Weekend Plug-in 🔌

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(ANALYSIS) Easter. Christmas. Super Bowl Sunday.

These are all sacred holidays, right? 

Even before Taylor Swift got involved.

Strictly speaking, this weekend’s big game qualifies as a secular phenomenon, not a holy one.

But for the most fervent of the football faithful, the Super Bowl — which last year drew a record 123.7 million U.S. viewers — brings rituals and traditions with a quasi-religious feel.

“Lots of scholars have written about the way that sporting spectacles are like a religion,” said Paul Emory Putz, director of Baylor University’s Faith & Sports Institute. “The Super Bowl certainly brings this out.”

On the other hand, the devotion to the Super Bowl — especially on a day once reserved for rest and worship — alarms at least one Christian scholar.

“What’s curious to me is that many of the things that have been unpalatable to historic Christianity, in various forms, become sort of cleansed of inequity if they’re put in the Super Bowl,” said Matthew Vos, a sociology professor at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia.

As Kansas City Chiefs season-ticket holder Brian Wroten worships God this Sunday morning, he’ll dress in red — along with most attendees at his Missouri church.

The congregation’s praise level on Super Bowl Sunday mirrors that of fans cheering at Arrowhead Stadium, Wroten said.

“Our church, we’re mostly made up of Chiefs fans,” he explained — and lately, those fans have had a lot to cheer.

With a victory over the Philadelphia Eagles at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Kansas City can claim its third straight NFL championship.

On Sunday afternoon, Wroten will host a TV watch party at his house with a menu featuring — as always — barbecue ribs and buffalo wings.

It’s an annual tradition for the Kansas City resident and his extended family, even when the Chiefs don’t make the Super Bowl.

READ: Once Again, it’s Time To Ponder God’s Role In The Super Bowl

“It’s just icing on the cake that the Chiefs are a part of it,” said Wroten, who inherited his love for the team from his late father, William, and passed it down to his 14-year-old son, also named William.

Most Americans don’t believe God cares who wins the Super Bowl or determines the winner, according to a study from Lifeway Research. 

Still, fans like Wroten have their superstitions. He wouldn’t dare miss church on the day of the big game.

“I’m just making sure I got all the bases covered,” he said with a chuckle.

Jennifer Stech Rebman of Mullica Hill, New Jersey, south of Philadelphia, organizes two big annual family gatherings: Thanksgiving and Super Bowl Sunday.

READ: No Hail Mary Needed: Most Say God Doesn’t Care Who Wins The Super Bowl

Like Wroten, she’s especially excited about this weekend’s party because her team — the Eagles — will be playing. 

Philadelphia has a chance to avenge its 38-35 Super Bowl loss to Kansas City two years ago.

Rebman, a mother of three, plans to serve Philly-inspired foods such as cheesecake, along with pizza, buffalo wings and green drinks (alcoholic and nonalcoholic varieties) in honor of the Eagles.

“I love having my family around, and that’s one of the reasons I love hosting Thanksgiving so much,” she said.

But Super Bowl Sunday when the Eagles are playing takes the family camaraderie to a whole new level.

“I mean, we hug each other,” Rebman said. “We high-five each other. We’re dancing. It’s just something that brings us together.”

She hosted her first Super Bowl party in 2018 when Philadelphia defeated the New England Patriots, 41-33.

Her father, Bill Stech, and uncle Frank Stech are longtime Eagles season-ticket holders. She started going to games as a child and attended six this season, including the NFC championship.

Rebman is a Christian, although she laments that her children’s weekend sporting events keep her away from church more than she’d like.

She’s not above seeking divine intervention on her team’s behalf.

“To be honest, I probably will pray for the Eagles to win,” she said with a laugh.

Both starting quarterbacks in Sunday’s game — the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes and the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts — are practicing Christians.

The postgame interview itself has become a Super Bowl ritual.

“For Christian players, it’s become a place where they can display their faith and talk about Jesus,” Putz said. “The phrase ‘I’d like to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’ has become common since the 1990s, when Reggie White, Kurt Warner and others used different versions of it.”

Putz suggests seeing Super Bowl rituals not as a replacement for religion but “as a space in which traditional religion can be infused into the spectacle of the big game.”

READ: ‘We Believe In The Man Upstairs’: Why Many NFL Quarterbacks Are Practicing Christians

“In the 1930s, long before the Super Bowl began, college football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg made this point,” Putz said. “At the time, Americans were concerned that young people were turning away from the church. But Stagg believed that young people could learn Christian values through other cultural activities.”

Stagg said in 1931: “Instead of going to church to learn how to live, the youngsters nowadays go anywhere they want to. Thank God, they like to go to football games!”

Since the 1990s, churches have encouraged Christians to host Super Bowl parties, where people can watch the big game together while finding ways to share their faith, Putz noted.

However, Vos, the Presbyterian academic, voices concerns about what he sees as the sexualization of women and the promotion of alcoholism in Super Bowl commercials.

That’s not to mention the violence of the sport itself, he said. 

Vos, who is president of the Christian Sociological Association, has detailed his arguments in the Journal of Sociology and Christianity and Comment magazine.

“It’s very strange,” he said in an interview. “It’s almost like anything that the church rejects, as long as we put it in big sport, it becomes something that we can kind of even celebrate.”

Wroten, the Chiefs fans, said the professor’s objections sounded “way over the top.”

“Those problems exist way before Super Bowl Sunday,” said Wroten, who leads his congregation’s food pantry ministry. “I think he gives too much power to the Super Bowl.”

On the other hand, Rebman, the Eagles fan, said she agrees with some of Vos’ critique.

“I do not agree with some of the commercials that are put on,” she said. “I mean, people do watch the commercials, but I kind of tune it out. I actually don’t love the halftime show this year, so we’re not watching it.”

Elected officials have raised concerns that Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show will violate Louisiana’s community decency standards, the Deseret News’ Kelsey Dallas reported.

Ironically, while Wroten and Rebman watch on TV, Vos will be at the Super Bowl in the Big Easy.

READ: Did Tim Tebow Kneeling For God On The Field Upset The NFL?

He’s joining Michaela Kourmoulis, a Covenant College sports management professor, and a group of students in working as hired staff for the game. He expects that he’ll get an assignment like directing fans into the seating area or picking up trash.

In any case, his goal is to learn more about the allure of Super Bowl Sunday — up close.

After Vos flies home from New Orleans and has time to reflect, he hopes to write about his experience. 

He already has the working title for an article: “Searching for Sunday While Working the Super Bowl.”

“Sometimes when I’m saying stuff, people say, ‘Wow, you hate the Super Bowl,’” Vos said. “No, I don’t hate the Super Bowl. But I don’t think it’s above critique.”

Inside The Godbeat

President Donald Trump spoke Thursday at two National Prayer Breakfast events covered by Religion News Service’s Jack Jenkins.

Declaring that he wants to root out “anti-Christian bias” in the U.S., Trump announced the formation of a task force led by Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the “targeting” of Christians, according to The Associated Press.

Trump’s mantra at the breakfasts? Make America religious again, as the Deseret News’ Kelsey Dallas described it.

The Final Plug

I spent last weekend in the Los Angeles area, reporting on the aftermath of the wildfires.

At a Pasadena, California, church on Sunday, I interviewed several people who barely escaped the inferno. They now face a long recovery effort after losing their homes. 

Check out my story here.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 18 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.