https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6842-3067
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ABSTRACT
Existing literature on the work of sports chaplains focuses primarily on practitioner accounts of chaplaincy within elite sports settings. While these narratives provide useful descriptions of personal experience and practical application, they are largely devoid of theological grounding. This paper seeks to address this imbalance by putting forward a theology of sports chaplaincy that emphasises the missional nature of this ministry. We begin by contextualising mission within the doctrine of the Trinity. We then move to an exploration of the incarnational nature of chaplaincy. In line with the work of established missiological scholars, the concept of missio Dei is located as one possible way of understanding the mission and role of the chaplain in post-Christendom in western industrial society. The paper concludes by identifying sports chaplains as key missiological agents within the context of both amateur and elite sport.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributors
William Whitmore is a PhD student in the School of Sport and Exercise at the University of Gloucestershire, UK.
Andrew Parker is Professor of Sports Ministry at Ridley Hall Theological College, Cambridge, UK.
Notes
1 The work of Bosch (Citation1992) is not without critique, see for example: Bevans and Schroeder (Citation2005), Bekele (Citation2011), Richebaecher (Citation2003) and Duraisingh (Citation2010).
2 For more on definitions of sports chaplaincy see Waller, Dzikus, and Hardin (Citation2008, Citation2010), Waller, Huffman, and Hardin (Citation2016).
3 In accordance with the work of Ryan (Citation2018), we use the term ‘pastoral care’ to denote a theological (as opposed to ‘secular’) approach to chaplaincy which is characterized by a witnessing of God’s love through service and servanthood. For broader discussion on the constituent pastoral and theological elements of sports chaplaincy, see Kenney (Citation2016), Waller (Citation2016) and Waller and Cottom (Citation2016).