Evaluating Trust in the Governing Body: Forecasting Your Future (EXJW)

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John Whitworth quote
https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/are-trevor-linden-and-mats-sundin-bigger-than-jesus

Are Trevor Linden, and Mats Sundin, bigger than Jesus?
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Douglas Todd

In this article “Are Trevor Linden, and Mats Sundin, bigger than Jesus?”
written by Douglas Todd, published on December 22, 2008 you are able to get the full context surrounding John Whitworth’s comment about sports. Please refer to the link in the description.

In his book The Joy of Sports, U.S. philosopher Michael Novak makes the case that sports is a positive secular religion.

Although University of B.C. physical education Prof. Bob Sparks thinks Novak pushed his argument too far, he says there’s little doubt that for decades sports has been helping displace organized religion.
The Joy of Sports theorized that sports “connects us to deep metaphysical things in ourselves,” Sparks said. “It said sports tests us and draws on the deepest essence of our being.”

Sports spectators, Novak wrote, “go to the altar of the game to reconfirm their beliefs.” Like religious festivals, Novak said “sports are seasonal and cyclical, not linear like most of our lives.”

In such books as Inner Tennis or Golf and the Kingdom, Sparks said writers developed the idea that sports are a spiritual discipline through which athletes can attain “peak experiences.”

Simon Fraser University sociologist John Whitworth, however, said sports provides a pale imitation of religion. Though sports provide ritual, tradition and “emotional expression in a group setting,” Whitworth said sports “merely ginger up fans’ lives . . . They provide something interesting in an otherwise uninteresting life.”

Sports don’t give the ultimate things which religions claim, such as “ultimate meaning in life or salvation,” Whitworth said. “At the end of the game, all you have is a list of statistics. It all seems rather rootless. However, I suppose that fits with our society.”