Deconversion, Sport, and Rehabilitative Hope

This article, based on qualitative interviews and ethnographic research, explores three types of on-the-ground rehabilitative hope supplied by sport for many post-evangelicals within the upper Bible Belt region traversing through the process of deconversion. First, sport is an often-cited space that...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Religions
Main Author: Shoemaker, Terry (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: MDPI [2019]
In: Religions
Year: 2019, Volume: 10, Issue: 5, Pages: 1-13
Further subjects:B Deconversion
B Bible Belt
B Religion
B Rehabilitation
B Hope
B Sports
Online Access: Volltext (doi)
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Description
Summary:This article, based on qualitative interviews and ethnographic research, explores three types of on-the-ground rehabilitative hope supplied by sport for many post-evangelicals within the upper Bible Belt region traversing through the process of deconversion. First, sport is an often-cited space that is identified as broadening social networks, leading to initial questioning of inherited religiosity. Second, sport offers a level of amelioration of relational fissures caused by religious shifts away from evangelicalism. Last, this research indicates that post-evangelicals highly value spaces for discussions of social justice, and athletic activism offers symbolic solidarity. Thus, sport and deconversion can be intertwined for Southern post-evangelicals. In the end, I argue that the triangulation of deconversion, hope, and sport within a Southern context creates a way of understanding the changing Southern ethos and pathos demarcated by a shifting away from a conservative Protestantism historically dominant in the region.
ISSN:2077-1444
Contains:Enthalten in: Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.3390/rel10050341