Writing for USA Today, Cathy Lynn Grossman explains the intersection of a religious coalition and Major League Baseball:
A coalition of 25 religious denominations, including Christians and Muslims and Jews, is throwing some heat toward Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and the players, saying the time has come to ban smokeless tobacco in the upcoming contract negotiations.
Leaders from the Southern Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church (the two largest Protestant denominations in the country) and many others are pushing MLB to adopt the ban that has already been imposed on the minors and in college sports and the National Hockey League.
So What?
The religious coalition’s effort is a part of a larger endeavor that includes support from major medical and public health groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association. Together these diverse groups hope to create a baseball league void of smokeless tobacco.
- Do you think denominations should be actively involved in campaigns such as this? Why or why not?
- How could the success of religious coalitions, especially those that bring together differing religions and traditions from within a given religion that would typically not work together, serve as a model for something bigger? In other words, if they are able to partner together to advocate for the ban of a substance in a sport, then what types of larger projects may be possible in the future?