Welcome to the Church of CrossFit, Part of America’s Growing Secular Spirituality

Aletelia ^ | December 1, 2015 | JOHN BURGER

[NYer]

We’ve all heard of people doing something secular in a “religious” way, and one area of life to which that applies is sports and physical fitness.

Now, some are suggesting that the culture surrounding training gyms may very well fall under the umbrella of religion.

The New York Times noted recently that in a society that is increasingly secular, many people are applying their religious sensibility to athletic activity. Many of the parallels with religion can be found, the newspaper noted, in a Crossfit gym: adherents getting out of bed at an ungodly hour in order to spend a significant amount of time in a gathering place with other people, going through rituals that will help one transcend the everyday, and striving to “save” oneself.

That “salvation” might not be of one’s soul, but corporeally, yes, one might speak of a kind of salvation.

“We’re saving lives, and saving a lot of them,” said Greg Glassman, co-founder of CrossFit. “Three hundred fifty thousand Americans are going to die next year from sitting on the couch. That’s dangerous. The TV is dangerous. Squatting isn’t.”

Glassman gave a talk this month: “CrossFit as Church?!” hosted by Harvard Divinity School students Casper ter Kuile and Angie Thurston. The two wrote “How We Gather,” a study of spaces other than churches that function as spiritual communities.

“CrossFit is family, laughter, love and community,” Ali Huberlie, a 27-year-old Harvard alumna who was interviewed for the study, told the researchers. “I can’t imagine my life without the people I’ve met through it.”

Huberlie wakes up each morning at quarter to five to go to the gym and work out for two hours.

But is this religion? The Times contends that it’s hard to say what constitutes one.

“Is it about belief in a deity? Judaism and Christianity have that, but many varieties of Buddhism do not. Existence after death? Mormons believe in that, but plenty of liberal Protestants do not.”

Ms. Huberlie speaks about her box as others might speak about a church or synagogue community. The same is true of some 12-step program members, and devoted college-football fans. In an increasingly secular America, all sorts of activities and subcultures provide the meaning that in the past, at least as we imagine it, religious communities did.

“What really struck us was the way in which people were bringing their kids to their box,” ter Kuile said, “or the way different workouts of the day were named after soldiers who had died in battle. So there’s all of these things you would expect to see in a church—remembering the dead through some sort of ritual, and intergenerational community.”

Rebecca Lane Frech agrees that there is a vital community at Crossfit. Frech, a blogger at Patheos’ Catholic portal, is a coach at her box.

“Two years ago, my nine-year-old daughter sustained a concussion and broke her jaw in two places in an accident,” she recalled in an interview. “I called my church and my Crossfit box. It was over a month before anyone from my parish returned my call. The people from the Box were at my house and taking care of my other children that afternoon, before we were even home from the ER. They brought us food for two weeks and took care of our family.”

Said Frech, “I go to my parish for God, but I find fellowship at my Crossfit box.”

[NYer]

Many of the parallels with religion can be found, the newspaper noted, in a Crossfit gym: adherents getting out of bed at an ungodly hour in order to spend a significant amount of time in a gathering place with other people, going through rituals that will help one transcend the everyday, and striving to “save” oneself.

To the young, I would whisper, "The Bible is a myth." I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. I would confide that what is bad is good, and what is good is "square".

If I Were the Devil - by Paul Harvey

Ping!

[ameribbean expat]

I climb on my road bike and ride for an hour plus four mornings a week, longer on Saturdays. Hardly “religion”. It’s simply to balance the fact that I do nothing physical the rest of the day.

I didn’t realize all those mornings in the army when we rolled out of the rack for PT that constituted a religious experience. Leaves me a bit concerned...because of the two possible alternatives, it certainly didn’t strike me as heaven.

[goodnesswins]

The last 2 paragraphs seem to reflect the state of SOME churches...and why people may have turned to the groups

[circlecity]

Crossfit is one of the most destructive forms of fitness for the joints you can imagine. If you want to have blown out shoulders and require knee and hip replacements by the time you are 50 then by all means stick with crossfit.

[stars & stripes forever]

Secularists have turned physical fitness into a god.

EXODUS 20 (TEN COMMANDMENTS

You shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,

but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

[Biggirl]

Catholic Bible version of 10 Commandments:

http://www.catholicbible101.com/thetencommandments.htm

[JPX2011]

I have a couple of friends who are part of a Crossfit-like program at a local gym. You pay, you agree to sign over your social media accounts to advertise for their program. You sign a contract to lose a certain amount of weight or you forfeit your deposit etc.

And so, like clockwork, they post pictures of everything they’re doing at the gym. It’s almost all they post on FB. As if each exercise is a transcendental experience. Adding more weight or different exercises is akin to leveling up in Scientology. It’s a cult.

[glorgau]

If CrossFitters Took a Yoga Class

[JPX2011]

LOL! You can always count on CH to get to the heart of the matter.

[Blue Collar Christian]

“It was over a month before anyone from my parish returned my call.”

How much time does this work out junkie spend with her church family. Her parish was probably trying to figure out just who she is, that is if her statement wasn’t a lie. I know my church family is all over a chance to help out.

Her gym family is her church family, and church is just a place she goes on Sunday morning, again, that is if she even goes.

[pburgh01]

I am a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. A few former Cross-Fitters in my class. Its correct to say that Crossfit though great cardio vascular is committing Hari Kari on your joints. Olympic lifts 4 days a week, without the expert help, nutrition and rest that Olympic lifters need. Will Corssfit shred fat off you, sure. In 6 months almost anybody not morbidly obese will drop bodyfat quickly. I did Crossfit for 2 months, being a BJJ devotee I did not find it terrible hard, being I was in excellent beyond Crossfit shape. I dropped it because after a particularly hard dead lift set I felt a pop and my my shoulder separated. I also noticed most of my class mates were always nursing injuries. I like BJJ, it's slow, controlled, very aerobic and anaerobic and keeps you sharp mentally. Throw in if I got anyone on the ground in a street fight it would be over fairly quickly, with a dislocated joint or chocking you unconscious in 15 seconds.

[avenir]

LOL. “It’s just fish oil pills...I do Crossfit.”

[fabjr60]

I work at a radio station where the programming director has been going to Crossfit for 4-6 months. He’s always talking about it: his 5am workouts, his eating, his friends at Xfit, I think it’s his raison d’etre. He also goes to church, has a wife and child, but he talks more about xfit than any other topic.

[avenir]

Speaking of yoga...you can also get hurt doing that.

[rbmillerjr]

The real fitness debate here is high calorie burning and high intensity workouts versus more conventional workouts imo.

And a more specific debate for those overweight.

I can only give my experience here.

I’m a former paratrooper who can get crazy about my fitness at times, but I’ve slacked over the past 7 years and I am overweight.

Diving back in I did 7 weeks of double Tapout XT workouts with low carb calories restricted diet of about 1800 calories per day.

After 7 weeks, I lost a depressing 3 lbs with grueling workouts.

I read some fat burn research and decided to replace my 2 hours of high intensity workouts with

2 hours of Fat Burn heart rate between 116-127 on Ellipitical with same low carb diet.

I lost 9 lbs in 3 weeks.

If you are overweight, Fat burn range matters. Don’t believe the higher calorie burn camp. There is some Fitness politics involved in that debate, I can only tell you what I have experienced.

[tbw2]

There are atheist “churches”, too.
The North Texas Church of Freethought has been running for a decade or more.
The “Sunday Assembly” is a modern and more popular incarnation, though it has already schismed with “The Godless Revival”. No joke, it was in Huffington Post in 2014.
So even secular atheist churches have the same denomination splits protestants do, while mocking the strict doctrinal standards - and enjoying the strong social network religion typically provides.

[Arkansas Toothpick]

“Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”
-II Corinthians 4:16

The idolatry of self worship reaches its zenith in the extremes that some will go to preserve life and limb. I daresay that NO ONE reading my comments will be physically alive in 100 years, no matter how many organic fruit smoothies they drink, or how many crunches are performed. That’s why it is imperative to know where your eternal soul stands. The health of our spirits is what should consume us, and we should be filled with a zeal to seek after the Father’s glory.