Terry Shoemaker

Terry Shoemaker is a qualitative research scholar attentive to religion trends of in contemporary life in the United States. This includes the ways that religion and religious people adapt, convert, deconvert, reform, and abandon aspects of their religiosity or spirituality. Specifically, he theorizes how people conceptualize the sacred elements of human experience. Because of this, he is interested in studying sports in the United States through the lens of religious studies theories and methods. His work is featured at numerous sites like The Conversation, Zócalo Public Square, and Religion Dispatches. He regularly consults on podcasts, news articles, and with local organizations.

His latest book Religions and Sports: The Basics provides an introductory text for how to understand the many relationships between religion and sports, and how to study the two phenomena. Religions and Sports follows previously published work like The Prophetic Dimension of Sport (2018) and a second edited volume regarding the future of progressive Christianity and the Millennial generation with Wifp & Stock Publishers. Terry currently serves as vice president of the Society for the Future of Higher Education (SFHE), as the co-editor of the academic journal the International Journal of Sport and Religion, and on the Religion, Sport, and Play American Academy of Religion steering committee.

Terry co-directs Sports at Humanities Institute, co-leads the sport humanities at ASU, and teaches a Religion and Sports course, which forms part of an interdisciplinary, liberal arts undergraduate certificate in “sports, cultures, and ethics." He is affiliated faculty with the American Studies program in the School of Social Transformation and a faculty affiliate at the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict.