Devotion, Dedication, and Disengagement
The Perceived Centrality of Spirituality in Athletic Competition
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Joel Tapio Perttula
Spirituality, while not visible, is a central component in athletic competition. This study examined the perceived centrality of spirituality in athletic competition among Christian athletes. To do so, this study developed a biblical and theological understanding of the image of God and considered participant gender, ethnicity, student’s level of standing, preferred sport, and cultural environment associated with the preferred sport for the purpose of identifying the most robust, statistically significant correlate and predictor of the perceived centrality of spirituality in athletic competition. The quantitative study utilized survey research methodology. A total of 65 student-athletes were approached and the first 53 athletes who provided an email address were invited to participate in the study. The findings indicated that a key correlation was held across demographic stratum. Participants perceived Christian spirituality to be central in athletic competition. A multiple linear regression predicting the centrality of spirituality determined that one of the independent predictor variables, the interrelationship of the spiritual, mental and physical elements in athletics represented a statistically significant predictor (p < .001). Additionally, the study found that prayer after an athletic contest represented a statistically significant correlate (r = .40; p = .003) and predictor of the centrality of spirituality in athletic competition.
The Decision Making Process in NCAA Student Athletes: Understanding the Concept of Moral Disengagement in Sports
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Lisa Coffey
Common student-athlete infractions in the NCAA include allegations of academic violations, sexual assault, domestic violence, pay for play, and infractions involving alcohol or drug abuse. All of these infractions are the result of poor decision-making and athletes often use one or more of the elements of moral disengagement in sports to justify poor decisions and dangerous behaviors. This article defines the eight mechanisms of moral disengagement in sports, provides examples, and offers recommendations to educate student-athletes on moral disengagement in sports to improve the decision making process to avoid infractions common in the athletic community.
Sons of Thunder: Community and the Self in the British Columbia Christian Soccer League
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nicholas William Howe Bukowski
This paper is concerned with the question: what does it mean to be an evangelical Christian soccer player? This paper addresses the relationship between community formation and soccer at an evangelical Christian church, North Shore Alliance, in North Vancouver, Canada. Drawing from four months of fieldwork in the summer of 2017, the paper addresses the social forms and relationships that can be produced, and renegotiated through North Shore Alliance’s soccer team’s participation in the British Columbia Christian Soccer League. Drawing from geographer Ben Anderson’s idea of “affective atmospheres” (Anderson 2009), it is the emergence of a particular “affective atmosphere” of intensity and authenticity during the games that allow the possibility of soccer to be a medium to generate a form of evangelical community, composed primarily of men, centering on bonds of mutual care. The atmospheric intensity of the soccer games produces conditions in which the players’ actions can reveal the state of their “heart” and in turn, reveal their alignment with the Holy Spirit. In turn, these projected evangelical communities of mutual care fulfill the Christian conception of creation as rooted in the idea of the collective Body of Christ so as to counteract the fracture, individualism and self-glorification that the church associates with Western secularism. In this way, the paper engages with the projections and mediations of a particular evangelical Christian vision of community as mediated through soccer. This paper allows a discussion on the possibilities of the continued historical entanglements between sport and Christianity.
