You’d be forgiven (pun of course intended) for not realizing there is an NBA team that performs a pregame prayer for the entire freaking arena. I had no idea of it myself until I saw this tweet from Jason Gallagher:
It’s strange enough that we perform the national anthem ahead of sporting events. But to include a full-on invocation in the arena before even the anthem or player intros? Why? Why do such a thing at an NBA game?
The Thunder franchise is, of course, a private entity that can do whatever it wants. A team could open every game with a five-minute compilation of cats giving birth if it wanted to. But in the eternal quest to keep religion at arm’s length at the very least, a collective prayer before a sporting event – even a prayer as innocuous as this one, which amounts to everyone staying safe out there and having fun – is bizarre and unnecessary.
There have already been many issues regarding mandatory patriotism in sports leagues over the past few years. While the NBA has been among the most willing to let players express themselves at times, the NFL stands as the authoritarian example of doing whatever it can to squash players protesting during the playing of the national anthem.
What Does the Thunder’s Pregame Invocation Look Like?
To the Thunder’s credit, the invocation is completely non-denominational, as Catholic archbishops, Baptist preachers, and Jewish rabbis have led the service over the years. But still, there’s something incredibly weird about bringing prayer into a sporting event like this at all. Individual players often invoke God during a game or postgame interview, and NBA teams even have pregame chapels for players, but to have an entire NBA arena chant “Amen” before a game is… unsettling.
Obviously, the greater percentage of Americans don’t seem all that bothered by it; otherwise, it would be a much bigger issue. Or maybe people just don’t realize this is a thing. But either way, this tradition of what are essentially mandatory acts of patriotism – and religion in this case – at sporting events is an interesting case study for how willing we are to simply accept those types of things being thrust upon us because they’ve just seemingly always existed. Why question it, right? In the case of the Thunder, the invocation dates back to the 2005-06 season, when it was the New Orleans Pelicans who were actually in OKC, relocated temporarily after Hurricane Katrina. And once the Thunder moved into town for the 2008-09 season, the invocation just stuck.
See how easy it is for something to just become part of the fabric of society? Not saying this one is going to lead to the ultimate downfall of our society, but it’s pretty weird.
