Postures of Piety and Protest: American Civil Religion and the Politics of Kneeling in the NFL

Sabella, Jeremy

doi:10.3390/rel10080449

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…7 Jeremy Sabella notes that reactions to Kaepernick differed substantially from reactions to a previous sideline kneeler, Tim Tebow. Sabella point out that while Tebow conformed to fans' expectations, Kaepernick's performance of the same gesture in the same location at a different time of the event registered as protest and triggered immediate backlash(Sabella 2019).…”

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confidence: 81%

American Prosperity Gospel and Athletic Narratives of Success

Blazer

2022

Religions

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When athletes give interviews about their success, they tend to iterate on themes of self-assuredness, dedication to a goal, positive thinking, and divine blessing. By examining the history of prosperity theology in the U.S., we can see one possible source of this rhetoric. Prosperity theology teaches believers that God wants them to be healthy and wealthy and that the means to achieve health and wealth are at a believer’s fingertips. All one must do is give faithfully to one’s church, never waver in one’s belief that God will grant health and wealth, and act as though one has already received the blessing one desires. While scholars have long critiqued prosperity theology for obscuring structural inequalities, particularly those that impact people of color, the philosophy remains popular in many congregations across the U.S. and is nearly ubiquitous in black churches. Examining similarities in the rhetoric of prosperity gospel and athletes’ narratives of their success shows that these narratives also contribute to the faulty logic of meritocracy by ignoring systemic inequalities.

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confidence: 81%

American Prosperity Gospel and Athletic Narratives of Success

Blazer

2022

Religions

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“…Racialized and ethnic groups, for example, can engage a ritual and get penalized for disruption, while white evangelicals who perform the same practice are celebrated (Sabella, 2019). Sports is an example of a space where American identity and civil religion is negotiated and contested.…”

Section: Black Lightning's Religious Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sports is an example of a space where American identity and civil religion is negotiated and contested. Sabella (2019) examines two kneeling gestures during NFL games that elicited contrasting reactions. Colin Kaepernick's kneeling in protest during the American national anthem was met with public outcry, while the outspoken white evangelical Christian, Tim Tebow, was celebrated publicly for kneeling in prayer.…”

Section: Black Lightning's Religious Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

"Racially Charged": Negotiating Black Politics on the Superhero TV Adaptation, Black Lightning

Qazzaz¹

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This project takes Black Lightning as a case study of the representations of Black superheroes in comic book television adaptations. By focusing on the three main superheroes Jefferson Pierce/Black Lightning; Anissa Pierce/Thunder/Black Bird; and Jennifer Pierce/Lightning, this project examines the ways in which the show relies on the superhero semantics and mediates Black Christianity to negotiate Black political thought and respond to contemporary racial politics in the US. More precisely, it focuses on Jefferson's representation as an actor of Black respectability politics; Anissa's positioning as a radical activist and superhero often in conflict with the politics of respectability; and finally, Jennifer's political reawakening at a moment when the "postracial" myth is prevalent in the US. daughters, representing the Generation X, Generation Y/Millennial, and Generation Z cohorts, respectively. These three characters reflect, inflect, and deflect Black politics differently. Black Lightning: A Case StudyBlack Lightning, originally created by Tony Isabella and Trevor von Eeden, was the first Black superhero to debut his own title, which ran for thirteen issues beginning in 1977.The comic book launched as a "self-titled" series when Isabella, who is white, was hired at DC Comics to create a new Black superhero (Nama, 2011, p. 25). He had previously created Luke Cage at Marvel and took on the challenge of introducing "[t]he electricity wielding Black Lightning" who "was actually Jefferson Pierce, an ex-Olympian turned inner-city schoolteacher with a passion for cleaning up the ghetto in which he lived and worked" (Brown, 2000, p. 24, emphasis added). Nearly fifty years after Black Lightning #1 was first published, Salim Akil and Mara Brock Akil recreated Black Lightning's world for television, but he now shares the spotlight with his daughters, Anissa and Jennifer. Jefferson's electricity-based powers were triggered at a young age after getting exposed to a substance used by a secret government agency to create metahumans. Peter Gambi, his father's friend and a former agent of this secret agency, rescued Jefferson and trained him to become a superhero. Situated in the fictional American city of Freeland in 2017, we are told that Jefferson had retired as a superhero nine years ago, because his superheroism was interfering with his role as a father. His commitment to his community, however, remained intact, so he accepted a role as a high school principal to aid Black youth and prevent them from choosing the wrong path of joining the ever-growing 100 Gang. The show starts off with Jefferson Pierce's return as Black Lightning in 2017 to

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American civil religious rhetoric: putting assumptions to the test

Squiers¹,

Arsenault

2022

National Identities

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Postures of Piety and Protest: American Civil Religion and the Politics of Kneeling in the NFL

Cited by 4 publications

References 13 publications

American Prosperity Gospel and Athletic Narratives of Success

American Prosperity Gospel and Athletic Narratives of Success

"Racially Charged": Negotiating Black Politics on the Superhero TV Adaptation, Black Lightning

American civil religious rhetoric: putting assumptions to the test

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