Editor’s Note: A version of the following article appeared in the July/August edition of Nurturing Faith Journal.

It is no secret that sports reign supreme in the United States. Sports permeate every facet of American life, from youth sports to professional leagues. At some point every semester, when I teach classes on sport and religion, my students realize that sport is neither good nor bad; it is simply what we make of it. Different cultures and faith perspectives engage with sport in unique ways.

The ways in which athletes and religious sports organizations integrate faith into sports practices are also unique. From sport and faith youth programs like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Athletes in Action, Christians in Sport (UK), and Christians Sports International, young athletes are presented with numerous, sometimes contradictory ways of thinking about what their faith means for their sports participation and vice versa.

Young people of faith are beholden to the world around them, including the world of sports. How do young people understand their faith in relation to their sports activities and the lessons they learn through participation? Much has been written and continues to be written on the intersections of faith and youth sport.

I have collected a few insights from my research on faith and youth sports. Most conversations on this topic are usually separated into two perspectives: Intersection and bifurcation.

Merriam-Webster defines an intersection as “the set of elements common to two or more sets.” Intersections are about what two things have in common. Much of the literature on faith and youth sports focuses on this, especially faith-based sports programs and organizations. They highlight their faith perspectives, usefulness, and commonalities with the pillars of contemporary Western sport, seeking to bring two divergent things to a common point.

The other perspective on faith and youth sports that should be considered is bifurcation. Bifurcation is “the point or area at which something divides into two branches or parts.” This perspective is a less popular understanding in the faith and sport literature, as it suggests that faith and sport are not well matched. This is represented in all the moral quandaries about sport or the possibility that sport reveals nothing of what it means to be human or live a “good life.”

My work has focused on “muscular Christianity,” a 19th-century British social movement that effectively melded Christian ideals with the emerging sports of the time (e.g., rugby, soccer, boxing, cricket, modern Olympics, etc.) at elite British boarding schools. Examining muscular Christianity has led me to suggest that the “faith and sport” movement, which made its way into youth sports, was an attempt by Christians to align themselves with one of the most popular cultural activities throughout human history: sport.

Young athletes often find themselves at the point of bifurcation, torn between their faith and their sports ideals.

Regardless of the perspective one might find most appropriate, the insights I gathered several years ago during a faith-based youth and sport retreat are noteworthy. My colleagues and I had the privilege of hearing directly from young athletes, gaining a deeper understanding of the challenges they face in reconciling their faith with their sport. Three key themes emerged from these enlightening conversations.

The first is that sports participation challenges young athletes’ faith and beliefs, mostly through their experiences with coaches. Even at religiously affiliated schools and programs, many described their coaches as displaying behaviors and ideals that demonstrated the bifurcated perspective of young athletes’ faith beliefs.

We also heard that young athletes had difficulty prioritizing their faith and sporting lives. This finding was clear in their responses about time allocation between their faith and sport, the fatigue of physical activities impacting their faith life, and the focus on sport for future aspirations overshadowing their faith.

Finally, our young athletes said they did not know what to do with these tensions between their faith and sports lives. The importance placed on both areas of their lives challenged their identities, and they felt manipulated and unable to find resolution between these seemingly opposed aspects of their lives.

Academics, coaches, and much of the literature on faith and youth sports focus on intersections. This is undoubtedly a result of our culture embracing muscular Christianity. But if we listen to the voices and insights of young athletes of faith, the picture is less about intersection and more about bifurcation.

Adults in both the faith and sports lives of young people should begin asking more questions of the youth they engage with. We should ask them what they need and stop expecting them to believe all the ways we assume faith and sports intersect. They are telling us that they don’t see it.