Spirituality In Sport In Different Historical Contexts

Religions

Sport, religion, and spirituality intersect in diverse ways. As the body of interdisciplinary scholarly work addressing these intersections increases, more questions and insights are being generated, as evidenced in this collection. Five themes that arise in this Special Issue of Religions are identified and explored. Examples from each article are used to develop these themes. To whet the reader’s appetite, thought-provoking reflections are offered in this introduction to “Sport, Spirituality, and Religion: New Intersections and Global Challenges.”

Quest, 67(3), 290-299

We are living in a time of increasing interest in the religious and spiritual aspects of sport and human movement activities. A strict distinction between religion and spirituality is, however, still missing in much of the literature. After delimiting religious and spiritual modes of experience, this article addresses Coubertin’s religio athletae and demonstrates that this notion should have spiritual, not religious, content. Religious values are external to achievements in sports, while spirituality should be an inner aspect of human movement activities. To gain a deeper understanding of the religious and spiritual aspects of physical activities, this article focuses on spiritual health as one of the main goals of the activities of teachers and coaches.

2007

Sport and Spirituality provides fresh insight into the expanding examination of the sports experience. Looking beyond the regularly quantified aspects of sport performance, the authors utilize sport psychology, philosophy, ethics, theology and religious studies to examine the spiritual dimension of sport-whether it is described as "flow," "transcendence," or the discovery of meaning and value. In four successive yet interwoven sections (divided into three chapters each), the authors develop a working definition of spirituality, address the relationship between religion and sport, suggest how sport psychology could consider the spiritual dimensions in sport, and explore connections between virtues and diverse sport practices. In Section I, Simon Robinson provides an introduction to the notion of "spirituality" and to the idea of spirituality and sport. He traces the development of spirituality from its exclusive association with organized religion to the more diverse view of spirituality in the postmodern era and the New Age. Robinson argues that spirituality has become increasingly identified as a human quality rather than one strictly of formal religion. Spirituality now plays a bigger role in such things as community and institutional development, wellbeing, health, and personal growth. Robinson argues that these changing roles of spirituality can also be found and provide insight into the nature and purpose of sport. Robinson then provides a threefold definition of spirituality-one that is used for the remainder of the text. Spirituality is the awareness and appreciation of the other, the capacity to respond to the other, and the development of significant life meaning based upon all aspects of awareness and appreciation of and response to the other. Robinson further suggests that spirituality is located in experience. It is the capacity to appreciate the other in both similarities and differences. It is something often developed not only in the individual, but also in and through the disciplines and practices of a group or team. This definition stresses commitment, recognition and appreciation of others, and, Robinson argues, it is through this paradigm that spirituality provides a basis for personal identity and growth. Robinson's final chapter in the section suggests that the development of spirituality in the individual should be considered a journey rather than something that is attained. Reflection and dialog are needed to develop moral meaning. In turn, an awareness and responsibility to the other grows. With this come skills necessary for responding appropriately to any challenge to individual or group values within those relationships. Sport provides a platform for the development of these ideas-as a place where humans can find significant meaning in their lives through

Although a growing number of theoretical works and applied sport psychologists have acknowledged the importance of spiritual worldviews and experiences of athletes, empirical research on the topic remains relatively limited (Parry et al., 2007). Moreover, the existing empirical research has mainly represented American, Christian participants. With the anecdotal evidence of importance of spirituality in the sport world and the attention to the relationship between these two in popular culture, this research was designed to gain insights to the spiritual meanings athletes attach to their sport in two Northern European countries, England and Finland. Our inquiry was grounded on existential-narrative framework and a broad existentialist definition of spirituality (Webster, 2004). The empirical data was collected through essay writing. Eight elite athletes were invited to write a reflective story about their athletic careers, including both difficult and rewarding moments, meanings assig...

2009

The intersection between sport and spirituality has attracted unprecedented academic interest in the first decade of the twenty-first century, as a general survey of the field in this volume by Rob Hess shows. One sign of a quickening of interest in the area has been the emergence of academic conferences devoted to the theme, with one (held in the United States in 2004) generating considerable interest among the sport history community, and another (held in Great Britain in 2007) providing the impetus for the establishment of the International Journal of Religion and Sport. Other beacons have been tertiary courses devoted to the field, notably a new unit ‘Sport and Spirituality’ taught by former Olympian Richard Pengelly at the University of Western Australia, and the newly established Centre for the Study of Sport and Spirituality at York St John University in England.1

International Journal of Christianity and Sports, 2022

In the present world of sports, religiosity and spirituality have become a dominant parts of an athlete's performance. Religiosity and spirituality are related but distinct; spirituality is identified as interconnectedness with a transcendent being while religiosity is the interpersonal and institutional engagement with a formal religious group, doctrines and traditions. These relationships are not only practiced for health and quality of life purposes but also becoming a practice in sports. Moreover, most athletes on the field of play showcase some forms of religious belief and behavior before, during and after a sporting contest. This paper explores religiosity and spirituality in sports and seeks to find their effects on an athlete's performance. The concepts of religiosity/ spirituality in sports were critically reviewed. The paper also discussed the concept of an athlete's performance. Likewise, the concept of sports was discussed. It concludes among other considerations that athletes who are very religious/ spiritual while engaging in sports, seek secular goals such as performance enhancement, coping optimally with stress and anxiety, maintaining safety, and playing at one's best ability, being in good health physically and mentally as well as resounding successes, great laurels and victories. It is suggested among others that players, coaches, managers and sport psychologists should appropriately distinguish between upholding religious and spiritual conviction in sports and adequately preparing for sports contest towards achieving set goals during such sporting contests.

IOSR Journal of Sports and Physical Education, 2017

This paper presents the results obtained by the survey of 207 athlete respondents (handball players) about faith, prayer, the meaning, forgiveness, gratitude, relationship to God and ethical-moral action. All the indicated factors are part of the human aspect of the experience, and in this paper, they have been viewed through a spiritual and religious dimension of a man. Namely, a man is not only a psycho-physical being, he also has a spiritual dimension (Ivančić, 2011; 2016a). The spiritual aspect is connected to virtually every field of the human actions, including the sports one. The sports spirituality and the experience of the spirit are reflected in the decision for the good, true, beautiful, and the one whereas a lack of these realities brings deviations both in life and in sport. The method used was the structured questionnaire (Ćorić, 1997), and for this study 17 questions were selected to test the two dimensions, the inner contents of religiosity and the impact of religiosity on daily life. The survey results showed that to the handball players ethical-moral principles are very important and they make their everyday decisions based on them. For 94% of Croatian handball player respondents, religion is an important factor when looking for answers to questions about the meaning of life. 98% of respondents give their best to try to live by their religious belief in both professional and social life regularly or frequently. It is expected that the results of this research will expand the existing knowledge about the impact of transcendental values in making professional sports and everyday decisions, and that it will also contribute to establishing the importance of the moral and ethical education in forming the criteria of value and developing sports spirituality.

Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, 2015

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2018

Religion and sport is a bourgeoning and maturing interdisciplinary area of study. As the volume of research conducted about topics related to the interface of religion and sport, attention to sound research methods, including the use of relevant theories and theoretical/conceptual frameworks becomes essential. Scholars such as Stausberg and Engler (2014) have posited that the methods used in religious studies (including theory and frameworks) are not as rigorous as those utilized in social science related fields. The imperative then becomes to use theories and frameworks from social science related disciplines such as leisure studies, sports studies and sport psychology to strengthen scholarship in this emerging area. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of pertinent theories and theoretical/conceptual frameworks that are commonly used in the study of sport and religion. An interdisciplinary approach is taken to highlighting and expounding on a select group of theories a...