Проблеми спорту та здоров’я людини у соціальній концепції християнської церкви

Abstract

The basic approaches to the theoretical and practical solving the sport problems in the social conception of the leading Christian churches are examined in the article. Christianity builds the theological views on the social problems of sports, physical culture, religion, churches and their relationship on the base of the Bible, writings of the Church Fathers, Christian writers and church documents. The thoughts about the sports that are prevalent in the church world were not constant and varied according to the character of the epoch. The split of the Christian church has defined the differences and peculiarities of the approaches to the development of sports culture from tolerance to the complete ban. Today the church considers sports as an integral part of the spiritual development of a person, as a mean of strengthening the young people’s health, preparing the younger generation to work and defending the faith. It regards as essential to include sports and physical culture into the system of the personality Christian education, which is based on the Christian anthropology and contributes to its holistic development, focused on the Christian values, morality and ethics. However, the church does not approve such things in sport as commercialization, politicization, forming the cult of pride, doping manipulations, adjusting children to the professional sports, and moreover, such competitions in which serious injuries are caused intentionally.