John White, Ph.D.
Harold and Dottie Riley Associate Professor of Practical Theology and Dottie Riley Director of the Sports Chaplaincy/Ministry Program | Baylor University
Waco, TX, UNITED STATES
An expert in Theological Ethics/Moral Theology, Constructive Theology, Theology of Culture, and Christianity and Sports.
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Biography
Dr. John B. White is a native of the Midwest and in particular, he is a Hoosier where he raced in the legendary cycling race, "The Little 500" at Indiana University, on Team Cutters, which the film Breaking Away dramatizes.
His PhD is from The University of Edinburgh where he studied moral theology with Michael Northcott and his dissertation was on Christianity and Sports- Sport and Christian ethics: Towards a theological ethic for sport. He also completed an M.Div. and an M.A. at T.E.D.S. where he completed his thesis with Kevin Vanhoozer. John’s publications have appeared in Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, Implicit Religion, Studies in Christian Ethics, Practical Theology, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Bible and Ethics, and he recently co-edited books with Routledge Press (2016), Cambridge Scholars and Mercer Press (2017). He also has a book under contract with Baker Academic. He is the Principal Investigator and Faculty Director of the newly established Faith and Sport Institute: Running the Race Well at Baylor University, which is funded by a grant from Lilly Endowment, Inc. He is regularly interviewed on the subject matter of Christianity and sports in prominent news media and periodicals such as CBS, Sports Illustrated, Wall Street Journal and USA Today. For more information about the intersection of Christianity and sports, see “The Declaration of Sport and Christian Life” which John is a Founding member of the Sport and Christianity Group (2013-) which developed this manifesto.
Areas of Expertise (5)
Christianity and Sports
Constructive Theology
Theological Ethics
Moral Theology
Theology of Culture
Accomplishments (3)
2018 Outstanding Faculty Award Winner (professional)
2018
Greenhoe Lecturer at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary’s annual Festival of Theology
2017
Nominated for Outstanding Professor (tenure-track) for Scholarship at Baylor University
2015 - 2016
Education (4)
The University of Edinburgh: Ph.D., Theological Ethics 2011
Trinity International University: M.A., Philosophy of Religion 2001
Trinity International Divinity School: M.Div., Systematic Theology 2000
Indiana University: B.S., Business 1989
Affiliations (3)
- Faith and Sport Institute: Running the Race Well (Lilly Endowment): Faculty Director
- American Academy of Religion (AAR) : Member
- Society for the Study of Christian Ethics (SSCE) : Member
Links (2)
Media Appearances (2)
Cheating Sports: Michigan Football's Latest Scandal
USA TODAY online
2023-12-12
John White, Ph.D., associate professor of practical theology who created the Faith & Sports Institute at Baylor’s Truett Seminary, is quoted in this article about cheating in sports, which White said is a window into the soul: Is the nature of sports a test between people and their skills, or is it a test of who can deceive and manipulate the best? White also is The Harold and Dottie Riley Director of the Sports Chaplaincy/Ministry Program at Truett Seminary.
Opinion: Cancel your summer camp plans to keep kids safe
Houston Chronicle online
2020-05-21
This column by John B. White, Ph.D., faculty director of Baylor’s Faith and Sport Institute, and Tom Krattenmaker, director of communications at Yale Divinity School, protecting kids and the families by canceling summer camps.
Event Appearances (3)
The Violence of Everyone and No One: Sport, Banality, and Structural Change
Sports and Violence Conference Ashland University. Ashland, OH. March 19, 2016
Sacramental Body Matters: Reimagining Sensual and Strenuous Bodies in Sports
Inaugural Global Congress on Sports and Christianity York St. John University, York, UK. August 24-28, 2016
The Face and Soul of Sports: Who are We Becoming in the School of Sports?
Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture: The Spirit of Sports Baylor University’s Institute for Faith and Learning. Waco, Texas. Nov. 5-7, 2015
Research Grants (3)
Capacity-Building Grant
The Forum for Theological Exploration $5,000
2017 Principal Investigator
Summer Sabbatical Research Grant
Baylor University
2015
Lilly Endowment Inc.
High School Theology Institute $600,000
2015 Principal Investigator
Articles (3)
Sacramentally Imagining Sports as a Form of Worship: Reappraising Sport as a Gesture of God
Sport, Ethics and PhilosophyJohn B. White
2018 We live in a world in which God is made known in and through God’s material works, which are other than himself. That is, they are signs of God’s presence whether in the natural world or the world we structure, as God’s image bearers, in our practices, rituals, and the stuff we make. The Christian tradition holds that the created order and human creativity witness to God, because creation is suffused with God’s (sacramental) presence. A sacramental understanding of sports aims to give an alternative stance to how Christian traditions conceive of sports. A sacramental understanding intimates how this worldview helps us reckon that sports can be an acceptable form of divine worship, because of how sports can participate in and point to God. I argue that, when sport is understood as a material mode of worship, sport can serve as an iconic indicator which reflects and imparts something of divine presence.
How Can We Help? The Role of the Local Church and Other Religious Organizations When the Games Come to Town
Practical TheologyAndrew R. Meyer, John B White
2016 Examining how faith-based organizations engage with local communities during mega-sporting events offer unique opportunities for positive social initiatives different from ordinary outreach. Our investigation of the 2012 London Olympic Games reveals how, consistent with ecumenical aims, this mega-sporting event provided outreach opportunities for local religious and para-church organizations to meet their community's needs through relational meetings, consistent with the virtue of hospitality. Our findings detail that while mega-sporting events are fraught with moral and social issues, often disrupting the infrastructure of the host city had the event not happened, these outreach efforts also would not have occurred. Our findings and discussion reveal how faith-based organizations can provide communities with vital resources and positive social support through relational meetings before, during, and after the Games come to town.
Pursuit of bodily excellence: Paul Weiss’s platonic (Religious) imagination of sports
Sport, Ethics and PhilosophyJohn White
2013 Almost thirty years ago, Warren Fraleigh wrote that Paul Weiss’s intellectual contribution to the philosophic study of sport was like a tributary, converging with others to eventuate in numerous scholarly colloquia, a new academic society, new courses and curricula, articles and books. Paul Weiss contends in Sport: A Philosophic Inquiry that sport is a pursuit of bodily excellence. Weiss tells a story about bodily excellence; it is a bodily good that can be realized in the practice of sport. His metaphysic and teleology provide the content and context for his philosophy of sport. For him, sport bodies speak or give voice to a particular metaphysical tradition that I argue is problematic. Weiss’s metaphysic and teleology swallow and sublate sportive bodies and the concomitant goods intrinsic to embodiment and the practice of sports.
