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American Culture through Religion and Sport: A Conversation with Professor Blazer

Professor Blazer’s work on the intersections of religion and sports began 20 years ago with her research for her first book, where she investigated evangelical Christians and their use of sports in missionary work and community building.  

In her new publication, she further expands this conversation by exploring the interconnectedness of sport and religion within American culture and how it reflects realities beyond just stadiums and churches. Professor Blazer, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, models her book after her course “Religion and Sport in the US” and details the intersections of these two topics while introducing various religious traditions that exist within the United States. Through her research, she investigates what these intersections reveal about elements of American culture, specifically gender norms, race relations, capitalism, and nationalism. Her work illustrates the complexities within sport and American culture, underlining the importance of applying critical inquiry to discussions on the dimensions of American culture.  

Professor Blazer opens her book with the question of whether sport can be considered a religion or not, a question that developed in the field of sport and religion during her initial research 20 years ago.  

“I start the book there because I think it's an interesting way to investigate definitions of religion. If you define religion [one] way, then sport can fit in that category. If you define religion in another way, then it won't.” 

However, Professor Blazer pushes this discussion by challenging her audiences with a new question – Is religion a sport? 

“When you frame the question that way, you get really different insights on what we think of as religion. People find that question quite uncomfortable, even though they’re very comfortable with the question of ‘Is sport a religion’. I think that’s very revealing of what putting these two terms together can do.”  

Her book explores sports in Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist and Confucian communities. She examines cases of sport becoming a tool for both demonstrating American belonging and distancing from it, particularly in communities with stories of immigration as part of their history in the United States.  

Professor Blazer also addresses American Christianity and social issues within different sports. She highlights sport as an omnipresent element of American culture, one that typically carries a positive association and shared belief that engagement with it produces positive benefits. These complexities of sports in different religious communities invite students to critically examine the role of sports and what they reveal about American culture.   

“The assumption that sport has positive attributes, that playing sport or even watching sport, that there’s something positive about this experience that’s good for us as humans... I’m always really interested in thinking about the consequences of that kind of ubiquity.” 

Professor Blazer unpacks the consequences of sport serving as a dominant participatory piece of American culture, specifically explaining how the structure of sport can have a significant influence on our understandings of one another.  

“...These things, to me, open a set of critical questions to turn on sports, rather than treating it as something that’s obviously good...” 

She analyzes the historical racial segregation of sports, highlighting the influence of this racial paradigm in the organization of sports on race relations within America. Regarding gender, she discusses the impact of segregation of sports by sex, particularly how sports have become spaces where people learn about and evaluate expressions of gender. Her work examines the effects of sports being historically limited to men, including the association of sports and masculinity.  

While researching the participatory presence of sports in American culture and its role in various communities, Professor Blazer also conducted a variety of interviews with people across religious traditions and sports involvement. These personal stories “make these ideas relatable”.  

"As a qualitative researcher, a researcher who uses qualitative methods, I'm always looking for a small story that tells a big story.” 

Professor Blazer shares conversations with a range of athletes and sports organizations. In addition to conversations with Christian sport organizations and Christian college athletic directors, she also discusses obstacles to participation in sports, specifically for Muslim Americans. Her conversations with Muslim athletes highlight the experiences of athletes fasting during Ramadan and female athletes who wear the hijab.  

“I wanted to talk to athletes who experienced obstacles to their participation in sports, and particularly I was thinking about wearing the veil and fasting for Ramadan, and how these practices, these Muslim practices, don’t fit with larger sports culture in that Ramadan will always fall in some sports season and affect athletes that are in that sport.” 

Through her use of qualitative research and interviews with members of various religious communities, Professor Blazer’s new publication will serve as a critical tool in classrooms for students to examine different aspects of American culture through an analytical lens.  

“I would just love it if people took away – it’s complicated. One of the things that we work on in religious studies is how to sit with ambiguity and complexity and nuance and to recognize that simplifying things narrows our frame, and obscures questions that are valuable.” 

The intersections of religion and sport revealed in her book illustrate the complexities and interconnectedness of American culture, allowing for critical analysis and conversations among readers. 

“If we’re just able to notice complexity and enjoy it, then I think we get richer conversations.”