By Chris Beneke and Arthur Remillard

Chris Beneke is an associate professor of history at Bentley University and the author of “Beyond Toleration: The Religious Origins of American Pluralism.” Arthur Remillard is an associate professor of religious studies at Saint Francis University and the author of “Southern Civil Religions: Imagining the Good Society in the Post-Reconstruction Era.”

“Some people go to Jerusalem. I go to Pittsburgh.”

So remarked Brent Osbourne in 2012 after his homemade Pittsburgh Steelers banner made him a winner of the NFL’s “Fan Flag Challenge.” The Army veteran, then 35, lived in North Carolina at the time, but his attachment to the team abides.

Osbourne’s devotion is hardly unique. American sports fans have forged imperishable bonds with the people, places and moments that define their teams. You might even call this attachment religious.

But that would be unfair — to sports.

While teams and fans are building powerful, cohesive communities — think Red Sox Nation or the legions of University of Alabama faithful who greet one another with “Roll Tide” — churches are losing followers. According to a 2012 survey by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and Duke University, 20 percent of Americans “claimed they had no religious preference,” compared with an unaffiliated population of 8 percent in 1990. Roughly two out of three Americans, a 2012 Pew report noted, are under the impression that religion is losing influence in the country.

Sports are on the opposite trajectory. Fifty years ago, just three in 10 Americans considered themselves sports fans. By 2012, that proportion exceeded six in 10. Tens of millions of U.S. viewers tuned in to regular-season National Football League games last fall, with the most popular match-ups attracting upwards of 30 million viewers. Nearly 3 million people watched the National Basketball Association’s Christmas Day games. And for devotees of these and other sports, lifelong loyalty to a certain city and team is de rigueur. “Once you choose a team,” sports commentator Bill Simmons says, “you’re stuck with that team for the rest of your life.”

Simmons was half-kidding, but sports are clearly attracting strong adherents as religion is shedding them. This raises the question: Are Americans shifting their spiritual allegiances away from praying places and toward playing places?

Of course, there’s no shortage of religion in American sports. Witness Tim Tebow’s famous genuflections, David Ortiz’s raised index fingers to heaven, Phil Jackson’s invocations of Zen Buddhism, and Muslim high school football players choosing to maintain their Ramadan fast in the midst of a playoff run. Roughly one in five Americans is convinced that God influences game outcomes. NFL games often end with midfield prayer circles. There is a certain wisdom to former football and baseball star Deion Sanders’s observation that faith and athletics go together “like peanut butter and jelly.”

But high-profile displays of piety belie a deeper reordering of spiritual priorities. Modern sports stadiums function much like great cathedrals once did, bringing communities together and focusing their collective energy. This summer, the Archdiocese of New York is expected to outline plans to close or merge some of its 368 parishes; 26 Catholic schools in the archdiocese have ceased operation. By contrast, the city and the state of New Jersey spent hundreds of millions to build new baseball and football stadiums.

And while the public display of religious imagery such as the Ten Commandments and Nativity scenes remains highly contested, the stars, swords, bears, lunging felines and muscled birds associated with sports teams bolster communal unity. After the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in October, the championship trophy was paraded through the halls of the Massachusetts Statehouse while the governor donned a team cap. Outside, a colossal Red Sox banner hung from the building’s portico.

Spiritual leaders have long feared that religion and sports would vie for loyalty — and that sports would win. Before the Civil War, clergymen and devoted lay people regarded sports as needless distractions and gateways to moral dissipation — clear competitors for sacred time and attention. A 17th-century English Puritan named Thomas Hall expressed a common view when he suggested that “gaming” was among the surest means to “debauch a people, and draw them from God and his worship to superstition and Idolatry.”

“We came into this world not for sport,” a Christian magazine opined in 1851, but “for a higher and nobler object.” The fact that sports were often played on the Christian Sabbath made them all the more damnable.

As the 20th century approached, however, attitudes toward sports pivoted. Baseball, tennis, golf and football gained respectability among the aspiring middle classes. Meanwhile, a new breed of Protestant ministers extolled their virtues under the banner of “muscular Christianity.” Many echoed the Rev. Washington Gladden, who in 1898 called sports “a means of grace” and a training ground for “a godly life.” James Naismith, a Presbyterian minister, invented a game he called “basket ball” in 1891. And across the nation, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) added gyms to its facilities, with countless houses of worship following suit.

Today, those old YMCA — now nicknamed the nonsectarian “Y” — and church-basement gyms seem like offerings to a rival deity that conquered the world. In a 2013 survey of shrinking congregations, eight out of 14 pastors “identified sports as the main culprit for low Sunday service attendance.” According to a newly released study by the Public Religion Research Institute, a quarter of Americans “report that they are more likely to be in church than watching football” on Sundays, though almost as many say they are more likely to be taking in gridiron action than sitting in pews.

In short, sports are succeeding by the measures that have traditionally defined success for religious institutions: regularly immersing people in a transcendent experience and keeping them ardently committed over the long term. It could simply be that faiths do not stir the same competitive passions they once did. Tolerance for other religions and acceptance of intermarriage have risen sharply since World War II. Both trends correlate with flagging religious attachments among many groups.

This may be a salutary change. Religious adherents once hung heretics, discriminated against dissenters and tangled with those of other faiths. Methodists defined themselves against Episcopalians; Catholics defined themselves against Protestants; Christians defined themselves against Jews; and vice versa. We are better for having put such interfaith hostility behind us. But religious institutions may not be.

As faith attachments weaken, sports fill a psychological and cultural vacuum. Rooting for the Sabres, Lions or Broncos — and against the Bruins, Bears or Raiders — allows us to display unwavering devotion. Team attachments license us to love and hate in the most dedicated ways. And happily for sports aficionados, these antagonistic feelings are largely contained within games. St. Louis Cardinals fans who saunter around Chicago’s Wrigleyville should expect some badgering, but not physical harassment or abuse.

Americans remain believers of one sort or another. Less than 10 percent say they are atheists, and even the unaffiliated tend to profess spiritual inclinations. That compares very favorably with Europe’s withered religious culture. Moreover, American faith institutions can justifiably claim that their missions transcend mere competition — that they are charged with fostering goodwill between people, nudging individuals toward salvation and spiritual fulfillment, and bringing about the kingdom of God on Earth.

But when it comes to the passionate attachments that sustain interest and devotion, it’s time to acknowledge that sports have gained the edge. And they show no sign of relinquishing the lead.

Is religion losing ground to sports?

By Chris Beneke and Arthur Remillard

Published: January 31

Chris Beneke is an associate professor of history at Bentley University and the author of “Beyond Toleration: The Religious Origins of American Pluralism.” Arthur Remillard is an associate professor of religious studies at Saint Francis University and the author of “Southern Civil Religions: Imagining the Good Society in the Post-Reconstruction Era.”

“Some people go to Jerusalem. I go to Pittsburgh.”

So remarked Brent Osbourne in 2012 after his homemade Pittsburgh Steelers banner made him a winner of the NFL’s “Fan Flag Challenge.” The Army veteran, then 35, lived in North Carolina at the time, but his attachment to the team abides.

Osbourne’s devotion is hardly unique. American sports fans have forged imperishable bonds with the people, places and moments that define their teams. You might even call this attachment religious.

But that would be unfair — to sports.

While teams and fans are building powerful, cohesive communities — think Red Sox Nation or the legions of University of Alabama faithful who greet one another with “Roll Tide” — churches are losing followers. According to a 2012 survey by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and Duke University, 20 percent of Americans “claimed they had no religious preference,” compared with an unaffiliated population of 8 percent in 1990. Roughly two out of three Americans, a 2012 Pew reportnoted, are under the impression that religion is losing influence in the country.

Sports are on the opposite trajectory. Fifty years ago, just three in 10 Americans considered themselves sports fans. By 2012, that proportion exceeded six in 10. Tens of millions of U.S. viewers tuned in to regular-season National Football League games last fall, with the most popular match-ups attracting upwards of 30 million viewers. Nearly 3 million people watched the National Basketball Association’s Christmas Day games. And for devotees of these and other sports, lifelong loyalty to a certain city and team is de rigueur. “Once you choose a team,” sports commentator Bill Simmons says, “you’re stuck with that team for the rest of your life.”

Simmons was half-kidding, but sports are clearly attracting strong adherents as religion is shedding them. This raises the question: Are Americans shifting their spiritual allegiances away from praying places and toward playing places?

Of course, there’s no shortage of religion in American sports. Witness Tim Tebow’s famous genuflections, David Ortiz’s raised index fingers to heaven, Phil Jackson’s invocations of Zen Buddhism, and Muslim high school football players choosing to maintain their Ramadan fast in the midst of a playoff run. Roughly one in five Americans is convinced that God influences game outcomes. NFL games often end with midfield prayer circles. There is a certain wisdom to former football and baseball star Deion Sanders’s observation that faith and athletics go together “like peanut butter and jelly.”

But high-profile displays of piety belie a deeper reordering of spiritual priorities. Modern sports stadiums function much like great cathedrals once did, bringing communities together and focusing their collective energy. This summer, the Archdiocese of New York is expected to outline plans to close or merge some of its 368 parishes; 26 Catholic schools in the archdiocese have ceased operation. By contrast, the city and the state of New Jersey spent hundreds of millions to build new baseball and football stadiums.

And while the public display of religious imagery such as the Ten Commandments and Nativity scenes remains highly contested, the stars, swords, bears, lunging felines and muscled birds associated with sports teams bolster communal unity. After the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in October, the championship trophy was paraded through the halls of the Massachusetts Statehouse while the governor donned a team cap. Outside, a colossal Red Sox banner hung from the building’s portico.

Spiritual leaders have long feared that religion and sports would vie for loyalty — and that sports would win. Before the Civil War, clergymen and devoted lay people regarded sports as needless distractions and gateways to moral dissipation — clear competitors for sacred time and attention. A 17th-century English Puritan named Thomas Hall expressed a common view when he suggested that “gaming” was among the surest means to “debauch a people, and draw them from God and his worship to superstition and Idolatry.”

“We came into this world not for sport,” a Christian magazine opined in 1851, but “for a higher and nobler object.” The fact that sports were often played on the Christian Sabbath made them all the more damnable.

As the 20th century approached, however, attitudes toward sports pivoted. Baseball, tennis, golf and football gained respectability among the aspiring middle classes. Meanwhile, a new breed of Protestant ministers extolled their virtues under the banner of “muscular Christianity.” Many echoed the Rev. Washington Gladden, who in 1898 called sports “a means of grace” and a training ground for “a godly life.” James Naismith, a Presbyterian minister, invented a game he called “basket ball” in 1891. And across the nation, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) added gyms to its facilities, with countless houses of worship following suit.

Today, those old YMCA — now nicknamed the nonsectarian “Y” — and church-basement gyms seem like offerings to a rival deity that conquered the world. In a 2013 survey of shrinking congregations, eight out of 14 pastors “identified sports as the main culprit for low Sunday service attendance.” According toa newly released study by the Public Religion Research Institute, a quarter of Americans “report that they are more likely to be in church than watching football” on Sundays, though almost as many say they are more likely to be taking in gridiron action than sitting in pews.

In short, sports are succeeding by the measures that have traditionally defined success for religious institutions: regularly immersing people in a transcendent experience and keeping them ardently committed over the long term. It could simply be that faiths do not stir the same competitive passions they once did. Tolerance for other religions and acceptance of intermarriage have risen sharply since World War II. Both trends correlate with flagging religious attachments among many groups.

This may be a salutary change. Religious adherents once hung heretics, discriminated against dissenters and tangled with those of other faiths. Methodists defined themselves against Episcopalians; Catholics defined themselves against Protestants; Christians defined themselves against Jews; and vice versa. We are better for having put such interfaith hostility behind us. But religious institutions may not be.

As faith attachments weaken, sports fill a psychological and cultural vacuum. Rooting for the Sabres, Lions or Broncos — and against the Bruins, Bears or Raiders — allows us to display unwavering devotion. Team attachments license us to love and hate in the most dedicated ways. And happily for sports aficionados, these antagonistic feelings are largely contained within games. St. Louis Cardinals fans who saunter around Chicago’s Wrigleyville should expect some badgering, but not physical harassment or abuse.

Americans remain believers of one sort or another. Less than 10 percent say they are atheists, and even the unaffiliated tend to profess spiritual inclinations. That compares very favorably with Europe’s withered religious culture. Moreover, American faith institutions can justifiably claim that their missions transcend mere competition — that they are charged with fostering goodwill between people, nudging individuals toward salvation and spiritual fulfillment, and bringing about the kingdom of God on Earth.

But when it comes to the passionate attachments that sustain interest and devotion, it’s time to acknowledge that sports have gained the edge. And they show no sign of relinquishing the lead.

By Cecilia Kang, Published: November 11And on the seventh day, there was delivery.

Already, work e-mails and conference calls have become part of Sunday routines, piling on top of sports tournaments, errands and homework. Now, with Amazon.com’s plans to deliver packages on Sundays, one more barrier falls, inching that day even closer to becoming just another part of the consumer week.

The tradition of a seventh day set aside for family and rest has been crumbling for years as states relaxed laws prohibiting gambling, shopping and even hunting on Sundays. The popularity of smartphones and the creation of an always-online culture has spurred greater demand — and ability — to have it all, right now, anytime.

“We are moving toward a society where e-mail and social media have caused the week and weekend to blur,” said Jonathan Gruber, a professor of economics and labor at MIT.

“Blue laws” that ban Sunday activities — dating to the 1600s — have been gradually repealed in many states, but some remain. In Maryland, car sales on Sundays are widely banned, though they are allowed in Montgomery, Prince George’s and Howard counties.

Sunday hunting is banned in many states. In Virginia, the rules are more specific: Hunting with firearms or other weapons is banned on Sundays, though raccoons may be hunted until 2 a.m.

As cities and states look for more revenue, they have loosened laws banning liquor sales on Sundays. The D.C. Council approved a plan to allow them late last year, and liquor stores in Montgomery County were allowed to sell on Sundays starting in 2010. A new law that took effect last year in Virginia allowed state-run stores in small communities to start selling alcohol on Sundays

Amazon’s national plan to partner with the U.S. Postal Service could open the door to a wave of Sunday deliveries by other companies. The money-losing Postal Service, which recently was trying to persuade Congress to halt Saturday mail, said it will expand Sunday staffing and hopes to sign up more clients. The agency declined to disclose specifics or to reveal how much new revenue it expects.

There were no complaints about prolonging the workweek from a union representing letter carriers. “We’re excited about the potential of the rapidly growing e-commerce market and what it means for the Postal Service,” said Fredric Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers. Expanding Sunday service “would benefit the economy, consumers, businesses and the nation as a whole,” he said.

Amazon said its plan originated from consumer demands to get their online orders faster.

“We hope it crosses an errand or two off the weekend to-do list,” Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Cheeseman said. (Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Competitors such as Wal-Mart, eBay and Google are racing to satisfy consumers virtually around the clock, aiming to deliver products just hours after someone places an online order.

“Amazon’s announcement is another incremental development in the erosion of that restful space — Sunday — and another example of an erosion on the limits of market activity,” said Jordan J. Ballor, a research fellow at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, an economic think tank.

The changes of shopping patterns began well before online commerce took off. Wal-Mart, Kmart and other major retailers were criticized when they started opening their stores on Sundays years ago. Since then, they have expanded shopping hours to 24 hours a day and holidays. They have faced renewed backlash over plans to open on Thanksgiving Day.

Last year, an employee of Target wrote a letter to company chief executive Gregg W. Steinhafel, asking him to close the chain of stores on Thanksgiving. The letter was posted as a petition on Change.org and got more than 300,000 signatures of support.

The company stood by its decision to open on Thanksgiving evening, saying it was responding to the interests of shoppers and of employees who asked to work the overtime shifts.

In an age of constant commerce, consumers have struggled to reconcile their urge to spend with older traditions of quiet Sundays. Last month, some residents of Bergen County, N.J., tried to repeal a county ban on the sale of furniture, clothing and electronics on Sundays. They had argued that opening retail stores seven days a week would boost the local economy. But they failed to get enough signatures of support.

A few companies have resisted the seven-day trend. Chick-fil-A’s 1,700 fast-food restaurants and Hobby Lobby’s 560 craft stores are closed on Sundays.

Chick-fil-A’s founder believes that “all franchised Chick-fil-A operators and their restaurant employees should have an opportunity to rest, spend time with family and friends, and worship if they choose to do so,” according to a statement on the company’s Web site.

But such cases are rare. The combination of weaker labor unions, fewer blue laws and greater consumer demand has made it easier for companies to get away with e-mails during off-hours and stores open at all hours, said Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

“This, combined with technology, has made the week endless,” he said.

Yesterday was Sunday, and I have been thinking why a person of faith might be a better American this week because of it....


Besides yesterday being Sunday, the day before was Saturday - the Jewish Sabbath. What makes this day special such that those of the Jewish faith are better Americans because of it?

I'm thinking about this because yesterday I went for the first time to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Sobering is all I can say.

For one, it is reassuring to know that there is a religious group in this country that takes their ancient faith, one that seems to celebrate covenants with the Creator, so seriously. In my mind it follows that this people will, then, be exceptionally vigilant in doing their part to make sure the government of the United States honors its dual religious liberty clause of the First Amendment, "that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...."

This is one reason why those of the Jewish faith are better Americans because of their Sabbath.

Why young people are setting time aside for faith By Adam Greenwald and Geoffrey Nelson-Blake, Published: October 12 For those of us who came of age in the past decade, two forces have us racing to keep up: First, we are immersed in a 24-hour cycle of news and information with a constant flow of tweets and text messages, cellphones clutched tightly in our hands like Linus’s blanket. And second, we’re starting our adult lives in a world without enough decent-paying jobs, where we might become the first generation in memory to have less opportunity than our parents.

So it’s no wonder that many people our age struggle with the depression, anxiety and disconnection that come with living at a breakneck pace. As a 28-year-old Conservative rabbi and a 30-year-old Seventh-day Adventist minister, we’ve found that many are coping, at least in part, by turning to a rather old-fashioned prescription — religion and, in particular, observance of the Sabbath.

That may sound surprising. After all, sociologists and pollsters often find that, compared with previous generations, young people today are turning away from religious observance. Just this past week, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reported that rates of religious affiliation in the United States are falling; among those of us under 30, nearly one-third answer “none” when asked about our religion.

As a Seventh-day Adventist and a Jew, we find that the Sabbath brings spiritual discipline to our lives. Each week is punctuated by a day of conscious abstaining from the distracting, the noisy and the ordinary. Instead, we carve out time to focus on family, community, relaxation and reflection. For at least one-seventh of our lives, we put away our wallets, park our cars, shut down our digital devices and try our best to live like we already have everything we need to be happy and fulfilled.

An insistence on creating sacred time and space is one of the key components of nearly all faiths. Traditional Jews and many Christian denominations observe one day a week of sanctified rest. Muslims around the world pause five times a day to bow in prayer. Many religions derived from Eastern traditions include a daily meditative practice. While many Americans feel distant from religion, establishing fixed times for personal renewal has universal appeal.

In spiritual communities across the country — from Jewish worship groups such as Washington’s DC Minyan and Los Angeles’s IKAR to churches too numerous to count — young people come together each week to collectively “power down” from the busy world. The ancient act of gathering in a house of worship on the Sabbath now carries a distinctly countercultural tone: It’s a declaration of independence from the iPhone, a defiant assertion that an e-mail can be left unanswered for a day without causing disaster, a formal protest against the social media machine. It’s a quiet revolution but one of enormous power.

As the executive director of the nation’s largest program for those who want to convert to Judaism, one of us deals daily with individuals and couples, most in their 20s and 30s, who are actively choosing to join a religious community or recommit themselves to living a Jewish life. In countless conversations, nearly every one of the new Jews says that the yearning for a ritual break in life’s commotion is one of the main reasons they’ve decided to convert. Perhaps that is what Ahad Ha-Am, a 20th-century Jewish philosopher, meant when he wrote: “More than the Jews have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jews.”

One woman in her early 30s, who formally converted to Judaism this past week, wrote in a conversion essay: “On Shabbat we are encouraged to live it up, to surround ourselves with friends and family, laugh, tell stories and go to bed knowing that we have a whole morning and afternoon ahead of us to spend however we like. We sing, raise a glass and toast life, then go make crazy, passionate love to our partner. I beg my not-quite-convinced friends to tell me which life, secular or religious, sounds more restrictive?”

Similarly, as a Seventh-day Adventist minister, one of us knows that among the greatest appeals of that faith community is its serious observance of the Sabbath. For Seventh-day Adventists, the Sabbath is at the center of religious life. Potlucks and outdoor activities often follow Saturday morning worship services. In addition to abstaining from work and shopping, for 24 hours Adventists focus on community and rest. In our overloaded society, it cannot be a coincidence that Seventh-day Adventism is the nation’s fastest-growing Christian denomination. Adventists have found wholeness and holiness by closely adhering to a seventh-day Sabbath. It’s this weekly time together, set apart from the hurry of the week, that deepens their relationships, strengthens the fabric of their community and helps restore hope and joy to their lives.

We’ve also witnessed a more subtle embrace of Sabbath values — such as slowing down and eschewing technology — in secular culture. For example, the movement toward “slow food” and community gardens directly clashes with and helps free us from our addiction to fast food and our YouTube-driven attention spans. Recently, in America’s traffic capital, Los Angeles, more than 100,000 pedestrians, cyclists and skateboarders filled empty downtown streets for CicLAvia, a celebration of all things human-powered.

And last spring, a National Day of Unplugging sponsored by Reboot, a nontraditional group of Jewish thought leaders, inspired a range of figures such as Jimmy Fallon and the wife of a former British prime minister to pledge to spend a day consciously avoiding technology and commerce — and instead refocusing on life’s simpler joys.

In place of anxiety about the scarcity of time, energy and resources, and instead of judging our personal connections by counting our Twitter followers or Facebook friends, faith gives us space to spend time with community members and loved ones. In place of the constant barrage of information and responsibilities, the Sabbath gives us room to breathe.

While the statistics paint a picture of waning affiliation and spiritual apathy, our view from the front lines is different. As leaders working with young people from many faiths, we are witnessing the beginnings of a religious renaissance through an embrace of the Sabbath. And for a stressed-out, anxious generation seeking strength and solace, it’s just in time.

[email protected]

[email protected]

Adam Greenwald, a Conservative rabbi, is the executive director of the Miller Introduction to Judaism Program at American Jewish University. Geoffrey Nelson-Blake, a pastor in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, is a community organizer with the San Francisco Organizing Project.

London Olympics: Spirit of ‘Chariots of Fire’ echoes among hosts of 2012 Games By Mike Wise, Published: July 26 “Let us now praise famous men and our fathers that begat us. All these men were honored in their time and were a glory of their days.”

— Opening Scene from “Chariots of Fire”

LONDON — Three weeks before the Olympic Games began, the Best Picture of 1981 was re-released here. Crowds of Londoners filled theaters as the lads in white churned the beach in St. Andrews again, a Vangelis synthesizer pulsing through their legs.

With Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps now in town, less than a day away from the Opening Ceremonies, really, who pays to see a three-decade-old movie set in 1924 Paris?

Or the companion “Chariots of Fire” stage play now showing at the Gielgud Theater in London, where Eric Liddell, the Scottish Christian, and Harold Abrahams, the English Jew, run under the same Union Jack once more?

“I’m not exactly sure all the reasons people are still interested in my father and men like him,” said Patricia Liddell Russell, 77, from her home in Ontario, Canada. The eldest daughter of Liddell added, “But I’d like to think it’s because they see principles in him they wish they had in themselves.”

Sue Pottle, the daughter of Abrahams, in a phone interview from North Wales, said, “Their world is gone but something about what they represented remains, doesn’t it now?”

All of Britain is teeming for the Opening Ceremonies Friday night, a grand gala said to feature David Beckham, Harry Potter, Mary Poppins, James Bond, Sir Paul McCartney and every other real or imagined prominent soul in British pop culture. Beneath the excited wait, though, there is this get-on-with-it-already attitude among the Brits.

Londoners don’t need Jacques Rogge and his IOC VIPs puffing their chests out and clogging traffic to give them their sense of history; that’s the Queen’s job. They aren’t gullible, either, when it comes to these Games’ most inspiring human-interest stories — because long ago they had the original.

Two weeks ago, Sir Roger Bannister, cane in hand at 83, returned to the track where he broke the four-minute barrier for the mile in 1954, the year he became Sports Illustrated’s inaugural “Sportsman of the Year.”

“No longer conscious of my movement, I discovered a new unity with nature,” Bannister said of his historic run. “I had found a new source of power and beauty, a source I never dreamt existed.”

Here, in their great champions, human majesty lives on.

Did we mention who the timekeeper was for Bannister that day? Abrahams. He later gave Bannister his Omega stopwatch that timed his 3:59.4. (“Of course,” Sue Pottle says, chuckling, “I believe that’s after my father had bought another.”)

On the baton passing went in the U.K. Sebastian Coe, among the world’s greatest middle-distance runners in the 1970s and 1980s along with rivals Steve Ovett and Steve Cram, remembered Abrahams “actually handing me an award at an athletics event one year. It’s something I often look back to because he was an extraordinary figure in our sport.”

Now the head of the London Olympic Organizing Committee, he’s simply known as “Seb Coe.”

“I think ‘Chariots of Fire’ was one of those films that really did broaden people’s understanding of our own Olympic history,” he said when we spoke a few months ago. “It showed who we were and why.”

They don’t merely embrace sporting history in London; they hold it up as the seminal example of what competition was, what it could be again if the money and the corruption would just go away.

A missionary in China like his parents, Liddell famously declined to run in the 100 meters in Paris on a Sunday, his Sabbath. He died of a brain tumor, at just 43, in a prisoner of war camp in 1945.

“When people heard he wouldn’t run on a Sunday, they immediately began to think of my father as rigid, stiff and moralistic,” Russell said. “He was not that at all. He simply wasn’t about to change that rule for himself, is all.”

In an interview with London’s Guardian newspaper this week, Abdul Karim Aziz, Afghanistan’s top track official, acknowledged that “most of the runners [on his team] don’t even have standard [running] shoes, just ones they buy from the bazaar.”

“I was thinking as I read that story that we have a host nation with everything,” said Pottle, whose father died in 1978, three years before “Chariots of Fire” was released. “Then other nations, our more deprived colleagues, can’t afford training shoes? We have a responsibility to provide for them, don’t we?”

The more the Games evolve, the more the contradictions grow. The IOC pines for the purity of sport, but there are so many tripwires now in an Olympics that includes a Kabul miler without proper training and equipment as well as LeBron James and the Team USA multimillionaire basketball players.

In a speech honoring Liddell at Edinburgh University in May, Lord David Puttnam, the producer of “Chariots of Fire,” said, “I’ve long believed there should be a fourth [place] in every victory ceremony reserved for athletes in each discipline who have exceeded their previous personal bests by the greatest margin.

“I believe they should have their own medal. And the really intelligent way to begin to unhook ourselves from our present, rather juvenile conception of success would be for an official medal table to be created that illustrates which country is delivering the best performance, in terms of the percentage of their competitors who are in turn achieving their individual personal bests. Because that’s the country that’s truly succeeding.”

He added, that “better should not be confused with bigger or grander.”

Bannister became a renowned neurologist and a Master at Oxford University. Though he never won an Olympic medal, he is regarded as a national treasure, still very much the persevering young man who spent 10 years devoted to eclipsing the four-minute barrier.

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up,” he once said. “It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or a gazelle — when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”

Pottle can see how stodgy it all sounds — reminiscing over men long dead and gone, trotting 83-year-olds out for torch-lighting ceremonies, dwelling on a different time with different ideals.

“Oh, I suppose it’s all mollycoddle — a time long gone that no one can identify with today,” she said. “My father’s idol was Jesse Owens. He was the most fantastic athlete he’d ever seen. And Jesse once said he had hoped he could win so he could make a few pennies like Johnny Weissmuller. In that way, it’s good men can earn a living with their talent now.”

Neither daughter of the Paris gold medalists said they would attend the London Games. For one, they haven’t been invited as guests. And besides, the daughter of 100-meter Olympic champion Harold Abrahams said, “I’m not paying hundreds of pounds to see a race that lasts nine seconds.”



For Mike Wise’s previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/wise.