ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some of the key authors and positions in the philosophic and historical literature related to sport and religion. It deals with some personal speculations on how Christian theology could help sport philosophers understand play and embodiment. The association between sport and religion is by most accounts an ancient one. The intermingling of sport and its precursors with religion can be found in numerous ancient cultures all around the globe. A sound philosophical reflection on sport and religion reveals several problematic elements in the conventional secular accounts. As William Cavanaugh points out, contemporary scholars have generally clung to either a substantive or functionalist definition of religion, neither of which are without problems. The “substantivist” view defines religion by the content or substance of its adherents’ beliefs, while the functionalist defines religion by the import that a practice, institution or set of beliefs has in any given cultural context.
