Faith & Spirit Quote by Pierre de Coubertin

Sport as religion is Coubertin’s neatest rhetorical sleight of hand: it takes something modern, physical, and frankly unruly, then baptizes it with the language of reverence. He isn’t merely praising games; he’s claiming a moral jurisdiction for them. “Religion” and “religious sentiment” do the heavy lifting here, elevating sport from pastime to doctrine, from entertainment to a kind of civic liturgy. That’s the intent: to make athletic competition feel inevitable, serious, and socially organizing in a way politics and church once were.

The subtext is discipline. Religion is not just belief; it’s ritual, hierarchy, sacrifice, and communal identity. Coubertin is pitching sport as a system that can shape bodies and, by extension, shape citizens: obedient to rules, proud of symbols, willing to suffer for a larger idea. It’s also a clever insurance policy against critique. If sport is “religion,” then questioning it can be framed as heresy, cynicism, or spiritual thinness.

Context matters: late-19th and early-20th century Europe was industrializing fast, secular confidence was rising, and nationalism was hardening. Coubertin’s Olympic project promised a purified arena where rivalry could be stylized into ceremony rather than war - flags instead of trenches, medals instead of territorial conquest. The irony is that the religious framing doesn’t tame politics; it invites it. Once sport is sacred, it becomes a perfect stage for nations to perform virtue, strength, and superiority with a halo on top.