An Unholy Alliance: The Sacred and Modern Sports - Softcover

Braswell, Michael C; Higgs, Robert J

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0865549567 ISBN 13: 9780865549562

Publisher: Mercer University Press, 2004

Synopsis

An Unholy Alliance offers a dissenting view to the claim by a growing number of scholars that Sports are a new religion. The last few years have seen a spate of books that might be classified by a genre called "Sports Apologetics," that is, arguments defending or celebrating in one way or another the familiar and ongoing alliance in America between sports and religion. Recently, claims have been made by scholars that sports are an authentic religion in and of themselves. They make this startling assertion not by showing connections with the teachings of Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, or Moses, but by parallels between the rites of modern games and those of preliterate man that were "religious" in nature because they were designed to propitiate powers and to ward off evil for the tribes employing them. In this evocative book, Higgs and Braswell suggest that while sports may often be good things, they are not inherently divine. They do not focus on wide-spread abuse in sports as evidence for their counterargument. Rather, they question the use of mythological parallels from prehistory as justification for viewing sports as a religion.

About this title

About the Author

Michael C. Braswell is a former prison psychologist for the Georgia Department of Corrections. He is a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at East Tennessee State University and is a licensed marriage and family therapist. He has authored or coauthored twelve books on such topics as Criminal Justice ethics, Peacemaking, Correctional Counseling, and the Spiritual Journey.

About this edition

• Publisher: Mercer University Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0865549567
• ISBN 13: 9780865549562
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432
• Editor: Price Joseph L