A Theology of Sports with Phil Gillespie

Dr. J talks with Phil Gillespie of Athletes in Action for a conversation about something many of us treat as mere entertainment but may reveal something much deeper about what it means to be human. With more than three decades in sports ministry, Phil brings a theological lens to our fascination with competition, asking why we care so much about who wins, who loses, who gets remembered, and who gets to stand on top. Drawing on C.S. Lewis and the idea that we were made with a deep desire to be desired and approved of, the conversation explores sports as an “iceberg”—with the visible excitement of competition revealing deeper longings for glory, identity, connection, and transcendence. Because beneath our obsession with the scoreboard may be a much more fundamental question: what are we actually longing for?

Rather than treating sports as a distraction from discipleship, Justin and Phil consider what happens when we see athletics as a genuine site of spiritual formation. The church has often treated sports as secular territory—something Christians participate in but rarely think theologically about. Phil challenges that assumption, arguing that the fields, courts, locker rooms, teams, rivalries, victories, and defeats of everyday athletic life can become places where relationships are formed, character is revealed, and faith is lived out organically. Along the way, they explore why competition can be both deeply compelling and spiritually dangerous, how our pursuit of glory can become an attempt to secure an identity that only God can give, and why the church may be overlooking one of the most significant discipleship environments in contemporary culture.

At the center of it all is a distinctly Christian vision of play: sports aren’t simply about winning, and play isn't simply wasted time. If human beings were made for glory, joy, creativity, community, and delight, then our impulse to play may itself be a clue to the goodness for which we were created. Even in the renewed creation, Phil argues, play will have a place—because the Christian hope isn’t the escape from embodied life but its restoration. For anyone who loves sports, has ever wondered why competition feels euphoric, or suspects that our obsession with athletics is about more than games, this episode offers a different way to see the field: a window into our theology of glory, a laboratory for discipleship, and a surprisingly glimpse of what we were made for.

LINKS:

MSU Athletes in Action Book: Away Game: A Christian Parent's Guide to Navigating Youth Sports by Brian Smith and Ed UszynskiMiracle: Herb Brooks' Speech on YouTube