After India’s upset over Pakistan in the Cricket World Cup, Mathew Schmalz, associate professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross, wrote about the role of religion in sports for the Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog.
Commenting on controversial comments by Shahid Afridi, Pakistan’s team captain, that Indians don’t “have the large and clean hearts that Allah has given [Pakistanis],” Schmalz notes the combination of religion, nationalism, and sports—something he says is not limited to South Asia.
“Of course, connecting nationalism, religion, and athletics is not simply a South Asian propensity,” he wrote. “I am still waiting for the theological treatise that explores the theological implications of fans singing ‘God Bless America’ when the American ice hockey team experienced their “miracle on ice” against the Soviets in 1980. If the United States had lost, we might very well have heard comments structurally similar to those offered by Shahid Afridi--comments that emphasized capitalist (implicitly Christian) ‘individual initiative’ in relation to state sanctioned (implicitly atheistic) ‘collectivism.’”
This "Holy Cross in the News" item by Claire Moynahan '11.
