{"id":59210,"date":"1995-12-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1995-12-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/sport-as-religion\/"},"modified":"1995-12-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"1995-12-01T00:00:00","slug":"sport-as-religion","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/sport-as-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"Sport as Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&quot;Sport is America&#39;s newest and fastest-growing religion, far outdistancing whatever is in second place,&quot; says Charles S. Prebish, associate professor of religious studies at Pennsylvania State University. &#8230;It is not merely &quot;like&quot; a religion, he argues, nor is it a &quot;secular&quot; religion, as other religion scholars and sociologists have postulated.<\/p>\n\n<p>To Mr. Prebish, sport can and does provide its followers everything that traditional religions have provided over the centuries. He writes: &quot;For me, it is not just a parallel that is emerging between sport and religion, but rather a complete identity. Sport is religion for growing numbers of Americans, and this is no product of simply facile reasoning or wishful thinking. Further, for many, sport religion has become a more appropriate expression of personal religiosity than Christianity, Judaism, or any of the traditional religions. &#8230;&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p>Athletes and spectators for whom sport is religion may differ in their ideas about what the &quot;ultimate&quot; is, Mr. Prebish says, but sport is the vehicle by which all of them find it.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[306],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[409],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3869,3951,3956,4206,5066,5302],"tax_ctp_topics":[396,401],"class_list":["post-59210","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-entertainment","tax_ctp_tags-false-gods","tax_ctp_tags-false-worship","tax_ctp_tags-idolatry","tax_ctp_tags-sports","tax_ctp_tags-worldliness"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Sport as Religion - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/sport-as-religion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sport as Religion - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&quot;Sport is America&#039;s newest and fastest-growing religion, far outdistancing whatever is in second place,&quot; says Charles S. 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