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Good morning. After failing to win the Tour de France for a hundred years, British riders have now won three of the last four. But cycling’s been so hurt by doping scandals that no one’s sure whether to celebrate. All sorts of things are unequal in cycling – the financing of the teams, the size of the back-up squads. But we want a fair contest, so performance-enhancing drugs are forbidden. Fairness in sport is a curious thing. Take cricket. The Australians have terrifying fast bowlers. So the talk before tomorrow’s Test is about preparing a pitch to nullify their speed. Is that fair? Everyone gets excited about the Premier League. But only three or four teams are rich enough to win it. Is that fair? Sport is where we test our public morality. When the Director of English Cricket said the side’s best player wouldn’t be picked for the team, half the nation reflected on whether it’s possible to work with someone of exceptional talent when you can’t trust them. When a Uruguayan footballer developed a habit of biting opponents, was that a psychological condition or had he contravened some primal law of physical competition? Sport’s become so vast in the public imagination that it’s taken on the paraphernalia of religion itself. Great stadia are temples, what takes place in them has a liturgical shape, yellow jerseys and claret jugs are sacred icons, heroes enter a Valhalla of honour. We deny sport is our god, but a visitor from Mars might be pushed to tell the difference. It’s not just the rituals and symbols. Elite sport embodies the highest aspiration of our era – to overcome human limitation in the quest for earthly glory. In ancient times sport was training for something else, usually war. Today sporting achievement is a quest for immortality – an attempt to transcend the limits of the human frame and scale unprecedented heights. Doping becomes a temptation when you face the constant expectation of going beyond the physically possible, and you know you can’t do it in your own strength. It’s not uncommon to regard Christianity as a drug, or as a failed attempt to transcend death. But faith begins precisely when we recognise our limitations and stop trying to achieve our own immortality. It starts when we accept life isn’t a game and it isn’t fair. Jesus didn’t call people to reach faster, higher, stronger. He invited them to enter the fragile company of humbled people who’d made mistakes and knew their need of God and one another. Sport’s a wonderful celebration of the human spirit. It only becomes a problem when we turn it into a substitute form of salvation. First broadcast 28 July 2015