Theology of Sport (London: SCM, 2014), 31. 2. J. Stuart Weir, “Baptists and Sport,” in A Dictionary of European Baptist Life and Thought, ed. John H. Y. Briggs (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2009), 478. 3. Harvey, A Brief Theology of Sport, 28–29. 4. So John Winthrop, leader of the American Puritans, encouraged moderate physical exercise because without it one became “melancholick and uncomfortable” and increasingly distracted during prayer. See Harvey, A Brief Theology of Sport, 51. 5. Nick Watson, “Sport, Spirituality and Religion: Muscular Christianity and Beyond,” Italian Review of the Sociology of Religion 71 (2011): 79–87; Dominic Erdozain, The Problem of Pleasure: Sport, Recreation and the Crisis of Victorian Religion (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2010). 6. For a good brief summary of this two-fold pattern see Robert Ellis, The Games People Play: Theology, Religion, and Sport (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2014), 1–34 and Harvey, A Brief Theology of Sport, 3–58. 7. New Zealand Baptist (NZB), Auckland: Baptist Churches of New Zealand, October 1891, 150. 8. NZB, September 1890, 134; July 1900, 97; December 1900, 182; January 1929, 6. 9. NZB, June 1887, 88; April 1894, 49; August 1930, 244. 10. Religious Herald (Richmond) (25 February 1897): 1. Quoted in Rufus B. Spain, At Ease in Zion: A Social History of Southern Baptists (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2003), 172. 11. Christian Index (Atlanta) (4 November 1897): 7. Quoted in Spain, At Ease in Zion, 172. In taking this line, American Baptists seemed to be following the precedent set by their Puritan forbears in England, where football attracted particular censure because of its violence. According to Philip Stubbes football was better described as “a freednly kinde of fght, then a play or recreation. A bloody and murthering

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practice, then a felowly sporte or pastime. For doth not everyone lye in waight for his Adversarie, seeking to overthrowe him and picke him on his nose, though it be upon hard stones.” Stubbs himself wondered about the appropriateness of football for Christians, asking “Is this a Christian dealing for one brother to mayme and hurt another and that upon prepensed malice and set purpose?” See J. Stuart Weir, “Theology of Sport: Historical Review” (2011) [cited 25 November 2016]. Online: http:​/​/www​​.veri​​tespo​​rt​.or​​g​/dow​​nload​​s​/The​​ology​​_of​_S​​port_​​An​_hi​​stor​i​​cal​_r​​eview​​.pdf 12. New Zealanders often call their country, “God’s Own” or “Godzone.” David Hackett Fischer, Fairness and Freedom: A History of Two Open Societies—New Zealand and the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), xxiv. 13. Baptists were not alone in this. Evangelicals were generally very hostile towards racing, as this Wesleyan minister indicates: “Races are cruel and inhuman as it respects animals, they are the fruitful source of profigacy and vice, drunkenness and debauchery, fraud and theft, personal degradation and domestic misery. It is impossible to devise anything more mischievous in its tendency or more subversive of the morals of the people.” Quoted in Graham Daniels and J. Stuart Weir, “Church and Sport,” in The Image of God in the Human Body: Essays on Christianity and Sports, ed. Donald L. Deardorff II and John White (New York: Edwin Mellen, 2008), 299–300. 14. For the “inseparable” link—the “unholy and indissoluble alliance”—between horse racing and gambling, see NZB, December 1900, 182; January 1924, 1. There were also half-hearted attempts to argue that the sport was inherently harmful both to horses and jockeys: for example, NZB February 1901, 24; August 1920, 114. The primary concern was, however, gambling. 15. NZB, October 1891, 151. For fuller discussion of Baptist attitudes towards gambling, see John Tucker, A Braided River: New Zealand Baptists and Public Issues 1882–2000 (Bern: Peter Lang, 2013), 55–84 and John Tucker, “‘A Many-Headed Hydra’: New Zealand Baptists and the Gambling Monster, 1890–1940,” Pacifc Journal of Baptist Research 6:2 (October 2010): 3–30. 16. NZB, October 1891, 151. 17. NZB, February 1914, 21. 18. NZB, May 1949, 135. 19. NZB, September 1960, 222; November 1996, 5. 20. NZB, December 1916, 231. 21. NZB, April 1914, 73. 22. NZB, July 1958, 462. 23. NZB, September 1935, 287; January 1955, 7. Baptists recognised that it was not just horse-racing that was tainted by the fraud and scandals associated with gambling. In rugby, for instance, there was occasional skulduggery among club rugby players who put money on the opposition to win. In 1891 the game became embroiled in public scandal regarding betting and corruption. The well-known half-back, Patrick Keogh, who had been a star of the “Native” tour to Great Britain in 1888–1889, played such a poor game for his Dunedin club that some spectators assumed he had money invested on the opposition to win. The Otago Rugby Football Union investigated. Keogh, the “artful dodger,” resigned after threatening to name other players

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who had bet money on the match. Other club players who admitted gambling on the opposition to win were banned. But reports of players deliberately trying to lose their games continued to surface. Sean O’Hagan, The Pride of Southern Rebels: The History of Otago Rugby (Dunedin: Pilgrims South Press, 1981), 52–54. 24. NZB, December 1917, 177. 25. NZB, December 1900, 182. 26. NZB, February 1914, 21. 27. NZB, December 1921, 142. 28. NZB, March 1915, 55. 29. NZB, November 1927, 331. 30. NZB, November 1927, 331. 31. NZB, August 1946, 234. 32. NZB, November 1996, 5; NZB, May 1998, 9. 33. See, for example, NZB June 1965, 147; November 1965, 285; June 1976, 11; November 1977, 2; May 1978, 5; August 1978, 7; June 1993, 3; April 1994, 2; June 2001, 4; June 2004, 4; October 2010, 20. 34. Trevor Richards, Dancing on our Bones: South Africa, Rugby and Racism (Wellington: Bridget Williams, 1999), 237. See also NZB, February 1973, 7. 35. Christopher Nichol and Jim Veitch, “Rucking for Justice: Apartheid, the Churches, and the 1981 Springbok Tour,” in Religion in New Zealand, eds. Christopher Nichol and Jim Veitch, 2nd ed. (Wellington: Tertiary Christian Studies Programme, 1983), 287–312 at 288. 36. NZB, September 1981, 6. 37. See, for example, NZB, May 1973, 7; February 1981, 6; September 1981, 6. 38. NZB, June 1976, 4; February 1981, 6. 39. NZB, December 1972, 8; May 1973, 7; February 1981, 6. 40. For a fuller discussion of Baptist engagement in this debate see John Tucker, “Heads in the Sand: New Zealand Baptists and the Tour Debate,” Pacifc Journal of Baptist Research 3 no. 2 (October 2007): 25–40. 41. NZB, January 1970, 2. 42. NZB, June 1970, 2. 43. NZB, March 1973, 14–15. 44. NZB, March 1973, 4. 45. NZB, July 1976, 7. 46. A Heylen poll conducted in May of 1981 revealed that 51% of the population were opposed to the tour taking place. Tom Newnham, By Batons and Barbed Wire: A Response to the 1981 Springbok Tour of New Zealand (Auckland: Real Pictures, 1981), 11. 47. See paper entitled “Responsibilities to South Africa’s Oppressed,” MA 701, B1/88, New Zealand Baptist Research and Historical Society Archive. On the basis of this resolution, a strong letter was sent to the Prime Minister urging him to act decisively and stop the tour: NZB, July 1981, 1. 48. James Belich, Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the Year 2000 (Auckland: Penguin, 2001), 478. 49. “Battle of the Boks,” Evening Post, 10 July 1991, 5.

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50. NZB, August 1984, 8. 51. Newnham, By Batons and Barbed Wire, 27, 88. 52. Mike Riddell, interview by author, digital recording, Auckland, 25 November 2009. 53. In fact, only once, in November 1981, did the national Baptist Assembly pass a strong anti-tour resolution. Before every other tour it chose to sidestep the issue. See, for example, NZB, December 1984, 2. 54. Belich, Paradise Reforged, 518. 55. NZB, March 1970, 5; January, 1971, 20; May 1973, 7; February 1981, 6; November 1981, 5; July 1986, 2. The Baptist layman and Cabinet Minister Sir Lancelot Adams-Schneider argued that church leaders should not “meddle” in controversial political matters: Allan K. Davidson and P. J. Lineham, eds. Transplanted Christianity: Documents Illustrating Aspects of New Zealand Church History (Auckland: College Communications, 1987), 357. 56. NZB, July 1973, 6; April 1976, 13; September 1979, 2; also March 1980, 2; November 1981, 5; February 1985, 2; June 1985, 2. 57. Laurie Guy, Shaping Godzone: Public Issues and Church Voices in New Zealand 1840–2000 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2011), 108; Ellis, The Games People Play, 20. 58. NZB, March 1930, 95. 59. NZB, June 1934, 166. The editor argued that while it would be utterly wrong to impose a strict regime of compulsory Sunday worship on the wider public, a “triumphant case can be made for a compulsory and unanimous day of rest.” 60. The resolution invited all Baptists to make a solemn promise to Almighty God that they would do their utmost to “keep the Lord’s Day as a day of rest and worship.” NZB, January 1940, 12. 61. NZB, February 1953, 33. 62. NZB, August 1956, 199. 63. NZB, December 1956, 302. 64. NZB, September 1953, 202; September 1954, 199; October 1955, 235; August 1956, 199; 65. NZB, September 1954, 199. 66. NZB, July 1960, 167; September 1964, 223; March 1965, 56; March 1970, 2. 67. NZB, December 1970, 12. 68. NZB, January 1971, 25; June 1971, 6; July 1976, 7; November 1986, 2. 69. NZB, July 1975, 2; August 1975, 2; September 1975, 3; October 1975, 3. 70. NZB, July 1986, 2; September 1986, 14; June 1988, 2; April 1995, 4; January 2002, 4. 71. NZB, December 1888, 179. 72. NZB, May 1889, 71. New Zealand was not unique. The church in Australia and England also complained that sport had become “an absorbing passion,” a “craze.” NZB, June 1898, 84; February 1899, 17. 73. NZB, March 1895, 33; December 1899, 180. 74. NZB, January 1897, 14. 75. NZB, January 1905, 5.

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76. NZB, March 1910, 55; May 1910, 87; March 1912, 47; December 1926, 335; July 1929, 221. 77. NZB, November 1936, 342–344. 78. NZB, December 1936, 373. 79. NZB, December 1950, 359. 80. NZB, October 1988, 4; February 1990, 16; October 1997, 4; November 2007, 4; October 2011, 4. For the religious nature of modern sports see Joseph L. Price, From Season to Season: Sports as American Religion (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2001); Robert J. Higgs and Michael C. Braswell, An Unholy Alliance: The Sacred and Modern Sport (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004); Kevin R. Ward, “Sport and Religion: Lens or Threat?,” in Losing our Religion? Changing Patterns of Believing and Belonging in Secular Western Societies (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2013), 204–224; Ellis, The Games People Play, 108–122, 177–189; Jeremy R. Treat, “More than a Game: A Theology of Sport,” Themelios 40 no. 3 (2015): 392–403. 81. NZB, October 1984, 6. 82. NZB, February 1996, 4. 83. On this see Tony Ladd and James A. Mathisen, Muscular Christianity: Evangelical Protestants and the Development of American Sport (Michigan: Baker, 1999); Clifford Putney, Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America 1880–1920 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); Nick J. Watson, J. Stuart Weir and Stephen Friend, “The Development of Muscular Christianity in Victorian Britain and Beyond.” Journal of Religion & Society 7 (2005): 1–21; Erdozain, The Problem of Pleasure. 84. The frst Baptists sailed to New Zealand from a society in Victorian England “still groaning under the masochistic burdens of a Protestant work ethic, rising early and ‘redeeming the time.’” Dominic Erdozain, “In Praise of Folly: Sport as Play,” Anvil 28:1 (2012): 20. 85. NZB, May 1889, 71. 86. NZB, June 1937, 176. 87. NZB, October 1891, 150. 88. NZB, July 1937, 213. 89. NZB, March 1928, 75–76; October 1929, 302. 90. NZB, April 1903, 49; May 1917, 68; July 1917, 107. 91. NZB, December 1912, 223. 92. NZB, July 1931, 205. 93. NZB, November 1911, 213. 94. NZB, September 1955, 214. 95. See, for example, NZB, July 1920, 107. 96. NZB, May 1904, 264. 97. NZB, October 1906, 16. 98. NZB, October 1907, 247; July 1931, 227. 99. NZB, July 1928, 219. 100. NZB, December 1928, 378. 101. NZB, June 1932, 190. 102. NZB, July 1930, 217.

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103. NZB, April 1926, 109. 104. NZB, August 1935, 243. 105. NZB, November 1939, 348. 106. NZB, April 1948, 89; June 1951, 167. 107. See, for example, NZB, January 1928, 30; July 1928, 219. 108. NZB, April 1948, 89. Studies of church sports suggest that the levels of sportsmanship at church clubs are no higher than that those of other clubs. See Daniels and Weir, “Church and Sport,” 298. 109. See Erdozain, The Problem of Pleasure. 110. Archibald G. Brown, a London Baptist minister, caused quite a stir with his book, The Devil’s Mission of Amusement: The Church’s Task—Entertainment or Evangelization? (London, 1889). 111. See NZB, May 1917, 73. 112. NZB, November 1922, 207. 113. The Oxford Terrace Baptist Church cricket club, for example, evolved into the Christchurch City and Suburban Cricket Association. NZB, September 2002, 6. 114. NZB, February 1967, 10; June 1974, 14; October 1979, 8; May 2000, 5; February 2007, 8; May 2007, 6. 115. NZB, June 2004, 21. 116. NZB, August 2002, 17. 117. NZB, November 1944, 265; October 1956, 260; June 1967, 25; January 1976, 8; April 1988, 12. 118. NZB, March 1990, 5; July 1992, 12. 119. NZB, October 1994, 20. 120. Shirl James Hoffman, Good Game: Christianity and the Culture of Sports (Waco TX: Baylor University Press, 2010), 232–233. 121. Erdozain, “In Praise of Folly,” 26. 122. NZB, September 1982, 14; July 2003, 14; November 2003, 15. 123. NZB, December 1997, 3; November 2004, 12. 124. NZB, October 2000, 2. 125. NZB, July 2011, 8. 126. NZB, February 2008, 3. 127. NZB, August 2010, 12; February 2011, 17; March 2011, 16; April 2011, 22; September 2011, 8. 128. NZB, October 2011, 4. 129. NZB, November 2011, 7. 130. NZB, August 2001, 7. 131. Ellis, The Games People Play, 269. 132. Hoffman, Good Game, 11. 133. Harvey, A Brief Theology of Sport, xv. 134. Ellis, The Games People Play, 264. 135. Nick J. Watson, J. Stuart Weir and Stephen Friend, “The Development of Muscular Christianity in Victorian Britain and Beyond,” Journal of Religion & Society 7 (2005): 1; Andrew Parker and J. Stuart Weir, “Sport, Spirituality and Protestantism: A Historical Overview.” Theology 115 no. 4 (2012): 253–265 at 255.

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136. See Sport New Zealand, Sport and Active Recreation in the Lives of New Zealand Adults: 2013/14 Active New Zealand Survey Results (Wellington: Sport New Zealand, 2015). Online: http:​/​/www​​.spor​​tnz​.o​​rg​.nz​​/asse​​ts​/up​​loads​​/atta​​chmen​​ts​ /ma​​nagin​​g​-spo​​rt​/re​​searc​​h​/spo​​rt​-an​​d​-act​​ive​-r​​ecrea​​tion-​​in​-th​​e​-li​v​​es​-of​​-new-​​zeala​​nd​-ad​​ ults.​​pdf 137. Ellis, The Games People Play, 66. 138. Forbes, “The World’s Highest Paid Athletes,” [cited 24 November 2016]. Online: http:​/​/www​​.forb​​es​.co​​m​/ath​​letes​​/list​/​#tab​​​:over​​all 139. Jay Coakley, Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies, 5th ed. (St Louis: Mosby, 1995), 226. 140. Ellis, The Games People Play, 68. 141. Quoted in Ellis, The Games People Play, 76. 142. Quoted in Ellis, The Games People Play, 76. 143. Ron Noades, quoted in Ellis, The Games People Play, 72. 144. Martin Polley, Moving the Goalposts: A History of Sport and Society since 1945 (London: Routledge, 1998), 154–155. 145. Sport New Zealand, Sport and Active Recreation in the Lives of New Zealand Adults. 146. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethge (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 198. Quoted in Jeremy R. Treat, “More than a Game: A Theology of Sport,” Themelios 40 no. 3 (2015): 392–403. 147. J. Stuart Weir, “Competition as Relationship: Sport as a mutual quest towards excellence,” in The Image of God in the Human Body: Essays on Christianity and Sports, eds. Donald Deedorff and John White. (New York: Edwin Mellen, 2008), 101–121. 148. Francesco Duina, Winning: Refections on an American Obsession (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 192. 149. NZB, July 1937, 213. 150. NZB, October 1929, 302; June 1937, 176; October 2011, 4. 151. Hudson, Hugh, Director, and Colin Welland, Screenplay, Chariots of Fire (Twentieth-Century Fox, 1981). 152. Erdozain, “In Praise of Folly,” 30.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Belich, James. Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the Year 2000. Auckland: Penguin, 2001. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Letters and Papers from Prison. Edited by Eberhard Bethge. New York: Macmillan, 1971. Brown, Archibald G. The Devil’s Mission of Amusement: The Church's Task— Entertainment or Evangelization? London, 1889. Christian Index. Atlanta, 4 November 1897. Quoted in Rufus B. Spain, At Ease in Zion: A Social History of Southern Baptists. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2003.

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Coakley, Jay. Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies, 5th ed. St Louis: Mosby, 1995. Coughlan, K., B. Hawkins, B. Edwards, and P. Elsino. “Battle of the Boks.” Evening Post. 10 July 1991. Daniels, Graham, and J. Stuart Weir. “Church and Sport.” In The Image of God in the Human Body, Essays on Christianity and Sports, 297–312. Edited by Donald L. Deardorff II and John White. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2008. Davidson, Allan K., and P. J. Lineham, eds. Transplanted Christianity: Documents Illustrating Aspects of New Zealand Church History. Auckland: College Communications, 1987. Duina, Francesco. Winning: Refections on an American Obsession. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011. Ellis, Robert. The Games People Play: Theology, Religion, and Sport. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2014. Erdozain, Dominic. The Problem of Pleasure: Sport, Recreation and the Crisis of Victorian Religion. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2010. Erdozain, Dominic. “In Praise of Folly: Sport as Play.” Anvil 28 no. 1 (2012): 20–34. Fischer, David Hackett. Fairness and Freedom: A History of Two Open Societies— New Zealand and the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Forbes. “The World’s Highest Paid Athletes.” [Cited 24 November 2016]. Online: http://www​.forbes​.com​/athletes​/list/​#tab​:overall Guy, Laurie. Shaping Godzone: Public Issues and Church Voices in New Zealand 1840–2000. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2011. Harvey, Lincoln. A Brief Theology of Sport. London: SCM, 2014. Hoffman, Shirl James. Good Game: Christianity and the Culture of Sports. Waco TX: Baylor University Press, 2010. Higgs, Robert J., and Michael C. Braswell. An Unholy Alliance: The Sacred and Modern Sport. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004. Hudson, Hugh, Director, and Colin Welland. Screenplay. Chariots of Fire. TwentiethCentury Fox, 1981. Ladd, Tony, and James A. Mathisen. Muscular Christianity: Evangelical Protestants and the Development of American Sport. Michigan: Baker, 1999. Newnham, Tom. By Batons and Barbed Wire: A Response to the 1981 Springbok Tour of New Zealand. Auckland: Real Pictures, 1981. New Zealand Baptist. Auckland: Baptist Churches of New Zealand, published since 1876. Novatian, The Spectacle. Quoted in Lincoln Harvey, A Brief Theology of Sport. London: SCM, 2014. Nichol, Christopher and Jim Veitch. “Rucking for Justice: Apartheid, the Churches, and the 1981 Springbok Tour.” In Religion in New Zealand, 287–312, 2nd ed. Edited by Christopher Nichol and Jim Veitch. Wellington: Tertiary Christian Studies Programme, 1983. O’Hagan, Sean. The Pride of Southern Rebels: The History of Otago Rugby. Dunedin: Pilgrims South Press, 1981.

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Parker, Andrew, and J. Stuart Weir. “Sport, Spirituality and Protestantism: A historical overview.” Theology 115 no. 4 (2012): 253–265. Polley, Martin. Moving the Goalposts: A History of Sport and Society since 1945. London: Routledge, 1998. Price, Joseph L. From Season to Season: Sports as American Religion. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2001. Putney, Clifford. Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America 1880–1920. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001. Religious Herald. Richmond, 25 February 1897. Quoted in Rufus B. Spain, At Ease in Zion: A Social History of Southern Baptists. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2003. “Responsibilities to South Africa’s Oppressed.” MA 701, B1/88. New Zealand Baptist Research and Historical Society Archive. Richards, Trevor. Dancing on our Bones: South Africa, Rugby and Racism. Wellington: Bridget Williams, 1999. Sport New Zealand, Sport and Active Recreation in the Lives of New Zealand Adults: 2013/14 Active New Zealand Survey Results. Wellington: Sport New Zealand, 2015. Online: http:​/​/www​​.spor​​tnz​.o​​rg​.nz​​/asse​​ts​/up​​loads​​/atta​​chmen​​ts​/ma​​nagin​​g​ -spo​​rt​/re​​searc​​h​/spo​​rt​-an​​d​-act​​ive​-r​​ecrea​​tion-​​in​-th​​e​-li​v​​es​-of​​-new-​​zeala​​nd​-ad​​ults.​​pdf Treat, Jeremy R. “More than a Game: A Theology of Sport.” Themelios 40 no. 3 (2015): 392–403. Tucker, John. A Braided River: New Zealand Baptists and Public Issues 1882–2000. Bern: Peter Lang, 2013. ———. “Heads in the Sand: New Zealand Baptists and the Tour Debate.” Pacifc Journal of Baptist Research 3 no. 2 (2007): 25–40. ———. “‘A Many-Headed Hydra’: New Zealand Baptists and the Gambling Monster, 1890–1940.” Pacifc Journal of Baptist Research 6 no. 2 (2010): 3–30. Ward, Kevin R. “Sport and Religion: Lens or Threat?” In Losing our Religion? Changing Patterns of Believing and Belonging in Secular Western Societies, 204–224. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2013. Watson, Nick J., J. Stuart Weir, and Stephen Friend. “The Development of Muscular Christianity in Victorian Britain and Beyond.” Journal of Religion & Society 7 (2005): 1–21. Watson, Nick J. “Sport, Spirituality and Religion: Muscular Christianity and Beyond.” Italian Review of the Sociology of Religion 71 (2011): 79–87. Weir, J. Stuart. “Baptists and Sport.” In A Dictionary of European Baptist Life and Thought, 478. Edited by John H. Y. Briggs. Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2009. ———. “Competition as Relationship: Sport as a mutual quest towards excellence.” In The Image of God in the Human Body: Essays on Christianity and Sports. Edited by Donald L. Deedorff II and John White. New York: Edwin Mellen, 2008. ———. “Theology of Sport: Historical Review.” 2011 [cited 25 November 2016]. Online: http:​/​/www​​.veri​​tespo​​rt​.or​​g​/dow​​nload​​s​/The​​ology​​_of​_S​​port_​​An​_hi​​stor​i​​cal​ _r​​eview​​.pdf

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Chapter 7

Sport and the Bible Class Movement

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Peter Lineham

This chapter argues that the Bible class movement that developed within the New Zealand Protestant churches from the 1880s, at the initiative of George Troup, renegotiated the value and appropriateness of sport as a form of activity for the church-going young person. This was profoundly signifcant for Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and Congregationalist young people. It was especially signifcant in changing the churches’ perspective on rugby football, often enough described as “low animal and brutalizing.”1 In 1903, Troup campaigned to have its legitimacy recognized by the churches. The introduction of netball (indoor basketball) to the country was the consequence of the Bible class traveling secretary J. C. Jamieson’s vision of the value of sport for young women. This chapter evaluates sport’s place in the vision of the bible classes and seeks to offer this as one factor among others that propelled sport into a central pastime of youth. The churches played a critical role in the development of sports in modern New Zealand. Before the advent of compulsory secondary schooling, the church, not the club, was the largest sponsor of sports. While the church has a reputation for having discouraged sports, this is primarily because the work of the Bible class movement has been forgotten. It is time to redress the balance. There have been a number of historical accounts of the Bible class movement within different denominations, although analysis has focused more on the girls’ movement than the boys’.2 Maureen Garing’s 1986 thesis made a substantial contribution to our understanding of the movement.3 This and other accounts largely overlooked the role of sport in the movement, however. The histories of the YMCA and the YWCA gave more attention to this theme, because those movements prioritized sport over study, but histories of 137

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the Y have mostly been regional rather than national, and thus do not convey the broader picture.4 New Zealand historians are very aware of the emergence of a sporting focus among young men in the colony. Modern sporting codes were gradually laid down in the nineteenth century. The older tradition of informal games was inadequate in a more institutionalized social world. New Zealand sports were initially ill-defned, but cricket had few challengers as the summer sport, while the local victory of rugby over other forms of football is a favorite conundrum. Other athletic and pugilistic sports came and went. Happily, the newly published history of sport by Greg Ryan and Geoff Watson provides a rich history and interpretation of these developments.5

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SPORTS IN THE CHURCH CONTEXT BEFORE 1902 The early missionaries encouraged Māori to play cricket (as Charles Darwin describes in Voyage of the Beagle) although they may have disapproved of Māori games.6 Sports on the old informal basis of traditional games and races were an uncontroversial part of early Sunday school and church picnics as they were at other community events in the colony. At the Wellesley Street Baptist Bible Class Picnic on Boxing Day 1881, “The weather was magnifcent. On arriving at the pier, everybody went in for the various outdoor games in right earnest. Swimming, running, boating, and, of course, cricket, engaged their votaries. Perhaps the cricket match was the chief attraction of the programme, Mr Spurgeon having given a bat to the highest scorer.”7 Church schools (including the Methodist Prince Albert College and its divinity students) organized regular team sports.8 The Anglican schools in particular refected the English public school and muscular Christian tradition, but Catholic primary schools also included games in their program. The YMCA pioneered the organization of some sport in New Zealand. The movement had begun in England as an evangelistic movement for young men, but in America from 1869 and somewhat later in the United Kingdom, gyms were established as a way to attract young men. This suggests that youth in that generation were very enthusiastic about such pursuits. Physical development was soon added to the spiritual, intellectual and moral goals of the movement.9 When the Auckland YMCA installed a gymnasium in their third building in 1886, the New Zealand movement caught up with this trend. While one historian of the movement, Colin Taylor, interprets this as a move away from a spiritual to a bodily focus, YMCA leaders never imagined that the gym would undermine their spiritual focus. The YMCA was aiming to attract people in whatever way and it deliberately aimed to provide a richer notion of Christian youth than just devotional life. The decline of spiritual

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programs in the Y took place very gradually. The necessity of focusing on successful programs may have led the movement to downplay Bible study.10 The YWCA was much more cautious about neglecting the spiritual dimension. Respectable females saw little virtue in ftness, although the YWCA was permitted to use the boys’ gymnasium from the outset in 1886. Only in the early twentieth century did national effciency prioritize female ftness. One YWCA group attended the frst Presbyterian Bible class swimming classes, refecting the harmony between the two movements.11 The Christian Endeavour Movement, which emerged prior to the Bible class movement, was unsympathetic to sports, and boasted that, at their conventions “they know nothing of sports events or hikes, etc., but they know what grand fellowship is, and what it is to feel near to Jesus Christ.”12 Nevertheless, Christian Endeavour leaders did not condemn sports. One leader insisted that it was all a matter of who played, citing a comment by E. F. Horton: In the case of cricket or football, in themselves most healthful and enjoyable exercises, if the friends with whom I must mix in these games have so much power over me that I cannot withstand their evil infuence, then my course is clear.13

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RELIGIOUS ATTITUDES TO SPORT Organized sport achieved huge popularity among young people in New Zealand from the 1880s, and many a preacher used sporting analogies to gain attention from youth in the congregation. For example, one Sunday in Te Kuiti in 1912, the Presbyterian preacher talked on “‘Following up’: a Lesson from Football,” while the Methodist minister spoke on “Clean Sport and Christianity in its Relation to it.”14 But sermon illustrations are not proof that something is approved. The attitudes of churches to sport were complex and conficted. Advocates of clean sport were aware that some church people were suspicious of sport, and believed that this approach harmed the church’s reputation. The Baptist magazine noted that “There is positive harm accruing from the habit of some very good people, who hold up their hands in horror at many innocent pleasures, and recklessly stigmatize as ‘worldly’ Christians engaging in them.”15 At one extreme, the more conservative and separatist denominations were concerned that players would be guilty of compromise with the world. The Plymouth Brethren, who were strong in New Zealand, took this approach.16 Similarly the small Cooneyite or “Two by Two” sect eschewed sport. When Thomas Claude Tutty, who had been the Army and Navy lightweight and

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welterweight boxing champion, embraced the Cooneyite faith, he renounced all sport as well as willingness to fght in the war.17 If this was an extreme approach, many of the arguments against drinking alcohol were potentially arguments against sport as well, for the after-match function was part of the attraction of sport. A key argument for temperance was the need to purify society and protect people from bad infuences and rough and violent activity. Thus in Northland the Mangapai Bible Class debated the Maungakaramea class on the issue “Is New Zealand too fond of sport?”18 Protestant ministers who wanted to enforce a strict Sabbath were often concerned at the popularity of sport, and were alarmed at the sight of youths out on the feld.19 While team games were only scheduled for Saturday, Sunday could easily be affected. Comments from Victoria, Australia, were reproduced in the New Zealand Baptist magazine:

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Then look at outdoor sports. Let it be clearly understood—I consider cricket and football as healthy games which none but a misanthrope would denounce, but what I would raise my voice against is the unreasonable indulgence in these games, to which I believe our Colonial youth are peculiarly prone. Let it be announced that two “crack” teams are kicking the leather one against each other, and behold the focking multitudes to the grounds; and while there, see how old men and maidens, young men and children, hang on the result with a breathless eagerness that could not be excelled if the destinies of vast empires were trembling in the balance. Surely this is not healthy, going into raptures of delight or paroxysms of vexation over which side kicks the most goals! I suppose the intense excitement frequently manifested is in a great measure attributable to bets of money, more or less heavy, that are laid upon the game. I fear there is many an absent seat on Sunday mornings at church, and many a Sunday-school lesson slovenly prepared, owing to the games of the previous day having exhausted young men both physically and mentally.20

There was a revival of this concern in the interwar years as regulations on the use of sport felds and golf links on Sundays were relaxed. In 1923, the Christchurch Presbytery passed a resolution condemning the growing trend toward Sunday sport and called on Bible class leaders to strictly observe this.21 Sunday golf awoke intense Methodist criticism at about the same time.22 Anglicans were much more relaxed in their attitude to sport. Indeed the anti-Protestant high church bishop of Waikato, C. A. Cherrington, exhorted young people to enjoy themselves with singing, dancing, or other amusements.23 Still, this was a provocative extreme. More typical was an article on the subject in a church newspaper in 1920 suggesting that society needed

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more rest, not more activity on a Sunday.24 One New Zealand Anglican writer, Francis B. Hutchinson, proposed an aesthetic approach to the beauties of athletics so that the church might bless them before their endeavors and thus elevate sport.25 The Catholic working class enthusiasm for sport may have been an additional reason for Protestant caution toward it.

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THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLE CLASS UNIONS When George Troup moved to Wellington in the 1880s, he commenced in his church at St John’s in Willis Street a new type of Bible class that was quite separate in organization and program from the Sunday school. One distinctive feature was that sport was deliberately included in the program. Troup also urged other Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist congregations in the central city to form their own classes. J. Gell of Taranaki Street Methodist Church and R. S. Gray of Vivian Street Baptist Church talked extensively about the needs of young people. Soon each Bible class had football and cricket teams, and a frst competition was held in Newtown Park in the winter of 1895, with strong support from the sidelines. Then an annual cricket match was commenced and social events developed from it.26 Bible classes were simply a modifcation of existing practice, but the unions were innovative for they organized the classes together in a selfgoverning structure complete with staff. On his second visit to the colony in 1903, John R. Mott promoted the idea of a national union of Bible classes.27 The Presbyterian General Assembly initiated this step, appointing J. C. Jamieson at the General Assembly in 1902 and calling the Union a “Forward Movement,” part of a campaign to develop and fund new church projects in the new century.28 The Methodist Church followed suit in 1904 and C. Porter and then H. L. Blamires (who had been a cricket captain) served as traveling secretary.29 The precursor to the Methodist Bible Class Union was a sports competition between the very large classes in Wellington and Whanganui in 1899.30 Those early Bible class unions were for young men over the age of eighteen. After some years, junior Bible classes were formed for those who had left primary school and Sunday school, and subsequently these junior Bible classes fourished much more than the senior classes. The motto of the Bible class was “Be strong and show thyself a man” and the huge push that went on to promote the movement in 1904 strongly emphasized the participatory nature of the movement, and their well-rounded program, incorporating sport within their vision.31 A report on the Methodist Bible Class gathering at Hutt racecourse noted:

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Hymns of praise arose where usually are heard the shouts of excited sporting men. May we not regard it as prophetic of the day when the racecourse shall be cleansed from its vices, the totaliser abolished, and gambling and betting shall have no place in the sports and pastimes of this land. This new Bible Class movement has come to stay and is destined yet to be a mighty force making for righteousness in our national life. It is indeed a forward movement.32

Bible classes were at their most effective with joint activities, camps, conferences, joint activities which sometimes operated between the women’s and men’s movements, and even across the denominations.33 The move to form a Baptist Bible Class Union was taken at Oxford Terrace Baptist Church in 1904 and approved at the subsequent Baptist Union conference.34 Its frst camp included “running championships, swimming races, hockey and football matches.”35 The girls’ union was formed in 1910. There is little mention of sports in the Baptist Bible Class Union’s reports, but that does not mean it was absent. Hanover Street Baptist Church in Dunedin had a football club with thirty to forty members in 1894 and according to one report, “The club has proved a means of blessing to not a few young men, through witness borne for Christ on the football feld.”36 Very likely as in other cases, the sports clubs were useful in recruiting people to the Bible classes.37

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SPORTING VALUES ESPOUSED BY BIBLE CLASSES The formation of national Bible class unions fostered team sports, as union events gave opportunity for classes to be represented by playing against each other. Sport also encouraged cooperation, although the means was through competitions.38 The early sports events were team games rather than individual pursuits. Girls’ classes also entered teams to play football, cricket and rowing.39 The foursquare emphasis of the movement came from the Y movement, and was probably intended to moderate and yet encourage sporting activity. The philosophy had already been advocated in the YMCA for young men living away from home, and Y advocates believed that health and spirituality went together. In Whanganui the Trinity Young Men’s Institute seemed to have operated in the place of a YMCA, which often was a prominent organizer of sports in the larger towns.40 Scientifc advocacy of physical well-being helped the Bible classes, for competitive sport could thus be advocated for its healthy outcomes. As schools recognized these virtues of sport, Bible class unions also faced increasing competition.

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Although Anglican Bible class unions were formed much later than those of the non-Anglican Protestants, one of the most articulate defenses from them came from Archbishop Averill in 1927 to a combined Anglican Bible Class rally at St. George’s Kingsland: The Archbishop said men studied, thereby increasing their knowledge and reasoning powers. They sought recreation in sport, thus developing their bodies. Were they not to exercise their minds and strengthen their bodies, in the eyes of their fellowmen they would be deformed. It was equally important to attend Bible class and church, to develop man’s spiritual side if they would not be deformed in the sight of God. The Bible class was the medium whereby the spirit could be best developed. Members became better boys, churchmen and Christians. In a young man, unchecked liberty tended to animalism, and not to true manliness. Real manliness could be acquired by regular attendance at Bible class.41

Especially for girls the playing of sport was a little suspect. The initial emphasis of the girls’ unions was training in lady-like behavior. Only gradually was this replaced by an emphasis on their contribution to health.42 Ann Allan suggested that Bible class sports were popular because they were held on weekdays, thus providing girls with an excuse to get away from home and household duties.43

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INITIAL DEBATES The frst traveling secretary of the movement, Rev. J. C. Jamieson, contributed profoundly to the character of the unions. In 1903, at the outset of the creation of the national body, Jamieson spelled out its goals in an article entitled “The New Evangelism,” which implicitly contrasted the movement with the Torrey-Alexander mission of the previous year, and with Christian Endeavour and its emphasis on testimony and youthful devotion. Very precisely the distinction between these types of spirituality was evident in the attitudes each took to sport. In a very forceful article, Jamieson expounded a notion that evangelism should be healthy. Here is what Jamieson wrote: The religion for a young man is the religion that produces this all round, symmetrical, development. A religion that dwarfs the body is not the religion of Jesus. A young man needs recreation. . . . To deny this is fighting against Nature, and Nature’s God. Morbid views of the progress of religion, unpractical, unbalanced theories of life, . . . would vanish if hard-worked people would take one hour a day in hearty recreation along with their fellowmen.44

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These strong views refected the ideals of Henry Drummond, and were directly infuenced by John R. Mott, who was visiting New Zealand at the time. They embraced contemporary theories of healthy pursuits, rejected the notion that pollution resulted from links with non-religious organizations, and ridiculed the new theory that the Rapture would remove Christians from the world. From the outset, some worried about the positive approach to sport and after Jamieson’s article, criticism increased. There was a sharp debate between the two approaches—in which A. D. Thomson and others including George Troup appeared on one side, and a member of the St Paul’s Bible class in Christchurch, Alexander Reese, on the other side. Reese was a signifcant opponent for Jamieson. He was from a notable Christchurch Presbyterian sporting family, and his brother Dan later achieved fame as a cricketer.45 Alex subsequently went abroad for theological training with the Xenia Presbyterian Seminary (now part of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and on the conservative side of the Reformed movement) and was commissioned by the American Presbyterian Mission as a missionary in Brazil.46 He worked alongside Robert Speer, who has some claim to be respected as one of the original founders of the World Student Christian Fellowship (the Student Christian Movement), but later expressed concern about its liberal direction.47 Reese’s case, eloquently expressed in his letter, drew on his experience as an athlete that athletics kept people back from ardent discipleship.48 One of his fellow Bible class members in his defense commented that “He has laid down a plan of life which he feels is becoming a follower of our Lord and Master, and in spite of public opinion he is going to live up to it.”49 Reese’s approach is a reminder that there was theological objection to Bible class sport at the outset. Nevertheless, this reaction was regarded as extreme even by the man who became the leader of Presbyterian conservatives (albeit after a great shift of heart), Thomas Miller.50 George Troup emphatically defended Jamieson and attacked Reese, insisting that “athletics” (then the generic term for sport) need not possess people with consequences hurtful for their faith. He insisted that he knew of no instance where athletics were responsible for a person backsliding, and that: “we have got all our best Christian workers from our athletic members, and I thoroughly believe that physical culture in their cases played an important part in making their lives ‘sweet, sane, and strong.’”51 The advocates of football deliberately sought to gain recognition from the more respectable leaders of society. Thus, George McLaren, former president of the Otago Rugby Union in an address in Dunedin in 1905 (which was reprinted from the Otago Daily Times in the Presbyterian Outlook), suggested that the church was strategic in defending the place of sport:

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It was lately said that there were 7000 young fellows in Dunedin who did not go to Church. If ministers generally took a more keen, sympathetic interest in the pastimes of young men, at the end of three months there would not be 7000 young men outside the church doors.

He ended his peroration with an exhortation: Some people still thought the man who confessed to being a Christian was a weak, miserable sort of individual. That was a wrong idea. He was convinced that they, as individuals, could not be true men if they put Christ out of their lives. They had to go on cleanly in Christ’s strength, intent on stamping out in His name the evils existing around them, content to do His will in their sport and in their national life.52

These debates about sport were not revived until after World War I, when Bible class traditions were challenged by the arrival of Joseph Kemp as pastor of the Baptist Tabernacle in Auckland. Kemp rejected team sports as morally dubious and was alarmed at Bible class teams taking part in secular sporting competitions. He promoted the view that separation from the world was a sign of godliness. While many opposed this teaching, Kemp’s infuence was magnifed by his formation of the Bible Training Institute (BTI) and the Ngaruawahia Easter Convention. There were no sports at the Ngaruawahia camp or the BTI.

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CAMPS From the very earliest days, the formation of Bible class unions brought large numbers of church young people together and so there were signifcant opportunities for sporting competitions. At the inaugural Methodist Men’s Bible Class Camp at Easter in 1907 not only was the Monday devoted to sport, but on Good Friday the camp debate was on the subject “that the church should provide sport for its young men” and of course the affrmative won.53 There was a strict rule of no sport on Sunday at Bible class camps. At the frst Methodist girls conference in 1907, challenges were given in hockey, cricket, and archery.54 These Easter camps created a tradition which grew ever bigger in subsequent years, and in the end were broken up into regional camps. The Methodist Easter camps offered all the standard athletic sports in running, jumping, and shot put.55 Girls camps tended to focus on tennis, basketball and running races.56 After World War I, national summer conferences were established by most denominational unions. At the summer conference of the Presbyterian Bible

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Class Union in Masterton, there was always a North versus South Island cricket match.57 In the northern equivalent camp, the sports included, tennis, cricket, swimming, basketball, and athletics on successive days.58 Baptist Bible class camps, male and female, regularly included sports.59 Leading churches were renowned for their sports teams. For example, the Boys Bible Class sporting competition for the South Island was won by Oxford Terrace Baptist Church in 1915.60 So Bible class camps also helped to create a national identity for the church (especially important in the Anglican church, where diocesan divisions were so strong).61 The philosophy of sports at camps was expounded in a Presbyterian handbook: The strain of modern life suggests that the provision of physical education is an essential in any camp programme. . . . True recreation is physically helpful, mentally refreshing, morally stimulating and socially educative in that it makes us ft, awake, disciplined, co-operative and gives us a sense of responsibility for the other fellow. Keep your programme suffciently easy so that all campers can achieve some measure of success in it.62

Camping thus cemented the emphasis on sport in the Bible class, and perhaps the sporting emphasis encouraged casual members of the classes to attend, not all of whom appreciated the religious tone of the rest of the camp.

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SOME BIBLE CLASS SPORTS Sports did not only take place at camps. Bible classes were keen to play against other classes and to enter their classes into local competitions. The codes they played were the popular team sports of the day. Cricket was standard in the summer, but winter sports were initially a matter of debate. Ping Pong was popular.63 Bible classes were prominent in swimming sports.64 The key focus deserves to fall on hockey, rugby, and netball. The strength of hockey is very notable in the pre-1914 competitions.65 Hockey was very popular among the Methodist Young Women’s Bible Class Union at their foundation conference in 1907.66 The Bible class teams were recognized as very signifcant, with the Auckland Hockey Club (as well as the Auckland Cricket Association) recognizing the contribution of E. McLeod, deputy leader of the St Luke’s Remuera Bible class when he was transferred out of the city in 1924.67 Henry Beaumont Burnett from St Luke’s church was a key leader in Auckland provincial hockey as well as in Presbyterian Bible class sports.68 Football was initially suspect in the eyes of some Bible classes, due to its reputation in church circles. The Rev. William Colenso thought that it

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exhausted young people, with an impact on church attendance: “on their being subsequently asked, ‘Why they were not at any church on the Sunday?’ the reply would be, ‘Because they were too tired, quite done up, through their severe football exercise on the Saturday afternoons.’”69 Similar doubts were expressed by some Methodists, but as early as 1888 one local preacher supported the game, insisting that “I am not aware that there is anything in a game of football which would prove detrimental to the spirituality of any young Christian but with the reservation, of course that it is not pursued inordinately, or allowed to take up the time of, or interfere in any way with spiritual duties”—and so long as the players stayed away from after-match drinks.70 It was precisely that risk which Bible class teams were able to manage. The association of rugby with bad language and betting were less likely within Bible class teams.71 The liberal Congregational minister, J. Hoatson from Trinity Church in Christchurch, distinguished himself as the leading Canterbury referee during his pastorate and afterward in Australia.72 In 1937, Danie Craven from the visiting Springbok team spoke extensively in church functions promoting the Oxford Group (Moral Rearmament).73 Football was very popular with the Bible class boys, and some young men who had no previous church link attended Bible class in order to play.74 Bible classes sometimes played in their own division but more often played in general divisions (where they sometimes were reputed to be as rough as other clubs).75 One critic felt that J. C. Jamieson placed excessive emphasis on the rugby successes of St John’s Wellington and St Paul’s Christchurch in order to counter ministerial suspicions of the game.76 Junior Bible classes certainly valued the class because most of them were not old enough to enter football clubs. Girls played the same sports as the boys at frst, and sometimes played against the boys, albeit initially requiring the boys to hold the cricket bat upside down so as to equalize the competition.77 There is very particular reason to note the role of the Bible classes in the introduction of netball to New Zealand. James Naismith had created basketball in 1891 as an indoors team sport for the American YMCA. One of his students, J. H. Greenwood, introduced it to the Wellington YMCA as a boys’ sport, although its later popularity owes something to demonstration games by Mormon missionaries.78 Meanwhile a different variant of the sport, basketball (a.k.a. netball), was observed by J. C. Jamieson on the visit he paid to Australia in 1906 to present the concept of Bible classes there. He successfully established the sport among Auckland Bible classes in 1907 on his return, whereas earlier attempts to introduce it had failed.79 The frst local description of the sport was written by J. C. Jamieson in the Bible Class Chronicle in 1907: The game of basketball consists in throwing the ball into the opponent’s basket. A feld 50 feet by 70 feet will do. The basket may be fastened to a pole with a

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rope and pulley so that it may be lowered when necessary. Cross-bars on the pole keep the basket steady. The Bible class should elect an athletic committee and it should be kept an organic part of the Bible class. . . . Secure as a referee a gentleman both competent and highly esteemed. . . . Practice team play, running to meet the ball, throwing high or low balls.80

Netball was initially viewed as football played by the hands rather than the feet, judging from descriptions of it in various sources.81 By 1909, Presbyterian basketball matches were regularly reported in the newspapers.82 In 1908, the Auckland young men’s movement presented the Auckland Young Women’s movement with a banner to be presented to winning basketball teams, and this was initially won by St Luke’s Remuera, but on King’s Birthday weekend in November 1909 a full tournament was held and was won by St David’s.83 Methodists were slower to follow but by 1927 Wesley Church in Wellington had seven teams in the Basketball Association tournaments.84 Girls traveled long distances to take part in tournaments, and yet the movement remained very evangelistic.85 Thus the Bible classes earned a place in the history of this very popular women’s sport. The contribution of the girls’ Bible classes was also signifcant for other sports. In Auckland, the Methodists organized a separate club, the Whakatu Club, in 1913–1915 to play in the hockey competitions, and in 1919 it was reformed so that girls in smaller Bible classes could be selected to play for the Bible class rather than having to join a secular club, and sixty younger girls became members.86 Support for sport was a deliberate policy of the unions, and they sometimes held new competitions with new prizes—for example, for tennis doubles restricted to members of the Bible class unions (men’s and women’s) and held at Wilding Park, the home of tennis in Christchurch.87 There were implications, for “gradually it appeared that Bible class recreational activities were of a lower standard than similar secular activities” and this led to efforts in the 1940s to provide the latest equipment for girls’ sport.88 CONCLUSION It was a commonplace in New Zealand as early as 1908 that sport in the dominion had quasi-religious status.89 For unmarried young people (especially males) sportsmanship was the dominant ideal, and physical activity defned manliness. World War I helped to strengthen that emphasis. Churches that wished to appeal to a broad cross-section of young people were obliged to recognize that attitude.

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For the most part, Protestants embraced sport as virtuous. Only very sectarian groups like the Brethren rejected sporting participation. The mainstream Protestant churches did vary in the degree to which they regarded the secular world as morally neutral, but that did not affect their participation in sport. Baptists can be included alongside other Protestants at least before 1920. The Bible classes went into decline by the late 1930s. That decline was partly because supervised social and recreational activities were challenged by a more daring age. From 1940, secondary school became compulsory to age ffteen, and the high school became the principal locale for sports. In 1946, the Methodist church allowed dancing at Bible class socials, but Sunday sport remained unacceptable.90 Consequently Bible class ceased to be a signifcant point in which church and youth interacted, and in the 1960s and 1970s most of the unions were wound up. The history of this movement and the debates that it inspired at the time are nevertheless strangely contemporary. Christian opportunism brought the church for a period into the lives of many young people who would otherwise have kept well away from it. The beginnings of the women’s sport of netball owe a great deal to Bible class sponsorship. This forgotten part in the history of New Zealand sport needs to be restored. The most interesting aspect of the movement called the “Bible class” is not what we might have expected.

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NOTES 1. William Colenso, “The Rev. W. Colenso on Football,” Hawkes Bay Herald, 12 June 1890, 3. 2. Olive Cook, History of the Young Women's Methodist Bible Class Movement 1906–1926 (Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1927); E. M. Jeffreys, Souvenir Booklet 1904–1925: ‘The Utmost for the Highest’ (Dunedin: Otago Daily Times and Witness Newspapers, for the New Zealand Young Women’s Presbyterian Bible Class Union (NZYWPBCU), 1925); E. P. Blamires, Youth Movement: The Story of the Rise and Development of the Christian Youth Movement of the Churches of New Zealand—As seen by a Methodist (Auckland: Forward Books with Wesley Historical Society, 1952); Ann Allan (Isabella Purvis Brabyn), Life upon Life: A History of the Presbyterian Young Women’s Bible Class Union (Christchurch: Presbyterian Bookroom, 1954); W. E. Donnelly, Heritage of Methodist Youth (Wellington: Methodist Youth Department, 1954); C. Sage, Jubilee History of the Young Men's Presbyterian Bible Class Union of New Zealand (Dunedin: Presbyterian Archives, Knox College, 1954). 3. M.N. Garing, “Four Square for Christ: The Presbyterian Bible Class Movement 1902–1972: Its Background, its Rise, its Infuence and its Decline,” Master of Arts in Religious Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, 1986.

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4. S. Coney, Every Girl: A Social History of the Women and the YWCA in Auckland 1885–1985 (Auckland: YWCA, 1986); H. K. Lovell-Smith, The Story of the Christchurch Young Women’s Christian Association: A Venture with Youth from 1883–1894 – 1901–1960 (Christchurch: Christchurch YWCA. 1961); C. Taylor, Body, Mind and Spirit: YMCA Auckland Celebrating 150 years 1855–2005 (Auckland: Reed Publishing, 2005); G. Jenkins, One Hundred Years 1878–1978 Dunedin YWCA (Dunedin: YWCA, 1978). 5. The key work is the newly published Sport and the New Zealanders: A History by G. Ryan and G. Watson (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2018). See C. Macdonald, Strong, Beautiful and Modern: National Fitness in Britain, New Zealand, Australia & Canada 1935–60 (Wellington: BWB, 2011); C. Daley, Leisure and Pleasure: Reshaping and revealing the New Zealand Body 1900–1960 (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003). 6. Ryan and Watson, Sport and the New Zealanders, 27. 7. New Zealand Baptist (NZB), Auckland: Baptist Churches of New Zealand, February 1882, 28. 8. “Prince Albert College,” The Advocate, 21 December 1895, 34. 9. William J. Baker, “To Pray or to Play? The YMCA Question in the United Kingdom and the United States, 1850–1900.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 11 no. 1 (1994): 42–62; Neil Garnham, “Both Playing and Praying: Muscular Christianity and the YMCA in North East England.” Journal of Social History 35 no. 2 (2001): 397–407. The research by O.S. Hubner has established the YMCA’s role in a civilizing mission in Asia. See Hubner, “Muscular Christianity and the Western Civilizing Mission: Elwood S. Brown, the YMCA, and the Idea of the Far Eastern Championship Games.” Diplomatic History, 39 no. 3 (2015): 532–557. 10. Taylor, Body, Mind and Spirit, 82–111. 11. Coney, Every Girl, 160–167. 12. “How Christian Endeavour was introduced to New Zealand” (undated booklet), 12–13. 13. NZB, April 1896, 61. 14. King Country Chronicle, 1 June 1912, 4. 15. NZB, February 1895, 20. 16. C. W. Collins, “Leisure and Christianity: The case of the Brethren. Recreation Management,” MA thesis, Wellington, Victoria University of Wellington, 1990; C. Collins, and P. Lineham, “Religion and Leisure” in Leisure, Recreation and Tourism eds. H. C. Perkins and G. Cushman. Auckland. Longman Paul, 1993, 30–43; P. Lineham and C. Collins, “Religion and Sport” in Sport in New Zealand Society, ed. C. Collins (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 2000), 287–307. 17. “Sport renounced,” Evening Post, 4 July 1945, 8. 18. Northern Advocate, 9 May 1921, 4. 19. Ryan and Watson, Sport and the New Zealanders, 88. See Ian MacLaren, “Worldliness,” reproduced from the British Monthly in Outlook, 30 March 1901, 17. 20. “Some of the Dangers Incident to Colonial Life,” from the Victorian Freeman, in NZB, May 1889, 71. 21. “Desecration of the Sabbath,” Otago Daily Times, 8 November 1923, 8.

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22. “Address to the Annual District Synod,” New Zealand Methodist Times, 4 December 1937. 246, 259. 23. “Be glad on Sunday,” Auckland Star, 30 November 1928, 10. 24. “Sport on Sunday,” Church Gazette, 1:10, October 1920, Supplement. (This Supplement appeared in all the diocesan newspapers.) 25. Francis B. Hutchinson, “Athletics and Religion,” Church Gazette, August 1896, 15. 26. Cook, History of the Young Women’s Methodist, 11. 27. “The Young Men’s Movement,” Outlook, 30 April 1904, 3. There are many accounts of his visit, for example “The Students Christian Union,” Church Gazette, July 1903, 131. 28. See “Methodist Century Commemoration Fund,” Star, 3 June 1899, 7. 29. See Donnelly, Heritage of Methodist Youth. See also the reference in Spectator, 28 December, 1906; this was the Melbourne Methodist magazine, fled in Youth Division Box 4, Methodist Archives, Weteriana House, 50 Langdon’s Road, Christchurch. See also Ashleigh K. Petch, “The Methodist Bible Class Movement (1906–1939),” MS 389 folder 14, PPHR Box 99, Methodist Archives, Christchurch. 30. Donnelly, Heritage of Methodist Youth, 33. 31. See “The Young Men’s Movement,” Outlook, 30 April 1904, 3ff. 32. H.L. Blamires, “The Methodist Bible Class Movement,” 1908 (MS Exercise Book of Cuttings, Youth Box 4, Methodist Archives Christchurch). 33. See H.L. Blamires’ diary, 2 March 1907 (Methodist Archives Youth Division, Box 4) showing the planning that went on for the Christchurch Easter camp and cooperation across various unions. 34. NZB, June 1904, 286; NZB, November 1904, 360. 35. NZB, March 1907, 108. 36. NZB, April 1894, 62. 37. H.L. Blamires’ diary, 21 January 1907. 38. “Dunsandel Interesting Lecture,” Ellesmere Guardian, 13 August 1929, 6. 39. Cook, History of the Young Women’s Methodist, 12. 40. Donnelly, Heritage of Methodist Youth, 33 41. “Anglican Bible Classes Rally,” Auckland Star, 30 May 1927, 11. 42. See “Girls Sports,” Press, 8 November 1926, 4. 43. Allan, Life upon Life, 47. 44. J.C. Jamieson, “The New Evangelism,” Outlook, 7 February 1903, 21. 45. Dan Reese, Was it all Cricket? London: George Allen & Unwin, 1948, noting 327; Fiona Hall, “Reese, Daniel,” Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Te Ara—the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, frst published in 1996, https​:/​/te​​ara​.g​​ovt​.n​​z​/en/​​biogr​​ aphie​​s​/3r9​​/r​ees​​e​-dan​​iel 46. See Dominion, 29 January 1909, 8; Otago Daily Times, 21 July 1922, 8; Press, 5 October 1932, 13. 47. See Charles E. Harvey, “Speer Versus Rockefeller and Mott, 1910–1935.” Journal of Presbyterian History 60 no. 4 (1982): 283–299. 48. Outlook, 4 April 1903. 49. Letter by Mitchell, Outlook, 23 May 1903, 6.

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50. Outlook, 18 April 1903, 35. 51. Outlook, 2 May 1903, 5–6. 52. George McLaren, “Clean Sport,” Outlook, 16 September 1905, 21–22. 53. “Bible Class Camp,” New Zealand Herald, 3 April 1907, 5. 54. Cook, History of the Young Women’s Methodist, 13. 55. “Young Men in Camp,” Evening Post, 19 April 1933, 9. 56. For example, “Bible Class Camp at Oxford,” Press, 29 April 1924, 5. 57. “Bible Class Conference,” Evening Post, 30 December 1930, 8. 58. “Bible Class Rally,” Northern Advocate, 30 December 1931, 8. 59. “Baptist Bible Class Girls Camp,” Otago Daily Times, 6 April 1929, 11. 60. “Baptist Bible Class Camp,” Otago Daily Times, 7 April 1915, 2. 61. “Bible Class Union,” Church Gazette, February 1927, 9. 62. Presbyterian Bible Class Union, Camping: A Guide to the Preparation for and Running of Camps and Conferences. Christchurch: Presbyterian Bookroom, revised edition, 1953, 23. 63. “Ping Pong Tournament,” Northern Advocate, 6 November 1930, 4. 64. “Swimming Carnival,” Evening Post, 26 August 1916, 6. 65. See for example, “Presbyterian Bible Class Sports,” New Zealand Herald, 28 September 1911, 9; Cook, History of the Young Women's Methodist, 49. 66. Cook, History of the Young Women’s Methodist, 13. 67. “Valedictory,” Auckland Star, 3 July 1924, 8. 68. Allan Davidson, address to special sports service at St Luke’s in 2016 (provided to me by Allan Davidson). 69. Colenso, “The Rev. W. Colenso on Football,” 3. 70. Local Preacher, quoted in New Zealand Methodist Times, 1 September 1888, 8. 71. Cousin May, “Our Boys,” New Zealand Methodist Times, 25 July 1891, 5. 72. “Farewell to the Rev. J. Hoatson,” Press, 18 November 1891, 6. 73. “Football and Prayer,” New Zealand Methodist Times, 25 September 1937, 1. 74. J. C. Jamieson, “YMBC Union,” Outlook, 29 September 1906, 16. 75. For example, “Correspondence,” Hastings Standard, 18 August 1908, 2. 76. “Assembly Impressions,” Outlook, 12 December 1905, 5. 77. Cook, History of the Young Women's Methodist, 12. 78. Keith Myerscough, “The Game with no Name: The Invention of Basketball,” The International Journal of the History of Sport 12 no. 1 (1995): 137–152; Taylor, Body, Mind and Spirit, 90–91. For the Mormons, see Marjorie Newton, Southern Cross Saints: The Mormons in Australia (Laie: Institute for Polynesian Studies, 1991), 66–67. See John Saker, “Basketball,” Te Ara—the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, frst published 5 September 2013, https://teara​.govt​.nz​/en​/basketball 79. Coney, Every Girl, 17; Netball New Zealand, “History,” http:​/​/www​​.netb​​ allnz​​.co​.n​​z​/our​​-game​​/hist​​ory​/​1​​900​-1​​930; Suzanne McFadden, “Netball - Origins of Netball,” Te Ara—the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, frst published 5 September 2013, https://teara​.govt​.nz​/en​/netball​/page​-2; Ryan and Watson, Sport and the New Zealanders, 179. 80. Cited in Allan, Life upon Life, 97.

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81. Mashie to Dot in “Letters from the Little Folk,” Otago Witness, 24 July 1907, 83; “Southland Notes,” Otago Witness, 17 July 1907, 52; “Basketball Club,” Clutha Leader, 17 May 1907, 5; Jeffreys, Souvenir Booklet, 21. 82. New Zealand Herald, 6 November 1909, 9; New Zealand Herald, 12 November 1909, 8. 83. Jeffreys, Souvenir Booklet, 36. 84. Cook, History of the Young Women’s Methodist Bible, 49. 85. Jeffreys, Souvenir Booklet, 7. 86. Cook, History of the Young Women's Methodist Bible, 63. 87. Press, 4 April 1930, 19. 88. Allan, Life upon Life, 48. 89. See for example “Presbyterian Church Manifesto to members,” Outlook, 7 November 1908, 8. 90. Donnelly, Heritage of Methodist Youth, 34–35.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY “Address to the Annual District Synod.” New Zealand Methodist Times. 4 December 1937. Allan, Ann. (Isabella Purvis Brabyn). Life upon Life: A History of the Presbyterian Young Women’s Bible Class Union. Christchurch: Presbyterian Bookroom, 1954. “Anglican Bible Classes Rally.” Auckland Star. 30 May 1927. “Assembly Impressions.” Outlook. 12 December 1905. Baker, William J. “To Pray or to Play? the YMCA Question in the United Kingdom and the United States, 1850–1900.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 11 no. 1 (1994): 42–62. “Baptist Bible Class Girls Camp.” Otago Daily Times. 6 April 1929. “Baptist Bible Class Camp.” Otago Daily Times. 7 April 1915. “Basketball Club.” Clutha Leader. 17 May 1907. “Be glad on Sunday.” Auckland Star. 30 November 1928. “Bible Class Camp.” New Zealand Herald. 3 April 1907. “Bible Class Camp at Oxford.” Press. 29 April 1924. “Bible Class Conference.” Evening Post. 30 December 1930. “Bible Class Rally.” Northern Advocate. 30 December 1931. “Bible Class Union.” Church Gazette. February 1927. Blamires, E. P. Youth movement: The Story of the Rise and Development of the Christian Youth Movement of the Churches of New Zealand—as seen by a Methodist. Auckland: Forward Books with Wesley Historical Society, 1952. Blamires, H.L. Diary entries. Methodist Archives Youth Division, Box 4, 1907. Blamires, H.L. “The Methodist Bible Class Movement.” MS Exercise Book of Cuttings, Youth Box 4, Methodist Archives, Christchurch, 1908. Colenso, William. “The Rev. W. Colenso on Football.” Hawkes Bay Herald, 12 June 1890.

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Collins, C.W. “Leisure and Christianity: The Case of the Brethren. Recreation Management.” MA thesis, Wellington, Victoria University of Wellington, 1990. Collins, C., and P. Lineham. “Religion and Leisure.” In Leisure, Recreation and Tourism, 30–43. Edited by H. C. Perkins and G. Cushman. Auckland. Longman Paul, 1993. Coney, S. Every Girl: A Social History of the Women and the YWCA in Auckland 1885–1985. Auckland: YWCA, 1986. Cook, O.M. History of the Young Women’s Methodist Bible Class Movement 1906– 1926. Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1927. “Correspondence.” Hastings Standard. 18 August 1908. Cousin May. “Our Boys.” New Zealand Methodist Times. 25 July 1891. Daley, C. Leisure and Pleasure: Reshaping and Revealing the New Zealand Body 1900–1960. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003. Davidson, Allan. “Address to special sports service at St Luke’s in 2016.” Provided to the author by Allan Davidson. “Desecration of the Sabbath.” Otago Daily Times. 8 November 1923. Dominion, 29 January 1909. Donnelly, W. E. Heritage of Methodist Youth. Wellington: Methodist Youth Department, 1954. “Dunsandel Interesting Lecture.” Ellesmere Guardian. 13 August 1929. “Farewell to the Rev. J. Hoatson.” Press. 18 November 1891. “Football and Prayer.” New Zealand Methodist Times. 25 September 1937. Garing, M.N. “Four Square for Christ: The Presbyterian Bible Class movement 1902–1972: Its Background, its Rise, its Infuence and its Decline.” Master of Arts in Religious Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, 1986. Garnham, Neil. “Both Playing and Praying: Muscular Christianity and the YMCA in North East England.” Journal of Social History 35 no. 2 (2001): 397–407. “Girls Sports.” Press. 8 November 1926. Hall, Fiona. “Reese, Daniel.” Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Te Ara—the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. First published in 1996. https​:/​/te​​ara​.g​​ovt​.n​​z​/en/​​ biogr​​aphie​​s​/3r9​​/r​ees​​e​-dan​​iel Harvey, Charles E. “Speer Versus Rockefeller and Mott, 1910–1935.” Journal of Presbyterian History 60 no. 4 (1982): 283–299. “How Christian Endeavour was introduced to New Zealand.” Undated booklet. Hubner, O.S. “Muscular Christianity and the Western Civilizing Mission: Elwood S. Brown, the YMCA, and the Idea of the Far Eastern Championship Games.” Diplomatic History 39 no. 3 (2015): 532–557. Hutchinson, Francis B. “Athletics and Religion.” Church Gazette. August 1896. Jamieson, J.C. “The New Evangelism.” Outlook. 7 February 1903. ———. “YMBC Union.” Outlook. 29 September 1906. Jeffreys, E. M. Souvenir Booklet 1904–1925: ‘the Utmost for the Highest.’ Dunedin: Otago Daily Times and Witness Newspapers, for the New Zealand Young Women’s Presbyterian Bible Class Union (NZYWPBCU), 1925. Jenkins, G. One Hundred Years 1878–1978 Dunedin YWCA. Dunedin: YWCA, 1978. King Country Chronicle, 1 June 1912.

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“Letters from the Little Folk.” Otago Witness. 24 July 1907. Lineham, P. and C. Collins. “Religion and Sport.” In Sport in New Zealand Society, 287–307. Edited by C. Collins. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 2000. Local Preacher. Quoted in New Zealand Methodist Times. 1 September 1888. Lovell-Smith, H. K. The Story of the Christchurch Young Women’s Christian Association: A Venture with Youth from 1883–1894 – 1901–1960. Christchurch: Christchurch YWCA, 1961. Macdonald, C. Strong, Beautiful and Modern: National Fitness in Britain, New Zealand, Australia & Canada 1935–60. Wellington: BWB, 2011. MacLaren, Ian. “Worldliness.” Reproduced from the British Monthly in Outlook, 30 March 1901. McFadden, Suzanne. “Netball - Origins of netball,” Te Ara—the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, frst published 5 September 2013, https://teara​.govt​.nz​/en​/netball​/page-2 McLaren, George. “Clean Sport.” Outlook. 16 September 1905. “Methodist Century Commemoration Fund.” Star. 3 June 1899. Myerscough, Keith. “The Game with no Name: The Invention of Basketball.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 12 no. 1 (1995): 137–152. Netball New Zealand. “History.” http:​/​/www​​.netb​​allnz​​.co​.n​​z​/our​​-game​​/hist​​ory​​/1​​900​ -1​​930 Newton, Marjorie. Southern Cross Saints: The Mormons in Australia. Laie: Institute for Polynesian Studies, 1991. New Zealand Baptist. Auckland: Baptist Churches of New Zealand, published since 1876. New Zealand Herald, 6 November 1909, 12 November 1909. Northern Advocate, 9 May 1921. Otago Daily Times, 21 July 1922. Outlook, 4 April 1903, 18 April 1903, 2 May 1903. Petch, Ashleigh K. “The Methodist Bible Class Movement (1906–1939),” MS 389 folder 14, PPHR Box 99, Methodist Archives, Christchurch. “Ping Pong Tournament.” Northern Advocate. 6 November 1930. “Presbyterian Bible Class Sports.” New Zealand Herald. 28 September 1911. Presbyterian Bible Class Union, Camping: A Guide to the Preparation for and Running of Camps and Conferences. Rev. ed. Christchurch: Presbyterian Bookroom, 1953. “Presbyterian Church Manifesto to Members.” Outlook. 7 November 1908. Press, 4 April 1930, 5 October 1932. “Prince Albert College.” The Advocate. 21 December 1895. Reese, Dan. Was it all Cricket? London: George Allen & Unwin, 1948. Ryan, G., and G. Watson. Sport and the New Zealanders: A History. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2018. Sage, C. Jubilee History of the Young Men’s Presbyterian Bible Class Union of New Zealand. Dunedin: Presbyterian Archives, Knox College, 1954. Saker, John. “Basketball.” Te Ara—the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. First published 5 September 2013. https://teara​.govt​.nz​/en​/basketball “Southland Notes.” Otago Witness. 17 July 1907.

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Spectator, 28 December 1906. “Sport on Sunday.” Church Gazette. 1:10. October 1920. Supplement. “Sport Renounced.” Evening Post. 4 July 1945. “Swimming Carnival.” Evening Post. 26 August 1916. Taylor, C. Body, Mind and Spirit: YMCA Auckland celebrating 150 years 1855–2005. Auckland: Reed Publishing, 2005. “The Students Christian Union.” Church Gazette. July 1903. “The Young Men’s Movement.” Outlook. 30 April 1904. “Young men in camp.” Evening Post. 19 April 1933. “Valedictory.” Auckland Star. 3 July 1924.

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Chapter 8

The Role of Sports Chaplains in Australia

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B. Grant Stewart

Sport has long been a central feature of Australian society. Sporting activities began there some 40,000 years ago with the arrival of the aborigines.1 Since the late nineteenth century, sport has played a dominant role in Australian culture. In 1888 the Melbourne Cup, Australia’s most popular horse race, was the frst sporting event in modern history to attract a crowd of 100,000 people. It needed eighty-four special trains to transport spectators to the racecourse. Two years later, an Australian Rules Football match attracted a crowd of 32,600. This was said to be the largest crowd recorded for a football match in the world.2 The popularity of sporting events in Australia today, with their packed stadiums, contrasts sharply with the diminishing congregations at churches, with their empty pews. Australians appear to be increasingly reluctant to search for meaning and transcendence within the institutional structures of the church.3 As Kevin Ward observes, this does not mean they have stopped searching. They are just looking for meaning and transcendence outside traditional religious institutions—such as on the sports feld. In recent decades, this development has been accompanied by the rise of sports chaplaincy within Australia. For some twenty years, I have served as a chaplain to the Melbourne Storm, one of the leading clubs in Australia’s National Rugby League. This chapter draws on my personal experience in that role, and on interviews with other sports chaplains, in order to answer this question: How can sports chaplains best communicate the good news of Jesus Christ in the context of professional sport? It argues that chaplains should be encouraged to develop relationships through a ministry of presence among those they serve. Their role is not, however, merely pastoral. It is also prophetic. To be faithful to the gospel, sports chaplains must confront cultures and structures and ideologies that are unjust and dehumanizing. One way they can do this, in a world where professional athletes are commodifed, is to help 157

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them locate their value outside their performance or commercial worth. They can also do this by subverting the macho culture of Australian sport. Whether as pastor, priest, or prophet, they need to see their role, fundamentally, as one of discerning what Jesus is already doing by his Spirit among the team and club, and then participating in his activity for the sake of the gospel.

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DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIP THROUGH THE MINISTRY OF PRESENCE What is the most important thing a chaplain can do? When this question was put to professional football players and club staff, the responses stressed the importance of just “being there.” My interviews with sports chaplains echoed this conviction. At the heart of sports chaplaincy is the ministry of presence. We know something of the nature of God because of God’s willingness to enter into our world through God’s son, Jesus Christ. We know of the extent and quality of God’s love because of God’s willingness to identify with fallen, sinful humanity, to be one like us (Phil 2:5–8). This emptying, kenotic identifcation with humankind shows not only the willing obedience of the Son, but also helps us to comprehend the compassion of the Father. Jesus entered our world not as one who demanded kingly rights and privileges, but as a servant. In entering the world of professional football, chaplains must also empty themselves of the privileges and indeed the reputations that they may be accorded in the religious world. They enter the world of professional sport with empty hands. They have not the skill of a trainer, or the inspirational techniques of a coach, or the administrative methodology of a manager or CEO. They come just with the promise of care and compassion, a willingness to listen without reproach or a report to the coach. At its best, this posture seeks to imitate the cross-cultural missionary who immerses him or herself in the local culture, and thereby eventually earns the right and develops the capacity to communicate something of the gospel. By simply being present, being available, demonstrating integrity, and exhibiting authenticity, chaplains fnd that friendships develop, confdences are exchanged, and opportunities emerge to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. This has been my experience as chaplain to the Melbourne Storm. Barely a week goes by when I fail to have a signifcant conversation about matters of faith, the purpose of life, or the dynamics of relationships. At the heart of this ministry of presence is a willingness to serve. Jesus did not come into this world to be served but to serve (Mark 10:45). He demonstrated that by washing his disciples’ feet, seeking those on the margins of society, and refusing the accolades of the crowds who wished to place on him their own preconceptions of messiahship. In the world of professional

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sport, there are not too many who are willing to play the role of a servant. Voluntary chaplains, however, have the opportunity to play this role, to be behind-the-scenes servants who give their time and care without thought of reward or recognition. By demonstrating the servanthood of Jesus in this way, they display the gospel among sportspeople who receive plenty of reward and recognition. In my interviews with sports chaplains, a number of them highlighted their role in coordinating the welfare work undertaken by players, whether that was visiting isolated stations in the northern territories of Australia, or being a role model for juvenile offenders. Helping elite athletes connect with, and serve, the poor and marginalized is a signifcant element in this ministry of presence to professional sportspeople.

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CHALLENGING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN WORTH AND PERFORMANCE Sports chaplaincy cannot, however, be reduced merely to being available and providing personal support for athletes. Chaplaincy is not social work. It involves more than pastoral care. It also requires prophetic confrontation. To be true to the gospel, chaplains need to challenge unjust structures and subvert unhealthy cultures within the organizations they serve. One of the key issues to confront in professional sport is the equation of personal value or identity with athletic or commercial performance. With the increasing infuence of sponsors and the ever-present expectations of corporate owners, professional athletes face mounting pressure to “come up with the goods,” to play through niggling injuries, to perform no matter what. The message they hear is this: You are valued for what you can achieve, not for who you are. Your worth is dependent on your athletic performance; it is not inherent in your existence as a human being. With the professionalization of sport, the lines between work and leisure, business and sport, have been blurred and almost obscured. In 1947, the German Catholic philosopher, Joseph Pieper, published Leisure, the Basis of Culture.4 He was reacting to a “great subterranean change in our scale of values, and in the meaning of value” and warned of an emerging “world of total work.” He argued that we have to be careful that human meaning does not become synonymous with our professional occupation. Nearly sixty years later, work does often seem to defne us according to effciency and function—we are what we can produce and perform. This understanding of humanity seems to be dominant in our world, orienting our social institutions, such as the government, education, and even culture itself, toward function.5 It determines the value given to the disabled and the handicapped, those in aged care and those unable to contribute to society in some way. We become

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entirely defned by our productive capacity and ability to make a tangible and measurable contribution. This is the dilemma that often faces professional athletes. They can struggle to determine or even remember why they are playing their game. They often struggle to locate their identity and worth outside of their performance in the sports arena. Surely the role of a chaplain here is to bring a reminder that sport is not the whole of life and does not defne a player’s worth. The frst article of the Westminster Confession presents an alternative ontology: “Humanity’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” Our humanity is defned in relationship with the Divine. We have value because of that relationship, not because of function and performance. No doubt, the majority of Christians would agree in principle, yet in truth many of us consign ourselves to the “real world” of function and playing out our faith within that framework.6 For Pieper the solution is real leisure. Not a Sunday afternoon idyll, but an attitude of mind, a condition of the spirit, which overcomes an individual’s inner impoverishment.7 Real leisure is rooted in divine worship, providing us with both a holy separation from utilitarianism and a reconciled perception of life. Chaplains can play a crucial role here. For players struggling with questions of identity and worth, they can reassure them of both. For athletes feeling the overwhelming pressure from coaches and sponsors and fans to perform, chaplains can provide a listening ear, accepting them for who they are, and not for how they perform. For sportspeople wrestling with injury or failure, chaplains can remind players that their very ability to play a game, and to play it at an elite level, comes as a gift from their Creator, a gift to be cherished and enjoyed regardless of performance or outcome.

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SUBVERTING THE MACHO CULTURE OF AUSTRALIAN SPORT One particularly pervasive and destructive aspect of Australian sporting culture is the macho stereotype of masculinity. Being a real man means being hard or tough. When the coach of the Melbourne Storm frst introduced me to the team as their new chaplain, he said: “We pride ourselves on being a tough club—the Rev’s here because at times we need to acknowledge there’s a soft side too.” In my ministry at the club I have attempted to subvert this celebration of toughness by demonstrating vulnerability at a personal level. When speaking to the team after a season-ending series of defeats, I said to them: Raising a boy with a disability, as my wife and I have, teaches you about what is important in life. Most of you have met our Johnny, who was born with an

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extra chromosome and so struggles to achieve what to others comes naturally. At frst, we found this hard to come to terms with—you have dreams and desires for what your kids will do. After a long time, I began to understand something of the way that God sees all of us. We are all retarded in some way; none of us is able to achieve all that we or others believe we should. But God loves us anyway for who we are—not for what we can do.

Afterwards, several players came and thanked me individually for what I had said. In taking a risk to talk at a heart level like this, chaplains can encourage the staff and players to do the same. During my time at the club, I have seen the beginnings of change within the hard culture of Rugby League. No longer are bonding (or binge drinking) sessions seen as necessary or even culturally acceptable by many within the League. Many teams are now forgoing the end of season trip in exchange for a work project in a needy area of the world. Women are increasingly being accepted into leadership roles. Clubs, associations, and national leadership teams are committed to change and education with regard to what are now seen as poor attitudes toward women.

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SEEKING TO DISCERN AND PARTICIPATE IN WHAT JESUS IS ALREADY DOING By living out the life of Jesus and demonstrating his love and compassion, sports chaplains have a ministry of presence. By serving and listening, and simply being present, they demonstrate something of the life of Christ. Sometimes, however, this ministry of presence is misunderstood to imply that the chaplain takes Jesus with him or her into the locker room or sports arena, and that Christ by his Spirit is not already present and active there. The Scriptures affrm, though, that the risen Christ who indwells his people, also indwells the world in which we live. He is already present by his Spirit in the locker rooms and sports arenas. The One who goes with us, has already gone before us. The chaplain does not, therefore, need to go into the world of sport with a kind of crusading zeal intent on bringing the light of the gospel into the darkness. The sports chaplain has the immense privilege of entering such a world with a divinely-tuned discerning eye that seeks to determine how and where and with whom God is already at work. The chaplain’s role is not to bring all wisdom and counsel to bear but, with patience and compassion, to enable these God-connections for those who are already seeking. Over twenty years as chaplain to the Melbourne Storm, I have learned that genuine evangelism means much more listening and a lot less talking, much

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more watching and a whole lot of waiting. I have learned to be patient and let God set the agenda, let God prepare the heart. Yes, I need to be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in me, but I wait for God to bring that moment. I wait with excitement, because he was present in the arenas and locker rooms, playing felds and stadiums, and in the players’ lives and hearts, well before I showed up. So how can sports chaplains in Australia communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ within the world of professional sport? First and foremost, they do this by the ministry of presence among those they serve. They do this by being present and available to listen and support and demonstrate compassion. They do this by living lives that are authentic and integrated. Athletes, in my experience, are often very adept at picking up any dissonance between what is professed and what is practiced. Chaplains often have opportunity to communicate the gospel through their liturgical role at weddings, funerals, baptisms, and infant dedications. However, the chaplain’s ministry is not merely pastoral. It is also prophetic. In the context of professional sport, chaplains get to communicate the gospel by confronting patterns, cultures, and structures that are unjust or dehumanizing. One of the ways they can do this is by helping professional athletes to locate their value outside their performance. Another way is by subverting the macho culture of Australian sport. Crucially, in all of this, they need to see their role as one of discerning what Jesus is already doing by his Spirit among the team or club, and then participating in his activity. Chaplaincy might be a ministry of presence. But the primary presence is that of Jesus Christ. He is already present in the stadium, the locker room, the board room, well before the chaplain shows up. He is already present and active in the lives of the players and staff, long before the chaplain arrives. Attendance at churches across Australia might be in decline. But in sports teams across Australia, there are many opportunities to communicate the gospel.

NOTES 1. R. A. Howell and M. L. Howell, The Genesis of Sport in Queensland (University of Queensland Press, 1992), cited by Darryl Adair and Wray Vamplew, Sport in Australian History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 1. 2. David Millikan, The Sunburnt Soul: Christianity in Search of an Australian Identity (Homebush West, Australia: Anzea Publications, 1981), 8. 3. Kevin Ward, Christendom, Clericalism, Church and Context: Finding Categories of Connection in a Culture without a Christian Memory: Implications of New Zealand Research (unpublished article, June 2001). 4. Josef Pieper, Leisure, the Basis of Culture, (n.d.), cited by John Flett, “The Workaday World and its Implications for Lay-Theology,” Stimulus 8 (2) (2000), 8.

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5. Flett, “The Workaday World,” 10. 6. Flett, “The Workaday World,” 10. 7. Pieper, Leisure, 33, cited by Flett “Workaday World,” 10.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Adair, Darryl, and Wray Vamplew. Sport in Australian History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Flett, John. “The Workaday World and its Implications for Lay-Theology.” Stimulus 8 (2) (2000), 8–10. Howell, R. A., and M. L. Howell. The Genesis of Sport in Queensland. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1992. Millikan, David. The Sunburnt Soul: Christianity in search of an Australian Identity. Homebush West, Australia: Anzea Publishers, 1981. Ward, Kevin. Christendom, Clericalism, Church and Context: Finding Categories of Connection in a Culture without a Christian Memory: Implications of New Zealand Research. Unpublished article, June 2001.

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Chapter 9

The Winter Game in the Autumn Season An Exploration of Motivations, Masculinity, and Faith among Older Christian Male Rugby Players in Aotearoa New Zealand

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Simon Moetara

The seasons are often seen as corresponding to the stages of life: spring represents our childhood and youth, summer refects the prime of our life, and winter signifes old age and death. Autumn is seen to correspond to middle age, a season of harvest and bounty, but also a season of decay, where “the fowers fade, the leaves wither . . . and winter is not far away.”1 This autumnal phase of life is a time when we have reaped an abundance of knowledge and experience, but the knees creak, the back plays up, and the glories of youth are a distant memory. And yet, despite spreading girth and dodgy hamstrings, a number of men in this third quarter of life fnd themselves drawn to the physically demanding game of rugby union. The great Welsh actor Richard Burton once described rugby as a “wonderful concoction of ballet, opera and bloody murder.”2 And New Zealand has adopted this remarkable, grueling, bone-rattling game as its national sport.3 Originating in England in the early nineteenth century, rugby union developed into a contact team sport centering on running with the ball in hand, with two teams of ffteen players competing on a rectangular feld with an oval ball. Unlike American football, there are no grilled helmets or shoulder pads to diminish collisions, no forward passing, and far less stoppage time.4 There is international research that fnds middle-aged male players are motivated to continue pursuing rugby as a serious leisure activity.5 This is also the case in New Zealand, where New Zealand Rugby Union fgures

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indicate that in 2009, 6,637 men over the age of thirty-four laced up the boots, almost a third more than in 2002 (4,976).6 Cheng, Pegg, and Stebbins speak of rugby-playing “old boys,” a term of endearment commonly used to refer to those still playing “well beyond what is considered a competitive biological age.”7 At the age of forty-four, Jay Atkins said that family and friends thought, “I should quit playing rugby, that it’s too dangerous for a man of my vintage.”8 I, personally, often experience such well-meaning comments. I mention a bruised rib or a strained calf, and I hear the words, “You’re too old,” spoken with axiomatic certainty. I smile, but I close the conversational doors. They just don’t understand. One might wonder why so many middle-aged men are keen to play a game that’s so physically demanding. Rupert McCall poses the question in verse:

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You’re an advert for arthritis You’re a thoroughbred gone lame Then you ask yourself the question Why the hell you played the game?9

In the midst of this midlife yearning for ruck and maul, we fnd a number of Christian men. At the recent 2017 World Masters Games, the Waikato Rusty Nails team had eleven Christian brothers in a twenty-six-man squad competing in the over-forty division. There were also high-profle Christian players taking part in other teams, such as former Samoa representatives Timo Tagaloa and Toetu Nu’uali’itia. In the Waikato Presidents (over-thirty-fve grade) competition, there are Christian brothers found in most club sides. My own team, Hamilton Marist Presidents, had ten professing Christians out of approximately thirty registered players in 2017. At an age where injury is highly likely, and in a game that, despite its revered status in our national history, several social critics regard negatively as promoting a type of masculinity that prizes toughness and aggression, tolerance of pain, violence, homophobia and misogyny, I have often wondered: Why do middle-aged Christian men wish to be associated with, let alone take part in, such a brutal and taxing game?10 And how do they express their Christian faith in such a setting? For this research, I employed a multi-method approach that included participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and autoethnographic refection. I engaged in overt full member observation of the participants in team situations, and my status as a researcher was known by the team.11 As a team member for the previous fve years and the current captain, my access to the team setting was already granted. I had a legitimate role in the team and could collect observational data from an insider’s point of view. I engaged in semi-structured interviews with seven Christian men from the

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Hamilton Marist Presidents team, ranging in age from thirty-seven to fftyeight.12 I also employed autoethnographic refection, using a type of research that connects the autobiographical to the cultural and social, where “the life of the researcher becomes a conscious part of what’s studied.”13 By combining observation with my personal experience and shared involvement with those under study, my own “attitude changes, fears and anxieties” in the feld formed part of the data, and so I myself, as the researcher, became part of the phenomenon surveyed.14 Five major themes regarding motivation emerged from the study data: the desire for male camaraderie and belonging (“being with the boys”), an enjoyment of the game’s physicality and competitiveness, a focus on ftness and health, a love of the game, and a celebration of “being a man.” Pseudonyms are allocated to each of the interviewees to protect their anonymity, and these will be used for the rest of the chapter. BEING WITH THE BOYS: CAMARADERIE AND BELONGING

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The highest, best thing that most of these lads will experience in their lives—the fnest thing I’ve ever experienced—is that sense of comradeship, striving for the common goal, all together, one! That’s it for me. That was it.15

The All Black winger Bryan Williams refused to let age be a barrier to playing rugby, saying, “I couldn’t see any point in giving the game away simply because someone said I was over the hill. I was extracting too much enjoyment from the companionship and from the great game itself.”16 This companionship is an important part of rugby’s attraction. As Nicholls puts it, “rugby’s special ethos was as much about relationships as it was about the game itself.”17 Relationships and camaraderie were a major motivating factor among all interviewees. For example, forty-four-year-old Bill remarked that church leaders often posit evangelism and witness as key reasons for involvement in sports, but for him such motives were secondary. When asked what was primary, he responded, “Primary is just being with the boys.”18 Forty-sixyear-old Baz likewise enjoyed “the hanging out with the boys and the camaraderie”: “What’s enjoyable is just the boys. So you can have boy banter . . . it’s just that camaraderie with the boys.”19 Sociologist Michael Messner’s research into male sporting relationships found that, although men desired time with other men, they “tend to maintain emotional distance from one another” by organizing their time “around an activity that is external to themselves.”20 Messner found that men tended to

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develop what Scott Swain termed “covert intimacy” where “closeness is in the ‘doing,’” and “actions speak louder than words and carry greater personal value.”21 Forty-six-year-old Bryce expressed beliefs in line with Messner:

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I like the idea . . . that men relate shoulder to shoulder rather than face to face, and so for me in terms of intimacy, creating a relationship, often it’s around doing something together . . . the bond comes as we battle together on the rugby feld . . . and we’re working alongside others to collectively achieve something.22

Forty-one-year-old Aaron’s comments affrm the connection between working together and the establishing of relational bonds: “There’s also working as a team . . . and having a friend next to you, someone you can trust, builds your relationship even deeper. You may not know them that well, but after a game of rugby . . . you’re pretty good mates, and you know that he’s had your back. So there’s that bond . . . there’s that bond in battle.”23 The interviewees enjoyed what Messner termed “covert intimacy,” a “mateship” and bond forged by doing, by competing together toward a common goal and engaging in social banter, as opposed to sharing their inner lives with one another. This is apparent in talk of working toward a goal together and contributing to the team. For example, Bill said, “To know that I’ve contributed in a team where you’ve made some yards, you’ve tackled and you’ve had a good game. It’s camaraderie . . .”24 The ability to contribute was also important for ffty-eight-year-old Paul, a twenty-three-year veteran of the team: “So long as I think I can positively contribute. It’s gotta be that. And right now I can last on the feld as long as a lot of those other forwards. . . . There’s [sic] some things I can still contribute to.”25 Aaron enjoys “the working together” and “working hard for the prize” which requires “putting your body on the line,” while Baz said, “[You’re] in the same team, going for the same kind of goal, and the satisfaction when you win a game, and the boys have gone hard.” Former Samoa representative Toetu Nu’uali’itia, who played for the New Zealand Barbarians at the 2017 World Masters Games, spoke of how rugby satisfed the human need to belong: [Rugby was] the one place where you could feel that you were somebody special, where people loved you . . . you could connect with people who loved what you loved. You would feel that you were connected, a real connection that we never had anywhere else, and rugby gave that to us . . . that real camaraderie and that love for each other.26

Nu’uali’itia noted that this changed with an understanding of who he was in Christ. However, it shows the powerful appeal of belonging and

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community, particularly for men. Atkinson states that “the deeper attraction of rugby is its brotherhood,” and that few people get to experience what rugby is really about, “the blood fraternity of guys who stick their necks out for each other.”27 PHYSICALITY AND COMPETITION: GETTING PHYSICAL We’re not playing tiddlywinks here mate, it’s a contact sport.28

In a 2003 Super 12 semi-fnal, Hurricanes captain Tana Umaga memorably said to referee Peter Marshall, “We’re not playing tiddlywinks here mate, it’s a contact sport.”29 The physicality of this contact sport is a key motivator for all interviewees. For example, Aaron, a senior Pastor, said, “To be honest, it’s contact. Love the contact. I love the physical side of things.”30 Fullback Baz, 72-kilos dripping wet, said, “That’s the bit I’m surprised I enjoyed. First game of rugby I thought, ‘Oh man, I’m gonna get slammed here,’ but actually I quite enjoyed the physical contact. . . . The physical nature of the game, getting in there . . . trying to beat somebody, trying to outstep him, trying to outsmart him, just all that side of the game.”31 Bryce, who did not start playing rugby until his forties, said,

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I enjoy the physical side of it. I enjoy the ability to go hard within the context of the game. So if you’re trying to tackle someone, then you’re doing your utmost to tackle and stop them, knowing that they’re doing their utmost to get past you. . . . You’re able to go as hard as you can without being in that place of, “Well, I have to back off because I’m playing with the kids, or because I might hurt the other person.” . . . No, you can give it your all.32

Paul, nearing sixty years of age, stated, “I really love hitting people . . . to take the ball and smash into some guys and keep going, there’s a great pleasure in it.” Then, sitting back, he said, “And there you are. It’s that simple.”33 Enoka differentiates between the game of rugby, which is “in and of itself, good for us,” and a toxic rugby culture that might glorify violence.34 Similarly, the interviewees distinguished between playing the game they “signed up for” and hyper-masculine violent behavior that is not part of the game. Playing hard within the context of the game is a key for these men. Paul’s thoughts were typical: “It’s a sport, played within rules, and there are deliberate safeguards and restrictions placed on how much force you can use and in what kind of ways.”35

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Sport, it has been said, is “a form of play, a competitive, rule-governed activity that human beings freely choose to engage in.”36 Goheen and Bartholomew point out that in sports, “teams or individuals agree cooperatively to oppose one another within the stated goals, rules, and obstacles of the game.”37 None of the interviewees felt any tension between their Christian faith and playing rugby within its stated rules. As Bryce shared, “Everyone on the feld has signed up for a combative, physical contest, with the structure around it to keep people safe . . . everyone there has signed up within the rules of the game . . . and if we stay within that, then there’s no contradiction in values.”38 Between the game itself and unsporting behavior, Baz perceives a boundary-line which he calls the “Don’t be a dickhead” line. “And if you are a dickhead,” he says, “the rest of them call you out on it. They say, ‘Hey, don’t be a dick. Settle down. It’s just a game.’” Baz revealed a strong degree of self-awareness among the players: “everyone knows where it’s at. We’re all old men playing a game of footy, you know, don’t be stupid.”39 The men interviewed also love the competitive nature of the sport. Competition can be a controversial topic for Christians, with concerns that it elevates one’s own interests over those of other competitors.40 Boxill, however, points out that the word competition comes from combining the Latin petere, meaning “to strive, to seek” with the prefx com, “with,” showing that competition is not about “striving against,” but to “strive with.”41 It is a “mutually acceptable quest for excellence through challenge.”42 In this sense, it is cooperation, rather than enmity, that is the true essence of competition. Genuine competition on the sports feld enables a balance of seriousness and play. Competition can be distorted by sin in this fallen world, and so it is imperative that we discern what true competition looks like. When competition is viewed as a challenge to achieve excellence, and involves others, it can lead to mutual respect and esteem. In contrast, Shields speaks of “decompetition,” which occurs when competition devolves into something that is antagonistic to its original intent. According to Shields, “the true competitor is motivated to pursue values intrinsic to the game, while the decompetitor is motivated by the pursuit of values extrinsic to the game.”43 When competition is viewed as a challenge to attain excellence, and involves cooperation with others, it can lead to friendship, mutual respect, and esteem. When it results in damaging effects, it is largely due to a deviation from the rules of the game and the ideal of competition.44 I remember being smashed in a tackle while playing a team from nearby Te Rapa. It felt like I ran full speed into the side of a billiard table. Lying on my side, looking my tackler in the eye, I wheezed, “Good tackle, brother.” He replied, “Good run, mate,” as he helped me to my feet.

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PHYSICAL FITNESS: MALE HEALTH

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I need to get ft, I need to get healthy, I need to sort my health out. 45

Nic Gill, the All Blacks strength and conditioning coach since 2008, believes the decade from age forty to ffty is an interesting one because, generally speaking, men have more time on their hands, their children have grown up, and they are more established in terms of work. Gill also notes that the forties is a point where most men sit back and go, “Holy crap, I need to get ft, I need to get healthy, I need to sort my health out.”46 Activity and ftness was a motivator for all interviewees. “[I] defnitely enjoy the ftness and the running around to stay ft,” said Baz, who is very active, involved in a number of outdoor activities. He continued, “Rugby is a good way of staying active in the winter . . . so just keeping ft, that’s a really good reason.”47 Paul said the physical ftness has become more of an issue in recent years. He is at the gym six-days-per-week and on a ftness program as he prepared for the World Masters. “I’d like to play until I’m sixty,” said Paul. Bill mentioned that, along with his gym work, playing rugby was “good self-care.”48 The research of Cheng, Pegg, and Stebbins likewise found that older male rugby union players appreciated rugby as a means to motivate them to keep physically active, particularly in light of a mostly sedentary lifestyle in relation to their work.49 Cheng, Pegg, and Stebbins also show that older men appreciate rugby as a sport that not only keeps them physically active but also mentally stimulated.50 A few of the interviewees concurred that rugby’s health benefts went beyond the merely physical. Thirty-seven-year-old George enjoyed doing something physical “to release a bit of tension” and “to keep the body and mind in balance with one another.”51 Tom also agreed, saying: “I actually fnd it sharpens you again, it gets you focused again . . . that’s what it does for me. It gives me the chance to blow out the cobwebs.”52 Steven Gauge rediscovered rugby in his middle age and writes how playing rugby helped his health holistically: “I was beginning to depend on my regular Saturday afternoon expeditions on a rugby pitch to keep me sane. Life was getting complicated personally and professionally . . . [and] there was nothing that cleared the head better than a game of rugby.”53 This was my experience. A mate kept inviting me to play. After two years I began to pop along every now and then, but I still was not overly keen. After complaining about the rain one bleak Saturday morning, my wife issued a harsh challenge: “You’re either a part of the team or you’re not!” Suitably chastened, I fnally gave in and committed. Around this time, my doctor informed me I was on the verge of type 2 diabetes, calling for drastic lifestyle changes. The gym held no appeal, road running bored me, and I was

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too uncoordinated for Zumba. However, I would push myself in a team situation. And so, along with major modifcations in diet, I lost fourteen kilos and found joy again in the game of my youth. Another year on, after experiencing burnout in work and ministry, I began to look forward to my Saturday afternoons with the boys. It was during this low point that I was asked by senior players to be captain. (They said it was because the boys respected me and that I led from the front. However, I have a sneaking suspicion it was because they wanted me to do the after-match speeches and I could say grace in te Reo, the Māori language, when we had our post-match meal at Whatawhata.) While I initially began playing for reasons of physical health, it helped me in a far more holistic way. To draw on Durie’s Te Whare Tapa Wha health model, I found the game not only aided taha tinana (physical health), but also benefted taha hinengaro (mental and emotional health), which helped in my overall well-being.54 The male camaraderie, social banter, and physical exertion were a welcome relief after the cerebral strain and emotional stress of the week. Among this aging band of brothers, I was accepted, respected, appreciated for who I was. It was a wonderful space that aided my healing. I agree with Gauge’s thoughts regarding “the therapeutic power of rolling around on a rugby pitch in the mud with a load of fat blokes.”55 “I LOVE RUGBY”: FOR LOVE OF THE GAME

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Saturday afternoon in the Western Highlands and I fnd myself lying in a corner of the Mushroom Field, seeped in the damp of the nearby Oban-to-Crinan canal. My cheek and eye are crushed into mud, several half-naked strangers are piled at angles on top of me and softly, from the sea-grey sky, it starts to rain. Which is when I think, I seriously think: God, I love this game.56

Not one of the interviewees justifed their involvement in Muscular Christian terms of character growth.57 Nor did they validate their participation spiritually in terms of evangelism or Christian witness. Rather, they played rugby simply because they love the game. When asked why older Christian men play such a brutal game, after a long pause Bill responded, “We love the game. We enjoy the game.”58 Tom said, “I love it, it’s an awesome game. Just something I don’t want to stop doing.”59 Aaron concluded simply, “Rugby . . . I love rugby.”60 Bryce mentioned a number of times that the exertion and challenge of the game were “enlivening” for him.61 The interviewees resisted a dualistic approach that divides God’s creation into sacred and secular, where activities such as church-attendance and Bible-reading are important to God, while activities in the sphere of work or sports—unless used for some higher spiritual purpose—are not.62 This is in

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keeping with Treat’s contention that while sports can be “a platform for evangelism or a classroom for morality,” they are frst and foremost “a playground for receiving and enjoying the goodness of the Creator.”63 And I have enjoyed God’s goodness in this set-aside space. I have savored the feeling of rain on my face or the sight of a sun-drenched feld. I have delighted in running with the ball in hand, the acts of bumping or fending, stepping and off-loading, or the feeling of stopping a runner in his tracks with a dominant tackle. I have relished the sensation of steaming hot water after a match in freezing conditions, or the taste of an ice-cold Diet Coke quenching my post-match thirst. And I have so appreciated the company of men, the balm of physical touch, and spoken word, of friendship and laughter. Treat points out that when competition and a set of rules are added to a sense of playfulness, we have sport, which, when transformed through the gospel, can “be received as a gift—a gift to be enjoyed for its intrinsic worth and stewarded for the glory of God and the good of others.”64 Refecting this thinking, Nu’uali’itia sought in his career to be someone who “gave everything to be the best they could, to be thankful, and to glorify God for the gifts that we were given.”65 “A MAN’S GAME”: CELEBRATING THE MASCULINE

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Was there logic in the head knocks? In the corks and in the cuts? Did common sense get pushed aside? By manliness and guts?66

More than half of the men interviewed spoke of concepts such as competitiveness, physical confrontation, controlled aggression, courage, and combativeness, and tended to associate these qualities with an essentialist understanding of masculinity.67 For example, Paul tentatively identifed masculine identity markers of aggression and physical confrontation: The notion that men tend to be more physically confrontational, more aggressive—I think there’s truth in those things, objectively, on the whole. The fact that you express that in a controlled environment, in a determined, aggressive testosterone-flled way—there’s nothing evil or wrong in that. In fact, there’s something almost fulflling. This is kind of an aspect of manhood that is one way of providing fulflment for the kind of things we were made to be.68

Bryce addresses the idea of competitiveness in gendered terms, saying, “Competitiveness seems to be more of a man’s trait than a woman’s trait. You

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know, that physicality side of it. . . . In terms of saying, let’s be competitive, let’s be physical in competing.” While acknowledging universal human traits, Bryce expressed concern with “the move, within even Christianity, towards androgyny, a sameness between men and women, [which] for me actually steps away from the idea of ‘created male and female.’”69 Bill said that playing rugby, in part, allows him to celebrate “the holistic nature of what makes me me.” This includes his sense of masculinity: “for me it awakens something in me as a male.” Bill lamented what he perceived as the suppression of masculinity: “I think we live in a society that is very feminine and very p-c . . . I think there are very few places in our society today—in particular, New Zealand society—where you can actually experience being male . . . to be completely okay with your maleness.”70 The thoughts shared by the interviewees are similar to the views espoused within the mythopoetic movement, which contends that deep masculinity had been eroded by a number of forces, in particular the industrial revolution, the loss of male initiation rites, the growing social disrespect of men and masculinity, and the frequent psychological distance between men and their fathers.71 The massive appeal of the mythopoetic movement since the 1980s might well be due to the experience among so many men that are “disconnected from themselves and other men.”72 Jay Coakley argues that the dominant contemporary gender ideology standardizes and accepts the idea that masculinity involves aggressiveness and a desire to physically dominate others. Men with the strength and will to do whatever is necessary to dominate others “are lionized as heroes,” not only in sports, but in politics and business as well; conversely, men who are seen to be nurturing and supportive of others tend to be defned as “weak and emasculated.”73 A wide range of scholars consider sport to be a key instrument and a potent location in the construction of hegemonic masculinity, that is, the dominant form of masculinity, the “currently most honored way of being a man.”74 This is particularly so in body-contact confrontational sports, such as rugby union.75 The connection is so strong, Pringle notes, that for many men failing in sport is “viewed as akin to failing to be manly.”76 Cheng, Pegg, and Stebbins observed that older male rugby players in Taiwan enjoyed the game because of its reputation as a “real man’s sport” and provision of a sense of self-identity.77 Vicars notes that contact sports such as rugby union have been identifed as “constructing not only individual understandings of masculinity,” but also supporting “the ascendance of hegemonic masculinity and the continued marginalization and subordination of other types of masculinities,” whether through participation, opposition, resistance, or complicity.78 A number of social examinations of rugby cultures have raised concerns about the encouragement of a type of masculinity that celebrates pain tolerance, binge beer drinking, violence, homophobia, and misogyny.79 From its

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earliest days, rugby was seen to encourage the less desirable elements of male culture, such as fghting, drinking, and swearing.80 Research by Pringle and Markula also found that rugby supports dominant masculine ideals by encouraging the view that “males should be tough, relatively unemotional, tolerant of pain, competitive, and, at times, aggressive.”81 However, the interviewees in my study also exhibited signs of resistance, opposition, or both, to a full-blown hegemonic form of masculinity as often reproduced through the practices and discourses of rugby culture. There was evidence of these men constructing ethical masculinities in which they resisted hypermasculine behavior and allowed space for alternates to the dominant form of “being a man.” One example of this was observed in the area of banter and humor. Some forms of humor can be used to perpetuate oppressive and patriarchal cultural norms and structures.82 Research abounds on the use of misogynistic and homophobic banter to reinforce hyper-masculine norms in sports culture.83 Messner notes that male friendships in sports are often cemented by sexist and homophobic talk that constructs a larger gender order.84 The contention is that male homosociability reinforces male power by refecting, supporting, and giving credibility to masculine values and power through the marginalization of women and alternate masculinities through jokes and banter. 85 Easthope identifes a double function in banter: outwardly, it is aggressive, as the male ego asserts itself, but inwardly it depends on “a close, intimate and personal understanding of the person” bantered with, and so works as a way of “affrming the bond of love while appearing to deny it.”86 However, while banter can be used in an invasive and cruel manner, it can also be used in a non-offensive manner in a way that “refects and fosters social intimacy.”87 As such, humor and banter can be seen as important facets of relationship processes that help people feel accepted in sporting cultures.88 Tom’s comments show the connection between banter and belonging: “It encourages me, because then you realise that they’re including you as part of the team . . . because if you aren’t being hassled or jostled, you don’t feel [part of the team].”89 While the men interviewed enjoy the banter, it was within strict boundaries. For example, Bryce said, “Lewd behavior or jokes—for me that’s just a no-go area.” He also said, “That sort of banter goes on, but it’s not nasty or demeaning. It’s generally in good humor.”90 Tom said, “I think the banter lightens it up, and encourages people to talk to each other, and that transitions onto the game, that when stuff does go wrong . . . we can make light of it.”91 In my study, only two participants would sometimes make teasing comments of teammates that were well received by the object of the joke. The others always employed positive statements. During practice we play touch rugby, and at times players execute skillful moves—a dummy pass, a

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side-step, a pass to put a teammate into the gap—and interviewees called out statements like, “You’re in the centers this week!” or “You’ll be getting a call up to the All Blacks soon!” The words are not serious, but affrm the player’s skill and effort, and are therefore intended and received as a sign that you belong. I observed that most of the interviewees also just share encouraging words: “Nice run,” “great pass,” “awesome work.” The banter from these men was never outwardly aggressive or belittling. Rather, the interviewees tended to employ what Romero and Cruthirds termed “affliative humor,” a form of humor that can be seen to focus on enhancing social interaction.92 Affliative humor affrms both the self and others, and therefore “increases cohesiveness.”93 Examples of affliative humor include funny stories particular to the group and inside jokes. People who often use affliative humor exhibit an ability to “bring groups together and create a positive atmosphere.”94 The assumption is that “the initiator’s intention is usually to bring people together.”95 As Tom put it, “they’re including you as part of the team.” In self-refection, I fnd myself working hard to resist the biting sarcasm that was the common-tongue of my youth. I also noticed a tendency to employ self-deprecating humor. Self-deprecation in joking refers to remarks targeting oneself as the object of humor and may be done “to demonstrate modesty, to put the listener at ease, or to ingratiate oneself with the listener.”96 This style of humor is also infuenced by Māori cultural values. Hua relates self-deprecation with the Māori value of whakaiti, that is, being humble and modest.97 Self-deprecating humor is a key strategy for maintaining the balance between the need to demonstrate mana as a Christian man and leader on the one hand, and the requirement of humility and whakaiti on the other.98 At one time, one of my teammates complained that I didn’t pass the ball during the game. “We were screaming for it,” he said. “Come on man,” I replied, “I can barely see the ball (I have to take my glasses off for the game). You can’t expect my hearing to be any better.” This example shows how users of self-deprecating humor “show their ability to laugh at their own inabilities or problems.”99 My response readily acknowledges my limitations and the results of the aging process. I absorb the implied criticism, rather than “return fre” in like manner. Masculine humor and banter do not, therefore, need to be misogynistic or homophobic; neither do they need to denigrate or exclude. The men I interviewed, infuenced by their Christian faith, used humor and banter to reinforce belonging to the group, to strengthen connections, and to encourage teammates. In light of the emphasis on violence and aggression in this dominant masculinity model, Coakley calls for the need to build new cultural space for alternative understandings of masculinity that do not accentuate domination

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and violence or the use of martial metaphors.100 From a Christian perspective, Herbert Anderson likewise calls for exploring new expressions of being a man that “transcend old scripts of masculinity or presumptions of privilege.”101 The response to the banter and humor in the rugby culture by the Christian men in my study reveals such a counter-cultural response to the dominant gender ideology. Within the team setting, these Christian men explored ways of “being men” that participated in, as well as opposed and challenged, the dominant masculine ideology. REFLECTIONS ON THE OUTWORKING OF KEY MOTIVATIONS IN LIGHT OF CHRISTIAN FAITH

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I believe the religion of Christ covers the whole man. Why shouldn’t a man play baseball or lawn-tennis? . . . Don’t imagine that you have got to go into a cave to be consecrated, and stay there all your life. Whatever you take up, take it up with all your heart.102

Besides interviewing those Christian men, I also surveyed an equivalent number of other team members. This revealed essentially the same motivations, such as brotherhood and belonging (“basically, I get thirty new mates”), ftness (“I’m too lazy to do anything else”), and love of the game (“I love it. Just love it.”). However, while the motivations are the same, a point of difference arises in how these motivations are often outworked within the team. When the Christian players’ operating (as opposed to theoretical) beliefs affect their values and behavior,103 it enables them to act in a counter-cultural manner, particularly in relation to New Zealand’s “predominantly strong, hypermasculine Rugby culture.”104 I did observe, however, participation and complicity in the dominant form of masculinity on the part of two of the Christian players. This included, for example, the use of martial language (e.g., “battle,” “fght”) and the use of coarse language. However, I observed more so how the Christian faith of these men enables them to oppose and resist this dominant gender ideology, and to “bring a certain transforming element” to the team culture as they interacted as salt and light in the rugby world.105 Jesus’s model of mixing with people of all backgrounds challenges us to cross the culture-gap between a comfortable Christian subculture and the culture of our local communities. As Craig Blomberg puts it, “If Jesus was right . . . that holiness can be more contagious than impurity, then we need not fear such activity.”106 While none of the interviewees offered “religious” motivations for playing rugby, it was clear from their interviews and their behavior that they take their Christian witness seriously. For example, Paul was wary of anything

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“destructive to [his] Christian witness.”107 Senior player-manager Tom spoke of “the God-factor,” and his desire for players to see God at work in the lives of his people in the team. Tom has noted a shift in the team culture in the past fve years as Christian teammates “have nurtured and portrayed the God-side of [things].”108 One example of this counter-cultural shift is evidenced in a move from a culture of heavy drinking to a more family-friendly environment. There is less focus on heavy alcoholic consumption in the changing shed. Also, rather than a celebratory booze-up at the end of the season, a teammate hosts a barbecue to which partners and children are invited.109 Some of the guys also bring their children (ranging in age from primary to secondary school age) to rugby practice to play touch rugby with the team, resulting in a softening of behavior and language. Another example of a shift is a team culture of appreciating players according to effort more than ability. In masculine hierarchies, men tend to be stratifed according to physical strength and athletic ability, particularly in the early years.110 This is especially so in the rugby world. One of the key themes Schacht identifed with a rugby union masculinity is the Darwinian idea of survival of the fttest: “Those who are the biggest, the strongest, the most experienced, and willing to use physical violence—the most masculine—are the leaders.”111 While skillful players are indeed respected, there has been a deliberate resistance to, and rejection of, this thinking. As player-manager Tom says, “If you make an effort to turn up, we’re going to give you a run . . . I feel in our team we’re almost too generous in that way. We let people [play] who are not that competent, but we [give] them opportunity to keep playing because we want to encourage them.”112 Bryce, a newcomer to rugby, notes that nobody’s “trying to see who’s the top dog in the room,” and that “respect seems to come from effort rather than ability.”113 There has likewise been an intentional welcoming of new players in attitude regardless of their ability. Aaron commented, “It is a welcoming culture, no matter who you are . . . I came mid-season into a team that had already been together [for a while], [but] everybody’s welcome.” Aaron believes the leadership-group “lead the culture as opposed to just allowing the culture.”114 A key theological basis for this “welcoming culture” and seeking to value each man is the doctrine of the imago Dei. Regardless of ability or experience, and despite contrary beliefs or bothersome traits, each man bears the image of God, and is therefore precious in the eyes of God. I have spoken within the leadership group of my belief that the change in attitude and action is rooted in an appreciation of the intrinsic dignity or worth of all human beings as bearers of God’s image, regardless of ethnicity, religion, size, ability, or age.115 As Roy states, every human being has both the right to be

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treated with the dignity and respect “that befts their God-given status as an image-bearer of the Creator,” and the responsibility to treat others with the same dignity and respect.116 Issues of integrity and Christian witness are important for these men. “I don’t swear in any other context of my life, so I’m no different there,” says Bryce.117 Baz said, “To my mind, the character should be the same on the feld as what they portray in the Bible, if that makes sense . . . this is what your character should be, you should take that onto the feld. You play hard, you play fair, you play within the rules. That’s how I see it . . . Providing you’re taking that same character onto the feld . . . settle down, character, character . . ..”118 Maturity in the faith and stage of life appear to aid a more secure Christian identity, which help these men to establish solid ethical boundaries. Asked if he fnds any tensions between the Christian expectations or the rugby culture’s expectations of “being a man,” Paul said, “I don’t. But I wonder if I might if I hadn’t been so clear about where I stood.”119 So, while these Christian men may have similar motivations to others for playing rugby, their faith can call for a difference in how these are outworked on the feld, in the changing shed, and in the clubrooms. The description of All Black great Michael Jones for the most part describes the approach of these players: “There is no compromise of basic Christian values, but a sensitive appreciation of appropriate Christian witnessing.”120 As one player put it, they don’t play because they’re Christians, but they play as Christians.

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FINAL THOUGHTS The players I interviewed and observed play because they love the game of Rugby Union. The companionship of the team environment was a major motivation for playing, as was the physical and competitive nature of the game. General health and well-being was also key, along with a sense of “being a man.” None of the men interviewed justifed their playing rugby in terms of evangelism or any other spiritual purpose. They did not see the other men on the team as projects, or befriend the guys only in order to proselytize. However, these men take their Christian witness seriously, and their authenticity and commitment to the team enables candid conversations to take place on a wide range of issues. Christian witness is still considered to be of utmost importance but, rather than being the surreptitious goal of an agenda at odds with the group’s purpose, it appears to occur more naturally through genuine connections of love and belonging. I myself have been genuinely surprised at this. Asked by a teammate what I do, I respond that I am a minister and teach theology and Biblical studies. I then wait for the awkward silence, getting ready to rescue the conversation

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by guiding my companion to a safe topic. But lo and behold, time and again the conversation continues: “Oh. Which church do you go to?” “That’s a bit different, how’d you end up doing that?” “Are you able to leave the pastoral stuff behind on a Saturday?” “Can I ask you a question about something?” For these men, I’m not a caricature, but I’m Simon; a person they know and, apparently, with whom they feel safe continuing the conversation. And I look upon this group of men with great affection. They are my brothers, a bond forged with sweat and effort, in rain and mud, in laughter and drink and song. And I love them. My work with these interviewees suggests the idea of giving permission for Christians to be involved in leisure activities without having to spiritually justify such actions. Taking into account one’s spiritual maturity, we can do the things that bring us joy, and seek to glorify God as we do so. In the 1981 flm Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell explains to his sister his decision to race at the 1924 Olympics before entering the mission feld: “I believe that God made me for a purpose, for China. But he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure. To give it up would be to hold him in contempt. You were right; it’s not just fun. To win is to honor him.”121 Preece declares Liddell’s alleged statement to not only be a magnifcent moment in flm, but also in theology, providing the stimulus for a long overdue Protestant Play Ethic.122 There are limitations to this study, such as its small sample size and narrow context. A recognized limitation of this study is its focus on Christian older male rugby players in a single club (Hamilton Marist), in a single province (Waikato), in a single country (New Zealand). It is possible that the reported experiences and motivations of the team members in this study may be different from those in other club teams in the Waikato, or in the wider nation. Therefore, further research comparing the experiences, motivations, and faith expression in different New Zealand clubs, as we, different nations would be an appropriate next step. Furthermore, scholar Robert Ellis asks how we might move from the engagement of “covert intimacy” of men “shoulder-toshoulder” to a more overtly intimate “face-to-face” communication.123 Such a shift would allow discussion on the deeper issues of life, provide opportunities to share the gospel, as well as address issues concerning the friendships and loneliness experienced by middle-aged men.124 As I fnish writing this chapter, I have the frst practice run of the year tonight. I am forty-six years old. My right Achilles is stiff, and my left knee still gives me grief. My elbow is still strained from last season, and I need to remember to get strapping tape for the three digits I’ve dislocated in years past. But I’m looking forward to seeing the guys again, to back slaps and greeting hugs, to hoots and larks, and doing it all again. In the end, it would seem, we happy older Christian few play rugby because we love the game; however, it is important that we play as followers

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of Christ. In all that we do, we represent him. My sincere hope is that as we play as Christians, negotiating at times conficting and competing values, God is glorifed in the way that we refect the Son of God in this winter game.

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NOTES 1. John D. Raynor, An Understanding of Judaism (Providence, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1997), 197. 2. Quoted in Spiro Zavos, How to Watch a Game of Rugby (Wellington: Awa Press, 2004), 12. 3. Rugby Union is the national sport of my country of New Zealand, as well as Wales, Georgia, and Madagascar, and is popular in many other countries. 4. This is not to disparage American football, but simply highlight points of difference. I once played in an NZAFF (New Zealand American Football Federation) match in the defensive line for Hamilton Hawks against Papatoetoe Wildcats, and I still shudder at the memory of facing that wall of armoured muscle... 5. For example, Erwei Dong, Lin Zhang, Jaeyeon Choe and Steve Pugh, “Rugby Union among Middle-Aged American Men: An Exploration.” Leisure Studies 32 no. 2 (2013): 225; see also Eva (Hui-Ping) Cheng, Shane Pegg, and Robert Stebbins, “Old Bodies, Young Hearts: A Qualitative Exploration of the Engagement of Older Male Amateur Rugby Union Players in Taiwan.” Leisure Studies 35 no. 15 (2015): 1–15, https​:/​/do​​i​.org​​/10​.1​​080​/0​​26143​​67​.20​​​15​.10​​31270​ 6. Joseph Barratt, “Old Boy’s Club Gets Men Fit,” The New Zealand Herald Online, 28 March 2010, http:​/​/m​.n​​zhera​​ld​.co​​.nz​/s​​port/​​news/​​artic​​le​.cf​​m​?c​_i​​d​=4​&o​​​ bject​​id​=10​​63479​5 7. Cheng, Pegg, and Stebbins, “Old Bodies,” 4. 8. Jay Atkinson, “Brotherhood of the Dented Heads,” Men’s Health, September 2002, n.p., http:​/​/wes​​clark​​.com/​​rrr​/d​​ented​​_head​​​s​.htm​l 9. Rupert McCall, “Why We Play the Game,” http:​/​/www​​.brot​​hersr​​ugbym​​ ackay​​.com.​​au​/ru​​gby​-r​​e​vela​​tions​/ 10. Richard Pringle, “Rugby (amateur).” In Encyclopedia of Play: In Today’s Society R. Carlisle ed. (London: Sage, 2009), 613. For example, Schacht determines that rugby players enact masculinity by reproducing rigid hierarchical images of what a “real man” is “in terms of who is strongest, who can withstand the most pain, and who relationally distances himself from all aspects of femininity through forms of misogynistic denigration.” Steven P. Schacht, “Misogyny On and Off the “Pitch”: The Gendered World of Rugby Players.” Gender and Society 10 no. 5 (1996), 562. 11. I rejected a covert approach for two ethical reasons: it “does not provide participants with the opportunity for informed consent” and “it entails deception.” Alan Bryman, Social Research Methods, 5th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 427. 12. Semi-structured interviews allow the interviewer to ask open-ended questions on a general topic and they allow interviewees “to respond at their own pace

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using their own words.” They also allow the interviewer some latitude to ask further questions in response to what are seen as noteworthy answers. See Gary Ferraro and Susan Andreatta, Cultural Anthropology: An Applied Perspective, 11th ed. (Boston: Cengage Learning, 2018), 106. 13. Carolyn S. Ellis, “Autoethnography,” in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods, ed. Lisa M. Given (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2001), 48. 14. John D. Brewer, Ethnography (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000), 59; Ellis, “Autoethnography,” 50. 15. Greg McGee, Foreskin’s Lament (Wellington: Price Milburn with Victoria University Press, 1981), 51. 16. Bryan Williams, in Beegee: The Bryan Williams Story, ed. Bob Howitt (Auckland: Rugby Press Ltd, 1981), 6. 17. Todd R. Nicholls, The Winter Game: Rediscovering the Passion for Rugby (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 2006), 335. 18. “Bill,” personal communication to author, 12 December 2016 (All names of interviewees from the Hamilton Marist Presidents team have been changed for the sake of anonymity). 19. “Baz,” personal communication to author, 7 February 2017. 20. Michael A. Messner, “Like Family: Power, Intimacy, and Sexuality in Male Athletes’ Friendships,” in Men’s Friendships, ed. Peter M. Nardi (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992), 222. 21. Scott Swain, “Covert Intimacy: Closeness in Men’s Friendships,” in Gender in Intimate Relationships: A Microstructural Approach, eds. B. J. Risman, and P. Schwartz (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1989), 77, quoted in Messner, “Like Family,” 223. 22. “Bryce,” personal communication to author, 20 February 2017. 23. “Aaron,” personal communication to author, 9 February 2017. 24. “Bill,” personal communication to author, 12 December 2016. 25. “Paul,” personal communication to author, 7 February 2017. 26. Toetu Nu’uali’itia, personal communication to author, 3 May 2017. 27. Atkinson, “Dented Heads.” 28. Tana Umaga, Crusaders vs Hurricanes, Super 12 semi-fnal at Lancaster Park, 12 May 2003. Quoted in Desmond Wood, New Zealand: Rugby Country—How the Game Shaped Our Nation (Auckland: Bateman, 2017), 86. 29. Umaga, cited in Wood, Rugby Country, 86. 30. “Aaron,” personal communication, 9 February 2017. 31. “Baz,” personal communication, 7 February 2017. 32. “Bryce,” personal communication, 20 February 2017. 33. “Paul,” personal communication, 7 February 2017. 34. Mava Enoka, “If It’s a Rugby Problem, It’s Everybody’s Problem,” The Wireless, 5 August 2016, http:​/​/the​​wirel​​ess​.c​​o​.nz/​​artic​​les​/i​​f​-it-​​s​-a​-r​​ugby-​​probl​​em​-it​​-s​ -ev​​​erybo​​dy​-s-​​probl​​em. 35. “Paul,” personal communication, 7 February 2017.

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36. Craig Clifford and Randolph M. Feezell, Coaching for Character (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1997), 11; quoted in Nick J. Watson, “Special Olympians as a ‘Prophetic sign’ to the Modern Sporting Babel,” in Sports and Christianity: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, eds. Nick J. Watson and Andrew Parker (New York: Routledge, 2013), 169. 37. Michael Goheen and Craig Bartholomew, Living at the Crossroads: An Introduction to Christian Worldview (London: SPCK, 2008), 154. 38. “Bryce,” personal communication, 20 February 2017. 39. “Baz,” personal communication, 7 February 2017. 40. Michael Shafer, Well Played: A Christian Theology of Sport and the Ethics of Doping (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2015), 117. 41. Jan Boxill, “Competition,” in The Bloomsbury Companion to the Philosophy of Sport, ed. Cesar R. Torres (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 343. 42. Robert L. Simon, Cesar R. Torres, Peter F. Hager, Fair Play: The Ethics of Sport (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 2015), 47. 43. David Shields, “Rethinking Competition,” 14 April 2010, http:​/​/tru​​ecomp​​etiti​​ on​.or​​g​/res​​ource​​s​/ret​​hinki​​ng​-co​​​mpeti​​tion/​, quoted in Boxill, “Competition,” 343. 44. Boxill, “Competition,” 344. 45. Phil Gifford, Looking after Your Nuts and Bolts: Phil Gifford’s Kiwi Men’s Health (Takapuna: Upstart Press, 2017), 88–89. 46. Gifford, Nuts and Bolts, 88–89. 47. “Baz,” personal communication, 7 February 2017. 48. “Bill,” personal communication, 12 December 2016. 49. Cheng, Pegg, and Stebbins, “Old Bodies, Young Hearts,” 9. 50. Cheng, Pegg, and Stebbins, “Old Bodies, Young Hearts,” 9. 51. “George,” personal communication, 15 February, 2017. 52. “Tom,” personal communication, 15 February, 2017. 53. Steven Gauge, My Life as a Hooker: When a Middle-Aged Bloke Discovered Rugby (West Sussex, UK: Summersdale Publishers Ltd, 2012), 36–37. 54. Mason Durie, Whaiora: Māori Development, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 69–74. 55. Gauge, My Life as a Hooker, 36–37. 56. Richard Beard, Muddied Oafs: The Soul of Rugby (London: Yellow Jersey Press, 2004), 1. 57. Muscular Christianity was a predominantly Protestant Anglo-American movement in the Victorian era that held the premise that participation in sport and physical education could contribute to the development of “Christian morality, physical ftness and ‘manly’ character.” (Nick J. Watson, “Muscular Christianity in the Modern Age: ‘Winning for Christ’ or ‘Playing for Glory’?” in Sport and Spirituality: An Introduction, eds. Jim Parry, Simon Robinson, Nick J. Watson and Mark Nesti (Oxon: Routledge, 2007), 80). The philosophy arose during an age when the colonial, military, and industrial aspirations of the British Empire were key for the ruling classes, and sports in Victorian public schools were seen as a means to create leaders, that is, “good Christian gentlemen.” Nick J. Watson and Andrew Parker, “Sport and Christianity: Mapping the Field,” in Nick J. Watson and Andrew Parker (eds.), Sports

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and Christianity: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Oxon: Routledge, 2013), 20. 58. “Bill,” personal communication, 12 December 2016. 59. “Tom,” personal communication, 17 February 2017. 60. “Aaron,” personal communication, 9 February 2017. 61. “Bryce,” personal communication, 20 February 2017. 62. Jeremy R. Treat, “More than a Game: A Theology of Sport.” Themelios 40 (2015), 397. 63. Treat, “More than a Game,” 398. 64. Treat, “More than a Game,” 396. 65. Nu’uali’itia particularly drew on Col 3:23 for inspiration: “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men” (NKJV). Toetu Nu’uali’itia, personal communication, 3 July 2017. 66. McCall, “Play the Game.” 67. One might also argue that traits such as the use of martial metaphors (e.g., “battling” and “fghting”), the desire for a male-only domain, masculine style of banter, and enjoyment of alcohol, align with the perpetuation of masculine hegemonic behavior. 68. “Paul,” personal communication, 7 February 2017. 69. “Bryce,” personal communication, 20 February 2017. 70. “Bill,” personal communication, 12 December 2016. 71. Christopher T. Kilmartin, The Masculine Self, 2nd ed. (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000), 306. The mythopoetic men’s movement was a form of self-help movement popular in the 1980s and 1990s that sought to nurture men’s personal growth, wholeness, and bonding in community with other men. Mythopoetic leaders believed that men’s previously deep connections to nature and camaraderie with other men were broken due to the impact of modernization, the Industrial Revolution, and feminism. Members of this movement held that the current masculine role was toxic, and desired men to “rediscover the deep, mythic roots of masculine thinking and feeling, which they believe will restore men to their primordial, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual wholeness” (Julia T. Wood, Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, and Culture, 8th ed. (Boston, MA: Wadsworth, 2009), 107. See also Robert Bly, Iron John (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1990); Sam Keen, Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man (New York: Bantam, 1991); Steve Biddulph, Manhood: An Action Plan for Changing Men’s Lives, 3rd ed. (Lane Cove, NSW: Finch Publishing, 2002). 72. Kilmartin, Masculine Self, 307. 73. Jay Coakley, Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies, 9th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007), 274. 74. R. W. Connell and J. Messerschmidt, “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept.” Gender & Society 19 (2005): 832. See also John Nauright, “Sustaining Masculine Hegemony: Rugby and the Nostalgia of Masculinity,” in Making Men: Rugby and Masculine Identity, eds. John Nauright and Timothy J. E. Chandler (London: Frank Cass & Co, Ltd., 1996), 227–244. 75. For example, Connell, and Messerschmidt, “Hegemonic Masculinity,” 833; Nauright, “Sustaining Masculine Hegemony,” in Making Men, Nauright and

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Chandler (eds.). Nauright asserts that all of the essays in this latter volume—spanning historical and cultural contexts including England, Wales, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand—attested to “the links between rugby and the social construction of masculine identities at one level or another.” Nauright also contends that although the specifc links between rugby union and what it means to “be a man” are not set, the game and its historical tradition has generally been used to “to sustain or repackage a masculine hegemony.” John Nauright, “Sustaining Masculine Hegemony,” 227. 76. Richard Pringle, “Sport, Males and Masculinities,” in Sport in Aotearoa New Zealand Society, eds. C. Collins and S. Jackson, 2nd ed. (South Melbourne: Dunmore Press, 2007), 361. 77. Cheng, Pegg, and Stebbins, “Old Bodies, Young Hearts,” 10. 78. Andrew Vicars, “Rugby, School Boys and Masculinities: In an American School in Taiwan (MSpLS thesis, The University of Waikato, 2008), 36. 79. For example, see Pringle, “Rugby (Amateur),” 613; Schacht, “Misogyny On and Off the ‘Pitch’,” 562. 80. Jock Phillips, A Man’s Country? The Image of the Pakeha Male—A History, rev. ed. (Auckland, New Zealand: Penguin, 1996), 95. 81. Richard Pringle and Pirkko Markula, “No Pain Is Sane After All: A Foucauldian Analysis of Masculinities and Men’s Experiences in Rugby.” Sociology of Sport Journal 22 no. 4 (2005): 482. 82. Barbara Plester, “‘Take it like a Man!’: Performing Hegemonic Masculinity through Organizational Humour.” Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization 15 no. 3 (August 2015): 538. 83. For example, Michael Messner, “Playing Center: The Triad of Violence in Men’s Sport,” in Taking the Field: Women, Men, and Sports (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002), 27–62; Brandon Sternod, “Come out and Play: Confronting Homophobia in Sports,” in Learning Culture through Sports: Perspectives on Society and Organized Sports, eds. Sandra Spickard Prettyman and Brian Lampman, 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefeld Publishers, 2011), 92–106; Rachelle Sussman, “Major League Baseball and the Cultural Politics of Sexuality,” in Pimps, Wimps, Studs, Thugs and Gentlemen: Essays on Media Images of Masculinity, ed. Elwood Watson (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2009), 277–298. 84. Messner, “Like Family,” 233. 85. Male homosociability can be described as “formal and informal communication, socializing and socialization, such as male networking, male bonding and joking.” Michele Rene Gregory, “Inside the Locker Room: Male Homosociability in the Advertising Industry.” Gender, Work & Organization 16 no. 3 (May 2009), 325. 86. Antony Easthope, What a Man’s Gotta Do: The Masculine Myth in Popular Culture (New York: Unwin Hyman, 1990), 88. 87. Jonathan Culpeper, “Towards an Anatomy of Impoliteness.” Journal of Pragmatics 25 no. 3 (1996): 352.

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88. Cf. the place of banter in workplace cultures, in Barbara Plester, The Complexity of Workplace Humour: Laughter, Jokers and the Dark Side of Humour (Heidelberg: Springer, 2016), 42. 89. “Tom,” personal communication, 17 February 2017. 90. “Bryce,” personal communication, 20 February 2017. 91. “Tom,” personal communication, 17 February 2017. 92. Eric J. Romero and Kevin W. Cruthirds, “The Use of Humor in the Workplace.” Academic Management Perspectives 20 no. 2 (2006): 59. 93. Katy W. Y. Liu, “Humor Styles, Self-Esteem and Subjective Happiness.” Discovery 1 (2012): 22. 94. Jamie Kane McEwan, “Humour Styles and their Relationships with Wellbeing and Social Support, and an Introduction to Reappraisal Theory.” (Unpublished Master of Science in Psychology Thesis, Massey University, 2013), 17. 95. Romero and Cruthirds, “Use of Humor,” 59. 96. Rod A. Martin, The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach (Burlington, MA: Elsevier Academic Press, 2007), 13. 97. Zhu Hua, “Identifying Research Paradigms,” in Research Methods in Intercultural Communication: A Practical Guide, ed. Zhu Hua (Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2016), 16. 98. Janet Holmes, “Humour and the Construction of Māori Leadership at Work.” Leadership 3 no. 1 (2007): 21. 99. Bas Andeweg, Jaap de Jon, and Martijn Wackers, “‘Poke Fun at Yourself’”: The Problem of Self-Deprecating Humor,” SEFI Conference Global Engineering Recognition, Sustainability and Mobility (Lisbon: SEFI, 2011), 760. 100. Coakley, Sports in Society, 275–276. 101. Herbert Anderson, “Leaving the Door to the Soul Ajar: Rethinking Masculinity.” Word & World 36 no. 1 (Winter 2016): 36–37. 102. Dwight L. Moody, in A College of Colleges, ed. T. J. Shanks (Chicago: Fleming H. Revell, 1887), 218. 103. Lloyd E. Kwast, “Understanding Culture,” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: A Reader, ed. Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne, rev. ed. (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1992), C-5. 104. Franco Vaccarino, Heather Kavan and Philip Gendall, “Spirituality and Religion in the Lives of New Zealanders,” The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society 1 no. 2 (2011): 87. 105. Michael S. Horton, “My Father’s World,” Monergism, https​:/​/ww​​w​.mon​​ergis​​ m​.com​​/my​-f​​ather​​​s​-wor​​ld#. 106. The sad examples of Christian believers being corrupted and adopting the sinful non-Christian practices of associates is more “a testimony to their unwillingness to rely on the Spirit’s power” rather than, “a disproof of the viability of Jesus’ model.” Craig L. Blomberg, Contagious Holiness: Jesus’ Meals with Sinners (NSBT: Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 2005), 173. 107. “Paul,” personal communication, 7 February 2017. 108. “Tom,” personal communication, 15 February 2017.

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109. I remember one teammate saying, “Man, I’ve never gone home this early or this sober.” 110. Joseph H. Pleck, “Men’s Power with Women, Other Men, and Society: A Men’s Movement Analysis,” in Feminism and Masculinities, ed. Peter Murphy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 62. See also Eric I. Anderson, “Masculinities and Sexualities in Sport and Physical Cultures: Three Decades of Evolving Research.” Journal of Homosexuality 58 no. 5 (2011): 567. 111. The other two are “no pain no gain,” and “relational rejection of the feminine.” Schacht, “Misogyny on and off the ‘Pitch’,” 553, 555. 112. “Tom,” personal communication, 15 February 2017. 113. “Bryce,” personal communication, 20 February 2017. 114. “Aaron,” personal communication, 9 February 2017. 115. See John Stott, “LOP 3: The Lausanne Covenant: An Exposition and Commentary” (Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization: 1975), http:​//​www​​ .laus​​anne.​​org​/a​​ll​-do​​cumen​​ts​/lo​​​p​-3​.h​​tml. 116. Steven C. Roy, “Embracing Social Justice: Refections from the Story of Scripture,” Trinity Journal 30 no. 1 (2009): 12–13. 117. “Bryce,” personal communication, 20 February 2017. 118. “Baz,” personal communication, 7 February 2017. 119. Interview, personal communication, 7 February 2017. 120. Robin McConnell, Iceman: The Michael Jones Story (Auckland: Rugby Press Ltd, 1994), 106. 121. Chariots of Fire, directed by Hugh Hudson (1981; Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation). 122. Gordon Preece, “‘When I Run I Feel God’s Pleasure’: Towards a Protestant Play Ethic,” in Sport & Spirituality: An Exercise in Everyday Theology, eds. Gordon Preece and Rob Hess (Adelaide: ATF Press, 2006), 25. 123. Dr Robert Ellis, personal communication, 12 July 2017. 124. Billy Baker, “The Biggest Threat Facing Middle-Age Men Isn’t Smoking or Obesity. It’s Loneliness,” Boston Globe, March 9, 2017, https​:/​/ww​​w​.bos​​tongl​​obe​ .c​​om​/ma​​gazin​​e​/201​​7​/03/​​09​/th​​e​-big​​gest-​​threa​​t​-fac​​ing​-m​​iddle​​-age-​​men​-i​​sn​-sm​​oking​​ -obes​​ity​-l​​oneli​​ness/​​k6s​aC​​9FnnH​​QCUbf​​5mJ8o​​kL​/st​​ory​.h​​tml; Steve Biddulph, “Real Male Friends,” in Manhood, 155–167; Sarah Berry, “Millions of Men Have ‘No Close Friends’,” 16 November 2015, https​:/​/ww​​w​.stu​​ff​.co​​.nz​/l​​ife​-s​​tyle/​​74095​​155​/m​​ illio​​ns​-of​​-men-​​have-​​​no​-cl​​ose​-f​​riend​s

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Gauge, Steven. My Life as a Hooker: When a Middle-Aged Bloke Discovered Rugby. West Sussex, UK: Summersdale Publishers Ltd., 2012. Gifford, Phil. Looking after Your Nuts and Bolts: Phil Gifford’s Kiwi Men’s Health. Takapuna: Upstart Press, 2017. Goheen, Michael, and Craig Bartholomew. Living at the Crossroads: An Introduction to Christian Worldview. London: SPCK, 2008. Gregory, Michele Rene. “Inside the Locker Room: Male Homosociability in the Advertising Industry.” Gender, Work & Organization 16 no. 3 (May 2009): 323–347. Holmes, Janet. “Humour and the Construction of Māori Leadership at Work.” Leadership 3 no. 1 (2007): 5–27. Horton, Michael S. “My Father’s World,” Monergism. https​:/​/ww​​w​.mon​​ergis​​m​.com​​ /my​-f​​ather​​​s​-wor​​ld#. Howitt, Bob. Beegee: The Bryan Williams Story. Auckland: Rugby Press Ltd, 1981. Hua, Zhua. “Identifying Research Paradigms.” In Research Methods in Intercultural Communication: A Practical Guide, 3–22. Edited by Zhu Hua. Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2016. Kilmartin, Christopher T. The Masculine Self. 2nd ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000. Kwast, Lloyd E. “Understanding Culture.” In Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: A Reader, C-4–C-6, rev. ed. Edited by Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne. Pasadena: Willam Carey Library, 1992. Liu, Katy W. Y. “Humor Styles, Self-Esteem and Subjective Happiness.” Discovery 1 (2012): 21–41. Martin, Rod A. The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Academic Press, 2007. McCall, Rupert. “Why We Play the Game.” http:​/​/www​​.brot​​hersr​​ugbym​​ackay​​.com.​​ au​/ru​​gby​-r​​eve​la​​tions​/. McConnell, Robin. Iceman: The Michael Jones Story. Auckland: Rugby Press Ltd, 1994. McEwan, Jamie Kane. “Humour Styles and their Relationships with Wellbeing and Social Support, and an Introduction to Reappraisal Theory.” Unpublished Master of Science in Psychology Thesis, Massey University, 2013. McGee, Greg. Foreskin’s Lament. Wellington: Price Milburn with Victoria University Press, 1981. Messner, Michael A. “Like Family: Power, Intimacy, and Sexuality in Male Athletes’ Friendships.” In Men’s Friendships, 215–237. Edited by Peter M. Nardi. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992. ———. “Playing Center: The Triad of Violence in Men’s Sport.” In Taking the Field: Women, Men, and Sports, 27–62. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002. Moody, Dwight L. A College of Colleges. Edited by T. J. Shanks. Chicago: Fleming H. Revell, 1887. Nauright, John. “Sustaining Masculine Hegemony: Rugby and the Nostalgia of Masculinity.” In Making Men: Rugby and Masculine Identity, 227–244. Edited by John Nauright and Timothy J. E. Chandler. London: Frank Cass & Co, Ltd., 1996.

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Nicholls, Todd R. The Winter Game: Rediscovering the Passion for Rugby. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 2006. Phillips, Jock. A Man’s Country? The Image of the Pakeha Male-A History. Rev. ed. Auckland, New Zealand: Penguin, 1996. Pleck, Joseph H. “Men’s Power with Women, Other Men, and Society: A Men’s Movement Analysis.” In Feminism and Masculinities, 57–68. Edited by Peter Murphy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Plester, Barbara. The Complexity of Workplace Humour: Laughter, Jokers and the Dark Side of Humour. Heidelberg: Springer, 2016. ———. “‘Take it like a Man!’: Performing Hegemonic Masculinity through Organizational Humour.” Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization 15 no. 3 (August 2015): 537–559. Preece, Gordon. “‘When I Run I Feel God’s Pleasure’: Towards a Protestant Play Ethic.” In Sport & Spirituality: An Exercise in Everyday Theology, 25–48. Edited by Gordon Preece and Rob Hess. Adelaide: ATF Press, 2006. Pringle, Richard, and Pirkko Markula. “No Pain Is Sane After All: A Foucauldian Analysis of Masculinities and Men’s Experiences in Rugby.” Sociology of Sport Journal 22 no. 4, (2005): 472–497. Pringle, Richard. “Rugby (amateur).” In Encyclopedia of Play: In Today’s Society. Edited by R. Carlisle, 613. London: Sage, 2009. ———. “Sport, Males and Masculinities.” In Sport in Aotearoa New Zealand Society, 355–380, 2nd ed. Edited by C. Collins and S. Jackson. South Melbourne: Dunmore Press, 2007. Raynor, John D. An Understanding of Judaism. Providence, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1997. Romero, Eric J., and Kevin W. Cruthirds. “The Use of Humor in the Workplace.” Academic Management Perspectives 20 no. 2 (2006): 58–69. Roy, Steven C. “Embracing Social Justice: Refections from the Story of Scripture.” Trinity Journal 30 no. 1 (2009): 3–48. Schacht, Steven P. “Misogyny On and Off the “Pitch”: The Gendered World of Rugby Players.” Gender and Society 10 no. 5, (1996), 550–565. Sendjaya, Sen. Personal and Organizational Excellence through Servant Leadership: Learning to Serve, Serving to Lead, Leading to Transform. New York: Springer International Publishing, 2015. Shafer, Michael. Well Played: A Christian Theology of Sport and the Ethics of Doping. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2015. Shields, David. “Rethinking Competition,” 14 April 2010. http:​/​/tru​​ecomp​​etiti​​on​.or​​g​ /res​​ource​​s​/ret​​hinki​​ng​-co​​​mpeti​​tion/​. Simon, Robert L., Cesar R. Torres, and Peter F. Hager. Fair Play: The Ethics of Sport. Boulder, CO: Westview Press 2015. Sternod, Brandon. “Come out and Play: Confronting Homophobia in Sports.” In Learning Culture through Sports: Perspectives on Society and Organized Sports, 92–106, 2nd ed. Edited by Sandra Spickard Prettyman and Brian Lampman. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefeld Publishers, 2011.

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Stott, John. “LOP 3: The Lausanne Covenant: An Exposition and Commentary” (Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization: 1975). http:​/​/www​​.laus​​anne.​​org​/ a​​ll​-do​​cumen​​ts​/l​o​​p​-3​.h​​tml Sussman, Rachelle. “Major League Baseball and the Cultural Politics of Sexuality.” In Pimps, Wimps, Studs, Thugs and Gentlemen: Essays on Media Images of Masculinity, 277–298. Edited by Elwood Watson. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2009. Treat, Jeremy R. “More than a Game: A Theology of Sport.” Themelios 40 no. 3 (December 2015): 392–403. Vaccarino, Franco, Heather Kavan, and Philip Gendall. “Spirituality and Religion in the Lives of New Zealanders,” The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society 1 no. 2 (2011): 85–96. Vicars, Andrew. “Rugby, School Boys and Masculinities: In an American School in Taiwan.” MSpLS thesis, The University of Waikato, 2008. Watson, Nick J. “Muscular Christianity in the Modern Age: ‘Winning for Christ’ or ‘Playing for Glory’?” In Sport and Spirituality: An Introduction, 80–94. Edited by Jim Parry, Simon Robinson, Nick J. Watson, and Mark Nesti. Oxon: Routledge, 2007. ———. “Special Olympians as a ‘Prophetic sign’ to the Modern Sporting Babel.” In Sports and Christianity: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, 24–48. Edited by Nick J. Watson and Andrew Parker. New York: Routledge, 2013. Watson, Nick J., and Andrew Parker, “Sport and Christianity: Mapping the Field.” In Sports and Christianity: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, 9–80. Edited by Nick J. Watson and Andrew Parker. Oxon: Routledge, 2013. Wood, Desmond. New Zealand: Rugby Country—How the Game Shaped Our Nation. Auckland: Bateman, 2017. Wood, Julia T. Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, and Culture, 8th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2009. Zavos, Spiro. How to Watch a Game of Rugby. Wellington: Awa Press, 2004.

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Chapter 10

Helping Churchgoers to Develop a Healthy Relationship with Sport Pastoral Stories from the Hospital Wards, the Slow Lane, and the Mountain Tops

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Philip Halstead

To mention the topic of sport to any group of churchgoers is to evoke a wide variety of retorts. Many congregants will instantly warm to the theme, for to them sport is a source of pleasure, comradery, health, and life. Afcionados will food us with torrents of statistics and stories. Others will pine for the glory days, since they are no longer able to participate in sport as they once did. A few might yawn. Certain individuals will refexively bend their knees to their god of sport, their idol, their religion while others will consciously or unconsciously bristle, as they fear that their source of identity or mode of escape is about to be assailed. For many of these people, sport is sacrosanct. Proselytists will praise God for sport and view it as an internationally recognized language, a place of connection, and a springboard to evangelism. While still another group of worshippers will stiffen, because they deem sport to be an anathema and a temptation direct from the devil. How are we to interpret this staggering diversity? Can it be attributed to our different personality types, histories, cultures, or interpretations of scripture? Could our ambivalence also be due to the mixed ways that the church has viewed sport over time? Lincoln Harvey responds to this question and identifes three primary perspectives that the church has adopted towards sport: First, from the earliest days of the Church . . . Christians have struggled with sport. Sport has been opposed and denounced at regular intervals from pulpits, Councils and imperial thrones. Sometimes seen as a distraction from true discipleship, sometimes identifed as a lethal idolatrous practice, the Church has 193

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argued that all manner of sin lurks within it: false sacrifce, gambling, pride, vanity, prowess and the like, a litany of vice from which Christians must fee . . . The Church denounces and separates. Sport is dangerous in the Christian life. Second, we have seen that the Church . . . never quite manages to erase sport from the life of the community. Sport, it seems, is unstoppably popular. Third, in recognizing the popularity of sport, we have seen that the Church has often had to embrace it, essentially trying to fnd a use for it, often missionary, sometimes soteriological, though regularly little more than a recognition that games are better for the masses than drinking and fghting. Accepted only conditionally, the immovable object of sport is harnessed to the Christian mission. Sport is used.1

In the light of these disparate interpretations of sport and the central place that it holds in so many of our lives, this study sets out to address what can only be described as a pressing question for many pastoral leaders—namely, how can pastoral caregivers2 assist churchgoers to develop a healthy relationship with sport? To craft a meaningful response to this question, I frst introduce three Christian men who were, formerly, passionate swimmers. This is followed by a discussion of their replies to research questions concerning their swimming careers and interconnected faith journeys. These responses are then used to help craft a three-point template that responds to the key question posed above.

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INTRODUCING THE PARTICIPANTS The swimming careers of the study’s interviewees could not have been more diverse. James was forced to stop swimming due to a major injury that he sustained whilst training.3 This setback contributed to three suicide attempts. I am the second person who, despite a lack of any genuine swimming ability, turned swimming into an idol. Paul, the third interviewee, medaled at the Olympics. James’s Narrative James started swimming when his parents took him to the local swim club at the age of eight. His Christian father had been a competitive swimmer, but he never reached his full potential, as he was forced to work in his parents’ family business. He frmly believed that swimming was the optimal sport and means for building ftness, confdence, and discipline into his children’s lives and his stated goal for James was that he must reach his full potential. Fortunately, James liked swimming, the people he swam with, and the fact

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that he seemed to be a natural in the water. Within a short time, he began to compete in local Level Three swim meets and without ever fully comprehending what was taking place, he steadily progressed through the ranks to the point of becoming a regular competitor at national age-group swimming championships. In every competition, and especially his favored butterfy events, James performed admirably. Shortly after James fnished school, he sustained an acute lower back injury whilst lifting weights and consequently was unable to exercise, swim, or compete. In the ensuing weeks and months, James’s well-being plummeted. He isolated himself, became depressed, was prescribed medication for his depression, and ceased to take the anabolic steroids that he had been surreptitiously taking to gain that extra edge in the pool. Making matters worse, he began to put on weight and his girlfriend ended their relationship. James felt that the cumulative effect of these debilitating factors, coupled with his silence and shame concerning them, contributed greatly to his suicidal ideation. Tragically, he acted on these thoughts on three separate occasions and twice ended up in hospital as a result. Fortuitously, James’s situation has turned around signifcantly in the last few years. He reported, “When I was depressed nothing mattered, nothing helped. I was alone. Or so I thought. I can’t believe that it came to the brink of death before I very, very slowly began to turn a corner. I think three things saved me. First, I was defeated and gave up trying to fght my problems alone. Second, the verse “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28) kept coming to mind. It made me think maybe, just maybe, a slither of good could emerge from my mess. And thirdly, a pastor at my church stuck by me. His non-judgmental listening and unwavering belief that my situation would turn around made all the difference.” And mercifully, James’s life did turn around. He gained hope. Nowadays, James is an apprentice coach in his old swim club, a youth group leader in his church, and a regular (but he swears not religious) attendee at his local gym. Phil’s Narrative I was born with next to no athletic ability. Throughout my childhood, I typically came last in every physical-orientated activity and contest that I participated in. In the sports-loving culture that I grew up in, I found this reality extremely emasculating and diffcult to cope with. During these formative school years, I idolized a friend who was a very successful age-group swimmer. He was also one of those rare individuals who appeared to excel at everything he put his hand to. I wanted to be like him. But I was not. I did not know how to swim, so the only way that I could

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emulate him was in my fantasy life. There, I swam like a fsh, was a hero, and mitigated my pain and shame. My unprocessed father wound also fuelled my delusions of grandeur in this season. Even though my father deeply loved me and was a wonderful Christian on multiple levels, I was unable to recognize this for many years. One reason for my blindness was that I perceived he deemed that Christian, educated, and athletic men equated to the epitome of manhood and I missed the mark on all these accounts. A second was the fact that he was frequently absent from my life. For example, I played hundreds of games of hockey throughout my school years, but he only came to watch me play once, and even on this occasion he arrived late. And a third cause was that my father struggled with an undiagnosed Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) throughout these years. This reality and its ramifcations had a particularly corrosive effect on me. To escape my frustration, hurt, and shame, I repeatedly escaped into my imaginary world where, once again, I swam like a fsh and was heralded a real man. As a twenty-two-year-old, I decided to enter a triathlon. However, there was one major problem: I still could not swim. Consequently, I enrolled in some adult learn-to-swim lessons and, in January 1985, I competed in the Bay of Islands triathlon, which started with a 1500-meter swim. As we were waiting for the start gun to go I observed a man tying a dog to a dingy on the beach. Apparently, a few minutes after the race started the dog got free and followed its owner into the water. The dog swam around the entire course, overtook me, and led me out of the water by a few minutes! Interestingly, neither this ego-puncturing experience, nor a sporting injury in which I lost the use of my left leg for four months and from which I have never fully recovered, deterred me from swimming. I loved to swim, and I continued to train in the slow lanes of swim squads for the next thirty-one years until my struggle with Parkinson’s forced me to retire from swimming. Paul’s Narrative Like James, Paul Kingsman4 started to swim when he was eight years old but, unlike James, Paul chose to swim. Accordingly, his parents took him to the local swimming pool and asked the head coach, Hilton Brown,5 if Paul could join the squad. In response, Hilton asked Paul if he could swim. Paul replied in his characteristic positive tone that he could, so Hilton said if you can swim a lap you can join. Paul jumped in, began to swim, but only made it to half way. All was not lost though, as the ever-astute coach saw something promising in Paul. He told Paul that he could join and thus began a remarkable ffteen-year relationship between this swimmer and his mentor. Seven years later in 1982, Paul qualifed for the Brisbane Commonwealth Games6 as a ffteen-year-old. He was the youngest New Zealander ever to

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compete at the Commonwealth Games at the time. He made the 200-meter backstroke fnal. In 1984, Paul competed at the Los Angeles Olympic Games where he placed tenth in the 100-meter backstroke. In 1986, he won a silver medal in the 100- and 200-meter backstroke events at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games. He was also awarded a scholarship to the University of California Berkeley where he studied and swam. In 1988, Paul returned to New Zealand for six months to train for the Seoul Olympics under the guidance of Hilton Brown. The two men developed a radical training system that was designed to bring Paul to his optimum condition for the Olympics and they succeeded! At 2:35 pm on September 22, 1988, Paul swam his way into the history books by winning the bronze medal in the 200-meter backstroke fnal at the Seoul Olympics. What a staggering mountain top achievement that only a miniscule handful of individuals ever get to experience. Paul decided to swim for two more years, so that he could fnish his competitive career in his home town at the Auckland Commonwealth Games in 1990. Although his build-up for the Games was less than ideal, he still managed to win two medals. In the same year, Paul was awarded the prestigious MBE7 for his services to swimming. Since 1990, Paul’s story of success has continued in other felds. He became the New Zealand national sales and marketing manager for Speedo sportswear. He then set up and operated his own swim school in Auckland. In 2001, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with his American wife and their son, gained further academic qualifcations, and worked for Morgan Stanley, a leading global fnancial services frm. Nowadays, Paul lives in America and works as a professional motivational speaker, a pastor, and an executive coach in the fnancial services industry. He continues to exercise moderately for health reasons. THE PARTICIPANTS’ RESPONSES TO THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS To these three Christian swimmers, I put three core questions to help answer my central research question—namely, how can pastoral caregivers assist churchgoers to develop a healthy relationship with sport? What was your relationship to God like when you were swimming? When James refected on his connection with God whilst swimming, he said, “I’m embarrassed to say it now, but swimming trumped God. Church was a regular part of our family weekend routine unless there was a swim meet. And there were a lot of swim meets. When there were clashes, I swam.

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Church and God seemed to be far more forgiving of my absences than my swim coaches and my dad. By the age of thirteen I was totally sold out to swimming and the swimming lifestyle, which equated to ten training sessions per week. I thought of nothing but swimming. I was totally addicted. Swimming was my master, not God.” For me, both God and swimming were important when I swam. However, if my fantasy life and decision-making processes were used as a plumb line to reveal whether God or swimming took precedence during this time, they would divulge that swimming regularly eclipsed God and others. For instance, swimming dominated my daydreams (e.g., I spent countless hours nurturing grandiose thoughts in which I was the best swimmer on the planet) and it determined our holiday destinations (e.g., I always wanted to holiday near a pool or beach where I could swim). In fact, I must confess that the lure of surrendering my heart to swimming has probably been the most persistent temptation I have faced in my Christian life. If I had not sustained a major injury in my late twenties that forced me to drastically reduce my training, I am confdent I would have pursued swimming to the detriment of God and everything else that I hold dear. From the beginning, Paul felt very close to God when he swam. He “prayed when training and prayed when racing.” He explained, “I was always aware of God watching and seeing me . . . God had gifted me to do a job and do it well, clinically! My job was to push myself as hard as I could and rely on God to bless and guide me as He saw ft.” Paul also stated, “I never felt any tension between God and my swimming. I always felt that this was what He had gifted me to do. Eric Liddell said, ‘God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure. I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast!’8 That’s exactly how I felt when I was swimming. But it is also the same for whatever we do. Excellence at whatever level in sport is between you and God and doesn’t need to be about winning or being at the Olympics. Look to feel His pleasure in your pursuit.” The participants’ accounts remind me of the famous adage, “All roads lead to Rome.” For Paul, swimming was a path that led him to God and a place of intimate connection with God. Whereas, James’ story and my story both indicate that all the roads that lead to Rome are also the very same roads that lead away from Rome! In keeping with this way of thinking, one can argue that sport, like numerous other concepts and activities, is neutral; the issue is what we associate and do with sport. Did you ever think about life after swimming when you were swimming? Neither James nor I wanted to stop swimming. James expressed that swimming was such an essential part of his life that he never imagined what life

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after swimming could be like. He explained, “I was a swimmer throughand-through. Everyone knows the health benefts of swimming and regular exercise. I knew of no reason why I would or should fnish. When I stopped everything turned to custard.” The only reason James ceased to swim was because of his injury. Comparably, the chief reason that I fnally stopped swimming was the cramp-like symptoms I experienced connected with Parkinson’s. I never anticipated stopping swimming. Why should I? I was a swimmer. I loved swimming. I loved the people I swam with. Change was not on James’s or my agenda. Conversely, Paul determined well in advance of the Auckland Commonwealth Games that he would retire at the completion of the Games. He stated, “I didn’t know exactly what life after swimming would look like; however, I always knew that God had me in His hand. I loved speaking to all sorts of audiences and groups. I knew from early in life that God had blessed me with the gift of encouragement and that I would use that for Him no matter where I went, so I was always interested to see where that would be. While I’d wondered how it would feel retiring, I knew I wouldn’t be like some athletes who experienced depression when they were done. My identity was never in my sport; my identity was in Jesus Christ. I appreciated it would take some time to recalibrate into a normal life routine, so to speak. I realized I’d miss being in the physical condition I’d experienced, yet I knew I wouldn’t miss the time it took to maintain it . . . it was a case of moving on to the next phase of life.” These responses spotlight the effect of sport on identity formation. As is well documented, James is not the only athlete who has struggled with depression and/or suicidal ideation when his or her sporting career ends. Prominent examples in the context of Australasian Rugby League and Rugby Union include Nathan Blacklock’s battle with depression and suicide attempts,9 Dan Vickerman’s suicide in early 2017,10 and the statistics that reveal a third of retiring rugby players struggle with and are unprepared for retirement.11 Rob Nicol, the head of the New Zealand Rugby Players’ Association, thinks that a key reason for this is that a rugby player’s “identity could be solely linked to sport.”12 This leads to the following questions. “What steps can be taken to help people gain a more balanced view of sport?” And, “How can sports women and men be led to a place where, like Paul, their relationship with God is their priority and their identities are grounded in Christ?” What Christian tradition says about this is discussed below. Do you have a theology of sport? Each participant stated that God likes sport, for “the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” (Ps 24:1). James passionately declared, “God’s into sport.

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Sport isn’t the problem. People are. I was. Sport is good. God encourages us to do all things in moderation; to show restraint; to live balanced lives; to enjoy recreation, fun, good times, and people doing things together. The problem is allowing sport to rule our lives, to become an idol, to be God. The issue is me, us, and our sport- and body-worshipping culture, a culture that worships sporting success, muscles, low body-fat, youthfulness, and appearance.” James also said, “I think the devil has seen that sport is New Zealand’s or at least my Achilles heel. Thus, the devil perverts sport by suggesting that sport can meet all our needs and entices us to make an idol out of a good thing. We need to engage with sport on God’s terms and not look to sport to provide us with what only God can give us.” The notions of balance and self-control link with this discussion. Paul, James, and I invested a great quantity of time into swimming, yet our narratives reveal that Paul was the only one of us who managed to maintain a healthy balance between God, sport, and other aspects of his life during his swimming career. Signifcantly, Paul kept these concepts in focus when he swam, and James and I did not. Paul explained that the swimmers at the University of California, Berkeley, viewed themselves like the “GrecoRoman original meaning of athlete” whereby “all bases are covered—a solid character, a strong mind, gentle yet determined, compassionate yet focused.” To maintain such balance requires self-control of which Paul said, “when you look at the spiritual fruits, self-control is the last listed (Gal 5:22–23), yet I would argue that the previous eight are not as easy to reach without self-control. Sport, especially at Olympic level, is all about self-control, of the body and the mind. We’re told to control our mind and to have it renewed and think differently, predicated upon Christ.” In other words, Paul had an integrated theological view of sport. Swimming was part of his character formation and personal development; it also in a sense served the purposes of God. Consequently, he held swimming lightly and could let it go when he had fulflled his mission. As a result, he had no problems moving on to the next stage of his life. Many others of us have not been able to do this and we can only wonder what directions our lives might have taken if we had lived more balanced lives and surrendered ourselves to a larger calling. THE THREE-POINT TEMPLATE This study’s chief research question asked how pastoral caregivers can assist parishioners to develop a healthy relationship with sport. To craft a helpful and fexible response to this question, I sat with the narratives summarized above and considered how they connected with faith, practice,13 Christian

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tradition, the faith community’s experience, and culture.14 Over time, three overlapping responses emerged—namely, the need to prioritize discipleship, inner healing, and education.

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1. Prioritizing Discipleship The frst concept that pastoral caregivers can implement to aid churchgoers in developing a healthy relationship with sport is to train them in discipleship. This ought to be a no-brainer in churches. But is it? The rationale behind this strategy is straightforward: If we were committed disciples and Jesus was our frst priority, if we were to give him our hearts and allegiance, if we were to allow him to change us from the inside out, if we were to listen to his words and apply them in our lives and circumstances, we would invariably relate to sport in a more wholesome fashion. Colin Brown looks at the Greek meaning of the words disciple, follow, imitate, and after and offers the following defnitions. “A mathētēs (disciple) is one who has heard the call of Jesus and joins him.” The word akoloutheō (follow) signifes the actions of a person “answering the call of Jesus whose whole life is redirected in obedience.”15 It is noteworthy that Jesus often uses akoloutheō in the imperative, in that it is a “call to decisive and intimate discipleship of the earthly Jesus.”16 The term mimeomai (imitate) “mainly emphasizes the nature of a particular kind of behavior, modeled on someone else.” And the preposition opisō (after) “is characteristic of the call to follow Jesus.”17 Signifcantly, Jesus also pointed people “to the future dawn of the Kingdom of God (Luke 9:59 f.). To be a disciple of Jesus was an eschatological calling to help in the service of the ‘kingdom’ which is ‘at hand’ (Mark 1:15).”18 Thus, we see that genuine discipleship necessitates that Jesus, not sport, serves as the lodestar of our lives. With this clear focus, sport may legitimately be a major emphasis in some people’s lives. Others of us may need to reprioritize our lives and dial back the hours and attention that we give to sport. Still others may feel compelled to participate in an exercise program to extend Jesus’ kingdom. And large numbers in our mainly sedentary culture will need to commence an exercise program to experience some of the health benefts of sport such as stress reduction, improved sleep, and enhanced vascular function.19 However, regardless of what group we fnd ourselves in, we will all need to hold sport somewhat lightly and make Jesus Lord of our lives, not sport. This discussion links to the concept of surrender. For some people surrender is not a popular concept. In the context of discipleship, however, it is a mark of maturity and transformation. James surrendered his swimming to Jesus in the hospital wards after his suicide attempts and I resisted

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surrendering until my body broke. Paul modeled a better way. Throughout his swimming career he subsumed swimming and himself under the lordship of Jesus; as a result, his identity was grounded in Christ. Paul had a rich and diverse group of people in his life that helped him to both maintain his intimacy with God and keep a balanced approach to sport during his swimming career. They included his swimming coach who was ever-respectful of Paul’s faith, a “wonderful Christian family,” and “four great friends from church” who grew up together, supported one another, and protected each other every time one of them “came up with something hairbrained to pursue.” Don Oliver—a three-time Olympian in weightlifting and a Commonwealth Games Gold Medalist—also provided encouragement and mentorship for Paul. Don was thirty years older than Paul and whenever they met, they talked “Biblical and competition stuff.” In later years, Paul’s wife became the key member of this group. Not only were these people committed to Paul and his life as a disciple of Christ, but, signifcantly, Paul took their input onboard and made himself accountable to them. Caregivers wishing to assist persons to develop a healthy relationship with sport would do well to emulate this example and do all that they can to help graft parishioners into Christ-focused relationships. Sadly, I did not follow this path in my formative years. I allowed no one to get close to me on a heart level until I met my wife in my late-twenties and entered therapy in my mid-thirties. Consequently, in the frst twenty-seven years of my life, I alone determined how much time I should give to sport and I got it hopelessly wrong at times, whereby I trained up to fve hours a day. What makes this situation sadder is the fact that the man who introduced me to Jesus, discipled me for two years, and challenged me in this area. However, due to my defensive mechanisms, sins, and woundedness, his wonderful input was unable to penetrate my inner world and change me. Instead, my longing to be accepted and recognized by my father and peers, along with my identity struggles, rigidity, pain, and wounds, continued to drive me. This is to say that many churchgoers will never be able to prosper as disciples of Christ and develop a healthy relationship to sport unless they frst address their internal issues. 2. Inner Healing and Sport Christian Inner Healing is a powerful transformative ministry. Its goal “is to bring lost and foundering souls into wholeness in Christ. It is to see the wrecked and splintered pieces of their foundered ship not only repaired, but made for the frst time truly seaworthy, with Another (i.e., Christ) at the helm.”20 As such, Inner Healing is a “divine work bringing growth or positive spiritual change to painful or distorted perceptions, experiences, habits,

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or emotions of a person.”21 Similarly, it is a means of grace that enables release, correction, reframing of past events, the healing of memories, the application of forgiveness, and exchange.22 Let us look at how many of these stories started. Everyone knows that parents and/or primary caregivers have a profound effect on their children.23 Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger confrms this and argues that it “is an observable psychological phenomenon that whatever is not emotionally confronted and worked through in one generation will be passed on to the next.”24 Thus, it can be reasoned that James’ addiction to swimming can be linked in part to his father’s unfulflled swimming dreams, and analogously, my obsession with swimming may connect with my perception of my father’s defnition of manhood. And, of course, if we were to probe these infuences further, we would probably fnd that our fathers’ views of sport were shaped by their parents’ perceptions and certainly by the sports-loving cultures in which they were immersed. An awareness of familyof-origin and cultural issues can engender insight and compassion in people and serve as springboards towards forgiveness, healing, and a healthier view of sport. Similarly, it can be argued that both James’s father and my father sinned against us. They projected their unfulflled needs and desires onto us, and they did not help us to fnd our true selves or destinies. Daniel Migliore points out, “If being human in the image of God means being open to the coming of God’s kingdom, then sin is the denial of human destiny as appointed by God.”25 Presumably, James’s father did not consider God’s will for James or James’s gifts when he decided that James was going to be a champion swimmer. Comparably, many parents inadvertently and advertently neglect the psychological, emotional, physical, and spiritual development and wellbeing of their children and simply carry on with their own lives. Such disregard and abandonment leave an inner emptiness which many children go on to fll with substitute people or activities like swimming and as a result wound themselves and others. In the light of my father’s absence, which I ascribed to his unwillingness and/or inability to face his OCD, I concluded that I was a failure as a male and I escaped into a fantasy world and endless hours of physical training. To heal wounds and habits like these, people need to heed their wounds, grieve their losses, work through a process of forgiveness, and receive healing prayer. The resultant healing can liberate persons to adjust their relationships with sport and other key aspects of life. Still, there is also patently the need for the likes of James and me to accept personal culpability for our own sins and decisions. Plainly, we have both been guilty of idolatry. We turned something good like swimming into an idol, allowed sport to supplant the one true God, and worshipped created

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objects instead of the Creator. The negative ramifcations of our idolatry may never be fully known, but clearly, it cannot all be attributed to our fathers. What is needed in instances like these is repentance and education. To repent, we need to be “sorry for the hurt we have caused the Lord and others by what has lodged in our hearts and by what we have done (or not done); it is being willing to die to what we have been, and allowing God to change us into what He wants us to be.”26 And education in this instance might entail teaching individuals to distinguish between authentic worship and celebration. Lincoln Harvey puts it this way: “Worship celebrates who God is. Sport celebrates who we are. It is our liturgical celebration of our graced selves.”27 In other words, repentance can free us to worship the Creator and celebrate the created properly. Object Relations Theory posits that we internalize what we experience, especially in our formative relationships, and that these internal evolving objects become the lenses through which we view and interact with the world.28 Theological discussions of sin reveal that sin, and particularly unconfessed and unprocessed sin, distorts our view of everything. Until churchgoers face these facts, until they are equipped to address their internal issues, they will remain unhealed. Many will also continue to relate to sport inappropriately and build their identities on shifting sand or unstable foundations such as sport, instead of on the sure foundation of Christ.

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3. Educating Parishioners about Sport Nelson Mandela believed that “education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world.”29 If pastoral caregivers were to observe this charge and educate their parishioners about the sport-related themes discussed above, vast good could occur. As we have seen, this could include explorations of the church’s three historical views of sport—namely, sport is dangerous, unstoppably popular, and to be used for Christian mission. Teaching could also explore how sport can help people to connect with God, the health benefts of sport, as well as the inevitability of change in people’s lives and how to transition from one season to another. Additionally, education could focus on the perils of idolatry, the priority of discipleship, the place of inner healing as it connects with sport, and the importance of securing our identities in God and not sport. There is also the scope to explore more contentious questions such as whether God works through sports injuries and general illnesses to draw people closer to himself (cf. Pss 119: 67, 71, 75)? Education on sport can occur on many levels. Conferences on sport and faith could be held. Sermons can be preached. Discipleship programs might be launched. Church leaders could connect parishioners with mature Christians who mentor them in the ways of balance, self-control, and change.

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Books may be recommended. And the benefts of inner healing can be modeled and promulgated. Churches could also invite the likes of Paul, James, and myself to share their stories, as stories connect people, convey instruction in less-threatening ways, inspire, and assist persons to get in touch with their own issues. Paul has been sharing with all kinds of church groups for decades. In doing so, he regularly uses biblical insights to accentuate his points. He explained this as follows: “For me, pursuing sporting excellence went hand in hand with pursuing spiritual excellence . . . I often speak on the Parable of the Talents (Matt 25:14–30) and verses like Ecclesiastes 9:10: ‘Whatever your hand fnds to do, do it with all your heart.’ Jesus wants us to commit everything we do in life to Him. We go at once and put to work everything He has given us. We work honestly and diligently for Him and there are no short cuts. Sport is exactly like this. Like much of what God has created, sport is a great metaphor for the Christian race of faith. And just like sport, the medals aren’t awarded until the race is done. Medals in my four-lap race (i.e., the 200-metre backstroke) weren’t handed out at the end of the third lap. If they had been, I wouldn’t have one. The race isn’t over until we see our Lord again; either through death or His return.” Paul’s incredible story, character, and principles also connect extremely well with people beyond the church walls. If we were to follow Paul’s lead and use sport to connect with people in our sports-loving cultures much good could occur. Crudge, Nelson, and Johnson put it this way: communication in its most basic form “is the establishment of common ground in terms of shared understanding. If there is no common ground, there is an inability to reach shared understanding, which, in turn, means there will be an inability to communicate effectively.”30 For many, sport is that common ground.

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SUMMARY While there are seemingly as many views on sport as there are people on the planet, and although I am a fan of sport and especially swimming, it is always important to keep the main idea in focus. Robert Ellis does this well when he says, Salvation is a process which encompasses human fourishing in many forms in time and eternity and which has its origin in God’s loving grace. It is a journey, rather than a one-off event, and sport can be an element in that process of God’s saving activity even when it is not a moment of conscious faith in God, and it can be an instance of the prevenient work of divine grace in the human heart which is part of salvation itself.31

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It is my hope that this chapter and book will help churchgoers to keep God— and not sport or play—central. I also trust that this offering will encourage us to cease judging others regarding their connection or lack thereof with sport and play. Rather, what I long for is that people will be encouraged to remain open to God’s leading concerning sport (and every area of life). Clearly, I pray too that this contribution might assist pastoral caregivers to help churchgoers to develop a healthy relationship to sport. If these points were heeded, if discipleship, inner healing, and education were championed in the church, I am extremely hopeful that sport would take its rightful place in people’s lives. This, no doubt, will look different in each of our lives and for some it might happen as they swim.

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NOTES 1. Lincoln Harvey, A Brief Theology of Sport (London: SCM Press, 2014), 56. 2. The term, pastoral caregivers, is used in a broad sense; it represents all professional and lay church leaders. 3. James’s story is a fctitious composite based on my experience of talking with numerous swimmers, family members of swimmers, and pastoral counselling clients. I chose this mode of narrating due to the sensitive nature of James’ all too common story. 4. Permission was sought and obtained from Paul to interview him and use his responses for this study via personal correspondence on 10 May 2017. 5. A copy of this chapter was sent to Hilton Brown to seek his permission to identify him as I have. Hilton granted permission to do so via personal correspondence on 12 June 2018. 6. The Commonwealth Games occur every four years. The countries that comprise the Commonwealth were formerly part of the British Empire and are nowadays in some way linked to Great Britain. See “What are the Commonwealth Games and who takes part?” BBC Newsround, 27 March 2018, http://www​.bbc​.co​.uk​/newsround​ /24331873 7. MBE stands for The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. MBEs are awarded to people for outstanding achievements and/or service to the community. See Victoria Howard, “Tell me about the British honours system—what’s an MBE anyway?” The Crown Chronicles, 27 January 2017, https​:/​/ww​​w​.the​​crown​​chron​​icles​​ .co​.u​​k​/exp​​lanat​​ion​/t​​he​-br​​itish​​-hono​​urs​-s​​ystem​​-what​​s​-an-​​obe​-m​​be​-cb​​​e​-kni​​ghtho​​od​-in​​ vesti​​ture/​ 8. See “God made me fast,” Segment from Chariots of Fire, 19 April 2016, Video, 1:02, https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/w​​atch?​​v​=ile​​​5PD34​​SS0 9. Nathan Blacklock was the National Rugby League’s (NRL) top try scorer from 1999 to 2001. He had to retire from all sports in 2006 due to a knee injury. See Isabella Higgins, “Nathan Blacklock speaks on wanting to end own life at World Suicide Day Prevention Forum,” ABC News, 10 September 2015, http:​/​/www​​.abc.​​

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net​.a​​u​/new​​s​/201​​5​-09-​​10​/fo​​rmer-​​nrl​-s​​tar​-n​​athan​​-blac​​klock​​-spea​​ks​-ou​​t​-​spo​​rts​-c​​ultur​​e ​ /676​​6438 10. Dan Vickerman played 63 tests for the Wallabies, Australia’s National Rugby team. See Stephen Hewson, “Wallaby’s death prompts NZ players to seek help,” Radio New Zealand, 22 February 2017, https​:/​/ww​​w​.rad​​ionz.​​co​.nz​​/news​​/spor​​t​/325​​ 116​/w​​allab​​y​%27s​​-deat​​h​-pro​​mpts-​​nz​-pl​​​ayers​​-to​-s​​eek​-h​​elp 11. Hewson, “Wallaby’s death,” n.p. 12. Hewson, “Wallaby’s death,” n.p. 13. Emmanuel Y. Lartey, “Practical Theology as a Practical Form,” in The Blackwell Reader in Pastoral and Practical Theology, eds. James Woodward and Stephen Pattison; Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 128–134, 129. 14. James D. Whitehead and Evelyn Eaton Whitehead, Method in Ministry: Theological Refection and Christian Ministry, rev. ed. (Lanham, MD: Sheed and Ward, 1995), 22. 15. Colin Brown, “Disciple, Follow, Imitate, After,” in New Testament Theology. Vol. A–F, rev. ed., ed. Colin Brown et al. (Exeter, Devon: The Paternoster Press, 1986), 480. 16. Dietrich Müller, “Akoloutheo, Follow,” in New Testament Theology. Vol. A-F, rev. ed., ed. Colin Brown et al. (Exeter, Devon: The Paternoster Press, 1986), 480–483, 482. 17. Colin Brown, “Disciple, Follow, Imitate, After,” 480. 18. Dietrich Müller, “Akoloutheo, Follow,” 482. 19. Dale E. Bredesen, The End of Alzheimer’s: The First Program to Prevent and Reverse Cognitive Decline (New York: Avery, 2017), 191. 20. Leanne Payne, The Healing Presence: How God’s Grace Can Work in You to Bring Healing in Your Broken Places and the Joy of Living in His Love (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1989), xv. 21. Philip G. Monroe and George M. Schwab, “God as a Healer: A Closer Look at Biblical Images of Inner Healing with Guiding Questions for Counselors.” Journal of Psychology and Christianity 28 no. 2 (2009): 121–29, 121. 22. Adapted from Mike Flynn and Doug Gregg, Inner Healing: A Handbook for Helping Yourself and Others (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 15–20. 23. See for example Samuel Osherson, Finding Our Fathers: The Unfnished Business of Manhood (New York: The Free Press, 1986); and Curt Thompson, Anatomy of the Soul: Surprising Connections Between Neuroscience and Spiritual Practices that can Transform Your Life and Relationships (Carol Stream, IL: SaltRiver, 2010). 24. Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger, “Forgiving Abusive Parents: Psychological and Theological Considerations,” in Forgiveness and Truth: Explorations in Contemporary Theology, eds. Alistair McFadyen, Marcel Sarot, and Anthony Thiselton (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2001), 71–98, 81. 25. Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 133. 26. John Sandford and Mark Sandford, Deliverance and Inner Healing, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Chosen, 2008), 62–63.

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27. Harvey, A Brief Theology of Sport, xvi. 28. Adapted from Philip L. Culbertson, Caring for God’s People: Counseling and Christian Wholeness (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 74–77. 29. Nelson Mandela, “Nelson Mandela Quotes,” Speech at the launch of Mindset Network, 16 July 2003, https​:/​/ww​​w​.shm​​oop​.c​​om​/qu​​otes/​​autho​​rs​/ne​​l​son-​​mande​​la 30. Mike Crudge, Frances Nelson and Rosser Johnson, “Communication, Church and Society: A Story of Qualitative Enquiry.” Ecclesial Practices 3 (2016): 94–119, 118. 31. Robert Ellis, The Games People Play: Theology, Religion, and Sport (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2014), 290.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Bredesen, Dale E. The End of Alzheimer’s: The First Program to Prevent and Reverse Cognitive Decline. New York: Avery, 2017. Brown, Colin. “Disciple, Follow, Imitate, After.” In New Testament Theology, 480. Vol. A–F. Rev. ed. Edited by Colin Brown et al. Exeter, Devon: The Paternoster Press, 1986. Crudge, Mike, Frances Nelson, and Rosser Johnson, “Communication, Church and Society: A Story of Qualitative Enquiry.” Ecclesial Practices 3 (2016): 94–119. Culbertson, Philip L. Caring for God’s People: Counseling and Christian Wholeness. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000. Ellis, Robert. The Games People Play: Theology, Religion, and Sport. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2014. Flynn, Mike, and Doug Gregg. Inner Healing: A Handbook for Helping Yourself and Others. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993. “God made me fast.” Segment from Chariots of Fire. 19 April 2016. Video, 1:02. https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/w​​atch?​​v​=ile​​​5PD34​​SS0. Harvey, Lincoln. A Brief Theology of Sport. London: SCM Press, 2014. Hewson, Stephen. “Wallaby’s death prompts NZ players to seek help.” Radio New Zealand, 22 February 2017. https​:/​/ww​​w​.rnz​​.co​.n​​z​/new​​s​/spo​​rt​/32​​5​116/​​walla​​by’sde​ath-p​rompt​s-nz-​playe​rs-to​-seek​-help​. Higgins, Isabella. “Nathan Blacklock speaks on wanting to end own life at World Suicide Day Prevention Forum.” ABC News. 10 September 2015. http:​/​/www​​ .abc.​​net​.a​​u​/new​​s​/201​​5​-09-​​10​/fo​​rmer-​​nrl​-s​​tar​-n​​athan​​-blac​​klock​​-spea​​ks​-ou​​t​-sp​o​​rts​ -c​​ultur​​e​/676​​6438. Howard, Victoria. “Tell me about the British honours system—what’s an MBE anyway?” The Crown Chronicles. 27 January 2017. https​:/​/ww​​w​.the​​crown​​chron​​icles​​ .co​.u​​k​/exp​​lanat​​ion​/t​​he​-br​​itish​​-hono​​urs​-s​​ystem​​-what​​s​-an-​​obe​-m​​be​-cb​​​e​-kni​​ghtho​​od​ -in​​vesti​​ture/​ Lartey, Emmanuel Y. “Practical Theology as a Practical Form.” In The Blackwell Reader in Pastoral and Practical Theology, 128–134. Edited by James Woodward and Stephen Pattison. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000.

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Mandela, Nelson. “Nelson Mandela Quotes,” Speech at the launch of Mindset Network, July 16, 2003. https​:/​/ww​​w​.shm​​oop​.c​​om​/qu​​otes/​​autho​​rs​/ne​​lso​n-​​mande​​la. Migliore, Daniel L. Faith seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997. Monroe, Philip G., and George M. Schwab. “God as a Healer: A Closer Look at Biblical Images of Inner Healing with Guiding Questions for Counselors.” Journal of Psychology and Christianity 28 no. 2 (2009): 121–29. Müller, Dietrich. “Akoloutheo, Follow.” Pages 480–483 in New Testament Theology. Vol. A-F. Rev. ed. Edited by Colin Brown et al. Exeter, Devon: The Paternoster Press, 1986. Osherson, Samuel. Finding Our Fathers: The Unfnished Business of Manhood. New York: The Free Press, 1986. Payne, Leanne. The Healing Presence: How God’s Grace Can Work in You to Bring Healing in Your Broken Places and the Joy of Living in His Love. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1989. Sandford, John, and Mark Sandford. Deliverance and Inner Healing. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Chosen, 2008. Thompson, Curt. Anatomy of the Soul: Surprising Connections Between Neuroscience and Spiritual Practices that can Transform Your Life and Relationships. Carol Stream, IL: SaltRiver, 2010. van Deusen Hunsinger, Deborah. “Forgiving Abusive Parents: Psychological and Theological Considerations.” In Forgiveness and Truth: Explorations in Contemporary Theology, 71–98. Edited by Alistair McFadyen, Marcel Sarot, and Anthony Thiselton. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2001. “What are the Commonwealth Games and who takes part?” BBC Newsround, 27 March 2018, http://www​.bbc​.co​.uk​/newsround​/24331873. Whitehead James D., and Evelyn Eaton Whitehead. Method in Ministry: Theological Refection and Christian Ministry. Rev. ed. Lanham, MD: Sheed and Ward, 1995.

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Index

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Note: Page references for fgures and tables are italicized Aasgaard, Reidar, 60 ability, chaplain and, 77 Abrahams, Harold, 127 accountability, chaplain and, 77 Aeneid (Virgil), 61 AER: Memories of Old, 94 The Aetherlight: Chronicles of the Resistance, 96 affliative humor, 176 Ainsworth-Smith, Ian, 79 alien identity, 74 Allan, Ann, 143 allomythic games, 99, 100 allopolitical games, 99, 102 American Presbyterian Mission, 144 Anderson, Herbert, 177 Anglican Bible class unions, 143 Anglicans, 140–41 Anglican schools, 138 Anthony, Jason, 95–102 anthropology, 16, 32 antiperichōreō, 13 apartheid and rugby, 114–17 Aquinas, 45 Aristotle, 45

Ascent of Mt Carmel (John of the Cross), 102 Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE), 75 Association of Professional Chaplains, 75 Asura’s Wrath, 96 Athletes in Action, 78–79 Atkinson, Jay, 166, 169 attitude, chaplain and, 77 Auckland Baptist Harrier Club, 121 Auckland Baptist Tabernacle, 117, 120 Auckland Hockey Club, 146 Auckland Young Women’s movement, 148 Augustine, 45 Australian Rules Football, 157 Australian sporting culture, 157; macho stereotype of masculinity, 160 Australian sports chaplains/chaplaincy, 157–62; communicating gospel, 162; ministry of presence, 158–59, 161, 162; overview, 157–58; serving and listening, 161–62; subverting macho culture, 160–61, 162; worth and performance, 159–60 authority, chaplain and, 77

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Baptist Bible Class Union, 142 Baptists on sports in New Zealand, 111–28; as enemy to be fought, 112– 13; ethnicity and racism, 125–26; evangelism, 120–22; excessive sport, 118–19; gender, 124–25; as a gift to be enjoyed, 126–28; overview, 111–12; racing and gambling, 113– 14; rugby and apartheid, 114–17; Sunday sports, 117–18; a system to be redeemed, 122–24 Baptist Theological College, 116 Baptist Union Council, 114, 116 Barth, Karl, 9–10, 19 basketball, Bible classes and, 148 Baxter, Richard, 111–12 Beale, Kim, 122 Belich, James, 116 belonging, old rugby players and, 167–69 Berryman, Jerome, 98–99 Bible Class Chronicle, 147–48 Bible classes in New Zealand, 141– 49; camps, 145–46; formation, 141–42; initial debates, 143–45; as modifcation of existing practice, 141; overview, 137–38; sporting values, 142–43; sports, 146–48 Bible Training Institute (BTI), 145 black athletes/players, 125–26 Blamires, H. L., 141 Block, Jennifer, 81 Blomberg, Craig, 177 Boff, Leonardo, 13 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 126 The Book of Enoch, 97 Booths, 59 Bromell, David, 116 Bunyan, John, 111 Burke, Tony, 55 Burnett, Henry Beaumont, 146 Burton, Meg, 76, 84 Burton, Richard, 165 Butler, Cameron, 71

Calder, Jasper, 113–14 camaraderie, old rugby players and, 167–69 camps, Bible classes, 145–46 Canterbury Baptist Association, 117 cappellanus, 72 Carey Baptist College in Auckland, New Zealand, 2 Carr, Dianne, 100 Catholic Church, 111 Catholic working class, 141 CEDE, 83 Celsus, 60 celtic identity, 39 chapel, 72 chaplaincy, 72–73; gift of, 72–73; pastoral functions of, 76; as a profession, 73. See also sports chaplains/chaplaincy Chariots of Fire, 44, 127, 180 Chen, Jenova, 101 Cheng, Eva, 166, 171, 174 Cherrington, C. A., 140 children, 55–64; dolls and, 63–64; fgurines, 63; Graeco-Roman, 56–57, 60–63; Jewish, 57–60; objects of play, 63–64; overview, 55–56; roleplaying, 64 Chopra, Deepak, 98 chorein, 12 choreo, 12, 13 choreuo, 13 Christ. See Jesus Christ Christchurch Presbytery, 140 Christian anthropology, 32 Christian Endeavour Movement, 139 Christianity: Creator-creature distinction, 14–16; feasts and festivals, 10; Moltmann on, 10; orthodox, 12 Christology, 16 church: perspectives towards sport, 193–94. See also Baptists on sports in New Zealand

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Index

churchgoers, 193–205; discipleship, 201–2; education and, 204–5; inner healing and, 202–4; pastoral caregivers and, 197–205 church schools, 138 civilization, 32 Clark, Joseph, 120 class and identity, 38 class distinctions, 38 clean sports, 112 clinical pastoral education (CPE), 75 Coakley, Jay, 39, 124–25, 176 Codd, Kevin, 94 Cold War, 40, 115 Colenso, William, 146–47 collective identity, 34 colonial Baptists, 120 communal identity, 40 competition, 32; old rugby players and, 169–70 competitiveness, 173–74 conference, 2 Congar, Yves, 13 Cooneyite, 139–40 Cornwall, Susannah, 74 corruption, 123 Coubertin, Pierre de, 124 covert intimacy, 168 Crank, Warren, 71 Craven, Danie, 147 creation of God, 14–16, 33; goal of, 16; Moltmann on, 15; Rahner on, 14–15 cricket, 138; Bible classes, 146 Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály, 100 Cursed Mountain, 96 cycling, 36 Damascene, John, 12 dance. See divine dance Dance Mihaly Revolution, 98 Dance Praise, 98 Dante’s Inferno, 96 Darwin, Charles, 138 De Cou, Jessica, 19

213

De liberis educandis (Pseudo-Plutarch), 61 Deus ludens, 15 didactic games, 96–97. See also religious games digital gaming spaces, 93–94; religious games, 95–102; sacred orientation, 103–4 discipleship, 3, 201–2 divine dance, 13–14 divine love, 15, 16 dolls, 63–64 doxa, 73 Drummond, Henry, 144 Duina, Francesco, 40 Easter camps, 145 education, 204–5 Ellis, Chris, 43 Ellis, Robert, 123–25, 180, 205 El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, 97 English Premier League, 38 Enoh, Eyong, 44 Erdozain, Dominic, 122, 127 Erikson, Erik, 74 eutrapelia, 45 eutrapelian individuals, 45 Evangelicals, 111–12 evangelism, 120–22 evangelization, 60 Fables of Aesop, 61 faithful imagining, 56 Feezell, Randolph M., 21 Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), 79 festivals, Jewish children and, 58–59 Fiddes, Paul, 14 fgurines, 63 Flower, 98 football, 38; Bible classes and, 146–47 Fortnite Battle Royale, 97

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Galilee, 56, 62–63 gambling, Baptist on, 113–14 games. See digital gaming spaces; religious games Garing, Maureen, 137 Garroway, Kristine Henriksen, 60, 63 Gauge, Steven, 171 Gawande, Atul, 80 Gell, J., 141 gender, 124–25; identity and, 38–39 Georgia, Baptists in, 113 Georgiou, Ross, 122 Gill, Nic, 171 Global Sports Chaplaincy Association (GSCA), 79, 83 God, 10; as all-pervasive Spirit, 13; creation/Creator-creature distinction, 14–16; as Deus ludens, 15; divine dance, 13–14; dynamic triune, 14; imago Dei, 32, 34; oneness in terms of perichoresis, 12–14 Godly Play, 98–99 God the Son. See Jesus Christ Goldsbury, Kevin, 122 Graeco-Roman children, 56–57; Aasgaard on, 60; lives of, 60–63; MacDonald on, 62; Philo on, 60; Plato on, 60, 61; as playthings/child pets, 62; Quintilian on, 61; religious ceremony and, 61; Seneca on, 60–61; as sexual partner, 62; of slaves, 62; stories and, 61; of wealthy families, 61 Gray, R. S., 141 Greece, 61. See also Graeco-Roman children Greenwood, J. H., 147 Gregory of Nazianzus, 12 Guardians of Ancora, 96 Guided Meditation VR, 98 Guttmann, Allen, 39 gymnasium, 138–39 habitus, 73 ḥafat samar, 59–60 Hamilton Marist Presidents, 166–67

Hanover Street Baptist Church in Dunedin, 142 Harris, Grant, 122 Harvey, Lincoln, 123, 193–94, 204 Hauerwas, Stanley, 9 Heintzman, Paul, 1 hestiasic games, 97. See also religious games Hippocrates, 56 Hoatson, J., 147 hockey, Bible classes and, 146 Hodge, Daniel White, 103 Hoffman, James, 121–23 Holy Spirit, 16 Homer, 61 homo ludens, 15 horse racing, Baptist on, 113–14 Horton, E. F., 139 Houltberg, B. J., 46 Houston, James, 2 How Games Move Us (Isbister), 99 Hughes, Thomas, 36, 37, 45 Huizinga, Johan, 32 humanity, 32, 159–60 humans: as homo ludens, 15 humor: affliative, 176; masculine, 176; self-deprecating, 176 Hutchinson, Francis B., 141 ice hockey, 40 identity, 29–45; Celtic, 39; class, 38; collective, 34; communal, 40; concepts, 31; gender, 38–39; performance-based, 46; personal, 30–33; production, 37; professional, 73, 74; social, 33–35; we are how we play, 42–45; we are what we play, 35–39; we are where we play, 39–42; we are who we play, 42; worth and, 160 identity formation in chaplaincy: overview, 71; professional identity, 73, 74; as a social construction, 74–77; sports chaplaincy, 76–84 Ignite Sport, 122 Iliad (Homer), 61

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imago Dei, 32, 34 individual: autonomous, 33; Western notions, 33. See also identity Infancy Gospel of Thomas 8.1–2 (IGT), 55 inner healing, 202–4 institutional versus sports, 80–81, 81 Institutio oratoria (Quintilian), 61 The Interior Castle (Teresa of Avila), 102 Irenaeus, 32 Isbister, Katherine, 99–102 It’s a Wonderful Life, 97 Jackson, Gaylene, 116 Jackson, Michael, 31 Jamieson, J. C., 137, 143, 144, 147–48 Jesus Christ, 9, 32–33; death, 10; divinity and humanity, 12; identity and mission, 16; as omnipotent grace, 16; resurrection and exaltation, 10; as storyteller, 60 Jewish children, 57–60; as blessing from God, 57; communities and, 57; family prayers, 57; festivals and, 58–59; harvesting and, 57–58; storytelling and, 59–60 John of Damascus, 12, 13 John of the Cross, 102 Johnson, Jack, 125 Johnston, Robert K., 17, 18; on biblical theology of play, 11; defning play, 20–21 John XXII, 111 Jones, Michael, 121 Jordan, Michael, 123 Journey, 94, 103–4 Journey to Wild Divine, 98 joy, 10–12; cultivating, 17–20; freedom and, 10; Lewis on, 18–19; Mathewes on, 10; Moltmann on, 10; play as, 17–22; pursuit of, 11; Sehnsucht, 18–20 Julian (the Apostate), 61

215

kapa haka, 98 Kay, Tess, 35 Kemp, Joseph, 145 Kerr, Andrew, 122 Kevern, Peter, 77 Kingdom of God, 60 Kingsley, Charles, 36 Kingsman, Paul, 196–200, 202, 205 Kotre, John, 74 krasis di’holon, 12 Lawler, Steph, 31 Leela, 98 Left Behind: Eternal Forces, 96 leisure, 1–2, 120, 160 Leisure, the Basis of Culture (Pieper), 159 Lewis, C. S., 12–14, 17–19, 21–22 Lewis, Steven, 95, 103 Liddell, Eric, 31, 44, 127–28, 180, 198 Liddell, Jennie, 127 Linanus Baptist Chapel in Treherbert, Wales, 111 Lindsay, Lord, 127–28 Lindvall, Terry, 14 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Lewis), 18 location and identity, 34 Luke, 60 Lynch, Gordon, 102 MacDonald, George, 17 MacDonald, Margaret, 62 macho culture in Australian sports, 160–62 Macquarrie, John, 33 Mandela, Nelson, 204 Mangapai Bible Class, 140 Manurewa Children’s Home, 114 Māori, 172; cricket and, 138; cultural values, 176; kapa haka, 98; whakaiti, 176 Marion, Jean-Luc, 17 Marshall, Peter, 169 Martin of Tours, St., 72

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masculine humor, 176 masculine identity, old rugby players and, 173–77 Mathewes, Charles, 10 Matthew 11:16, 17, 9 McCall, Rupert, 166 McLaren, George, 144–45 McLeod, E., 146 McSherry, Wilf, 77 Melbourne Cup, 157 Melbourne Storm, 157, 158, 160–62 Mencken, H. L., 9 Messner, Michael, 167–68 Metamorphoses (Ovid), 61 Methodist Bible Class Union, 141 Methodist Church, 141 Methodist Men’s Bible Class Camp, 145 Meyer, F. B., 125 middle-aged male rugby players, 165–81; camaraderie and belonging, 167–69; love of the game, 172–73; masculine identity, 173–77; physical ftness, 171–72; physicality and competition, 169–70; religious motivations, 177–79 Middlesbrough, 41 midwives, 124 Migliore, Daniel, 203 Milford Baptist Church, 120–21 Miller, Thomas, 144 Mills, Joan, 119–20 ministry: of presence, 158–59, 161, 162; professional identity in, 74. See also sports chaplains/chaplaincy missionary activity, 60 Moltmann, Jürgen, 10, 15 Morgan-Clement, Linda J., 83 Morin, Marie-Line, 76, 84 Mosse, Anthony, 121 Mott, John R., 141, 144 Mozart, 10 Murray, Bruce, 118 Murray, Euan, 44, 45

muscular Christianity, 119 Muslim women, 35 Naismith, James, 147 national identity, 39 Nazareth Village, 57 netball, 137; Bible classes and, 147–48 New Zealand: Bible class movement, 137–49; civil violence in, 116; religious attitudes, 139–41; South African apartheid and, 114–17; YMCA, 137–39; YWCA, 137–39 New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association, 117 New Zealand Baptist, 121 New Zealand Baptists on sports, 111– 28; as enemy to be fought, 112–13; ethnicity and racism, 125–26; evangelism, 120–22; excessive sport, 118–19; gender, 124–25; as a gift to be enjoyed, 126–28; overview, 111–12; racing and gambling, 113– 14; rugby and apartheid, 114–17; Sunday sports, 117–18; a system to be redeemed, 122–24; as a tool to be used, 119–20 New Zealand Barbarians, 168 New Zealand Breakers Basketball Club, 122 New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU), 115–16, 165 Ngaruawahia Easter Conventio, 145 Nicholls, Todd R., 167 Niebuhr, Richard, 74 Nike, 123 Norrie, Martyn, 122 North, J. J., 112, 120 Now and then (Sheers), 39 Nu’uali’itia, Toetu, 166, 168–69 Oakes, Peter, 61–62 Object Relations Theory, 204 Odyssey (Homer), 61 Olympic of 1980, 40

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omnipotent grace, 16 Osborne, David, 94 Ovid, 61 Park, Samuel, 74–75, 81 Passover, 58–59 Paterfamilias, 61, 62 Paul, 32–33; letter to the Corinthians, 3 Pegg, Shane, 166, 171, 174 Perelandra (Lewis), 14, 21 performance-based identity, 46 perichoresis, 12–14; Greek use of, 13 personal identity, 30–33 Petone Baptist Church, 122 Phantastes, a Faerie Romance (MacDonald), 17 Philo, 56, 60 physical ftness, old rugby players and, 171–72 physicality, old rugby players and, 169–70 Pieper, Josef, 159, 160 pilgrimage, 94–95; concept of, 94; meaningful choices, 100; as relational journey of pilgrim, 102; sacred, 102–4. See also digital gaming spaces; religious games The Pilgrim’s Regress (Lewis), 18 play: children and, 55–64; Christian conceptions, 2; defning, 20–22; identity and, 39–45; as joy, 17–22; Lewis’s account of, 17–19; perichoresis, 14; theology of, 11–22. See also sport(s) PlayStation, 96, 98 Plymouth Brethren, 139 poimenic games, 97. See also religious games Pollard, Victor, 118 Porter, C., 141 poverty, 61–62 praxic games, 97–98. See also religious games Presbyterian Bible Class Union in Masterton, 145–46

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“The Price of a Person” (Cadman), 123 private identity, 31 professional identity, 73; in ministry, 74; self and, 74 Protestantism, 12 Protestants, 9, 140 Psalms of Ascent, 58 Pseudo-Cyril, 12, 13 psychologically destructive process, 74 public identity, 31 Puritanism, 9 purpose-based identity, 46 Putney, Clifford, 21 Quintilian, 61 racism, 125–26 Rahner, Hugo, 15 Real Madrid, 123 Reese, Alexander, 144 religious attitudes in New Zealand, 139–41 religious games, 95–102; allomythic, 99, 100; allopolitical, 99, 102; challenge and ability, 100–101; didactic, 96–97; hestiasic, 97; meaningful choices, 99– 100; poimenic, 97; praxic, 97–98; sacred orientation, 102–4; sociality/social emotions, 101–2; theopetic, 99, 101 Religious Herald, 113 religious motivations of old rugby players, 177–79 representational sport, 39 responsibility, 74 Riddell, Mike, 116 Robertson, Andy, 98 role-playing, children and, 64 Rome, children in. See Graeco-Roman children Roy, Steven C., 178–79 rugby: apartheid and, 114–17; Burton on, 165; middle-aged male players, 165–81; origin, 165 Rugby League, 38 Rugby School, 36

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sacred: digital gaming spaces, 103–4; Lynch’s notion of, 102 scientifc advocacy, 142 Scripture Union England & Wales, 96 Sehnsucht, 18–21 self, 47; professional identity and, 74 self-deprecating humor, 176 self-discipline, 37 Shafer, Michael, 1 Shakespeare, J. H., 125 shared identities, 42 Sheers, Owen, 39 SoccerPlus NZ, 122 social construction, identity formation as, 74–77 social identity, 33–35 social inclusion, 35 social isolation, 37 Socrates, 16 The Sound of Music, 97 South Africa, 114–17 South Dunedin Baptist Church, 117 Speer, Robert, 144 Spirit. See Holy Spirit Spiritus Creator, 16 sport(s): churchgoers and, 193–205; identity and, 29–45; as major preoccupation, 1; as religion, 1. See also play sporting values of Bible classes, 142–43 Sports Chaplaincy Australia (SCA), 71, 78 Sports Chaplaincy New Zealand (SCNZ), 78 Sports Chaplaincy United Kingdom (SCUK), 78 sports chaplains/chaplaincy: Ainsworth-Smith on, 79; Australian, 157–62; challenges for, 123–24; conceptual pathway to, 82; duties and responsibilities, 80–81, 81; emphasis on identity formation, 78–79; implications of, 83–84; institutional chaplains versus, 80–81, 81; interrelated areas of, 79; praxis-

related factors, 81, 82–83; team identity formation, 80 Sports Outreach New Zealand, 122 Springboks, 115–16 Spurgeon, C. H., 118 Spurgeon, Shawn L., 82–83 Spurgeon, Thomas, 118 Spurgeon’s College in London, 3 squares, game of, 63 Stebbins, Robert, 166, 171, 174 Stirling, Ian, 76, 78, 84 Stoicism, 56 structural racism, 125–26 summer conferences, 145–46 Sunday sports: Baptists on, 117–18, 140; regulations on, 140 Sunday worship, 43 Swain, Scott, 168 Swift, Christopher, 76, 84 swimming/swimmers, 194–205. See also churchgoers Swinton, John, 81 Tagaloa, Timo, 166 Tartaglia, Alexander F., 76 Taumarunui Baptist, 121 Taylor, Colin, 138 team identity formation, 80 theopetic games, 99, 101 The Times, 125 Thompson, Ross, 74 Thomson, A. D., 144 Timaru Baptist Church, 117 Torrance, Thomas, 17 Treat, Jeremy, 19–21 Trinitarian theology, 12 Trinity. See God Triune God. See God Troup, George, 137, 141, 144 Tutty, Thomas Claude, 139–40 Ubuntu, 33 Umaga, Tana, 169 unean sports, 112–13 United Kingdom, 126

Sports and Play in Christian Theology, edited by Philip Halstead, and John Tucker, Fortress Academic, 2020. ProQuest Ebook

Index

United States, 40; Baptists in, 113; church and state in, 77–78; structural racism in, 125 USSR, 40 Van der Leeuw, Gerardus, 21 van Deusen Hunsinger, Deborah, 203 Vaughn, Cynthia V., 76, 84 vicarious sport, 34 Virgil, 61 virtual worlds, 103 Voyage of the Beagle (Darwin), 138 The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Lewis), 18

White, W., 120 Whitten, H. E., 115, 118 Williams, Bryan, 167 Williams, Serena, 124 Willis, Steve, 122 Windsor Park Baptist, 122 winepress, 57 Witherington, Ben, III, 2 women: elite sports events, 124; sexualized, 124 World Masters Games (2017), 166 World Student Christian Fellowship, 144 World War I, 114, 145, 148 World War II, 114, 121, 126 worship, 43–44; digital games and, 98; leisure and, 160 worth: identity and, 160; performance and, 159–60 Wright, N. T., 10 Xenia Presbyterian Seminary, 144 YMCA, 137–39 Yuile, Bryan, 118 YWCA, 137–39 Zidane, Zinedine, 123 Zizioulas, John, 17

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Wagner, Rachel, 99 Waikato Rusty Nails teams, 166 Waller, Hardin, 81 Warburton, Sam, 29 Ward, Kevin, 157 we are how we play, 42–45 we are what we play, 35–39 we are where we play, 39–42 we are who we play, 42 Weir, Stuart, 44 Westminster Shorter Catechism, 12 Whakatu Club, 148 wheat harvesting and Jewish children, 58

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Sports and Play in Christian Theology, edited by Philip Halstead, and John Tucker, Fortress Academic, 2020. ProQuest Ebook

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About the Contributors

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Rev. Dr. Robert Ellis is principal of Regent’s Park College, Oxford, and a member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford. He is married with four adult children and is a Minister in the Baptist Union of Great Britain. He serves on several denominational bodies. His publications include The Games People Play: Theology, Religion, and Sport (2014) and Answering God: Towards a Theology of Intercession (2005). He has published journal articles on a range of topics, including intercession, theology and flm, and theology and sport. Dr. Stephen Garner is academic dean and senior lecturer in theology at Laidlaw College, Auckland, New Zealand. He has a background in both theology and computer science, and his research and teaching interests include science, technology, and religion; theology, media, and popular culture; public and contextual theology; and Christian spirituality. His publications include Theology and the Body: Refections on Being Flesh and Blood (2011) and Networked Theology: Negotiating Faith in Digital Culture (2016) with Heidi Campbell. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand (PCANZ) and lives in West Auckland with his wife, Kim. Rev. Dr. Myk Habets is head of the School of Theology at Laidlaw College, Auckland, New Zealand. Myk is registered as a Minister of the Baptist Churches of New Zealand, is married and has two children. His publications include: Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance (2009), The Anointed Son (2010), Theology in Transposition (2013), and The Progressive Mystery (2019). He has also edited numerous works such as Third Article Theology (2016), Theology and the Experience of Disability (2016), The Art of Forgiveness (2018), and has published numerous journal articles. Myk is 221

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222

About the Contributors

the Senior Editor of Pacifc Journal of Theological Research and coeditor of Journal of Theological Interpretation. Myk enjoys playing badminton, football, table tennis, and watching his favorite sports teams. Dr. Philip Halstead lectures in Applied Theology with a specialty in Pastoral Care, Pastoral Counselling, and Inner Healing at Carey Baptist College and Carey Graduate School, Auckland, New Zealand. He also heads up the Pastoral Care Department at St Augustine’s Anglican Church, Auckland. He is married to Angelika and they have one adult daughter. Philip has published in the areas of forgiveness, pastoral care, and mental health, and applied theology. He has also coedited Doing Integrative Theology with Myk Habets and George Wieland (2015) and The Art of Forgiveness with Myk Habets (2018). Philip has been an active sportsperson for decades.

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Rev. Dr. Sarah Harris is a Lukan scholar and Anglican Priest who teaches NT Studies at Carey Baptist College and Carey Graduate School. She is married to Craig and has four adult children. She is the author of The Davidic Shepherd King in the Lukan Narrative (2016) and had written for many edited books and journals including Feminist Theology and Colloquium. Her interests are in Luke’s Gospel and Gospel-related concerns including narrative reconstructions of the lives of ancient women. She is currently writing the Zondervan Critical Introduction to the New Testament: Luke. Dr. Peter Lineham has retired as Professor Emeritus of History at Massey University in New Zealand after forty years of teaching British and New Zealand history. He has written many articles and chapters and several books on the religious history of New Zealand, including There We found Brethren (1977), No Ordinary Union (1980), Transplanted Christianity (several editions from 1987, coauthored with Alan Davidson), Bible and Society (1996), Destiny (2013), and Sunday Best (2017), and is currently fnalizing a history of the Auckland City Mission. Well known as a media commentator into religious themes, he was made a Member of the Order of New Zealand in the 2019 New Year Honours awards. Rev. Simon Moetara is senior lecturer in Theology and Biblical Studies at Vision College, Hamilton, in New Zealand. Simon has been attending Activate Church in Hamilton since 1991 and is an ordained minister with ACTS Churches New Zealand. He is married to Rachel and has three children. Simon is an avid sports fan, and still plays rugby at forty-eight years of age. He delights in watching his daughter play netball and perform in a range of dance styles, and supporting his sons as they play rugby, cricket, hockey,

Sports and Play in Christian Theology, edited by Philip Halstead, and John Tucker, Fortress Academic, 2020. ProQuest Ebook

About the Contributors

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basketball, and touch rugby. Everyone in the family is far too competitive, but life is good. His publications include “Maori and Pentecostal Christianity in Aotearoa New Zealand” in Mana Maori and Christianity (2012), “Tutu te Puehu and the Tears of Joseph: Refections and Insights on Confict Resolution and Reconciliation,” in Living in the Family of Jesus: Critical Contextualization in Melanesia and Beyond (2016), and “Preaching with Vulnerability: Self-Disclosure in the Pulpit” in Text Messages: Preaching God's Word in a Smartphone World (2017).

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Rev. B. Grant Stewart has been involved in pastoral ministry with the Baptist movement for over thirty-fve years, serving churches both in New Zealand and Australia. Grant trained initially as a secondary school teacher before completing an MDiv through Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas and an MMin through the Melbourne College of Divinity. Father to three adult children and four grandchildren, he is an avid sailor and sea-kayaker. Growing up in New Zealand, he spent his early years playing rugby and squash, then became a keen distance runner and triathlete before morphing into a Masters Athlete. He has combined his passion for sport and pastoral work by being the inaugural Sports Chaplain (“Rev”) with the Melbourne Storm Rugby League team, serving for the past twenty seasons. Grant has also been involved in advocacy and mediation work, is a qualifed Spiritual Director, and is trained in Church Health Coaching and Consultancy, having spent four years serving as a Regional Minister for the Baptist Union of Churches in Victoria, Australia. Rev. Dr. John Tucker is principal of Carey Baptist College, Auckland, where he teaches preaching and has taught Christian history. A registered Baptist minister, he is married with three children. He is the author of A Braided River: New Zealand Baptists and Public Issues 1882–2000 (2013), editor of Text Messages: Preaching God’s Word in a Smartphone World (2017), and coeditor with Myk Habets of What We Love: Refections on Ministry, Leadership, and Mission (2017). He has published a number of journal articles in the area of preaching, Baptist history, and Christian engagement with public issues. John is an associate editor of the Pacifc Journal of Baptist Research. He loves running, cycling, swimming, competing in the occasional triathlon, and watching cricket and rugby. Dr. Steven N. Waller is a Professor of Recreation and Sport Management in the Department of Kinesiology, Recreation, and Sport Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, United States, and a practicing sports chaplain. He also codirects the Sport Chaplaincy cohort in the Doctor

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About the Contributors

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of Ministry (DMin) program at United Theological Seminary, Dayton, OH, United States, and codirects the University of Tennessee’s Center for the Study of Sport and Religion. His research interests include religious beliefs as a constraint to sport and leisure participation, professional issues in sports chaplaincy (identity formation, training, and credentialing), and institutional evil in sport organizations.

Sports and Play in Christian Theology, edited by Philip Halstead, and John Tucker, Fortress Academic, 2020. ProQuest Ebook