The Protestant Ethic And The Spirit Of Sport

Steven Overman explores the concordant values of the Protestant ethic, capitalism, and sport by applying German scholar Max Weber's seminal thesis. Weber demonstrated a relationship between the Protestant ethic and a form of economic behavior he labeled the ôcalling of capitalism.ö

Why do Americans transform every type of play into competitive contests? Americans have institutionalized sport and recreation as an embodiment of national values. The nexus of these values is the Protestant ethic which emphasizes moral asceticism, rational labour, goal directed behaviour, and competitive achievement. This ethic has engendered the spirit and creed of American sport, labelled the American sport ethos. This ethos which has influenced many different sports with the result that Americans work at their play and imbue their feats with moral import.

"Now in its twelfth edition, Sociology of Sport offers a compact yet comprehensive and integrated perspective on sport in North American society. Bringing a unique viewpoint to the subject, George H. Sage, D. Stanley Eitzen, Becky Beal, and Matthew Atencio analyze and, in turn, demythologize sport. This method promotes an understanding of how a sociological perspective differs from commonsense perceptions about sport and society, helping students to understand sport in a new way"--

Author's best-known and most controversial study relates the rise of a capitalist economy to the Puritan belief that hard work and good deeds were outward signs of faith and salvation.

Sport is extremely popular. This ground-breaking book explains why. It shows that sport has everything to do with our deepest identity. It is where we resonate with the most-basic nature of reality. A Brief Theology of Sport sweeps across the fields of church history, philosophy and Christian doctrine, drawing the reader into a creative vision of sport.

The Handbook of Religion and Society is the most comprehensive and up-to-date treatment of a vital force in the world today. It is an indispensable resource for scholars, students, policy makers, and other professionals seeking to understand the role of religion in society. This includes both the social forces that shape religion and the social consequences of religion. This handbook captures the breadth and depth of contemporary work in the field, and shows readers important future directions for scholarship. Among the emerging topics covered in the handbook are biological functioning, organizational innovation, digital religion, spirituality, atheism, and transnationalism. The relationship of religion to other significant social institutions like work and entrepreneurship, science, and sport is also analyzed. Specific attention is paid, where appropriate, to international issues as well as to race, class, sexuality, and gender differences. This handbook includes 27 chapters by a distinguished, diverse, and international collection of experts, organized into 6 major sections: religion and social institutions; religious organization; family, life course, and individual change; difference and inequality; political and legal processes; and globalization and transnationalism.

The games that human societies devised over the centuries can be considered one of the most comprehensive and fertile symbolic systems ever created by human ingenuity. In all societies, members feel compelled to interact and communicate with each other as much as possible. As linguistic creatures, humans use language to establish social and interpersonal contacts. Games are a device to enable such connections. Robert Perinbanayagam examines how players value games. He assesses games as systems that embody metaphysics and pragmatic action. He then examines various religious ideas and how participants reference respective approaches to game playing. Perinbanayagam argues that games are forms of activity in which the human agent as an actor engages with others in various interactional situations. Such engagement creates dramas in which agents assume identities, give play to emotions and enrich their selves. He also examines the issue of game writing, particularly how selected writers have used game structures as narrative devices in their work.

There has been a dramatic increase in academic research activity and practical initiatives on the topic of sports and Christianity, and its cultural significance during the past decade. The Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at York St John University, York, UK, hosted the Inaugural Global Congress on Sports and Christianity (IGCSC), 24-28th August 2016 in collaboration with the Bible Society at which there were 180 delegates from 22 countries in attendance. For the area of sports studies/the social scientific study of sport, there was a thematic strand at the congress titled ‘Christian sociological perspectives on sport’ from which a special edition of the journal Sport in Society partially emanated. This book is based upon this journal special edition. The papers selected for inclusion in the special edition were purposely eclectic in order to demonstrate the diversity of current research occurring in the area of Christianity and social scientific perspectives on sport. The goal was to bridge divisions between various social science disciplines and theology or religious studies, through varied, novel and interesting explorations of sport in its various forms. We hope this collection inspires further studies into this area. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue in Sport in Society.