Read an Aug. 12, 2004, Beliefnet.com article on the religious origins of the Greek Olympics. It’s by Agapi Stassinopoulos, author of Gods and Goddesses in Love: Make the Myth a Reality for You.

Read a Beliefnet column from 2000 on how multiple religions see sports.

Read an excerpt from Andrew Cooper’s book Playing in the Zone: Exploring the Spiritual Dimensions of Sports. It’s posted by Beliefnet.com.

See a June 1, 2006, Christianity Today essay by Collin Hansen, “Onward Christian Shortstops,” about efforts by the Colorado Rockies baseball team to attract Christian players whose character and faith the Rockies believe can help them win. The essay was prompted by a May 31, 2006, front-page story in USA Today called “Baseball’s Rockies seek revival on two levels.”

See an Oct. 14, 2006, Religion News Service story in The Washington Post, “Praying for More Than a Win,” about the growing number of sports franchises using religion to boost attendance.

Read a Nov. 11, 2009, blog post, “Is sport a religion?” on the Psychology Today Web site.

Read a Feb. 1, 2010, New York Times story, “Flock Is Now a Fight Team in Some Ministries,” about evangelical churches that are integrating martial arts and “extreme sports” into their ministries to attract young men and to help counter what many conservatives fear is a “feminization” of American Christianity.

Read “And God Created Football,” an essay in the January/February 2010 edition of Books & Culture that reviews two books on football and asks “is football a religion or even religion-like?”

The February 1, 2010, piece “Stay in the Struggle” by Benjamin J. Chase and published by ChristianityToday.com argues that the competitive world of athletics is not so different from those of business, home and other environments. Chase is a former lacrosse player at Wheaton College.