Transcript: "What Is the Relationship Between Religion, Race and Sports in America?" With Jeffrey Scholes
Chris: Sports are everywhere in America as we all know. The Super Bowl, the Masters, The World Series, The Stanley Cup, The Olympics, the NBA, the MLB the NFL, Youth Travel Sports, and the list goes on and on and on. So, if we understand sports, we may understand something of America. For us on this podcast series, the question is, does religion factor into sports? It seems the answer is a loud 'yes'. In 1976, Sports Illustrated published a three-part essay by the famed sports commentator Frank Deford titled "Religion in Sport", in which he analyzed the cozy relationship between Christianity and sports in the United States. And it was in this article that he coined the term 'sportianity' writing it this way, "It is almost as if a new denomination has been created. Sportianity. While Christian churches struggle with problems of declining attendants, following contributions, and now, even reduction in membership. Sportianity appears to be taking off."
Chris: That same year Michael Novak published the "Joy of Sports", articulating the religiosity embedded in the playing and cheering on of sports. Today's discussion will help us all better understand what religion has done to America and what America has done to religion, and we trust that as a result, listeners will see how indispensable the idea of religious freedom is as a governing principle to the United States, and its ability to fulfill its purposes in the world.
We have with us today, Jeffrey Scholes, to talk about religion and sports. He is an associate professor in the department of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, and author of the upcoming book Christianity, Race, and Sport to be published next year by Routledge Press.
Professor Scholes' interests include the relationship between religion and sports and American political theology. He is the author of Vocation and the Politics of Work: Popular Theology in a Consumer Culture and co-author of Religion and Sports in American Culture. We encourage listeners to visit storyofamericanreligion.org and sign up for future podcast notifications under the sign-up tab. Jeff, it is wonderful to have you with us today.
Jeff: Wonderful to be here, Chris. Thank you so much.
Chris: This is an absolutely fascinating topic. Those two--the book and the articles, quoted earlier were from a long time ago, but from what you write, that sort of started this whole study off on how does religion influences sports. And a lot has happened from that time, but I think those probably established pretty important markers in this field. Before we dive into your particular angle on this intersection of religion and sports in America, could you tell us about a couple of the most prominent ways observers of American culture have linked religion and sports? To provide something of a framework for our listeners to what we will discuss today.
Jeff: Sure. If you go back to 1976, as you did with, Novak and Deford both of them were attempting to try to talk about sport and religion as kind of a, separate entities. And Novak is arguing that sport is as, as he says, 'somehow a religion'. So, he is looking for religious qualities in sport itself. So, he is making an argument as a Catholic theologian back then. He passed away a couple of years ago. That in fact, sport is a type of religion despite what others may think of sport being a--a purely secular activity as opposed to religion. Deford as you suggest, is--is arguing that this coziness between, in particular, Evangelical Christianity and its fascination with sport which still continues today, is a problem. But he is still conceiving of sport and religion as kind of two separate entities that come together very badly and poorly and--and should be critiqued. So, his angle is more of a critical analysis of the relationship, whereas, Novak is trying to--to link the two together. You know, through the 80s and 90s, you had kind of what--what I will call it kind of a second wave of the scholarship of religion and sport. Whereby, kind of DeFord's critique is continued, but there is more of a historical approach to it.
Jeff: There is an emphasis and a looking back at this phenomenon called Muscular Christianity. That was really taking shape in England and the United States in the late 19th or early 20th century. That helped form the YMCA, uhm, and it--it--it argued essentially in the Victorian age, United States, and England that in particular, white boys were kind of getting soft or coddled and mothered too much. And are working in factories and not on the farm, and therefore, to make the argument that Jesus was somehow muscular and athletic, was meant to prod or to connect religion or Christianity to athletic activity, which it had not been so in the past. In fact, Puritans frowned upon sports as an activity, as something that would take you away from spiritual activities like reading the Bible and praying. So Muscular Christianity attempted to reverse that and put them together.
Jeff: So, in the 80s--in the 1980s and 1990s, you see looking back and trying to reconnect with where we are now based on the past in particular in relation to Muscular Christianity. To position, like, my work the book that is coming out next year, and I also have to give a plug for a book that I am co-editing with Randall Balmer called "Religion and Sport in America". It is an edited volume, so we have essays coming in. And almost all those essays also kind of fit in what I would call a third wave, which I would argue that we are in right now, of the scholarship of religion and sport. That brings that is not just satisfied certainly to silo religion and sport in an attempt to put them together. But to argue that religion and sport are co-constitutive, they helped form each other. You cannot separate the two. Just as I argue in my monograph book, you know, race and religion are also constitutive of each other. So, is, sport and race certainly. And as a result in--i--in response to, an emphasis on intersectionality, to bring in race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, even the transgender movement, in particular with cases like Caster Semenya, the runner. You know, whether she needs to have testosterone test in order to compete with the women. All of these other issues that are really kind of political are now brought to bear in the sporting world and to look at the role that religion plays in, either problems in the sporting world or good things in the sporting world, that is happening with these--with these other things. So, this third wave is much more, broad. In a sense that history is so brought in, but religion and sport are not taken as separate entities and that permits the introduction of these other, you know, again, gender or race. All of these are things that have been with us for a long time, but now, religion and sports scholars are much more likely to bring them to bear on their own studies.
Chris: Okay, that is very helpful as we move forward here. So tell us this, before we go to the three chapters in your upcoming book that we are going to discuss. How did the historical, well, I guess you are a philosopher, not a historian, right? Would that be...
Jeff: I am actually religious studies. They let me teach in the philosophy department.
Chris: Okay, so why did--I guess tell us this. Why did you feel like you needed to write about religion, race, and sports, instead of just religion and sports?
Jeff: Well, number one. As you mentioned at the onset, I have co-written a book on religion and sport, but there are certainly another one I--I could write about generally speaking. And the introduction to the co-edited book that is coming out next year is much more about religion and sport in general. But, I mean really one thing, well actually two things. One was the, Colin Kaepernick, kneeling for the national anthem in--in the beginning part of the 2016 football season. It allowed a new kind of, in particular, black activism to take place and solidarity with people of other races to join them. But it was the kind that we really had not seen since the 1960s and 70s with someone like Muhammad Ali, or you know, Jim Brown or, uh, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. So there is this gap really that Michael Jordan helped initiate where, commercialization and, kind of this generalized hero status that was apolitical. That was the way in which most African American athletes, uh, chose to be with the lead of Michael Jordan. That really has changed.
You look at LeBron James. Likely, maybe the most famous athlete in the world. He is incredibly political. He talks about politics all the time but I think he was given permission to do so largely by what Colin Kaepernick did. So that just got me to thinking--the second thing I was invited to, uh, write an essay on religion, race, and sport in an edited volume in 2018. So I--after writing that I thought, "You know, there may be a book in here." So, but it was really Colin Kaepernick that kicked off the idea that just writing about religion and sport and--and leaving out race or only including it minimally, would not do religion and sports justice. You just--you just have to. In the United States, you cannot avoid it at all and sure enough there--there--there was a book in there. So, that is--that is what kind of prompted it.
Chris: Well, thank you for doing that. It is fascinating and I think important for Americans, all of us, to sort of understand better.
Chris: Jeff, let us talk a little bit about, about civil rights in sports, race and sports. You write this in your introduction, uh, "Sports advocates have often laid claim to a kind of proto-civil rights record that sports possess in that teams, leagues, and governing bodies have allowed the entry of members of minority races onto its fields and into its locker rooms well before. The courtesy was extended at the doors of public schools, buses, and restaurants. And that it came through with a steep price." Can you elaborate on this as far as what the historical records indicate here?
Jeff: Yeah, you know, sport and sports advocates in particular, oftentimes like to think of its own industry as a colorblind meritocracy. Whereby, if you are good enough, no matter race, even gender, as we saw recently. There was a woman kicker for, Vanderbilt that actually got on the field and kicked--kicked off. If you are good enough, no matter any other quality, how rich you are, how poor you are, what color your skin is, you will make the team and you will play. So, therefore it is a meritocracy and it is supposedly colorblind. And there are examples of this. I think really first of all to, Jack Johnson, the great boxer in the early part of the 20th century. African-American from Galveston who for a long time was not allowed to fight white pla--white--white boxers, but finally was so good, that it--it began to concern the white community that everyone else was believing that no white boxer could beat him. So therefore, they had to find what they called the 'Great White Hope', to fight Jack Johnson. And Jack Johnson in Reno, Nevada absolutely destroyed--I think Jim Jeffries was his name destroyed him [chuckles], but then, was penalized afterwards. He was actually dating a white woman. This is in the early--this is the height of Jim Crow, and Illinois made up a law that said you could not, uh, bring like a--a--a mixed-race couple cannot cross state lines. So, when he did, they arrested him and put him in jail.
Jeff: So, there were ways of stopping that too, but that is an example of say, you know, really before African-Americans, had the Civil Rights Act passed, that Jack Johnson was allowed to fight white boxers. Say the same thing about Jackie Robinson in 1947 crossing the color barrier, you know, a good ten years before Brown versus Board of Education. So therefore, that allows sports advocates to--to argue again for not only sports being kind of proto-civil rights or before it, because it is fairer. But also, the reason for that is that it is a colorblind meritocracy.
I make very strong arguments that in fact, it is not a colorblind meritocracy. Uhm, the profit motive in the case of Johnson fighting and in the case of Jackie Robinson being signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945, and then, finally getting to play for the Dodgers in 1947, as Jackie Robinson said in his autobiography, Branch Rickey the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, if you have seen the movie, 42. Harrison Ford plays him and they chronicle this--this famous meeting that they had. But Jackie Robinson, in his autobiography, said it was about money. In fact, he said that people talk about how religious Branch Rickey was and he was very pious, but Robinson says that the God that he really worship was money. And therefore, putting Jackie Robinson on the field was going to bring African-Americans to the ballpark and other people as well, and they would be more successful and therefore make more money. So, it was not necessarily that Branch Rickey was, you know, a Martin Luther King type at all. It may be had that effect for a lot of people, but there is always a profit motive to this "colorblind meritocracy".
Chris: Okay, fair enough. Good. Okay, so now let us get into some details. As I said we are just going to cover three, of your chapters, Jeff. And the first one will be what you call the Domestication of Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. The second will be Religious Expression in the NFL for Blacks and Whites, and the third will be--and I love this title of the chapter, The Black Prophetic Fire of Colin Kaepernick. So, Jeff, you write that the world-famous American boxers, Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, were angry and dangerous black men and they needed and then were tamed. And that was done employing the same reasoning used to treat black bodies in the American past with chains, rape beatings, and lynching often with religious justification. Can you tell this story for us?
Jeff: Yeah, so, the religious part of this domestication process, and by the way, as most people probably know, Muhammad Ali was, tamed or domesticated in a sense to no fault of his own through Parkinson's disease which he contracted for God, sometime in the 1980s. And he was not able to really speak or--or certainly move nearly as well, which is very evident in interviews he did. And maybe people remember him lighting the Olympic torch in the Atlanta games in 1996, but he can you know, barely walk. And in George Foreman's case it is--it is, you know, he has not been ravaged by Parkinson's or some physical disease, but, he becomes an entrepreneur selling these indoor grills. He becomes an evangelist. He converts to Evangelical Christianity in 1977. Becomes a pastor, he has got this personality where he is smiling, uh, patriotic, Christian, capitalist. So, in a sense that--those qualities tend to, make George Foreman palatable and safe for white audiences. So, there is a domestication process that has gone on there as well. So, two different processes of domestication, but nevertheless the effects of the same. What I argue is that the white, in particular white, Protestant community is more able to accept and even forget or "forgive" some of the actions or fear that--they--that was instilled in them certainly with Muhammad Ali with his, not only his punching power, but more so his mouth and his mind, right? He converts to Nation of Islam, uh, right after his, uh, winning the heavyweight championship in 1964, and is brilliant [chuckles] and frightening. I mean, no one had ever heard an athlete, white or black, talk like that. He was the most famous athlete in the world as well so his word carried a ton of weight, and the Nation of Islam, as--as many may know, based on the Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X as well, were arguing for a kind of, separatism there were different versions of that, whether it was to go back to--for blacks to go back to Africa or to create a separate country of their own because United States was hopelessly white supremacist and hopelessly, a white version of Christianity, which Ali rejects as he changes his name to from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali.
So that fear instilled in the white community, based on not only a physical presence of a large, dangerous black body, which George Foreman certainly had as well before his conversion experience, he never smiled before. There is footage, by the way, for the listeners or viewers that The Rumble in the Jungle documentary, is, “When We Were Kings” is fantastic. The fight is between Ali and Foreman, after Ali, gets over his three-year suspension for refusing fight in Vietnam, yet again, another protest that frightens, it makes white Americans very wary of what is he really up to. But that fight brings them together, but really after that begins this kind of domestication process. Whereby, in particular like I say, white Protestants are more able to, think of Muhammad Ali as, you know, one of their own, right? Because he cannot do damage, because he cannot speak his mind anymore. And George Foreman just becomes "one of them". So, in a sense the domestication process performance is something that he did on his own. You know, he appears on the 700 Club. Muhammad Ali would never have done that [chuckles], right? On the Christian Broadcasting Network he is on quite a bit. And he is always smiling and talking and giving his testimony. So, he is doing things that, make many white Americans comfortable and religion plays a role in that. So part of my argument is the domestication process, in a--in a sense wants, these black bodies to be tamed and not to be scary anymore, essentially.
Chris: Right. So, so before--I do not know much about George Foreman, before his conversion to Christianity. He was--you are saying he was, uh, he never smiled, he was mean, there--there was a palpable fear, uh, of him and Muhammad Ali.
Jeff: Yes.
Chris: They were palpable, tangible.
Jeff: Well, yes. I mean even before the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire, mind you. I mean the--George Foreman at the time was the heavyweight champion. So, Ali beats him and--and I would argue the greatest boxing match in the history of the United States or the world. But Foreman was laconic he did not talk that much, but he did not smile. He brought a German Shepherd Zaire with him, who would be by his side, but he did his talking with his fists. He--he was like kind of like Mike Tyson could knock you out with one punch. Ali could not do that. Ali was a finesse boxer, could certainly punch, but he really tries to strike fear in you with his words. He called, you know, Foreman and all his opponents like these crazy names. Foreman just kind of sat there and took it but that elicited, well, at least for the journalist that were covering the fight, they did not give Ali a shot. They thought he was going to get killed in the ring and he ended up taking a lot of punches, but coming back in the eighth round to win it. So, Foreman struck fear in people because, in a sense, he did not talk with his mouth, but he talked with his fist and could knock you out with one punch. I mean he was an incredibly powerful boxer, much more so than Muhammad Ali. That was a part of it.
In addition to that, he comes from the streets of Galveston, got into a lot of trouble as a kid, ends up, taking a job in Oregon as a part of LBJ's Job Corps program. And that changes things to some extent, but he realizes that boxing is what is going to it is going to help him make his way. But the only way to do that was to present this image, and it was a true one of him at the time, of angry and, in a sense, quiet and was going to kill you in the ring.
Chris: And with Muhammad Ali, describe to us the fear that he gave Christian America, I guess we could say America, with his conversion to Nation of Islam and how he spoke of that, and--and--and what you say that was a surprise--that was sort of had never been done before. His sort of activism of a black athlete and what...
Jeff: Right, and certainly not of, in the 1960s, the most famous, perhaps person on the planet, right? So, you know, he starts off, in fact, the first press conference after the 1964 fight, when he announces that he is now Muhammad Ali. Which by the way, there were reporters from the New York Times who refuse to call him that into the 1970s. There is a--a--a boxer that he fights in the--in the 1970s who is calling him Cassius in the ring, and Muhammad Ali beats him up badly and he was saying, "What is my name?" Like he [chuckles] wants him to say his name. Right, it--it--it was--what he said--that was probably the most frightening or, uhm, offensive to many white Christians is that, uh, you know, he said, "Listen, I grew up in the Baptist Church in Kentucky”, believing in a--what he would consider a white male God, right? That is what African-Americans has been told what Jesus looked like for instance, and he just rejects all that with the Nation of Islam theology that states that, "Because Africans were the first human beings, those are God's chosen people." And therefore, we have bought this, uh, lie about who God is and about what Christianity is or the true God is. And therefore, a wholesale rejection of that for him meant joining the Nation of Islam which has much more of a black centered theology, uhm, and certainly a centralizing of Africans and African-American people as those that are chosen by God.
So, therefore, it has to be a full rejection of "white Protestant and Catholic Christianity" for him. It is not just a “I am starting a new denomination.” It is leaving Christianity and making claims about it.
Not that, you know, he does not believe in Jesus, it is that, "Your religion is flat out wrong and we have been lied to about this for hundreds and hundreds of years." Combine that with his political stance, which is the United States, is that which helps support and prop up white supremacy, and this kind of white version of Christianity. And therefore, "You are telling me to go to Vietnam and kill other brown people for white people. I am not going to do it." right? And it is his religion that is actually motivating him not to, but his politics and his--I mean politics are very tightly intertwined with theology of Nation of Islam. It is there from the very beginning. So, he was able to make a political stance by not going to Vietnam using his theology very easily. Whereas, say, Martin Luther King, you know, there was a little bit more trouble attaching his version of Christianity to say for instance, the Constitution. Which he tried to do quite a bit and he did it with some success, but with Ali, it was just baked into the Nation of Islam theology. But refusing to go to Vietnam and being a prominent African-American who is not doing what white America tells you to do, that is frightening to a lot of whites, certainly back then.
Chris: Right. Okay. Well, there is a lot there, we need to move on to the other two chapters because of time. But, the listeners should just pick up your book next year.
We are talking with Jeffrey Scholes, associate professor in the department of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs about his book Christianity, Race and Sport, to be published next year by Routledge Press. If you have not already, please visit storyofamericanreligion.org and sign up for future podcast notifications under the signup tab.
Jeff, under your--or in your chapter about, religious expression in the NFL, you begin by suggesting that there is a double standard between whites and blacks. Can you paint this picture for us?
Jeff: Absolutely, Chris. So, I start the chapter, uhm, by using this chapter of a book by David Leonard, called, Playing While White, where he says there is a double standard in the way in which fans, coaches, and even fellow athletes deal with trash talking in all the leagues. You know, a--a--a white player that does trash talking, you know, kind of talking down to someone or yelling crazy wild things to intimidate the opponent. Usually, when somebody has a lot of examples when done by a white athlete it is considered to be, you know, courageous and it shows his or her, fight that is within. And--and, so it is in another word--it is positive. Oftentimes, when African-American athletes do this same exact level of trash-talking, they are labeled a thug. They are labeled, you know, a--a--a sign of moral decline in the United States. So, right there you have a very clear double standard. And I wanted to write about, and I wondered whether there is a similar double standard with religious expression, in particular in the NFL, uhm, amongst African-American players and white players. And, uh, I--I argue that yes, indeed, there is. Oftentimes, and I kind of break it down with uh, these categories of religious expression in--that comes through sport, right? Uhm, [crosstalk] go ahead.
Chris: My next question was can you--I was going to list out those religious expression types and sports. You could explain each briefly and give maybe an example.
Jeff: Sure.
Chris: I apologize for interrupting, but you were--
Jeff: Yup [chuckles].
Chris: The first one you call, "It is just a game.". Second, “Billboard.” Third, “Glorification.” Fourth, “Soft Providential”, and fifth, “Hard Providential”. I hope I got those right.
Jeff: You did. I am trying to remember them too.
Chris: I can give them to you as we go.
Jeff: Okay [chuckles]. That would be great.
Chris: Explain that and then give us an example, maybe.
Jeff: Sure. So, "It is just a game.", is the kind of, attitude that, you know, God plus--in other words there--if--if, especially after a loss you will often hear and I give the example of Tony Romo. I am from Dallas so I am a big Dallas Cowboys fan. Our--our old quarterback Tony Romo, after a particularly hard loss said, "Well, you know, there are more important things to life." There are people that would certainly say, you know, their spirituality or their religion is more important than winning or losing a silly football game. So, you--you minimize the football game itself in order to maximize something else and that--that thing that is maximized most often is one's faith or family or something along those lines. So that is kind of the--it--it is actually a defense mechanism or protection from, uh you know, feeling the sting of a loss. [chuckles]
Chris: Right.
Jeff: You can say, "It is just a game.", then maybe would not hurt quite like that. That is one way in which, it is quasi-religious expression by saying, "It is just a game."
Chris: Okay, second, Billboard.
Jeff: Billboard. So, the billboard model is usually not necessarily a verbal expression, but, I have examples of Tim Tebow when he was at Florida. There is eye black that oftentimes players put under their, their eyes to absorb light so they are not as blinded by the sun. Tim Tebow would write Bible verses, or not the whole verse, but like John 3:16 on--on his--on his eye black. The NFL does not--used to not allow, any kinds of decorations on one's shoes, like, unlike the NBA. But it is now doing this. It is allowing it for certain games, and sure enough many NFL players will put, you know, religious messages on their shoes, Bible verse on their shoes. Carson Wentz, the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles, I think it was something like, oh, I cannot remember the acronym he uses. But, uhm, anyway, I think--and I think it is like a verse from Philippians that is on the outside of his shoes. So, this is the Billboard model. I also think of, you know, that famous guy with the, uh, rainbow wig in the 1970s and 80s. We were at a field goal. He will be in the stands on the front row behind the goal post and he would have up John 3:16, like, for every big game. That--that is the billboard type. Which then leaves, you know, ideally, it is meant to provoke one to, you know, look up that bible verse or ask more about Carson Wentz. So, it is not an exact statement and you are not quite clear exactly what Tim Tebow means to say about John 3:16, or why he chose that verse, but that is what he wants you to go look it up, right? And so, we are trusting but it is more of a billboard style of religious expression.
Chris: And I read, uh, Stephen Curry has a scripture on the tongue of his shoe, which was interesting. I guess another billboard.
Jeff: He does. It is the, "I can do all things through Christ who..." yeah. On the--on the inside tongue of his shoe. I know [chuckles], so you get that along with the Steph Curry shoe.
Chris: Yeah, uh, number three is Glorification.
Jeff: Right. The glorification model is the athlete that states something along the lines of, "I play hard. I help my teammates. I even win the game for the glory of God. In other words, It is not for my own glory or, uhm, compliments that I get. It is all for God." I think I quote Roger Staubach. There are countless ones of these. Roger Staubach after, I believe the 1971 Super Bowl, who again, again, it is a minimizing of one's own ability, or the team's ability, or the coach’s ability, to--that say that, "If we did well, it is done for God's glory." And therefore, by stating that or by believing it, God is glorified, not us or the team or the sport or all these good things. So, it is similar to the, "It is just a game.", where you are minimizing your own effort, to some extent, by saying, "It is all for God's glory, not for fame or riches. Whatever else comes with winning."
Chris: Okay, and the last two are tied together, Soft Providential and Hard Providential, right?
Jeff: Right, so providentialism, as a theological term, uhm, in a sense just means, uh, uh, a God that intervenes in human history in some way. The soft providential model, are, it--it-it has athletes stating that, you know, they are praying for strength for God. They are praying for no injuries, you hear that a lot for the health of the players. Which means that if God is answering those prayers, God is in fact intervening, right? To, uh, you know, keep people healthy and to give you strength and belief that you are going to win especially if you are down, so that is kind of a softer version. Tim Tebow is a classic soft providential list, the quarterback--former quarterback for Florida, and for Denver Broncos, and New York Jets, and New England Patriots, and now a current baseball player, I think, in the Mets' farm system.
I mean a fantastic athlete, but a very vocal Evangelical Christian. He had that run in the 2012 playoffs, well, the 2011 season for the Denver Broncos that people were calling miraculous and--but he would downplay that, right? It is God that performs miracles, not Tim Tebow. So he would--he would in a sense say, "I pray." He gives glory as well at the end of every game to his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but he would always say that, "I am not praying for wins. I am not praying for the ball to leave my hand and land in the receiver's hand. I am praying for strength...", again, "...health and belief." Intangible things that God still has to intervene in order to effect, at the same time too, it is much more difficult to identify, right? And then, obviously with both providential models, if you did not believe or there were major injuries on the field and you prayed for the health of all players, you know, God did not answer your prayer. But it is easier to kind of let God off the hook for either answering or not answering your prayer when you are praying for these abstract things. So that is what I am calling Soft Providentialism.
Chris: Okay.
Jeff: And then Hard Providentialism, is--is what I just suggested. Athletes that are praying for God to actually intervene in the game itself. And therefore, it is usually post-game where athletes will say, uhm you know, "God wanted us to win. God guided that ball into my hands. God allowed me to get that interception and run it back for a touchdown. That was God doing that." I have an example of Russell Wilson, the quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks. They--they were in the NFC championship game. I believe it was 2017, maybe 2016, against the Green Bay Packers and, he threw four interceptions in the first half. They were way down but they came back in the fourth quarter and won the game. And what Wilson said he said, "That was God testing us." right? So, in other words God in a sense intentionally made him throw those interceptions to get them in a hole. So, these--it is like a trial and tribulation that God wanted to have Russell Wilson in the Seahawks overcome, right? So, there is kind of a hard providential, uh, way of talking about it. So anyway, so that is--that is the hard providential.
Chris: Okay, so now with that explanation, can you tell us how these are used and received along lines of race in the NFL?
Jeff: Right. So, what I argue in the book is that, this is--this is--generalization is certainly not true of all players, but for the most part, you are not going to see as many white NFL players using hard providential language. If they use a religious expression at all, it is going to be the glorification and they will use one of the top--of the first four most often. And also, most often, you do or you see a more preponderance of African-American NFL players that are using a version of hard providential language, to some extent, and it may not even be on the field. I will give an example of Reggie White the former defensive lineman for the Eagles and the Packers who passed away quite a bit ago. Maybe one of the greatest defensive lineman NFL has ever had. Very devout man. He was--he was--he was a pastor as well in the offseason. But, he believed that God would tell him whether to sign with the Green Bay Packers or not, right? God is going to intervene and--and tell him whether to, and if God does not--tell them no or does not answer, he is not going to join the Packers, So there is an example of--he is an African-American player. I talked a lot about this, uh, Sports Illustrated issue from 1998 leading into the 1998 Super Bowl between, the Broncos--I guess it was Broncos and the Packers in the 1997 Super Bowl. But they polled the Denver Bronco players in particular about, what is the relationship--they believe between their religion and sport. And of the seven, I think, Denver Broncos that they interviewed. I think there were two white players who use kind of soft providential language, and I believe maybe five of the six African-American players used very hard providential language that God brought them here physically, right? Helped them win the previous games to get them to the Super Bowl, and that God was also is essentially on their side and going to help them win the Super Bowl as well.
So, you have this kind of clear divide but then the Sports Illustrated article, so then I kind of get into the meat of the matter, the double standard part of it. The Sports Illustrated article then, uh, interviews, two white academics, but, I think one was the president of Yale Divinity School at that time, and then a couple white pastors that lambast this kind of theological thinking. Either saying, "This is bringing God into the messiness of a game where people can almost die on the field into a multibillion-dollar sport with celebrities that beat their wives. God does not care about football." right? "God cares about other things, so He does not care enough to come in and intervene in a game and enable a team to win." right? So, the rest of the article are for white essentially theologians that are bashing this kind of speech. They say that God perhaps provide strength, but God is not helping teams win or making other teams lose. God does not--God does not do that. God is greater than that. So, in a sense, there is--they are complimenting or they are okay with the expressions of the white football players, not okay with the expressions of the black players. But the double standard is in, to add what I argue is, both are forms of providentialism. God is intervening in some way. What is the difference? Right?
And then I kind of chronicle a history of African-American religious experience of God intervening, whether the Holy Spirit or to believe that God actually intervenes. Either, you know, free the slaves, to help out with, all kinds of problems in the black church itself. There is a long history of this kind of theology being very prominent and useful to many African Americans. Whereby, it is looked down upon by whites, who are not undergoing nearly the kind of struggle that African-Americans have and continue to go through. So hard providentialism is a--a--a very helpful theology for African-Americans. So, these NFL players are merely expressing that, yet, they express it to be shot down by fellow players. By the way, Aaron Rodgers was a quarterback that Russell Wilson was playing against and he had this some smug comment about Russell Wilson saying that God, you know, challenged them. God actually, you know, put them in a hole for a reason. And then Green Bay beat Seattle the next year and Aaron Rodgers was asked about and he said, "Well, I guess, you know God was on our side this time." in a very kind of smug way. Which is--which again is a critique of Russell Wilson's theology. By him, the white quarterback saying, "God does not care about football." right? In a--in--in a sense. So, I guess God wasn't on Russell Wilson's side this time so.
Chris: Right. Well, I do not think I will ever watch a sports game the same. This is very, very helpful. Very very - very helpful I think simply because sports are such a large part of American society. To see the religious thread in it is a benefit I think to us.
Jeff: I will say it--I will say this to you if you do not mind for what you are saying, you know, I think for a long time and one of the reasons why, you know, the religion-sport discipline did not really get off the ground to the mid-1970s, was that most theologians and or people doing religious studies just, did not consider sport to be as big as it is or as serious as it is. It is just a bunch of people running around, shooting a piece of leather, or hitting a piece of leather with a piece of wood. Why are we going to talk about that? But you do it at your own peril, if you do not. There are all kinds of connections, but one of the main reasons too, for religious studies scholars, I believe too, at least be interested in sport. Whether you like sports or not. it is the kind of impact that it has on people.
Chris: Yup.
Jeff: Positive and negative, right?
Chris: Right.
Jeff: I mean more people watch the Super Bowl than go to church on that Sunday, so, far more. Just for instance, so, yeah. It is a very big deal whether you like it or not. In fact, it is usually a big deal to those that hate it because it gets so much attention and these athletes get paid a lot of money too, but, anyway.
Chris: Right, right. Okay, Jeff, for the last segment. Let us turn to a fairly recent piece of religion, race, and sports history in the United States. The chapter's title is compelling, as I said before. It is Black Prophetic Fire of Colin Kaepernick. Can you share the story briefly? In case we have forgotten about it, and then we will move into some of your analysis.
Jeff: Sure. So, Colin Kaepernick, he brought the San Francisco for--he is--he is mixed race, but he identifies certainly as African-American. But he grew up, as an adopted child in a white family--with a white family in California. And really kind of came into, consciousness about race in college at the University of Nevada, in particular with the--an African-American fraternity that he was involved in. But he kind of kept quiet for this to be any part of his NFL season. He was a fantastic quarterback. He led the 49ers to, a Super Bowl in 2012. And then his place started to slip a little bit. By 2016, the beginning of that season, he was not the starter anymore but was still on the team as the second-string quarterback at that time. At that time, I believe it was, Eric Garner? Certainly, in response to some the--to the, Trayvon Martin killing. But there began to be a rash of police killings of--of unarmed black men and some women as well. Uhm, and this is in, I believe Aug--maybe late July in the preseason--of the first preseason game, in 2016. And Kaepernick sits down, now, there was no cameras on him. They cat--they catch it from a camera. Someone caught it. I think seeing Colin Kaepernick be the only one sitting down during the national anthem they play before every game. And so it began--the word begin to get out. He sits for the next game.
I believe it was the next game he talks with an ex-player named Nate Boyer who was also an ex-Green Beret who suggested that he kneels. Uhm, there are several--there are several reasons for this but one is kneeling is--there is, a sign of respect. Whether it is religious respect, like your genuflecting to some degree, or football players take a kneel all the time in practice. So, Kaepernick started to do that and got a lot of attention for it. You know, President Trump after he won the presidency in 2016, had all kinds of things to say about Colin Kaepernick, called him all kinds of names said, "Go." you know, "Why do not you leave this country if you do not like it?" Blah, blah, blah. It--NFL viewership was down, Kaepernick was somehow to blame for this. The main effect though, as I was arguing, is that other players started to follow. From high school ranks, middle school ranks, on all on up to other sports as well, not just football.
Kaepernick stays with the 49ers that season but is cut the following season and is yet to even be invited to a training camp since then. However, you could argue that his influence has been even greater because he has not been on the field. He is widely revered by many, many, many people. LeBron James has said flat out, you know, it is Kaepernick that has given him the courage to speak out. Kaepernick, obviously, with the Black Lives Matter movement, the killing of George Floyd earlier this year, has been one of the people that has been looked to for advice and he has given it. He started a non-profit that has been incredibly influential, in--in at least seeking and trying to minimize social injustice in our country. So that is kind of the setup for who he is and what he did.
Chris: Right. Thank you. That is helpful. So, would you help us with definitions of two things you used to describe Mr. Kaepernick and his protest? First, what is "black prophetic fire"? And second, what is the African-American jeremiad?
Jeff: Right. So, I am—I am taking black prophetic fire, it is not my--my term, from Cornel West who wrote a book about four or five years ago called Black Prophetic Fire. And what he is talk--he is talking about past civil rights leaders that had what he calls this black prophetic fire. And when he says that--the prophetic piece of it, is that they are not just talking about a kind of spiritual renewal. They are talking about rebelling against the powers. And for him--for instance in Martin Luther King's case what many forget, they remember that 'I Have a Dream' speech, but they forget that later on in his life, he was very much against certain forms of capitalism and the Vietnam War, right? I mean people either forget that or never even knew it because that is, not the Martin Luther King that they want to know. So, for Cornel West, this is the kind of profit that we are talking about that is willing to take on any power that is furthering social injustice.
For West and for a lot of these civil rights leaders, some of the "evils" of capitalism is what needs to be fought because it helps maintain white supremacy. It certainly helps maintain gender inequality, income inequality, and so what I am saying about Kaepernick, uhm, for those who just say, "Well, he is protesting police brutality.:" He says that and he is. But by kneeling for the national anthem at an NFL game, that is de facto a prophetic movement as defined by Cornel West as one that is a big thumb in the eye of not only capitalism, I would argue, but also of militarism. Because the NFL of-- amongst all the American sports leagues, is the one that is most closely tied to the military. The NFL had a--had a contract with the Department of Defense for about eight or nine years, and the Department of Defense was paying the NFL to promote the good things going on with the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Fox--the Fox sports crew would go to Iraq or Afghanistan and visit the troops, and they would show that at halftime. Still to this day, uh, coaches and everyone on the sidelines and some players are required to wear, uh, for a couple of weeks, a couple of the games, some kind of camouflage way in which their logo is still there, but it is that which is certainly supporting the military. But there is a very tight connection between the two. For Colin Kaepernick to kneel during the national anthem, is prophetic in the way that Dr. West defines it by going not only up against police brutality but also against, in a sense, the main big powers that be--that help support white supremacy, which in turn helps maintain a level of police brutality against unarmed African-Americans.
Chris: Okay. Okay. Now, let us move to the African-American jeremiad. Tell us about that.
Jeff: Right. So, a jeremiad, generally speaking is a literature genre that, it--it refers to the Prophet Jeremiah who, lamented quite a bit about the state of the--of--of the Israelites, but there was always a hopeful ending. So, it drew on the past, what we were, what we are now, which is usually not good, hence, the lament in the jeremiad. But given those the past and the present, where we can go hopefully in the future. So that is kind of the stages of a jeremiad. The American jeremiad, I mean, they are being told all the time, with our supposed glorious past of the era of the founding fathers. You know, a nadir certainly has a say to the civil war, slavery, all kinds of--depends on who you are talking to I suppose. But in order to breakthrough and move into a better next chapter, we have to reckon with these things in the past.
The African-American jeremiad does not have quite the same feel or tone as the general American jeremiad because it has been bad, and it continues to be bad. Has it gotten better? Sure. But it continues to be bad. So, what exactly is the African-American jeremiad relying upon in order to project a better future. I--I--I write--Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author of Between the World and Me, and his kind of feud with Cornel West because, and actually David Brooks, The New York Times writer as well who writes about jeremiads and uses Ta-Nehisi Coates and says, "Ta-Nehisi Coates is giving us a very bleak future." And West and other say, "Yeah, he is because that is all he has seen up to this point." So, the purpose of using American jeremiads along with West's notion of black prophetic fire is to locate Colin Kaepernick in his protest. By his protest and by a lack of words frankly, he is really--he is really gesturing without his mouth, but really with his body in a kind of, uhm, in the posture of kneeling during the national anthem. But he is signaling a version of kind of an African-American jeremiad, uhm, to point out and critique what is going on with the hope that it will get better without stating what that will look like. He just wants the Injustice to stop, right? And that is more of a cleaner version of an African-American jeremiad. If the injustice slows down or stops, it automatically gets better. The American jeremiad has these kinds of, you know, dreams of the future or whether the utopian or perhaps their racist space. In other words, no more brown people in our country. Some people have that kind of--and to a jeremiad sadly. Uhm, so, by combining the black prophetic fire and the American jeremiad, I am--I am trying to kind of argue that Colin Kaepernick is just one of these athletes that is--that is able to bring both of them together in a very profound way.
Chris: Okay. Do you think he thinks that?
Jeff: I do not know. [chuckles] I--I--I wonder--I--he knew exactly what he was doing when he was kneeling for a national anthem during an NFL game. If you think about it, the owners are looking, the fans are looking, the owners by the way are up one hundred percent white in the NFL. The league is seventy percent black, so there is a clear discrepancy there. And perhaps it reminds some people of plantation, which has been--is--has been compared to sometimes. And then the draft looks like slave trade at times as well. But it is a, you know, a thumb in the eye, to a vast majority of white fans, coaches, general managers, owners by kneeling for the national anthem. So he knew--he was--he knew it was a big move. Whether he connect all the dots, I do not know. But he does not have to, you know.
Chris: Right.
Jeff: Maybe if he reads my book, he will--he will--he will know what he is doing now, [chuckles].
Chris: Right, right. Jeff, I know that we have not touched on all the important points in your book and there are many. But maybe in the last two minutes, do you want to share any lessons or takeaways from the book? Either in terms of important historical transformations you are charting, or in terms of helping us better understand our present moment.
Jeff: Well, the main thesis of the book that tries to tie these kinds of episodes together, whether it is Serena Williams. Jackie Robinson, the two chapters we talked about, Dabo Swinney, the coach of Clemson, is this notion of order and the--the ability for, in particular white Protestant Christianity, to apply order to areas of the society that they feel is chaotic or causing chaos. And black bodies have historically been sites where they perceive chaos to be. So my quite--my overall question is how does religion do this, in particular, in the sports world.
The domestication of Muhammad Ali. The Sanctification of Jackie Robinson. I have a chapter on Serena Williams in the tennis umpire, from the 2018 US Open final which many people remember. She lost a game for, you know, certainly losing her temper. But there was an ordering that needed to go on of another black body in Serena Williams. So, all the chapters have to do with the NFL attempting to order calling Kaepernick by blackballing him from the league, right?
Now that there is a financial hit and the George Floyd murder, I suppose woke up some executives in the NFL now, they are kind of apologizing. But it was four years ago, they did not say a word, right? And actually, certain owners forced their players to stand, like Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, for the national anthem. If you think about it, what could be more orderly than forcing players to stand with their feet on the line and doing this correct rituals for the national anthem, right? Of seventy percent African-American players who may or may not believe in some of these American principles that they are being told they should believe by white America. So that is the overall theme of the book. How does, in particular white Protestant Christianity, support the ordering of perceived areas of chaos in the sports world in the United States, and race automatically comes in them?
Chris: Well, I think it is a timely book considering the reckoning with racism that the United States has undergone, once again, this time in, 2020. I think you touched on something important as you bring that into part of America that is so prominent, the sports world. So, so, thank you for your insight.
Jeff: Thank you for saying that.
Chris: We have been talking with Jeffrey Scholes, associate professor in the department of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs and author of "Christianity, Race, and Sport" to be published next year by Routledge Press. Here at the conclusion of this episode, we trust that the listeners have a deeper appreciation of religious freedom as a governing principle in the United States, and will see its protection as an indispensable part of the fragile American experiment in self-government.
Do not forget to visit storyofamericanreligion.org and sign up for future podcast notifications under the signup tab. Thank you, Jeff, so much for being with us. It has been very enlightening and I hope you have enjoyed the time with us as well.
Jeff: I have. I have, Chris. Thank you so much.
Chris: That same year Michael Novak published the "Joy of Sports", articulating the religiosity embedded in the playing and cheering on of sports. Today's discussion will help us all better understand what religion has done to America and what America has done to religion, and we trust that as a result, listeners will see how indispensable the idea of religious freedom is as a governing principle to the United States, and its ability to fulfill its purposes in the world.
We have with us today, Jeffrey Scholes, to talk about religion and sports. He is an associate professor in the department of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, and author of the upcoming book Christianity, Race, and Sport to be published next year by Routledge Press.
Professor Scholes' interests include the relationship between religion and sports and American political theology. He is the author of Vocation and the Politics of Work: Popular Theology in a Consumer Culture and co-author of Religion and Sports in American Culture. We encourage listeners to visit storyofamericanreligion.org and sign up for future podcast notifications under the sign-up tab. Jeff, it is wonderful to have you with us today.
Jeff: Wonderful to be here, Chris. Thank you so much.
Chris: This is an absolutely fascinating topic. Those two--the book and the articles, quoted earlier were from a long time ago, but from what you write, that sort of started this whole study off on how does religion influences sports. And a lot has happened from that time, but I think those probably established pretty important markers in this field. Before we dive into your particular angle on this intersection of religion and sports in America, could you tell us about a couple of the most prominent ways observers of American culture have linked religion and sports? To provide something of a framework for our listeners to what we will discuss today.
Jeff: Sure. If you go back to 1976, as you did with, Novak and Deford both of them were attempting to try to talk about sport and religion as kind of a, separate entities. And Novak is arguing that sport is as, as he says, 'somehow a religion'. So, he is looking for religious qualities in sport itself. So, he is making an argument as a Catholic theologian back then. He passed away a couple of years ago. That in fact, sport is a type of religion despite what others may think of sport being a--a purely secular activity as opposed to religion. Deford as you suggest, is--is arguing that this coziness between, in particular, Evangelical Christianity and its fascination with sport which still continues today, is a problem. But he is still conceiving of sport and religion as kind of two separate entities that come together very badly and poorly and--and should be critiqued. So, his angle is more of a critical analysis of the relationship, whereas, Novak is trying to--to link the two together. You know, through the 80s and 90s, you had kind of what--what I will call it kind of a second wave of the scholarship of religion and sport. Whereby, kind of DeFord's critique is continued, but there is more of a historical approach to it.
Jeff: There is an emphasis and a looking back at this phenomenon called Muscular Christianity. That was really taking shape in England and the United States in the late 19th or early 20th century. That helped form the YMCA, uhm, and it--it--it argued essentially in the Victorian age, United States, and England that in particular, white boys were kind of getting soft or coddled and mothered too much. And are working in factories and not on the farm, and therefore, to make the argument that Jesus was somehow muscular and athletic, was meant to prod or to connect religion or Christianity to athletic activity, which it had not been so in the past. In fact, Puritans frowned upon sports as an activity, as something that would take you away from spiritual activities like reading the Bible and praying. So Muscular Christianity attempted to reverse that and put them together.
Jeff: So, in the 80s--in the 1980s and 1990s, you see looking back and trying to reconnect with where we are now based on the past in particular in relation to Muscular Christianity. To position, like, my work the book that is coming out next year, and I also have to give a plug for a book that I am co-editing with Randall Balmer called "Religion and Sport in America". It is an edited volume, so we have essays coming in. And almost all those essays also kind of fit in what I would call a third wave, which I would argue that we are in right now, of the scholarship of religion and sport. That brings that is not just satisfied certainly to silo religion and sport in an attempt to put them together. But to argue that religion and sport are co-constitutive, they helped form each other. You cannot separate the two. Just as I argue in my monograph book, you know, race and religion are also constitutive of each other. So, is, sport and race certainly. And as a result in--i--in response to, an emphasis on intersectionality, to bring in race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, even the transgender movement, in particular with cases like Caster Semenya, the runner. You know, whether she needs to have testosterone test in order to compete with the women. All of these other issues that are really kind of political are now brought to bear in the sporting world and to look at the role that religion plays in, either problems in the sporting world or good things in the sporting world, that is happening with these--with these other things. So, this third wave is much more, broad. In a sense that history is so brought in, but religion and sport are not taken as separate entities and that permits the introduction of these other, you know, again, gender or race. All of these are things that have been with us for a long time, but now, religion and sports scholars are much more likely to bring them to bear on their own studies.
Chris: Okay, that is very helpful as we move forward here. So tell us this, before we go to the three chapters in your upcoming book that we are going to discuss. How did the historical, well, I guess you are a philosopher, not a historian, right? Would that be...
Jeff: I am actually religious studies. They let me teach in the philosophy department.
Chris: Okay, so why did--I guess tell us this. Why did you feel like you needed to write about religion, race, and sports, instead of just religion and sports?
Jeff: Well, number one. As you mentioned at the onset, I have co-written a book on religion and sport, but there are certainly another one I--I could write about generally speaking. And the introduction to the co-edited book that is coming out next year is much more about religion and sport in general. But, I mean really one thing, well actually two things. One was the, Colin Kaepernick, kneeling for the national anthem in--in the beginning part of the 2016 football season. It allowed a new kind of, in particular, black activism to take place and solidarity with people of other races to join them. But it was the kind that we really had not seen since the 1960s and 70s with someone like Muhammad Ali, or you know, Jim Brown or, uh, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. So there is this gap really that Michael Jordan helped initiate where, commercialization and, kind of this generalized hero status that was apolitical. That was the way in which most African American athletes, uh, chose to be with the lead of Michael Jordan. That really has changed.
You look at LeBron James. Likely, maybe the most famous athlete in the world. He is incredibly political. He talks about politics all the time but I think he was given permission to do so largely by what Colin Kaepernick did. So that just got me to thinking--the second thing I was invited to, uh, write an essay on religion, race, and sport in an edited volume in 2018. So I--after writing that I thought, "You know, there may be a book in here." So, but it was really Colin Kaepernick that kicked off the idea that just writing about religion and sport and--and leaving out race or only including it minimally, would not do religion and sports justice. You just--you just have to. In the United States, you cannot avoid it at all and sure enough there--there--there was a book in there. So, that is--that is what kind of prompted it.
Chris: Well, thank you for doing that. It is fascinating and I think important for Americans, all of us, to sort of understand better.
Chris: Jeff, let us talk a little bit about, about civil rights in sports, race and sports. You write this in your introduction, uh, "Sports advocates have often laid claim to a kind of proto-civil rights record that sports possess in that teams, leagues, and governing bodies have allowed the entry of members of minority races onto its fields and into its locker rooms well before. The courtesy was extended at the doors of public schools, buses, and restaurants. And that it came through with a steep price." Can you elaborate on this as far as what the historical records indicate here?
Jeff: Yeah, you know, sport and sports advocates in particular, oftentimes like to think of its own industry as a colorblind meritocracy. Whereby, if you are good enough, no matter race, even gender, as we saw recently. There was a woman kicker for, Vanderbilt that actually got on the field and kicked--kicked off. If you are good enough, no matter any other quality, how rich you are, how poor you are, what color your skin is, you will make the team and you will play. So, therefore it is a meritocracy and it is supposedly colorblind. And there are examples of this. I think really first of all to, Jack Johnson, the great boxer in the early part of the 20th century. African-American from Galveston who for a long time was not allowed to fight white pla--white--white boxers, but finally was so good, that it--it began to concern the white community that everyone else was believing that no white boxer could beat him. So therefore, they had to find what they called the 'Great White Hope', to fight Jack Johnson. And Jack Johnson in Reno, Nevada absolutely destroyed--I think Jim Jeffries was his name destroyed him [chuckles], but then, was penalized afterwards. He was actually dating a white woman. This is in the early--this is the height of Jim Crow, and Illinois made up a law that said you could not, uh, bring like a--a--a mixed-race couple cannot cross state lines. So, when he did, they arrested him and put him in jail.
Jeff: So, there were ways of stopping that too, but that is an example of say, you know, really before African-Americans, had the Civil Rights Act passed, that Jack Johnson was allowed to fight white boxers. Say the same thing about Jackie Robinson in 1947 crossing the color barrier, you know, a good ten years before Brown versus Board of Education. So therefore, that allows sports advocates to--to argue again for not only sports being kind of proto-civil rights or before it, because it is fairer. But also, the reason for that is that it is a colorblind meritocracy.
I make very strong arguments that in fact, it is not a colorblind meritocracy. Uhm, the profit motive in the case of Johnson fighting and in the case of Jackie Robinson being signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945, and then, finally getting to play for the Dodgers in 1947, as Jackie Robinson said in his autobiography, Branch Rickey the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, if you have seen the movie, 42. Harrison Ford plays him and they chronicle this--this famous meeting that they had. But Jackie Robinson, in his autobiography, said it was about money. In fact, he said that people talk about how religious Branch Rickey was and he was very pious, but Robinson says that the God that he really worship was money. And therefore, putting Jackie Robinson on the field was going to bring African-Americans to the ballpark and other people as well, and they would be more successful and therefore make more money. So, it was not necessarily that Branch Rickey was, you know, a Martin Luther King type at all. It may be had that effect for a lot of people, but there is always a profit motive to this "colorblind meritocracy".
Chris: Okay, fair enough. Good. Okay, so now let us get into some details. As I said we are just going to cover three, of your chapters, Jeff. And the first one will be what you call the Domestication of Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. The second will be Religious Expression in the NFL for Blacks and Whites, and the third will be--and I love this title of the chapter, The Black Prophetic Fire of Colin Kaepernick. So, Jeff, you write that the world-famous American boxers, Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, were angry and dangerous black men and they needed and then were tamed. And that was done employing the same reasoning used to treat black bodies in the American past with chains, rape beatings, and lynching often with religious justification. Can you tell this story for us?
Jeff: Yeah, so, the religious part of this domestication process, and by the way, as most people probably know, Muhammad Ali was, tamed or domesticated in a sense to no fault of his own through Parkinson's disease which he contracted for God, sometime in the 1980s. And he was not able to really speak or--or certainly move nearly as well, which is very evident in interviews he did. And maybe people remember him lighting the Olympic torch in the Atlanta games in 1996, but he can you know, barely walk. And in George Foreman's case it is--it is, you know, he has not been ravaged by Parkinson's or some physical disease, but, he becomes an entrepreneur selling these indoor grills. He becomes an evangelist. He converts to Evangelical Christianity in 1977. Becomes a pastor, he has got this personality where he is smiling, uh, patriotic, Christian, capitalist. So, in a sense that--those qualities tend to, make George Foreman palatable and safe for white audiences. So, there is a domestication process that has gone on there as well. So, two different processes of domestication, but nevertheless the effects of the same. What I argue is that the white, in particular white, Protestant community is more able to accept and even forget or "forgive" some of the actions or fear that--they--that was instilled in them certainly with Muhammad Ali with his, not only his punching power, but more so his mouth and his mind, right? He converts to Nation of Islam, uh, right after his, uh, winning the heavyweight championship in 1964, and is brilliant [chuckles] and frightening. I mean, no one had ever heard an athlete, white or black, talk like that. He was the most famous athlete in the world as well so his word carried a ton of weight, and the Nation of Islam, as--as many may know, based on the Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X as well, were arguing for a kind of, separatism there were different versions of that, whether it was to go back to--for blacks to go back to Africa or to create a separate country of their own because United States was hopelessly white supremacist and hopelessly, a white version of Christianity, which Ali rejects as he changes his name to from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali.
So that fear instilled in the white community, based on not only a physical presence of a large, dangerous black body, which George Foreman certainly had as well before his conversion experience, he never smiled before. There is footage, by the way, for the listeners or viewers that The Rumble in the Jungle documentary, is, “When We Were Kings” is fantastic. The fight is between Ali and Foreman, after Ali, gets over his three-year suspension for refusing fight in Vietnam, yet again, another protest that frightens, it makes white Americans very wary of what is he really up to. But that fight brings them together, but really after that begins this kind of domestication process. Whereby, in particular like I say, white Protestants are more able to, think of Muhammad Ali as, you know, one of their own, right? Because he cannot do damage, because he cannot speak his mind anymore. And George Foreman just becomes "one of them". So, in a sense the domestication process performance is something that he did on his own. You know, he appears on the 700 Club. Muhammad Ali would never have done that [chuckles], right? On the Christian Broadcasting Network he is on quite a bit. And he is always smiling and talking and giving his testimony. So, he is doing things that, make many white Americans comfortable and religion plays a role in that. So part of my argument is the domestication process, in a--in a sense wants, these black bodies to be tamed and not to be scary anymore, essentially.
Chris: Right. So, so before--I do not know much about George Foreman, before his conversion to Christianity. He was--you are saying he was, uh, he never smiled, he was mean, there--there was a palpable fear, uh, of him and Muhammad Ali.
Jeff: Yes.
Chris: They were palpable, tangible.
Jeff: Well, yes. I mean even before the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire, mind you. I mean the--George Foreman at the time was the heavyweight champion. So, Ali beats him and--and I would argue the greatest boxing match in the history of the United States or the world. But Foreman was laconic he did not talk that much, but he did not smile. He brought a German Shepherd Zaire with him, who would be by his side, but he did his talking with his fists. He--he was like kind of like Mike Tyson could knock you out with one punch. Ali could not do that. Ali was a finesse boxer, could certainly punch, but he really tries to strike fear in you with his words. He called, you know, Foreman and all his opponents like these crazy names. Foreman just kind of sat there and took it but that elicited, well, at least for the journalist that were covering the fight, they did not give Ali a shot. They thought he was going to get killed in the ring and he ended up taking a lot of punches, but coming back in the eighth round to win it. So, Foreman struck fear in people because, in a sense, he did not talk with his mouth, but he talked with his fist and could knock you out with one punch. I mean he was an incredibly powerful boxer, much more so than Muhammad Ali. That was a part of it.
In addition to that, he comes from the streets of Galveston, got into a lot of trouble as a kid, ends up, taking a job in Oregon as a part of LBJ's Job Corps program. And that changes things to some extent, but he realizes that boxing is what is going to it is going to help him make his way. But the only way to do that was to present this image, and it was a true one of him at the time, of angry and, in a sense, quiet and was going to kill you in the ring.
Chris: And with Muhammad Ali, describe to us the fear that he gave Christian America, I guess we could say America, with his conversion to Nation of Islam and how he spoke of that, and--and--and what you say that was a surprise--that was sort of had never been done before. His sort of activism of a black athlete and what...
Jeff: Right, and certainly not of, in the 1960s, the most famous, perhaps person on the planet, right? So, you know, he starts off, in fact, the first press conference after the 1964 fight, when he announces that he is now Muhammad Ali. Which by the way, there were reporters from the New York Times who refuse to call him that into the 1970s. There is a--a--a boxer that he fights in the--in the 1970s who is calling him Cassius in the ring, and Muhammad Ali beats him up badly and he was saying, "What is my name?" Like he [chuckles] wants him to say his name. Right, it--it--it was--what he said--that was probably the most frightening or, uhm, offensive to many white Christians is that, uh, you know, he said, "Listen, I grew up in the Baptist Church in Kentucky”, believing in a--what he would consider a white male God, right? That is what African-Americans has been told what Jesus looked like for instance, and he just rejects all that with the Nation of Islam theology that states that, "Because Africans were the first human beings, those are God's chosen people." And therefore, we have bought this, uh, lie about who God is and about what Christianity is or the true God is. And therefore, a wholesale rejection of that for him meant joining the Nation of Islam which has much more of a black centered theology, uhm, and certainly a centralizing of Africans and African-American people as those that are chosen by God.
So, therefore, it has to be a full rejection of "white Protestant and Catholic Christianity" for him. It is not just a “I am starting a new denomination.” It is leaving Christianity and making claims about it.
Not that, you know, he does not believe in Jesus, it is that, "Your religion is flat out wrong and we have been lied to about this for hundreds and hundreds of years." Combine that with his political stance, which is the United States, is that which helps support and prop up white supremacy, and this kind of white version of Christianity. And therefore, "You are telling me to go to Vietnam and kill other brown people for white people. I am not going to do it." right? And it is his religion that is actually motivating him not to, but his politics and his--I mean politics are very tightly intertwined with theology of Nation of Islam. It is there from the very beginning. So, he was able to make a political stance by not going to Vietnam using his theology very easily. Whereas, say, Martin Luther King, you know, there was a little bit more trouble attaching his version of Christianity to say for instance, the Constitution. Which he tried to do quite a bit and he did it with some success, but with Ali, it was just baked into the Nation of Islam theology. But refusing to go to Vietnam and being a prominent African-American who is not doing what white America tells you to do, that is frightening to a lot of whites, certainly back then.
Chris: Right. Okay. Well, there is a lot there, we need to move on to the other two chapters because of time. But, the listeners should just pick up your book next year.
We are talking with Jeffrey Scholes, associate professor in the department of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs about his book Christianity, Race and Sport, to be published next year by Routledge Press. If you have not already, please visit storyofamericanreligion.org and sign up for future podcast notifications under the signup tab.
Jeff, under your--or in your chapter about, religious expression in the NFL, you begin by suggesting that there is a double standard between whites and blacks. Can you paint this picture for us?
Jeff: Absolutely, Chris. So, I start the chapter, uhm, by using this chapter of a book by David Leonard, called, Playing While White, where he says there is a double standard in the way in which fans, coaches, and even fellow athletes deal with trash talking in all the leagues. You know, a--a--a white player that does trash talking, you know, kind of talking down to someone or yelling crazy wild things to intimidate the opponent. Usually, when somebody has a lot of examples when done by a white athlete it is considered to be, you know, courageous and it shows his or her, fight that is within. And--and, so it is in another word--it is positive. Oftentimes, when African-American athletes do this same exact level of trash-talking, they are labeled a thug. They are labeled, you know, a--a--a sign of moral decline in the United States. So, right there you have a very clear double standard. And I wanted to write about, and I wondered whether there is a similar double standard with religious expression, in particular in the NFL, uhm, amongst African-American players and white players. And, uh, I--I argue that yes, indeed, there is. Oftentimes, and I kind of break it down with uh, these categories of religious expression in--that comes through sport, right? Uhm, [crosstalk] go ahead.
Chris: My next question was can you--I was going to list out those religious expression types and sports. You could explain each briefly and give maybe an example.
Jeff: Sure.
Chris: I apologize for interrupting, but you were--
Jeff: Yup [chuckles].
Chris: The first one you call, "It is just a game.". Second, “Billboard.” Third, “Glorification.” Fourth, “Soft Providential”, and fifth, “Hard Providential”. I hope I got those right.
Jeff: You did. I am trying to remember them too.
Chris: I can give them to you as we go.
Jeff: Okay [chuckles]. That would be great.
Chris: Explain that and then give us an example, maybe.
Jeff: Sure. So, "It is just a game.", is the kind of, attitude that, you know, God plus--in other words there--if--if, especially after a loss you will often hear and I give the example of Tony Romo. I am from Dallas so I am a big Dallas Cowboys fan. Our--our old quarterback Tony Romo, after a particularly hard loss said, "Well, you know, there are more important things to life." There are people that would certainly say, you know, their spirituality or their religion is more important than winning or losing a silly football game. So, you--you minimize the football game itself in order to maximize something else and that--that thing that is maximized most often is one's faith or family or something along those lines. So that is kind of the--it--it is actually a defense mechanism or protection from, uh you know, feeling the sting of a loss. [chuckles]
Chris: Right.
Jeff: You can say, "It is just a game.", then maybe would not hurt quite like that. That is one way in which, it is quasi-religious expression by saying, "It is just a game."
Chris: Okay, second, Billboard.
Jeff: Billboard. So, the billboard model is usually not necessarily a verbal expression, but, I have examples of Tim Tebow when he was at Florida. There is eye black that oftentimes players put under their, their eyes to absorb light so they are not as blinded by the sun. Tim Tebow would write Bible verses, or not the whole verse, but like John 3:16 on--on his--on his eye black. The NFL does not--used to not allow, any kinds of decorations on one's shoes, like, unlike the NBA. But it is now doing this. It is allowing it for certain games, and sure enough many NFL players will put, you know, religious messages on their shoes, Bible verse on their shoes. Carson Wentz, the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles, I think it was something like, oh, I cannot remember the acronym he uses. But, uhm, anyway, I think--and I think it is like a verse from Philippians that is on the outside of his shoes. So, this is the Billboard model. I also think of, you know, that famous guy with the, uh, rainbow wig in the 1970s and 80s. We were at a field goal. He will be in the stands on the front row behind the goal post and he would have up John 3:16, like, for every big game. That--that is the billboard type. Which then leaves, you know, ideally, it is meant to provoke one to, you know, look up that bible verse or ask more about Carson Wentz. So, it is not an exact statement and you are not quite clear exactly what Tim Tebow means to say about John 3:16, or why he chose that verse, but that is what he wants you to go look it up, right? And so, we are trusting but it is more of a billboard style of religious expression.
Chris: And I read, uh, Stephen Curry has a scripture on the tongue of his shoe, which was interesting. I guess another billboard.
Jeff: He does. It is the, "I can do all things through Christ who..." yeah. On the--on the inside tongue of his shoe. I know [chuckles], so you get that along with the Steph Curry shoe.
Chris: Yeah, uh, number three is Glorification.
Jeff: Right. The glorification model is the athlete that states something along the lines of, "I play hard. I help my teammates. I even win the game for the glory of God. In other words, It is not for my own glory or, uhm, compliments that I get. It is all for God." I think I quote Roger Staubach. There are countless ones of these. Roger Staubach after, I believe the 1971 Super Bowl, who again, again, it is a minimizing of one's own ability, or the team's ability, or the coach’s ability, to--that say that, "If we did well, it is done for God's glory." And therefore, by stating that or by believing it, God is glorified, not us or the team or the sport or all these good things. So, it is similar to the, "It is just a game.", where you are minimizing your own effort, to some extent, by saying, "It is all for God's glory, not for fame or riches. Whatever else comes with winning."
Chris: Okay, and the last two are tied together, Soft Providential and Hard Providential, right?
Jeff: Right, so providentialism, as a theological term, uhm, in a sense just means, uh, uh, a God that intervenes in human history in some way. The soft providential model, are, it--it-it has athletes stating that, you know, they are praying for strength for God. They are praying for no injuries, you hear that a lot for the health of the players. Which means that if God is answering those prayers, God is in fact intervening, right? To, uh, you know, keep people healthy and to give you strength and belief that you are going to win especially if you are down, so that is kind of a softer version. Tim Tebow is a classic soft providential list, the quarterback--former quarterback for Florida, and for Denver Broncos, and New York Jets, and New England Patriots, and now a current baseball player, I think, in the Mets' farm system.
I mean a fantastic athlete, but a very vocal Evangelical Christian. He had that run in the 2012 playoffs, well, the 2011 season for the Denver Broncos that people were calling miraculous and--but he would downplay that, right? It is God that performs miracles, not Tim Tebow. So he would--he would in a sense say, "I pray." He gives glory as well at the end of every game to his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but he would always say that, "I am not praying for wins. I am not praying for the ball to leave my hand and land in the receiver's hand. I am praying for strength...", again, "...health and belief." Intangible things that God still has to intervene in order to effect, at the same time too, it is much more difficult to identify, right? And then, obviously with both providential models, if you did not believe or there were major injuries on the field and you prayed for the health of all players, you know, God did not answer your prayer. But it is easier to kind of let God off the hook for either answering or not answering your prayer when you are praying for these abstract things. So that is what I am calling Soft Providentialism.
Chris: Okay.
Jeff: And then Hard Providentialism, is--is what I just suggested. Athletes that are praying for God to actually intervene in the game itself. And therefore, it is usually post-game where athletes will say, uhm you know, "God wanted us to win. God guided that ball into my hands. God allowed me to get that interception and run it back for a touchdown. That was God doing that." I have an example of Russell Wilson, the quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks. They--they were in the NFC championship game. I believe it was 2017, maybe 2016, against the Green Bay Packers and, he threw four interceptions in the first half. They were way down but they came back in the fourth quarter and won the game. And what Wilson said he said, "That was God testing us." right? So, in other words God in a sense intentionally made him throw those interceptions to get them in a hole. So, these--it is like a trial and tribulation that God wanted to have Russell Wilson in the Seahawks overcome, right? So, there is kind of a hard providential, uh, way of talking about it. So anyway, so that is--that is the hard providential.
Chris: Okay, so now with that explanation, can you tell us how these are used and received along lines of race in the NFL?
Jeff: Right. So, what I argue in the book is that, this is--this is--generalization is certainly not true of all players, but for the most part, you are not going to see as many white NFL players using hard providential language. If they use a religious expression at all, it is going to be the glorification and they will use one of the top--of the first four most often. And also, most often, you do or you see a more preponderance of African-American NFL players that are using a version of hard providential language, to some extent, and it may not even be on the field. I will give an example of Reggie White the former defensive lineman for the Eagles and the Packers who passed away quite a bit ago. Maybe one of the greatest defensive lineman NFL has ever had. Very devout man. He was--he was--he was a pastor as well in the offseason. But, he believed that God would tell him whether to sign with the Green Bay Packers or not, right? God is going to intervene and--and tell him whether to, and if God does not--tell them no or does not answer, he is not going to join the Packers, So there is an example of--he is an African-American player. I talked a lot about this, uh, Sports Illustrated issue from 1998 leading into the 1998 Super Bowl between, the Broncos--I guess it was Broncos and the Packers in the 1997 Super Bowl. But they polled the Denver Bronco players in particular about, what is the relationship--they believe between their religion and sport. And of the seven, I think, Denver Broncos that they interviewed. I think there were two white players who use kind of soft providential language, and I believe maybe five of the six African-American players used very hard providential language that God brought them here physically, right? Helped them win the previous games to get them to the Super Bowl, and that God was also is essentially on their side and going to help them win the Super Bowl as well.
So, you have this kind of clear divide but then the Sports Illustrated article, so then I kind of get into the meat of the matter, the double standard part of it. The Sports Illustrated article then, uh, interviews, two white academics, but, I think one was the president of Yale Divinity School at that time, and then a couple white pastors that lambast this kind of theological thinking. Either saying, "This is bringing God into the messiness of a game where people can almost die on the field into a multibillion-dollar sport with celebrities that beat their wives. God does not care about football." right? "God cares about other things, so He does not care enough to come in and intervene in a game and enable a team to win." right? So, the rest of the article are for white essentially theologians that are bashing this kind of speech. They say that God perhaps provide strength, but God is not helping teams win or making other teams lose. God does not--God does not do that. God is greater than that. So, in a sense, there is--they are complimenting or they are okay with the expressions of the white football players, not okay with the expressions of the black players. But the double standard is in, to add what I argue is, both are forms of providentialism. God is intervening in some way. What is the difference? Right?
And then I kind of chronicle a history of African-American religious experience of God intervening, whether the Holy Spirit or to believe that God actually intervenes. Either, you know, free the slaves, to help out with, all kinds of problems in the black church itself. There is a long history of this kind of theology being very prominent and useful to many African Americans. Whereby, it is looked down upon by whites, who are not undergoing nearly the kind of struggle that African-Americans have and continue to go through. So hard providentialism is a--a--a very helpful theology for African-Americans. So, these NFL players are merely expressing that, yet, they express it to be shot down by fellow players. By the way, Aaron Rodgers was a quarterback that Russell Wilson was playing against and he had this some smug comment about Russell Wilson saying that God, you know, challenged them. God actually, you know, put them in a hole for a reason. And then Green Bay beat Seattle the next year and Aaron Rodgers was asked about and he said, "Well, I guess, you know God was on our side this time." in a very kind of smug way. Which is--which again is a critique of Russell Wilson's theology. By him, the white quarterback saying, "God does not care about football." right? In a--in--in a sense. So, I guess God wasn't on Russell Wilson's side this time so.
Chris: Right. Well, I do not think I will ever watch a sports game the same. This is very, very helpful. Very very - very helpful I think simply because sports are such a large part of American society. To see the religious thread in it is a benefit I think to us.
Jeff: I will say it--I will say this to you if you do not mind for what you are saying, you know, I think for a long time and one of the reasons why, you know, the religion-sport discipline did not really get off the ground to the mid-1970s, was that most theologians and or people doing religious studies just, did not consider sport to be as big as it is or as serious as it is. It is just a bunch of people running around, shooting a piece of leather, or hitting a piece of leather with a piece of wood. Why are we going to talk about that? But you do it at your own peril, if you do not. There are all kinds of connections, but one of the main reasons too, for religious studies scholars, I believe too, at least be interested in sport. Whether you like sports or not. it is the kind of impact that it has on people.
Chris: Yup.
Jeff: Positive and negative, right?
Chris: Right.
Jeff: I mean more people watch the Super Bowl than go to church on that Sunday, so, far more. Just for instance, so, yeah. It is a very big deal whether you like it or not. In fact, it is usually a big deal to those that hate it because it gets so much attention and these athletes get paid a lot of money too, but, anyway.
Chris: Right, right. Okay, Jeff, for the last segment. Let us turn to a fairly recent piece of religion, race, and sports history in the United States. The chapter's title is compelling, as I said before. It is Black Prophetic Fire of Colin Kaepernick. Can you share the story briefly? In case we have forgotten about it, and then we will move into some of your analysis.
Jeff: Sure. So, Colin Kaepernick, he brought the San Francisco for--he is--he is mixed race, but he identifies certainly as African-American. But he grew up, as an adopted child in a white family--with a white family in California. And really kind of came into, consciousness about race in college at the University of Nevada, in particular with the--an African-American fraternity that he was involved in. But he kind of kept quiet for this to be any part of his NFL season. He was a fantastic quarterback. He led the 49ers to, a Super Bowl in 2012. And then his place started to slip a little bit. By 2016, the beginning of that season, he was not the starter anymore but was still on the team as the second-string quarterback at that time. At that time, I believe it was, Eric Garner? Certainly, in response to some the--to the, Trayvon Martin killing. But there began to be a rash of police killings of--of unarmed black men and some women as well. Uhm, and this is in, I believe Aug--maybe late July in the preseason--of the first preseason game, in 2016. And Kaepernick sits down, now, there was no cameras on him. They cat--they catch it from a camera. Someone caught it. I think seeing Colin Kaepernick be the only one sitting down during the national anthem they play before every game. And so it began--the word begin to get out. He sits for the next game.
I believe it was the next game he talks with an ex-player named Nate Boyer who was also an ex-Green Beret who suggested that he kneels. Uhm, there are several--there are several reasons for this but one is kneeling is--there is, a sign of respect. Whether it is religious respect, like your genuflecting to some degree, or football players take a kneel all the time in practice. So, Kaepernick started to do that and got a lot of attention for it. You know, President Trump after he won the presidency in 2016, had all kinds of things to say about Colin Kaepernick, called him all kinds of names said, "Go." you know, "Why do not you leave this country if you do not like it?" Blah, blah, blah. It--NFL viewership was down, Kaepernick was somehow to blame for this. The main effect though, as I was arguing, is that other players started to follow. From high school ranks, middle school ranks, on all on up to other sports as well, not just football.
Kaepernick stays with the 49ers that season but is cut the following season and is yet to even be invited to a training camp since then. However, you could argue that his influence has been even greater because he has not been on the field. He is widely revered by many, many, many people. LeBron James has said flat out, you know, it is Kaepernick that has given him the courage to speak out. Kaepernick, obviously, with the Black Lives Matter movement, the killing of George Floyd earlier this year, has been one of the people that has been looked to for advice and he has given it. He started a non-profit that has been incredibly influential, in--in at least seeking and trying to minimize social injustice in our country. So that is kind of the setup for who he is and what he did.
Chris: Right. Thank you. That is helpful. So, would you help us with definitions of two things you used to describe Mr. Kaepernick and his protest? First, what is "black prophetic fire"? And second, what is the African-American jeremiad?
Jeff: Right. So, I am—I am taking black prophetic fire, it is not my--my term, from Cornel West who wrote a book about four or five years ago called Black Prophetic Fire. And what he is talk--he is talking about past civil rights leaders that had what he calls this black prophetic fire. And when he says that--the prophetic piece of it, is that they are not just talking about a kind of spiritual renewal. They are talking about rebelling against the powers. And for him--for instance in Martin Luther King's case what many forget, they remember that 'I Have a Dream' speech, but they forget that later on in his life, he was very much against certain forms of capitalism and the Vietnam War, right? I mean people either forget that or never even knew it because that is, not the Martin Luther King that they want to know. So, for Cornel West, this is the kind of profit that we are talking about that is willing to take on any power that is furthering social injustice.
For West and for a lot of these civil rights leaders, some of the "evils" of capitalism is what needs to be fought because it helps maintain white supremacy. It certainly helps maintain gender inequality, income inequality, and so what I am saying about Kaepernick, uhm, for those who just say, "Well, he is protesting police brutality.:" He says that and he is. But by kneeling for the national anthem at an NFL game, that is de facto a prophetic movement as defined by Cornel West as one that is a big thumb in the eye of not only capitalism, I would argue, but also of militarism. Because the NFL of-- amongst all the American sports leagues, is the one that is most closely tied to the military. The NFL had a--had a contract with the Department of Defense for about eight or nine years, and the Department of Defense was paying the NFL to promote the good things going on with the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Fox--the Fox sports crew would go to Iraq or Afghanistan and visit the troops, and they would show that at halftime. Still to this day, uh, coaches and everyone on the sidelines and some players are required to wear, uh, for a couple of weeks, a couple of the games, some kind of camouflage way in which their logo is still there, but it is that which is certainly supporting the military. But there is a very tight connection between the two. For Colin Kaepernick to kneel during the national anthem, is prophetic in the way that Dr. West defines it by going not only up against police brutality but also against, in a sense, the main big powers that be--that help support white supremacy, which in turn helps maintain a level of police brutality against unarmed African-Americans.
Chris: Okay. Okay. Now, let us move to the African-American jeremiad. Tell us about that.
Jeff: Right. So, a jeremiad, generally speaking is a literature genre that, it--it refers to the Prophet Jeremiah who, lamented quite a bit about the state of the--of--of the Israelites, but there was always a hopeful ending. So, it drew on the past, what we were, what we are now, which is usually not good, hence, the lament in the jeremiad. But given those the past and the present, where we can go hopefully in the future. So that is kind of the stages of a jeremiad. The American jeremiad, I mean, they are being told all the time, with our supposed glorious past of the era of the founding fathers. You know, a nadir certainly has a say to the civil war, slavery, all kinds of--depends on who you are talking to I suppose. But in order to breakthrough and move into a better next chapter, we have to reckon with these things in the past.
The African-American jeremiad does not have quite the same feel or tone as the general American jeremiad because it has been bad, and it continues to be bad. Has it gotten better? Sure. But it continues to be bad. So, what exactly is the African-American jeremiad relying upon in order to project a better future. I--I--I write--Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author of Between the World and Me, and his kind of feud with Cornel West because, and actually David Brooks, The New York Times writer as well who writes about jeremiads and uses Ta-Nehisi Coates and says, "Ta-Nehisi Coates is giving us a very bleak future." And West and other say, "Yeah, he is because that is all he has seen up to this point." So, the purpose of using American jeremiads along with West's notion of black prophetic fire is to locate Colin Kaepernick in his protest. By his protest and by a lack of words frankly, he is really--he is really gesturing without his mouth, but really with his body in a kind of, uhm, in the posture of kneeling during the national anthem. But he is signaling a version of kind of an African-American jeremiad, uhm, to point out and critique what is going on with the hope that it will get better without stating what that will look like. He just wants the Injustice to stop, right? And that is more of a cleaner version of an African-American jeremiad. If the injustice slows down or stops, it automatically gets better. The American jeremiad has these kinds of, you know, dreams of the future or whether the utopian or perhaps their racist space. In other words, no more brown people in our country. Some people have that kind of--and to a jeremiad sadly. Uhm, so, by combining the black prophetic fire and the American jeremiad, I am--I am trying to kind of argue that Colin Kaepernick is just one of these athletes that is--that is able to bring both of them together in a very profound way.
Chris: Okay. Do you think he thinks that?
Jeff: I do not know. [chuckles] I--I--I wonder--I--he knew exactly what he was doing when he was kneeling for a national anthem during an NFL game. If you think about it, the owners are looking, the fans are looking, the owners by the way are up one hundred percent white in the NFL. The league is seventy percent black, so there is a clear discrepancy there. And perhaps it reminds some people of plantation, which has been--is--has been compared to sometimes. And then the draft looks like slave trade at times as well. But it is a, you know, a thumb in the eye, to a vast majority of white fans, coaches, general managers, owners by kneeling for the national anthem. So he knew--he was--he knew it was a big move. Whether he connect all the dots, I do not know. But he does not have to, you know.
Chris: Right.
Jeff: Maybe if he reads my book, he will--he will--he will know what he is doing now, [chuckles].
Chris: Right, right. Jeff, I know that we have not touched on all the important points in your book and there are many. But maybe in the last two minutes, do you want to share any lessons or takeaways from the book? Either in terms of important historical transformations you are charting, or in terms of helping us better understand our present moment.
Jeff: Well, the main thesis of the book that tries to tie these kinds of episodes together, whether it is Serena Williams. Jackie Robinson, the two chapters we talked about, Dabo Swinney, the coach of Clemson, is this notion of order and the--the ability for, in particular white Protestant Christianity, to apply order to areas of the society that they feel is chaotic or causing chaos. And black bodies have historically been sites where they perceive chaos to be. So my quite--my overall question is how does religion do this, in particular, in the sports world.
The domestication of Muhammad Ali. The Sanctification of Jackie Robinson. I have a chapter on Serena Williams in the tennis umpire, from the 2018 US Open final which many people remember. She lost a game for, you know, certainly losing her temper. But there was an ordering that needed to go on of another black body in Serena Williams. So, all the chapters have to do with the NFL attempting to order calling Kaepernick by blackballing him from the league, right?
Now that there is a financial hit and the George Floyd murder, I suppose woke up some executives in the NFL now, they are kind of apologizing. But it was four years ago, they did not say a word, right? And actually, certain owners forced their players to stand, like Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, for the national anthem. If you think about it, what could be more orderly than forcing players to stand with their feet on the line and doing this correct rituals for the national anthem, right? Of seventy percent African-American players who may or may not believe in some of these American principles that they are being told they should believe by white America. So that is the overall theme of the book. How does, in particular white Protestant Christianity, support the ordering of perceived areas of chaos in the sports world in the United States, and race automatically comes in them?
Chris: Well, I think it is a timely book considering the reckoning with racism that the United States has undergone, once again, this time in, 2020. I think you touched on something important as you bring that into part of America that is so prominent, the sports world. So, so, thank you for your insight.
Jeff: Thank you for saying that.
Chris: We have been talking with Jeffrey Scholes, associate professor in the department of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs and author of "Christianity, Race, and Sport" to be published next year by Routledge Press. Here at the conclusion of this episode, we trust that the listeners have a deeper appreciation of religious freedom as a governing principle in the United States, and will see its protection as an indispensable part of the fragile American experiment in self-government.
Do not forget to visit storyofamericanreligion.org and sign up for future podcast notifications under the signup tab. Thank you, Jeff, so much for being with us. It has been very enlightening and I hope you have enjoyed the time with us as well.
Jeff: I have. I have, Chris. Thank you so much.
