God has a plan: Moral values and beliefs of Christian athletes in competitive sports
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4100/jhse.2012.72.14Keywords:
Christian athletes, Competitive sports, Moral values, Moral beliefs, Sport ethicsAbstract
Christian athletes are people with specific and distinctive moral guidelines in everyday life as well as in competitive sports. No matter if they are competing in triathlon, athletics, or playing soccer, if they are playing in the lowest or highest division of their sport, or if they are being faced with unmoral situations, that is what we expect. They therefore stand in contrast to some athletes of today’s competitive sports who do not seem to have any guideline at all anymore, who would not shy at anything to win a competition and who therefore give competitive sports a rather negative touch. But is that really the case? Do Christian athletes fulfil this expectation? In the following study some light will be shed on the world of Christian sportsmen. Their ways of thinking, coping and acting in regard to morality in sports will be explored, interpreted and analyzed.
Downloads
References
Beller J, et al. The Relationship of Competition and a Christian Liberal Arts Education on Moral Reasoning of College Student Athletes. Ypsilanti, Eastern Michigan University: Department of HPERD; 1995.
Boxill J. The Ethics of Competition. In: J Boxill (Ed.). Sports Ethics – An Anthology. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. Pp. 107-115.
COACKLEY JJ. Sport and religion, is it a promising combination? In: JJ Coakley (Ed.). Sport in Society. St. Louis: Times Mirror/ Mosby College Publishing; 1986. Pp. 45-59.
Conrad J, Lau A. Einfluss religiöser Einstellungen von Athletinnen und Athleten auf ihr leistungssportliches Leben. Paper presented at the conference Körper, Kult und Konfessionen in Frankfurt a. M., Germany; 2010.
CORBIN JM, STRAUSS AL. Basics of Qualitative Research. Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. 3rd edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage; 2008.
EITZEN DS, SAGE GH. Sport and Religion. In: DS Eitzen, GH Sage (Eds.). Sociology of North American Sport. Dubuque: W. C. Brown; 1989. Pp. 141-171.
Flick U. An Introduction to Qualitative Research. London: Sage; 2009.
Foddy W. Constructing Questions for Interviews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1993. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511518201
GLASER BG, STRAUSS AL. The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago: Aldine; 1967.
GUSTAFSON JM. Theology and ethics. Oxford: Blackwell; 1981.
Güldenpfennig S. Sport: Kritik und Eigensinn. Der Sport der Gesellschaft. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag; 2000.
Hertz A, Korff W, Rendtorff T. Handbuch der christlichen Ethik. Bestandsaufnahme und Grundlagenfragen (1). Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder; 1993a.
Hertz A, Korff W, Rendtorff T. Handbuch der christlichen Ethik. Problemfelder ethischen Handelns (2). Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder; 1993b.
Hertz A, Korff W, Rendtorff T. Handbuch der christlichen Ethik. Wege ethischer Praxis heute (3). Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder; 1993c.
HIGGS RJ, BRASWELL MC. An Unholy Alliance. The Sacred and Modern Sports. Macon: Mercer University Press; 2004.
HOFFMAN SJ. Sport, Religion, and Ethics. In: SJ Hoffmann (Ed.). Sport and Religion. Champaign: Human Kinetics; 1992. Pp. 213-225.
KELLY BC, HOFFMAN SJ, GILL DL. The relationship between competitive orientation and religious orientation. Journal of Sport Behavior. 1990; 13:145-156.
Kvale S. Interviews. An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing- London: Sage; 1996.
Lamnek S. Qualitative Sozialforschung: Lehrbuch. 5th edition. Basel: Beltz Verlag; 2010.
Lay N. Sport and Religion. An unholy Alliance. Knoxville: University of Tennessee; 1993.
MORGAN WJ. Ethics, Ethical Inquiries and Sport. An Introduction. In: WJ Morgan (Ed.). Ethics in Sport. Champaign: Human Kinetics; 2000. Pp. xiii-xxxv.
PREBISH CS. Religion and Sport. The Meeting of the Sacred and the Profane. London: Greenwood; 1993.
SIMON RL. Sports, Relativism, and Moral Education. In: J Boxill (Ed.). Sports Ethics – An Anthology. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing; 2003. Pp. 15-28.
Slusher H. Sport: Morality and Ethics. In: SJ Hoffman (Ed.). Sport and Religion. Champaign: Human Kinetics; 1992. Pp. 227–236.
Sternberg T. Geschichte der christlichen Sportbewegung. In: H-G Ulrich, G Engelhardt, G Treutlein (Eds.). Körper, Sport und Religion – Interdisziplinäre Beiträge. Idstein: Schulz Kirchner Verlag; 2003. Pp. 31-50.
STRAUSS AL, CORBIN J. Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. 2nd edition. London: Sage; 1998.
SYED M. The players with God on their Side. Times Online; 2010. Retrieved June 15, 2010, from: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/international/article7150133.ece
Downloads
Statistics
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2012 Journal of Human Sport and Exercise
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Each author warrants that his or her submission to the Work is original and that he or she has full power to enter into this agreement. Neither this Work nor a similar work has been published elsewhere in any language nor shall be submitted for publication elsewhere while under consideration by JHSE. Each author also accepts that the JHSE will not be held legally responsible for any claims of compensation.
Authors wishing to include figures or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright holder(s) and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.
Please include at the end of the acknowledgements a declaration that the experiments comply with the current laws of the country in which they were performed. The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the abovementioned requirements. The author(s) will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned requirements.
This title is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
You are free to share, copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Notices:
You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.
No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.
Transfer of Copyright
In consideration of JHSE’s publication of the Work, the authors hereby transfer, assign, and otherwise convey all copyright ownership worldwide, in all languages, and in all forms of media now or hereafter known, including electronic media such as CD-ROM, Internet, and Intranet, to JHSE. If JHSE should decide for any reason not to publish an author’s submission to the Work, JHSE shall give prompt notice of its decision to the corresponding author, this agreement shall terminate, and neither the author nor JHSE shall be under any further liability or obligation.
Each author certifies that he or she has no commercial associations (e.g., consultancies, stock ownership, equity interest, patent/licensing arrangements, etc.) that might pose a conflict of interest in connection with the submitted article, except as disclosed on a separate attachment. All funding sources supporting the Work and all institutional or corporate affiliations of the authors are acknowledged in a footnote in the Work.
Each author certifies that his or her institution has approved the protocol for any investigation involving humans or animals and that all experimentation was conducted in conformity with ethical and humane principles of research.
Competing Interests
Biomedical journals typically require authors and reviewers to declare if they have any competing interests with regard to their research.
JHSE require authors to agree to Copyright Notice as part of the submission process.
