Abstract
Sports ministry emerged in the 1950s and 1960s as evangelical Christians searched for new ways to connect to wider audiences. Using the cultural world of sports to promote their message of salvation has had tremendous influence: more than one hundred sports ministry groups exist in the United States, involving tens of thousands of athletes, coaches, and supporters. In Playing for God, Annie Blazer makes a timely contribution to the discourse surrounding the widespread emergence and popularity of sports ministry organizations, noting especially the contradictions that materialize as traditional religious ideologies collide with popular culture.
Blazer proves herself an astute researcher by combining comprehensive historical analysis with an analytically deft account of the identity work of contemporary Christian athletes. As Blazer demonstrates, the lives of Christian athletes are centered on balancing two identities: “evangelical” and “athlete.” For men, these identities tend to coincide, since notions of masculine dominance, power, and strength tend to translate from one realm to another. For female athletes, though, these identities don’t match up so easily. On the one hand, they are embedded in a theological perspective that stresses intrinsic gender differences. But, on the other hand, they are vividly aware that, as athletes, they are also challenging traditional gendered notions of women as weak and passive. With remarkable attention to detail and nuance, Blazer reveals the cultural resources and tools women use to negotiate these contradictions, demonstrating the active and strategic ways that identities are enacted.
Blazer uses ethnographic data from sports camps, elite women’s travelling basketball and soccer teams, and archival research accessed through her entrée into the headquarters of Athletes in Action and Fellowship for Christian Athletes—two of the oldest, largest sports ministry organizations in the United States. Blazer’s analysis of each group and source is rich, layered, and complex. The result is a detailed documentation of the history of sports ministry, as well as a multifaceted analysis of contemporary women’s negotiation of competing and contradictory expectations.
First, Blazer outlines the history of sports ministry, demonstrating that connecting evangelical theology with sport has moved through an array of challenges and contradictions. Take for example what Blazer calls “the problem of winning” (p.30). In order for evangelical Christian athletes to draw an audience to hear their message, teams have to win—since losing teams are much less likely to attract an audience. However, qualities of compassion and kindness—behaviors that are viewed as Christian and/or Christ-like—often undermine teams’ and players’ ability to win. Consequently, athletes are left to negotiate (most often unsuccessfully) the contradiction between the need to demonstrate compassion on the field and the need to win. The solution most often proffered is to refocus their Christian identity on their bodies, not their words. Specifically, their athletic performance is itself a form of witness, a form of communicating God’s message. Strength, commitment, and toughness become evidence of moral fortitude and superiority. Attention to embodiment serves as a resource for negotiating a variety of dilemmas that Christian athletes face; but, as Blazer deftly demonstrates, this focus has other implications, especially for women.
This shifting emphasis from words to embodiment contributed to the rise in women’s participation in sports ministry: by the 1990s women and youth constituted the majority of sports ministry organization members. But, again, this new emphasis brought added contradictions. While evangelicalism expects a traditional femininity, playing sports (a conventionally masculine domain) often contradicts that femininity. Consequently, elite female athletes engage in a variety of strategies, often reinterpreting their athlete identity to make it more compatible with evangelicalism’s traditional doctrine. One strategy involves monitoring appearance, relying on markers such as clothing and hair to establish and validate their femininity, thereby challenging the notion of sport as entirely masculine.
Another strategy is to redefine femininity to incorporate conventionally masculine qualities such as leadership and strength. But integrating notions of masculinity introduces additional challenges as well—transgressing gendered norms also increases the likelihood that they will be interpreted as sexually deviant. It is here that Blazer adeptly demonstrates that while traditional evangelical doctrine creates certain obstacles for women negotiating gendered, athletic identities, it can also serve as a powerful resource. For female athletes that must confront stereotypes of sexual deviance, their participation in sports ministry organizations serves as a social indicator of their heterosexuality. This, in turn, can create an environment where women can relax, allowing a break from the requirement that they vigilantly police their appearance and behaviors.
Blazer’s analysis highlights the fluid, performative dimensions of gender and religious identities. Her work raises additional questions, though—specifically, how these negotiations and identity projects might look similar or different at the interstices of race and class as well as gender. While religious doctrine often centers on gendered differences, we also know that gender is always/at once raced and classed. Future analyses that consider how femininity, sexuality, and religious and athletic identities are performed with attention to racialized and classed understandings would expand on the base that Blazer’s work has built.
Blazer’s analysis is well-researched, informative, and accessible. Playing for God would be an excellent tool in religion, sport, and gender courses, both undergraduate and graduate. It will also be of interest to students and scholars who are interested in studies of embodiment, as well as those who study youth, culture, and identity.