Prayer and other spiritual activities by athletes can be viewed as performance-enhancing, experts say. (Creative Commons photo by Elias Gayles)
At a symposium, experts from a variety of fields are examining how religion and athletics mix. One observer says prayer and meditation have been proven to be performance-enhancing activities for athletes.
One standard the World Anti-Doping Agency uses to ban a substance is whether it enhances, or has the potential to enhance, athletic performance.
Drugs aren’t alone in such scrutiny. The use of high-tech prosthetic limbs has caused debates in elite sports. Even music, and its positive effects on the brain, have been seen by some to provide an unfair advantage for marathon runners.
Now some experts wonder if prayer, and even faith as a whole, could come under similar scrutiny in the debate over performance-enhancing drugs, technology and techniques facing modern sports.
And it’s a question that is bound to arise this week during Baylor University’s annual faith and culture symposium, this year titled “The Spirit of Sports.”
Prayer: performance enhancing?
“It is possible that prayer can be seen as an enhancing technique,” said Tracy J. Trothen, an associate professor of theology and ethics at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and an ethicist with a focus on the intersection of religion and sports.
She is one of about 20 featured presenters at the three-day symposium that begins today in Waco, Texas.
Trothen said she was especially fascinated by the advantage music gives long-distance runners. A high-profile case occurred at the 2007 New York Marathon.
The New York Times reported that U.S. Track & Field barred headphones and portable audio devices from its official races, citing safety and “to prevent runners from having a competitive edge.”
There is science to back up that concern, Trothen told Baptist News Global. MRIs, for example, have shown that music works like “emotional doping” on the brain.
And so do practices like prayer and meditation, said Trothen, author of Winning the Race? Hope and Reshaping the Sport Enhancement Debate.
They, too, “are shown by MRIs to have a significant effect on the brain,” Trothen said.
“From my perspective, I think meditation and prayer have such huge, strong, positive effects that of course they are enhancing,” she added.
But, so far, sports governing bodies have not gone after spiritual practices and faith in general for their performance-enhancing qualities.
“It raises questions about what we see as unduly improving ourselves,” Trothen said.
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SOURCE: Baptist News Global
Jeff Brumley
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