In defense of religion-sport separation in coaching

ABSTRACT

Can a coach rightfully integrate a religious orientation in their coaching in a public institution? In its recent Kennedy v Bremerton School District (2022) decision, the U.S. Supreme Court defended the educational value of players’ exposure to diverse expressive activities as a part of learning how to live in a pluralistic society. I contend that religion-sport separation is the most philosophically defensible position, based primarily on the problems with supernatural theism in religions like Christianity. Nonetheless, there is a form of religion-sport integration that is theoretically possible within my critique of theism which could strengthen the inner morality of sport. I describe the two necessary conditions of this potential religion-sport integration but conclude that the problems with defining the ‘religious’ might ultimately strengthen my defense of religion-sport separation.

KEYWORDS:

• Religion
• morality
• coaching
• Christianity
• Buddhism

Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank Randy Feezell for his comments on, and subsequent correspondence about, the earliest draft, which led me to change my main thesis; to the JPS reviewers, who gave outstanding and extensive feedback that, at least for me, significantly improved this article; to JPS editor Paul Gaffney, for his careful reading of the article and excellent feedback; to Andy Dunning, my long-time Methodist pastor friend, who helped me think through more carefully the religious, theological, and philosophical issues and provided theological references; and to Scott Kretchmar, Matthew Altman, and Bob Gillis, who provided thoughtful feedback on the earliest draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. A notable exception is Feezell (2013b). Despite claiming to do both, Hochstetler (2012) gives a descriptive analysis of how religious faith is integrated in coaching but hardly any normative defense.

2. Kennedy v. Bremerton School Dist. (slip opinion), Gorsuch majority opinion, 26.

3. See Simon, R. ‘Internalism and Internal Values in Sport.’ Ethics in Sport, second edition, ed. W.J. Morgan. Champaign, Urbana, IL: Human Kinetics, 2007, 35-50 and Simon, R., Torres, C., and Hager, P. Fair Play: The Ethics of Sport, fourth edition. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2015, 222-224.

4. Kennedy v. Bremerton School Dist. (slip opinion), Sotomayor dissent, 17–20.

5. See Wolverton (2013).

6. See https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/16/a-growing-share-of-americans-say-its-not-necessary-to-believe-in-god-to-be-moral/

7. The historicity of the Gospels has been much debated for centuries. For a recent example, see Funk, Hoover and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus. New York, NY: HarperOne, 1996.

8. https://360coach.fca.org/

9. The italicized words in this paragraph reflect, in order, most all of the titles of the ten lessons from the FCA’s 360 Coach training.

10. Albert Bandura, ‘Selective Moral Disengagement in the Exercise of Moral Agency.’ Journal of Moral Education, Volume 31, Issue 2, 2002, 101–119.

11. Hoffman (2003) laments that ‘from where I have been viewing the action, there is no doubt that the churches have entered sports, and pervaded, but I have not as yet seen any willingness to transform them. Without that transformation, one wonders what they are doing there at all’ (310).

12. Of course, there are problematic or outright mistaken Christian moral teachings, but many of these are found in Paul’s writings, such as his view on same-sex sexual relations and the status of women.

13. This condition of leaving out the metaphysical is different than Kretchmar’s requirement of ‘soft metaphysics’ to conduct a moral analysis of sport (1998). He was responding to those who did not recognize that the structure of games generates normative obligations, which apparently is the ‘soft metaphysics.’ It’s unclear why Kretchmar invokes the term ‘metaphysics’ in this context since he defines metaphysics later (and appropriately) as a type of enterprise where a purely scientific technique cannot know its object exhaustively

14. See Immanuel Kant, Religion with the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. Greene & Hudson. New York, NY: Harper Torchbooks, 1960 and G.W.F. Hegel, ‘Religion’ in Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. Miller. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1977, 410–478.

15. Auguste Comte’s The System of Positive Polity (1851–54) and J.S. Mill’s ‘Utility of Religion’ (2009).

16. Torcaso v Watkins, footnote 11 at https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/367/488/

17. I’m indebted to Paul Gaffney for this valuable point.