It will shock nobody to learn that America thrives on spectator sports. What may shock people is that our favorite spectator sport is not football, or basketball or even – perish the thought – soccer. All of those have their devoted fan bases, of course. But what really gets us going as a nation these days is good old-fashioned religious hysteria.
You have only to look to the media to see that this is so. Religion gets more coverage on news networks than even our precious football, and arouses more frothing passion from onlookers than the rowdiest college bowl game. Besides, we’ve been playing the religious hysteria game longer than any other. Football got started in the 1800s, but America’s been in the pro leagues of losing its collective mind since Salem. Forget baseball. Taking umbrage is our national pastime.
Now, there are many varieties of religious hysteria, much as there are many varieties of sports. There is the old classic of “godless schools,” which hasn’t had much activity of late – except for Texas, where it remains weirdly popular.
If that’s not your cup of coffee, than you might consider “x/y/z affects my religious freedom.” The rules on that one are more nebulous, and the scoring system tends to be arbitrary and stupid, but there’s nearly always a game on. There are also several conferences you can choose from, including the smash hits Homophobia, Reproductive Rights, and the War On Christmas.
There’s also “I’ve just remembered that Muslims/Jews/atheists exist and that’s awful,” which is by far my personal favorite. This is partially because it crosses over nicely with racism, which is the other popular American pastime, and partly because, like fans of the Atlanta Falcons, I secretly gain a kind of masochistic joy out of watching.
You will notice that many of these hysterics are Christian in origin. This is not to suggest that Christians are inherently more quarrelsome than any other religion – Jews, as I can personally attest, argue like nobody’s business. It’d be more accurate to say that Christians, like the SEC, have enjoyed unchallenged dominance in their field for so long that some fans view the mere fact of other teams winning as a personal insult.
To push the metaphor further, it’s also worth noting that the more Christian-heavy segments of the media, like certain SEC teams, have a habit of picking out tiny targets on which they can bring their full weight to bear, thus making themselves feel and look powerful. But that’s neither here nor there.
It may have come to your attention that I haven’t been entirely serious. Let me remedy that and perhaps soothe some ruffled feathers. No, religion is not as trivial as a sports tournament. In fact, it is much more important: The kind of religious ranting that the American media celebrates and that the rest of us watch actually has fairly awful effects on people.
It disenfranchises minorities, attempts to silence dissenters, willfully misunderstands the intentions of our countries’ founders, and makes it bluntly clear to many residents of this wonderful country that they are unwelcome and unwanted. Sports, meanwhile, are deeply trivial. That’s what makes them fun and safe for everybody to enjoy.
It’s possible to have a discussion about religion without it turning into a hysteria, just like it’s possible to play a pickup game without it becoming a national championship. Perhaps it’s best if we as a people stop conflating the two.
Asher Elbein is a senior in New College. His column runs biweekly on Thursdays.
