here are ten of the best american english books about sports and Christianity of the by ten years, listed in no especial regulate .
The Closer : My storyMariano Rivera with Wayne Coffey
Mariano Rivera, the New York Yankees ’ fabled stand-in, writes this memoir in the tradition of a authoritative christian testimonial. Rivera takes readers from his destitute childhood in Panama through his storied big-league career. The centerpiece of the koran, though, is Rivera ’ randomness description of how his christian faith and commitment to family kept him grounded amid the flashiness and glamor of professional sports. few memoirs offer as bright a portrayal of the challenges faced by christian athletes in the contemporary dissipated landscape .
The mentor
Ryan M. Shelton
Oklahoma-based diarist Ryan M. Shelton has authored a pair of exciting young-adult fabrication books about Christian athletes, The Mentor and The Captain. In The Mentor, Shelton tells the history of Vincent Preston, a talented high school baseball player who has recently become a christian. Preston faces a unmanageable home life sentence and is frequently the target of bullying by his teammates. The new ballplayer perseveres through his religion and the relationship he develops with a former Major League Baseball scout named “ Grandpa Dean ” who lives in his small township. Readers who embraced Mitch Albom ’ s Tuesdays with Morrie will find similar divine guidance in Shelton ’ s sports fabrication .
The One year Uncommon Life Daily Challenge
Tony Dungy
Pro Football Hall of Famer Tony Dungy enjoyed one of the most storied coaching careers in NFL history, becoming the first african american english head passenger car to win a Super Bowl. Dungy has constantly placed his faith front man and center in his public persona and has followed up his coaching career with a successful twist as a christian mentor, public loudspeaker, and author. The One year Uncommon Life Daily Challenge is the best of his many offerings. It reads something like a contemporary translation of Ignatius Loyola ’ s Spiritual Exercises, providing readers with a series of goals, challenges, genial exercises, prayers, and meditations to guide them toward a more carry through spiritual and sociable life sentence. Dungy builds his calendar ’ s worth of life lessons around Scripture, making this a text well suited to Bible study groups .
The Games People Play : theology, Religion, and Sport
Robert Ellis
Robert Ellis ’ s The Games People Play is a influence of genuine eruditeness and scholarly inquiry into the character of Christianity in sports. Ellis articulates what he calls a “ theology of sport, ” a intend by which athletic pursuits can adhere to our religious foundations. He argues that sports are neither merely a frivolous enterprise nor a mere platform from which to evangelize. Ellis writes that watching or participating in sports can constitute a moment of transcendence in the practice of everyday life—an opportunity to witness the exercise of the divine amid the apparently ordinary .
estimable crippled : christendom and the polish of Sports
Shirl James Hoffman
full Game provides readers with the best history to date of the relationship between sports and Christianity. Hoffman begins his fib with the spectacles of ancient Rome and the opposition of the early church to the culture of death that pervaded sport during the days of the conglomerate. He spends a significant total of time discussing the radically differing views of sports that emerged among Christians in the late 19th and early twentieth centuries. many american Protestants of the era regarded sports as a push for cultural decline. Others, such as former baseball player Billy Sunday, embraced sports as part of the mass culture of the age and relied on the terminology of frolic to craft a contemporaneous and relatable message. Hoffman expresses significant discomfort with the idea that sports serve as a generator of character construction. In the book ’ s final chapters, he proposes a series of fairly radical reforms for sports at christian institutions aimed at taking aside some of their competitive vigor.
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prevail ! : mighty Stories of Athletes of Faith
Pat Williams with Ken Hussar
Former Philadelphia 76ers and Orlando Magic executive Pat Williams, one of the sharpest minds and greatest showmen in NBA history, has become a popular motivational speaker and author of Christian-oriented self-help books over the past two decades. wallow ! is a fantastic book for christian sports fans of about any age. It is a collection of Scripture-informed vignettes that describe how some of the biggest names in sports, both past and show ( examples include John Wooden, Kurt Warner, and David Robinson ), have used their faith to guide them through challenges both on and off the play field. For a young sports fan, Triumph ! will serve as a build up engine block for cognition of sports history while reinforcing the estimate that many entrust Christians have been able to make a name for themselves in amateurish and professional sports.
God and Football : Faith and Fanaticism in the SEC
Chad Gibbs
Chad Gibbs ’ s travelogue of a college football season spent caravanning around SEC country is an entertain slice-of-life floor. It is besides a unplayful rumination on the excitement of fandom in NCAA football ’ s most dedicate conference and the intense religiosity of the leo ’ s share of its fans. exchangeable to Warren St. John ’ s Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer ( 2004 ), Gibbs ’ s bill has a decidedly more spiritual bent—the generator focuses on whether his passion for football in some way detracts from his christian faith. Gibbs concludes that he can still enjoy football but that his priorities had gotten out of whack—he resolves to make his life more Christ-centered and less dependent on the success of his Auburn Tigers .
In the Arena : The Promise of Sports for Christian Discipleship
David Prince
David Prince, a professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, writes with the cognition of a sports fan and participant about the mean of the gospel in the context of contemporaneous sports. prince presents sports not as a mere diversion but as a mean of glorifying God—an opportunity for Christians to show their diligence, sense of loyalty, and courage. He sees competition as a space where Christians can demonstrate their sexual love of neighbor through the friendly and blunt avocation of victory within the game ’ s proper bounds .
Playing for God : evangelical Women and the Unintended Consequences of Sports Ministry
Annie Blazer
Annie Blazer ’ s provocative sociological learn of christian women in sports argues that the efforts of ministries like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Athletes in Action have had an unexpected long-run impact on the self-perceptions of many female athletes. Blazer finds that for many Christian female athletes, sports-centered christian fellowships offer a space in which to discuss issues related to their bodies. This focus on the body, Blazer argues, created an opportunity for many christian women to question aspects of their gender roles and sex within a mount typically regarded as a bastion of traditional social attitudes.
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Christy Mathewson, the christian Gentleman : How One Man ’ s Faith and Fastball Forever Changed Baseball
Bob Gaines
While a number of biographers have examined the tragic life sentence and death of Mathewson, the early 1900s New York Giants ace, Bob Gaines ’ s koran is the first one to put explicit focus on his spiritual travel. It follows Mathewson through his Baptist breeding in Factoryville, Pennsylvania and the Bucknell University education that framed his mentality on life. In the rough-and-tumble earth of early-20th-century big-league baseball, Mathewson lived as an exemplar of Christian merit. Gaines situates Mathewson ’ s career in a ample historical context, placing the public life of the “ Christian Gentleman ” alongside the culture of early-20th-century Protestant revivalism and the sociable gospel movement .
Clayton Trutor holds a ph in US history from Boston College and teaches at Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont. He is the generator of Loserville : How Professional Sports Remade Atlanta and Atlanta Remade Professional Sports, which is forthcoming from University of Nebraska Press.
