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The following is a list of American sports team names and mascots that draw upon religious symbolism. Given the prevalence of Christian groups and institutions in the United States, the vast majority of these symbols, though entirely generic, can be assumed to come from Christian sources. However, teams deriving their image from symbols belonging to other systems of religious and pseudo-religious belief have also been included, and where a lack of symbolic representation in the sports world is conspicuous—as with Jewish teams and organizations—there follows discussion as to why. ==Mascots as visual representation== Sports clubs and teams base their image or mascot on variety of factors, such as the desire of athletes to pick a symbol that will attempt to convey the assets they aim to display, such as strength, courage, aggression and endurance. Scholars have drawn connections between desires such as these and the religious totems found in polytheism, where visual representations of animals serve as symbols to express the physical and spiritual qualities of community.〔 http://royal-holloway.com/Drama/platform/issues/Vol.3No.1/Mascots.pdf 〕〔 〕 Adoration of a mascot by a school or company can be seen as religiously significant. However, economic factors also come into play, as both schools and sports-franchise owners want to make money. Just as an appealing, marketable symbol can generate vast revenue, so can profits suffer if a potentially offensive symbol alienates some potential fans. This consideration as well can explain why sectarian religious symbols rarely appear in sports-team names and mascots. Most of the teams listed here belong to schools and not to professional franchises. The reasons for this are subject to debate. In schools administrators, teachers, and parents act as a community to give students education in local values, and in many places these values come from religious institutions like churches and synagogues. So schools often become ''de facto'' representatives of a community's religious ideals as well as visual representatives of that community at a state, national, and international level. These conditions combine to make school sports a place for religious symbols, after they get filtered through the secular values both of the nation at large and of sport itself. This filtering produces mixed-value mascots like "Demon Deacons" of Wake Forest University and the "Hustlin' Quakers" (formerly "Fightin' Quakers", subsequently simply "Quakers") of Earlham College. Despite the sensitive nature of religious issues in the United States of America, religious imagery in American sport has generated little controversy. Subtle spins on generic symbols like the crusader have come under attack for their insensitivity to non-Christian groups, but by and large religiously inspired team names and mascots have not been scrutinized. This contrasts with team names and mascots from Native American cultural sources. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Religious symbolism in U.S. sports team names and mascots」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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