Marginal Christianity

By James K.A. Smith November 23 at 6:00 AM Thanksgiving has always been one of the high holy days of American civil religion. Its rituals are surprisingly widespread — pilgrimages home through packed airports; gatherings of family and friends (and attendant tensions that are the stuff of Hollywood rom-coms); the dining room altar on which the turkey is supped, then a long day of drifting in and out of consciousness while hours and hours of football flicker in our darkening dens. Our Thanksgiving traditions reflect the country’s mix of secularization and religious fervor — what theologian William Cavanaugh calls “migrations of the holy.” In a secular age, our religious impulses aren’t diminished; they just find new devotions: consumption, the self, the nation. Now, the NFL — in all its popularity and current controversy — sets the script for our Thanksgiving Day litany. It gives us something to worship. Of course, the typical symbols and traditions of Thanksgiving h...

by Kaitlyn Landgraf 2 . 5 . 16 And in the distant empire of Usa there is a strange custom that takes place once per year among the barbarians of that land, which occurs in the following manner. It is a winter festival to the god of Foo Tball, as the inhabitants of that land call him. Throughout the year, the strongest and most savage warriors in each region of that empire assemble in small armies, don padded armor, and fight each other in vast temples which are larger than temples erected to any other god in that nation, and the greatest warriors in the land become the honored attendants to the Foo Tball idol for one year. These warriors possess great strength, which is due to the patronage of the powerful goddess Anabolic Roid, and under her influence they enter into frenzies of madness, abusing and even sometimes murdering their wives and their friends, yet this is permitted in order for the army to prevail as the Foo Tball attendants. This comes, I think, from the provinci...

by Peter J. Leithart 11 . 19 . 15   Modern sports are not simple competition between the two teams. If they were only about physical competition, games would be shorter, less glitzy, less energetic. Sports are ritualized events, liturgies. The crowd’s behavior is deliberately intensified with ritual elements – with mascots who emblemize the team, with fight songs that energize and bind the fans into a single singing unit, with the moments of drama like the team’s bursting through the paper barrier as they come onto the field from the lockerrom for the first time, halftime entertainments. At higher levels, the ritual gets more complex. The Super Bowl is the great annual rite of America’s athletic-military-entertainment complex. The game is integrated into the American dream not only by the singing of the national anthem, but by the F16 flyover. Halftime is extended to make room for popular celebrity singers to perform to raucous crowds. You don’t have to be at the g...

January 14, 2015 by Tim Suttle Leave a Comment “Is there a bigger hypocrite in college sports than Urban Meyer?” – Mike Ozanian, Forbes So asks Forbes’ Mike Ozanian the day after the inaugural College Football National Title Game. Leading 35 to 20 with 1:43 left in the game, Ohio State was set to go for it on fourth and one from inside the Oregon five yard line. Before the snap, two Oregon offensive linemen jumped offsides, giving the Buckeyes a first down and the ballgame. Tradition says you line up in victory formation, take a knee, shake hands, and celebrate. Instead, Urban Meyer and his Ohio State Buckeyes kept running plays, scoring again with 28 seconds left. “I didn’t even think about taking a knee… we play to win,” Meyer said. ( ESPN ) The move has some people asking questions.  The Washington Post ‘s Des Bieler asked, “Should Ohio State Have Taken a Knee at the End of the Title Game?”  Oregon Sportswriter, Tim Brown  as...