Sport and Religion: Unlikely Spiritual Connections

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Religion has an important impact on everyday life. Society uses religion to express themselves through faith, God and worshiping. Sports are also a type of religion in today’s society. People worship their teams at games and pray before every game. Sports and religion tie directly into people’s lives every day.
Sports and religion connects well with fictional material as well. For instance, Herman Winston, a golfer in Roland Merullo’s Golfing with God, is approached by God’s lieutenant and is asked to help God with the yips. Herman later learns he’s on a spiritual journey that evolves from saving his father’s soul through a golf match with the devil and later being reincarnated on earth for a second life to reach his spiritual destiny. Sports …show more content…

Bunny Rogan later goes on to say “And you have to admit having been there, to having failed in front of a crowd of friends and well-wishers” (Merullo, 231)? Herman demonstrates resistance to temptation during the golf match with the devil. This is temptation because the devil is trying to get Herman to break his morals and faith by giving in. Herman says internally that goodness, true goodness, has an enormous power to it, and if I was not exactly the paragon of goodness, well then I had close friends who were. Goodness has a tremendous effect on Herman’s handle on Satan’s temptation, he allowed Herman to face his fears internally which he showed with courage that lead to a moment of truth. This also shows that he didn’t allow Satan to win with deception and that he rose to what God had wanted him to embrace within himself to find his spiritual potential and learn from his mistakes. In contrast, earlier in Herman’s life he does give in to temptation during the Western Pennsylvania Open, however there is an ironic connection between God and Herman. Herman experiences the yips caused by the devil’s doing which later cause him to drop in rank, resulting in the loss of the …show more content…

God uses his case of the yips to motivate Herman to reach his potential and realize that helping God is not his ultimate goal. When comparing Herman’s experience with temptation to God’s, there is a noticeable similarity between strength. They both resist temptation from the devil that shows they have the will to do anything. When Herman is reincarnated on earth, the author tells the readers that Herman awoke from that dream, causing him to remember his previous life in heaven. Herman later goes on to define his life as a tale of a young star on the PGA tour as well, having the grace of Els, the work ethic of Singh, the courage and determination of Sorenstam ,the charitable instincts and will to win of Tiger Woods. The author is writing a sacred story about Herman’s reincarnated life that will be remembered for years to come is what he’s trying to convey to

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