School Sports: When Religion Makes it Tough to Play Ball

I was an athlete all through school. I played soccer and basketball for all four years of high school and all four years of college. We played a lot of parochial schools in our league. They would pray before games and again afterwards. We also played Orthodox Jewish schools and had to plan our games around Jewish holidays. I don’t ever remember there being any conflict about the fact that we were playing religiously oriented teams so I was rather surprised to read about the recent controversy in Texas.

 

Image source: Imanacademy.org

Iman Academy, an Islamic school in Texas with 500 students, was hoping to join the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS), an organization that manages competition among hundreds of schools in the state. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that a traditionally Christian organization was less than thrilled at Iman Academy’s interest in membership. But I can’t see how athletic association between schools has anything whatsoever to do with religion.

TAPPS has a history of religious intolerance. Recently the school refused to reschedule a game against an Orthodox Jewish team. The game fell on the Sabbath. Negative publicity and legal pressure shamed TAPPS into acquiescing but their stance on non-Christian religious observance is clear: non-Christian holidays simply aren’t as important as Christian holidays and don’t need to be respected.

FULL ARTICLE FROM MY FELLOWAMERICAN  BLOG 

There’s no room for hate at Christian-Muslim get-together in Texas

Christians and Muslims will sing, dine and laugh side by side as neighbors Sunday in Keller.

But one political activist sees nothing fun about the Building Bridges With Fellow Texans event at NorthWood Church.

The idea of Christians and Muslims making friends or having fun together is “heresy” — “repulsive and impossible,” according to a poison-pen e-mail from Dorrie O’Brien of Grand Prairie, who fears Islamic extremism beneath that platter of hummus.

Pastor Bob Roberts, founder and 26-year leader of the Southern Baptist-affiliated church, said he’s almost at a loss for words.

“They’re trying to stop Christians and Muslims from getting together as neighbors,” Roberts said Thursday after O’Brien’s e-mail spread on the Web.

Roberts has blogged at www.glocal.net about complaints from “super-fundamentalist angry mean-spirited people who are driven by hate of others more than love of God.”

The event, at 5 p.m., does not include worship, he said. An Irving mosque organized Muslims for the event, timed as a unity gathering after the 9-11 anniversary.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE FORT WORTH STAR TELEGRAPH

Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/09/16/3372013/theres-no-room-for-hate-at-christian.html#ixzz1YAyUtKPy