Sports and Religion

Sports and Religion

     In order to first understand ritual in sports, it is necessary to define what a ritual is. Rituals give bonding, while also granting freedom to a group of people in a shared context. In terms of sports, symbols play an important role in supporting ritual. For example, players go about their daily rituals in order to elevate the overarching symbol of their franchise. For example, every game for Michael Jordan, a “sports deity”, was an opportunity to partake in the rituals of basketball to both represent the symbol of the Bulls, and his own symbolic representation of the Jordan brand (Laderman 59).

            Sports themselves offer an alternative movement to religions that offers the opportunity for people to both religiously follow athletes and teams. For fans, sport creates “enjoyable diversions from daily routines, a model of order and coherence, and heroes to look up to and follow” (Laderman 47).  Within the context of Bull Durham, the character Susan Sarandon portrays describes her plight of trying to find a religion to follow, and eventually chooses baseball because “it is the only church that feeds the soul day in and day out”. For her, and many other fans, sports fulfill similar spiritual needs as traditional religion does by taking people out of the profane and bringing them into the sacred. In other cases, it can serve to bring order and healing. For example, after the September 11^th attacks the Mets played a very emotional game in which Mike Piazza hit a game clinching home run in New York. According to a widowed wife who attended the game: “when Mike hit that home run, the release of everyone around us was just incredible. We never thought there would be a light at the end of the tunnel” (Botte). This is also an example of how sports can work as a force of theodicy, as they bind “fans athletes and teams together around idols that are worshipped in ways that, for some, create shared experiences and memories as impressive and meaningful as any other sacred encounters in this life” (Laderman 62). This ritualization of sports brings together the entirety of humanity by taking the universally familiar aspect of play and giving it religious connotations that transcend everyday life.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/9-11-family-forget-mets-piazza-article-1.1470645

Luis Serota, Eric Seiden, Eric Lintala

Country Music as a Religion

Music is a part of all religions. Whether in a church on a Sunday morning with an organ, or in a synagogue on Shabbat with the cantor’s voice, music often plays a vital role in religious ceremonies because of its sacred characteristics of rhythm, beat, and sentiment. However, have you ever considered music as its own religion in a way? Laderman discusses rave culture, the blues, hip-hop, and rock and roll in his book, however another example of music having religious characteristics is country music. Country music has its roots in Atlanta because members of the Appalachian community went to Atlanta to work in the city, but they brought their music with them and it persisted throughout the Great Depression on the radio when people couldn’t buy records. The music provided an outlet for entertainment for these hard workers. Country musicians used a wide variety of instruments, including fiddles, banjos, guitars, etc. Also, country music, like many religions is associated with a region, primarily in the southern and western areas of America. However, despite starting out in this small area, it has grown and has become a key aspect of America’s identity as a whole. In fact, in 2009, the country music radio channel was the most listened to station on the radio throughout the country. This genre of music has provided Americans with an identity that is fairly unique to America. It started out in America, evolved in America, spread throughout the country, and is now a key part of our mainstream culture. There are many household name country stars, including Jason Aldean, Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert, and some older ones like Johnny Cash and Woody Guthrie.

Country music even has its own culture in some ways. From the clothes that are worn by country musicians and its followers, to the atmosphere at concerts, it is unique and has many dedicated followers. At concerts, thousands of people will gather in order to listen to country music icons. As Laderman states, concerts include “pilgrimage, spirituality, mysticism, shamanism, identity, transformation, unity, sacraments…” (39). Thousands upon thousands of people will attend some of the biggest country concerts in the world in order to experience all of those aspects listed by Laderman, which are often a result of the icon performing. Musicians are examples of icons, some even bordering the line of being idols, because of the way in which they are viewed and treated by members of society. That is another aspect that makes music a religion – the key players and they way that people act towards them.

According to Laderman, “Music intersects with the sacred for millions of Americans who make sense of their lives with a musical soundtrack rather than the written word” (28). It is obvious that the culture, sound, and ritualistic nature of music make it into a sacred aspect of life, and therefore functions religiously in a way for many people.

Blink-182 and The Ritual of the Teenage Years

In Sacred Matters, Gary Laderman asks, “How do the music and lyrics contribute to popular religious experiences that reimagine and reconstruct the world…, invigorate and reinvigorate social bonds, and stimulate and liberate the body first, and then the soul?”

The band Blink-182 provided the teenage soundtrack for much of the current generation of 18-22 year olds. It offered them an outlet that related to their feelings of angst, difference, and self-consciousness. In a world where no one seemed to understand their struggles, Blink-182 was an influence that was on their side. It “reimagined and reconstructed the world” for teenagers by writing music contrary to adulthood and all that was expected of them. It provided teenagers with a common interest and connection which “reinvigorated social bonds.” Listening at home or attending a concert facilitated connects between the listeners and the music and the listeners and each other, “stimulating and liberating the body first, and then the soul.” It is in this way that the music transcended time and space, and acted religiously in connecting people across the world.

The ritual of listening to Blink-182 or going to a concert provided the listeners with, as James Livingstone puts it, “a primary means of social communication and cohesion.” The music bonded listeners over shared feelings that were common in the teenage years. Even after those years have passed, fans of the band still feel a connection to the music as it brings them back to their adolescence. It even forms bonds with new friends who also loved the band and their music, much as religion does cross culturally and cross generationally.

Quest for Validation

Individuals have constantly been considered fundamentally social creatures: we desire attention and validation. In celebrities, despite sometimes achieving negative attention, we become infatuated by the attention devoted to them. In Gary Laderman's Sacred Matters, he writes that celebrities "blur the boundaries between fantasy and stark reality, fanaticism and civil respectability, infatuation and mere entertainment." (71)

In class, we discussed Kim Kardashian and her lack of substance/reason for fame. While I'd agree that the majority of the US population is aware of this, we are infatuated by the attention given to her and her family. Perhaps we are seeking ideas for means of validation through someone who appears to have gained international fame for doing virtually nothing substantial. It almost make her fame more attainable to mere "civilians" of society who seek the validation of others, so intrinsic to our human nature.

We flock to the sections in magazines that describe "stars just like us" because they make this desired social status attainable and real. Ideas of fame such as these, blur the line as Laderman mentioned between our basic realities and fantastical desires.