Join us at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 28th for the final talk in our series, “Grandstanding Jesus: Sports and American Christianity” at the Rattlesnake Bar and Grill with the presentations beginning at 7:30 p.m.  We’ll see you there!

In this series we explore a variety of themes in the wide (and unexpected) world of sports and Christianity in the United States.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

“From Fandom to Faith: A Sports Pilgrimage”

Dr. Christopher Evans
Professor of the History of Christianity, Boston University School of Theology

This lecture explores the interconnection between our love of sports and our own faith journeys.  As a professor, scholar, and sports fan, I take seriously the ways that sports define meaning for us and help shape our faith journeys.  Above all else, the lecture points out that a love of sports (and in my case, my love of the Red Sox), like our love of faith, requires a graceful combination of earnest reverence, contemplation, critical thinking, and, most of all, a love of play.

Christopher Evans is Professor of the History of Christianity at Boston University School of Theology.  Prior to his appointment at BU, he was the Sallie Knowles Crozer Professor of Church History at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, New York.  He is the author/co-author of several books including, The Faith of Fifty Million: Baseball, Religion, and American Culture, The Kingdom is Always but Coming: a Life of Walter Rauschenbusch, and Liberalism without Illusions: Renewing an American Christian Tradition.  His most recent book, Histories of American Christianity will be published by Baylor University Press this summer.  An ordained minister in the United Methodist Church, Evans has served in a variety of parish settings, including most recently as a parish associate at Christ Episcopal Church in Pittsford, New York.