Olympic Theology

Roger Fritts

August 18, 1996

Cedar Lane Unitarian Church

Bethesda, Maryland

Although the Olympics took place while I was traveling in Europe, I had many opportunities to follow the games.

• I watched wrestling matches on TV in a fourth floor apartment with the family I stayed while I was in Romania.



• I watched the Hungarian soccer team go down to defeat on a TV in the lobby of a hotel in Budapest, feeling the disappointment of Hungarian men and women all around me in the room.



• I heard about the bombing from a clerk in a store in Vienna, Austria, just after I had spent the morning visiting the Sigmund Freud home and museum.



• I watched the Olympic boat races on a TV in the lobby of a small hotel in the Swiss Alps.



• And I read the stories of victories and defeats in the International Herald Tribune.

Interest in the Olympics was high everywhere I went in Europe. In terms of participation, the summer Olympics were an enormous success. Ten thousand seven-hundred athletes from 197 countries competed. More than two million people traveled to Atlanta to see the games. The nine million tickets sold exceeded Barcelona and Los Angeles combined. NBC and European broadcasters report that audience shares vastly exceeded expectations, with the number of viewers running 25% above the levels of the Barcelona Games. And broadcasters estimate the number of people who tuned into any part of the TV coverage at four billion. It was the biggest peacetime event in the history of the United States, and the largest Olympic games ever held.

However, in spite of these numbers, some people were critics of the games.

• The New England Journal of Medicine warned that gymnastics training can cause both physical injury and psychological damage.

• The Washington Post's TV reviewer wrote about the opening night that "viewers were subject to a gigantic and formless Hollywood-like spectacle that supposedly celebrated Atlanta and the American South, (and the Spirit of the Olympic Games!) but which spoke with little if any authenticity about anything. . . . They really should have propped up some dignitary at the opening of the opening ceremony to declare, "Let the schmaltz begin!"



• A Moscow newspaper complained that "the host of the games doesn't pay much attention to the guests. . . . You get the impression that only Americans are turning in brilliant performances at the Olympics." Other countries complained that the U.S. national anthem was the only national anthem sung at the opening ceremony.



• A headline of The Financial Times announced on its front page "Computer Problems Halt Flow of Olympic Results." The article went on to say that at times the 17,000 reporters in Atlanta were unable even to obtain from the computers lists of participation athletes.



• Many complained that it was hot in Atlanta. As the temperature climbed to 99, visitors wondered who was the official sponsor for the Olympic deodorant and where were all the free samples?



• And an Irish writer complained that although the swimming pool complex held 13,500 people, the organizers installed only two portable toilets. He wrote, "This outcome is an affront to the most basic standards of sanitation."

But perhaps the most serious criticism, heard at each modern Olympic game, is that the games are not true to the traditions of the ancient games. In some ways this is correct.

The Greek Olympic games began about 800 years before the birth of Jesus and continued for more than a thousand years. These great festivals of sports were held in the same location ever four years. Several differences from our modern games stand out. For example:

• Ancient athletes competed as individuals, not on national teams, and there were no team sports. Individuals competed against each other in boxing, wrestling, running, jumping, discus throwing, javelin throwing, chariot racing and horse racing. Unlike today, no one counted victory totals for cities or nations.



• Nearly all the scenes depicted on pottery show athletes without clothing. Apparently in the first games athletes did wear shorts. However, a runner was in the lead when unfortunately his shorts fell down and he tripped and fell over them. To avoid future accidents, officials passed a law requiring all athletes to perform naked. DuPont had not yet invented Spandex.

• Greek men excluded women from competition in the Olympic Games, and married women were not even welcome as spectators. It was a law that the men would pitch any married woman discovered at the games headlong from the top of a lofty cliff. Virgin women could attend as spectators, a requirement that would considerably reduce the size modern crowds.



• Women did have a festival of their own in honor of the goddess Hera (Haira). Celebrated every four years, the sports events at the festival were foot races involving young women in three different age groups.

But the major difference between the ancient and the modern Olympics was the role of religion. The Olympic sports were a serious religious activity. Our word sport is itself misleading, because it carries the connotation of levity. The Greeks took competition very seriously. The Olympics honored Zeus, the supreme god in Greek religion. On the middle day of the five-day festival, they made a sacrifice of 100 oxen to Zeus.

The Greeks believed Zeus to bestow on the athletes the physical power that enabled them to take part in the games. The athletes prayed to Zeus for victory and made gifts of animals or small cakes, in thanks for their successes.

A visit to Olympia was a pilgrimage to the most sacred place for the worship of Zeus. According to legend, the altar of Zeus stood on a spot struck by lightning, which Zeus had hurled from his throne high atop Mount Olympus, where the gods assembled. On this spot the Greeks built a temple to Zeus. It was one of the largest Doric temples built in Greece. They built the temple in an ideal system of proportions, so that the distance between the columns was harmoniously proportional to their height. The Greek mathematician Euclid expressed this ideal in his book on geometry.

Greek sculptors developed new poses showing energetic movement and illustrating the muscles and natural shapes of the body. The most spectacular sculpture at Olympia was the gold and ivory statue of Zeus sitting on a throne in the temple. Standing more than 42 feet high, the statue was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Greeks commissioned poetry to honor the winners of the games. The poems lived on in people's memories long after the day of victory, and they have lasted longer than many statues also made to immortalize the victors.

No parallel to this integration of sports, architecture, mathematics, sculpture, poetry and religion exists today. To be true to the ancient model, today we would need to build a site that combined a sports complex and a religious temple. It might be a combination of RFK Stadium, the National Cathedral and the Lincoln Memorial. To be true to the Greeks, the modern Olympics would need to integrate the physical body, natural science, religious faith, creative arts, and the spirit of competition into a total philosophy of what it means to be a vital human being.

However, the ancient festival was not perfect. Our tendency to be nostalgic for the past can lead to unrealistic expectations for the modern Olympics.

Today commentators worry about declining moral values because officials must randomly test athletes for steroids. However, the ancient games had their own problems with cheating. Judges and umpires were forced to impose punishments for cheating that included public whippings. Game officials imposed heavy fines in cases of bribery. As a warning to potential offenders, officials used money from such fines to construct bronze statues of Zeus. They set these statues on the terrace wall leading to the entrance of the stadium to remind all participants of the punishment for cheating.

Today commentators worry about undermining the spirit of the games because a few athletes make millions endorsing products. However, in the ancient games victorious athletes lived off the glory of their achievement. Their hometowns might reward them with free meals for the rest of their lives, cash, tax breaks, honorary appointments, or leadership positions in the community. No amateurs were in the winner's circle.

Today commentators worry about the impact of world politics on the Olympics. However, the ancient games had their share of political manipulations. For example, sixty-five years after the birth of Jesus, in the year 65 AD the Emperor Nero insisted that officials postpone the games for two years. This was so Nero could compete in the games during a visit to Greece. In 67 AD Nero arrived with his ten horse team, only to be thrown from his chariot early in the race. Although his assistants helped him to remount, he failed to finish the race. Nevertheless, the judges proclaimed Nero the victor, on the grounds that he would have won had he been able to complete the course. After his death in AD 68 officials declared these games invalid, and they removed Nero's name from the victor lists. His successor as Emperor also insisted that the judges pay back the 250,000 drachma bribe they had received from Nero.

So I think it is a mistake to idealize the Ancient Olympics. Cheating, greed and political manipulation have been part of the Olympics for nearly three thousand years. In both the ancient and the modern games, money and fame sometimes blow sports out of proportion, overstating their importance in human life. When this happens, perspective is lost and some players and coaches forget ethics and values. Greed for money or fame can upset the spirit of the games. The meaning is confused. The purpose is distorted.

Yet not everyone loses perspective. I remember a television interview with one losing athlete. The TV man said, "After pinning all our hopes on your winning a gold medal, your loss is a major tragedy."

The young man looked into the camera and said, "A major tragedy occurs when people die in a plane crash, or die of an illness. I just lost a race. I am sorry I lost, but it is not a major tragedy." I appreciated hearing that not everyone loses perspective in the midst of the hype and exaggeration.

Put in perspective, sports and games build both physical strength and emotional strength. Sports can serve as a training ground where we can learn teamwork. Genuine competition can teach us how to recognizing our strengths and understand our limitations. Games can teach us how to deal with both success and failure. This is why I continue to enjoy the spectacle of competition in the Olympics and in other sports.

Cut away the noise and the crowds, the crass commercialism and the carnival atmosphere, the muttering scalpers and the tacky street venders, the corporate sponsorships and product endorsements, the manufactured TV dramas and the endless hype, and something is inside every child, every young adult--something genuine and wholesome, something pure and dignified--flowers in the race, the throw, the jump, the hurdle or the swim.

Eighteen hundred years ago a Greek writer said:

There are enough irksome and troublesome things in life; aren't things just as bad at the Olympic festival? Aren't you scorched there by the fierce heat? Aren't you crushed in the crowd? Isn't it difficult to freshen yourself up? Doesn't the rain soak you to the skin? Aren't you bothered by the noise, the din and other nuisances? But it seems to me that you are well able to bear and indeed gladly endure all this, when you think of the gripping spectacles that you will see.

There are many gripping spectacles:

• Did you see the 25-year-old man from South Africa, who weighs only 99 pounds, run in the marathon and become the first black person from his country to win a gold medal in the history of the games?



• Did you see the 34-year-old orthopedic surgeon, who turned to softball when she was eleven after she was rejected by her local Little League team because she was a girl, lead the United States women's softball team to victory, hitting a two-run homer in the gold medal game?



• Did you see the shy, reserved, 18-year-old young woman from Tucson vault on a painful sprained ankle to help her team win the gold?



• And did you see Pocket Hercules, the 131-pound Turkish weightlifter, lift 413.25 pounds over his head to become the first man in history to win three gold medals in weightlifting? He says his goal is follow in Arnold Schwarzenegger's footsteps. He wants to move to America and marry a Kennedy.

I agree with the Greeks. Integrated properly in human life, this celebration of physical competition is part of religion. I think an awareness of the mystery of life and the mystery of the human spirit can be found in the Olympics. And it can also be found in the Para Olympics and the Special Olympics for the disabled and in the sand lots, school yards and parks, wherever children and adults join in sports.

In the middle of my trip to Europe we were visiting the parsonage of the minister of the River Road's partner church, delivering some money we had promised to carry over. I stepped outside where the minister's ten-year-old grandchild was bouncing a ball. She spoke no English and I spoke less the ten words in her language. Nevertheless, she tossed me the ball. And suddenly we were passing it back and forth, this ten-year-old playing sports with an overweight forty-five-year-old minister from America. Both of us were smiling. For sports, like music, can be a universal language.

Sources:

Swaddling, Judith, The Ancient Olympic Games, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas. 1980.

On the Web: "Ancient Olympics" http://olympics.tufts.edu/

Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
9601 Cedar Lane, Bethesda, Maryland 20814-4099
Tel: 301-493-8300    Fax: 301-897-5713
e-mail: office@CedarLane.org
Sunday Services at 10 a.m.
© 1998-2008, Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Webminister