Theology, Ethics and Sports

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The human drive to struggle for victory against opponents, whether in military battles or athletic contests, runs throughout human history. Theologians and philosophers from ancient times until today have considered the implications of this struggle for the human quest for excellence and for meaning which, at its limit, involves the search for God. More recently, scholars have considered the behavior and discourse of sports fans as something close to a religion. This course will examine each of these topics, beginning with early philosophical and theological views of struggle, embodiment, and the quest for excellence before engaging more recent writings about the relation of sports to virtue, theological accounts of athletics in its relationship to community identity and flourishing, and the ethical analysis of modern college and professional sports. Course requirements include a series of short reflection papers and a final group project undertaking a theological and ethical analysis of one particular example of modern athletics in a specific social context.