Religious Warfare on the Gridiron

What's going on in football these days amounts to religious warfare. Clearly the kneelers and hand holders and other protestors are doing so for one and only one reason: to signal allegiance to The Cult. The actions are intended partly to advance liberal ideology, but mostly as plays for status. The Cult denounces heretic and non-believers, but gives great regard to virtue signaling. Players are kneeling for the same reason that people have always made grandiose public spectacles of piety.

However, they aren't the only religion jockeying for position on the playing field, because the anthem itself is already religious signaling. It represents what many people might call Americanism, but I would call something more like Pan-Americanism. It is its own belief system. When spectators stand before the match with hand over heart reciting the national prayer with fighter jets flying overhead, they are signaling allegiance to the American empire, to Enlightenment virtues, and to the belief that all the people contained within the borders of the USA constitute a single unified nation.

The two major national religions are competing for control of the public spaces. We might be tempted to say that the liberals are politicizing football, but the truth is it was already politicized when it was decided that reciting national prayers was the best way to start the games. Anything that is politicized invites lefty intrusion. Look at Christianity, which became politicized, from what I hear, in the 1980s. Every church in my neighborhood is painfully liberal, to the point of pandering to gay marriage on their websites. The best defense to keeping something you like from being overrun by liberal fanatics is not to let it become politicized in the first place. There is no reason at all for football to be just another venue for political theater. There are rumors that Vince McMahon is considering resurrecting the XFL in light of the new market potential for uncucked football. The smart move would be to make it strictly non-political. But you can bet that they will be unable to help themselves from making it a big patriot bonanza to rub it into the noses of the anti-American National Felons League. The XFL won't be a reprieve from the religious wars, just an alternate arena where a more preferable religious sect holds dominance.