Muscular Christianity is a philosophical movement that originated in England in the mid-19th century, characterized by a belief in patriotic duty, discipline, self-sacrifice, masculinity, and the moral and physical beauty of athleticism.
The movement came into vogue during the Victorian era as a method of building character in pupils at English public schools. It is most often associated with English author Thomas Hughes and his 1857 novel Tom Brown's School Days, as well as writers Charles Kingsley and Ralph Connor.[1] American President Theodore Roosevelt was raised in a household that practised Muscular Christianity and was a prominent adherent to the movement.[2] Roosevelt, Kingsley, and Hughes promoted physical strength and health as well as an active pursuit of Christian ideals in personal life and politics. Muscular Christianity has continued through organizations that combine physical and Christian spiritual development.[3] It is influential within both Catholicism and Protestantism.[4][5]
Until the Age of Enlightenment, the aesthetics of the body within Christianity were concerned chiefly with holy suffering.[6]Asceticism, and the denial of bodily needs and beauty, was of interest to laity and clergy alike in Antiquity and the medieval period.[7] A key tenet of asceticism is believing the flesh to be a distraction from divinity. Sects such as Catharism believed the flesh to be wholly corrupted.[8]
The Muscular Christianity movement was never officially organized. Instead, it was a cultural trend that manifested in different ways and was supported by various figures and churches. Muscular Christianity can be traced back to Paul the Apostle, who used athletic metaphors to describe the challenges of a Christian life.[9] However, the explicit advocacy of sport and exercise in Christianity did not appear until 1762, when Rousseau's Emile described physical education as important for the formation of moral character.[10]
Definitions and etymology
The term Muscular Christianity became well known in a review by the barrister T. C. Sandars of Kingsley's novel Two Years Ago in the February 21, 1857 issue of the Saturday Review.[9][11] The term had appeared slightly earlier.[12] Kingsley wrote a reply to this review in which he called the term "painful, if not offensive",[13] but he later used it favorably on occasion.[14]
In addition to the beliefs stated above, Muscular Christianity preached the spiritual value of sports, especially team sports. As Kingsley said, "games conduce, not merely to physical, but to moral health".[15] An article on a popular 19th-century Briton summed it up thus: "John MacGregor is perhaps the finest specimen of Muscular Christianity that this or any other age has produced. Three men seemed to have struggled within his breast—the devout Christian, the earnest philanthropist, the enthusiastic athlete."[16]
Despite having gained some support, the concept was still controversial. For one example, a reviewer mentioned "the ridicule which the 'earnest' and the 'muscular' men are doing their best to bring on all that is manly", though he still preferred "'earnestness' and 'muscular Christianity'" to 18th-century propriety.[17] For another, a clergyman at Cambridge University horsewhipped another clergyman after hearing that he had said grace without mentioning Jesus because a Jew was present.[18] A commentator said, "All this comes, we fear, of Muscular Christianity."[19]
Thomas Hughes
Kingsley's contemporary Thomas Hughes is credited with helping to establish the main tenets of Muscular Christianity in Tom Brown at Oxford, which were physical manliness, chivalry and masculinity of character.[20] In Tom Brown at Oxford, Hughes stated that "The Muscular Christians have hold of the old chivalrous and Christian belief, that a man's body is given to him to be trained and brought into subjection, and then used for the protection of the weak, the advancement of all righteous causes, and the subduing of the earth which God has given to the children of men."[21] The notion of protecting the weak was related to contemporary English concerns over the plight of the poor, and Christian responsibility to one's neighbour.[1]
Richard Andrew Meyer, a professor of Baylor University, explains Thomas Hughes's six definitions of Muscular Christianity through six criteria. Meyer wrote a dissertation about Thomas Hughes's notion of Muscular Christianity by analyzing the career of Lance Armstrong. The criteria are "1) a man's body is given to him (by God); 2) and to be trained; 3) and brought into subjection; 4) and then used for the protection of the weak; 5) for the advancement of all righteous causes; 6) and for the subduing of the earth which God has given to the children of men."[22]
England
The idea of Muscular Christianity first started in England amidst industrialization and urbanization. Like their American counterparts, Christians in England were worried about the decrease in manliness among their followers as a result of Puritan influences, including passive virtues like love and tenderness,[23] causing Muscular Christianity to become a cultural trend. It was not started by any specific person, but rather supported by churches and many individual Christian figures, who then spread it to other congregations. At the time it was believed that physical training built stamina necessary to perform service for others and that physical strength led to moral strength and good character. Christians increasingly felt that athletics could be a good outlet for burning off steam rather than finding a less moral outlet. Sports also helped to recruit new members into the church. Churches began forming their own sports teams and had the associated facilities for them built in or around the churches themselves. This is how YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) began in 1844 in London, although it did not yet have sports facilities until 1869 with the establishment of New York City's YMCA.[24]
These associations became very popular and YMCAs began appearing across the country. In 1894, an Anglican vicar, Reverend Arthur Osborne Montgomery Jay, built a gymnasium with a boxing ring in the basement of his East-End London church—Holy Trinity Shoreditch, organized a boxing club, and hosted large and popular boxing tournaments. Similar boxing outreach programs were established in the late-19th and early-20th centuries by Christian churches of various denominations in poor or working class areas of Britain and America. These outreach efforts drew in many men, particularly younger men, to not only box but to be ministered to as well.[citation needed]
By 1901, Muscular Christianity was influential enough in England that one author could praise "the Englishman going through the world with rifle in one hand and Bible in the other" and add, "if asked what our muscular Christianity has done, we point to the British Empire."[25] Muscular Christianity spread to other countries in the 19th century. It was well entrenched in Australian society by 1860, though not always with much recognition of the religious element.[26]
United States
In the United States, it appeared first in private schools and then in YMCA and in the preaching of evangelists such as Dwight L. Moody.[27] Scholar Iren Annus linked the growth of Muscular Christianity in the United States to broader societal changes which were occurring throughout the country, including the emancipation of women and the influx of immigrants who worked blue-collar jobs while white Anglo-Saxon Protestant men became increasingly white-collar. These factors contributed to increasing anxiety over masculinity among white males in the United States.[28] Parodied by Sinclair Lewis in Elmer Gantry (though he had praised Oberlin College YMCA for its "positive earnest muscular Christianity") and out of step with theologians such as Reinhold Niebuhr, its influence declined in American mainline Protestantism.
Baylor University scholar Paul Putz summarises the purpose of Muscular Christianity as a mode to sanctify sports, positing that Muscular Christianity "sanctioned the physical activity of sports by giving it moral and religious value. Muscular Christians said that sports were not inherently sinful, nor were they simply entertainment and recreation; instead sports could be a way to develop and grow Christian character. You could become a better Christian through sport participation."[29] An early pioneer of Muscular Christianity in the US was Amos Alonzo Stagg, a Yale-educated football coach, who in the 1880s sought to promote "Christian ideals" anchored in US middle class values such as "cooperation, belief in God, initiative, self-discipline, loyalty, respect for authority, courage, honesty."[29]
At the same time, it made a significant impact on Evangelicalism in the United States, and was promoted by organizations such as the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Athletes in Action, and the Promise Keepers.[30]Theodore Roosevelt was one of the most prominent adherents of Muscular Christianity in the United States.[31] Roosevelt believed that, "There is only a very circumscribed sphere of usefulness for the timid good man", a sentiment echoed by many at the time. Followers of Muscular Christianity ultimately found that the only solution to this was to connect faith to the physicality of the body.[32]
An example sometimes given for US Muscular Christianity was the Men and Religion Forward Movement, organized by Fred Smith, a YMCA leader, in 1910. The movement held a mix of muscular, revivalistic and social gospel sensibilities, with work directed to evangelism, bible study, boys' work, mission, and social service. The organization hosted large revivals and campaigns throughout the US. Some 1.5 million men attended 7,000 events.[33][34]
Muscular Christianity's popularity declined notably after World War I, when the horrors of the war caused disillusionment with Christianity in general. It appeared to be "mindless strenuosity tied not to social reform but to what cereal king J. H. Kellogg called the new religion 'of being good to yourself'", that is, "such newly accessible leisure-time pursuits as automobiling and listening to the radio."[23]
The spread of Muscular Christianity led to many changes within the Catholic Church. The services were changed to cater more towards men and priests were required to be of a certain "manly" stature.[citation needed] Priests who looked like this were thought to draw in more men like them. Protestant ministers in England and America argued that men were not truly Christians unless they were Muscular Christians. Muscular Christianity did later decline in some Protestant churches, but it never did disappear from the American religious landscape.
Asia
Elwood Brown, physical director of the Manila chapter of the YMCA, heavily promoted Muscular Christianity in the Philippines, and co-founded the Far Eastern Championship Games which ran from 1914 to 1934.[35] Japanese scholar Ikuo Abe argued that the modern sports ethic and sport culture in Japan was heavily influenced in its infancy by Christian missionaries and Western teachers during the 19th and 20th century. According to Abe, Japan's sport culture developed as a hybridization of Muscular Christianity and Bushido ethics.[36] Muscular Christianity was also an influence on Swami Vivekananda's ideology of "muscular Hinduism" and Hindu nationalism, particularly his emphasis on physical prowess and masculinity.[37]
Africa
According to Peter Alegi, Muscular Christianity reached Africa through colonial mission schools during the late 19th century.[38] Sports were incorporated directly into many mission schools to promote Muscular Christianity, as administrators and missionaries believed sports such as football shared many of the same values.[38] The effect mission schools like Adams College in South Africa had was seen through the demographics of football players, as a significant number of members at the earliest sports clubs in South Africa were Christian Africans.[38] Over time these practices moved away from specific sports and more towards general physical education.
Muscular Christianity became widely noticed throughout Africa due to colonization. Men were meant to be the head of their households and it was viewed that this structure was deteriorating. It was the establishment of Western-style schools across the continent that brought about Muscular Christianity along with the introduction of European football teams. Soccer was thought to teach young boys self-restraint, fairness, honor, and success.[39] It was also to develop them into disciplined, healthy, and moral citizens.[38] The purpose behind these soccer clubs was not just to bring idealized traits to the young boys, but to make them into strong soldiers and advocates for the Western world.[38] Missionary schools were among the first to incorporate football into their programs, to make sure every student was playing. This was to blend the African and Western culture to transition the African students more easily into the world of Christianity.
Adams College, known as Amanzimtoti Training Institute before 1914, was one of the first and largest missionary schools in southern and central Africa. This school was important due to its football team, the Shooting Stars. This team was successful in competing against other teams throughout the area. Other missionary schools were known more for their success in other sports, like cricket or rugby.[38]
Impact
According to Nicholas Watson, the ideology of Muscular Christianity contributed to the development of the Olympic Games. Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, was greatly influenced by Muscular Christianity, and this was one of his primary inspirations alongside the Ancient Olympic Games of Greece.[40]
New Calvinist pastors such as John Piper have pushed for an emphasis on a masculine Christianity and concept of Christ. Piper claimed that, "God revealed Himself in the Bible pervasively as king not queen; father not mother. Second person of the Trinity is revealed as the eternal Son not daughter; the Father and the Son create man and woman in His image and give them the name man, the name of the male." Because of this, Piper further claimed that "God has given Christianity a masculine feel."[45]
Michael Kimmel argues in his book Manhood in America,[46] that University of Notre Dame showcases Muscular Christianity because the school practices Catholicism. Male athletes on the varsity teams are thought to practice Thomas Hughes's six criteria for Muscular Christianity. Notre Dame's football team, for example, are Catholic men who believe their bodies are a gift from God. Therefore, they train their bodies in the name of God.
YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded in London on 6 June 1844 by George Williams as the Young Men's Christian Association. The organization aims to put Christian values into practice by developing a healthy body, mind, and spirit.
The Third Great Awakening refers to a historical period proposed by William G. McLoughlin that was marked by religious activism in American history and spans the late 1850s to the early 20th century. It influenced pietistic Protestant denominations and had a strong element of social activism. It gathered strength from the postmillennial belief that the Second Coming of Christ would occur after mankind had reformed the entire Earth. It was affiliated with the Social Gospel movement, which applied Christianity to social issues and gained its force from the awakening, as did the worldwide missionary movement. New groupings emerged, such as the Holiness movement and Nazarene and Pentecostal movements, and also Jehovah's Witnesses, Spiritualism, Theosophy, Thelema, and Christian Science. The era saw the adoption of a number of moral causes, such as the abolition of slavery and prohibition.
Thomas Arnold was an English educator and historian. He was an early supporter of the Broad Church Anglican movement. As headmaster of Rugby School from 1828 to 1841, he introduced several reforms that were widely copied by other noted public schools. His reforms redefined standards of masculinity and achievement.
Masculinity is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some behaviors considered masculine are influenced by both cultural factors and biological factors. To what extent masculinity is biologically or socially influenced is subject to debate. It is distinct from the definition of the biological male sex, as anyone can exhibit masculine traits. Standards of masculinity vary across different cultures and historical periods.
Promise Keepers is an Evangelical Christian parachurch organization for men. It opposes same-sex marriage, and champions chastity and marital fidelity and the man as being head of the household.
The Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) is an international non-profit Christian sports ministry founded in 1954 and based in Kansas City, Missouri. It has staff offices located throughout the United States and abroad.
Complementarianism is a theological view in some denominations of Christianity, Rabbinic Judaism, and Islam, that men and women have different but complementary roles and responsibilities in marriage, family life, and religious leadership. Complementary and its cognates are currently used to denote this view. Some Christians interpret the Bible as prescribing complementarianism, and therefore adhere to gender-specific roles that preclude women from specific functions of ministry within the community. Though women may be precluded from certain roles and ministries, they are held to be equal in moral value and of equal status. The phrase used to describe this is "ontologically equal, functionally different".
During the Victorian era, there were, as in all eras, certain social expectations that the separate genders were expected to adhere to in the United Kingdom and the British Empire. The study of Victorian masculinity is based on the assumption that "the construction of male consciousness must be seen as historically specific." The concept of Victorian masculinity is extremely diverse, since it was influenced by numerous aspects and factors such as domesticity, economy, gender roles, imperialism, manners, religion, sporting competition, and much more. Some of these aspects seem to be quite naturally related to one another, while others seem profoundly non-relational. For Victorian men, this included a vast amount of pride in their work, a protectiveness over their wives, and an aptitude for good social behaviour. The concept of Victorian masculinity is a topic of interest in the context of cultural studies with a special emphasis on gender studies. The topic is of interest in the areas of history, literary criticism, religious studies, and sociology. Those values that have survived to the present day are of special interest to critics for their role in sustaining the 'dominance of the Western male'.
Michael Frost is an Australian Baptist minister, missiologist and theologian who is one of the leading voices in the missional church movement. Frost is the founding Director of the Tinsley Institute, a mission study centre located at Morling College in Sydney, Australia.
Jackson T. Katz is an American educator, filmmaker, and author. He has created a gender violence prevention and education program entitled 'Mentors in Violence Prevention', which is used by U.S. military and various sporting organizations.
Youth sports is any sports event where competitors are younger than adult age, whether children or adolescents. Youth sports includes school sports at primary and secondary level, as well as sports played outside the education system, whether informally or organized.
Surendra Kumar Datta (1878–1942), also spelt as Surendra Kumar Dutta or S. K. Dutta, was the president of the All India Conference of Indian Christians and thus the Indian Christian delegate to the Second Round Table Conference in London, as well as a prominent YMCA leader, and a member of Central Legislative Assembly – also called Imperial Legislative Assembly before Indian independence – a lower house of a bicameral parliament synonymous to the current Lok Sabha after Indian independence.
The history of Canadian sports falls into five stages of development: early recreational activities before 1840; the start of organized competition, 1840–1880; the emergence of national organizations, 1882–1914; the rapid growth of both amateur and professional sports, 1914 to 1960; and developments of the last half-century. Some sports, especially ice hockey, lacrosse, curling, and ringette enjoy an international reputation as particularly Canadian. Although typically thought of as American, the origin of the sport of baseball began the Canadian town of Beachville, Ontario, and American football was initially developed by Canadians at McGill University before two different playing styles emerged, American football and Canadian football. Canadian sports attract large numbers of participants and huge audiences; hockey, played by 1.4 million Canadians, has become part of the national identity.
The history of sports in the United States shows that American football, baseball, softball and indoor soccer evolved out of older British sports. However, volleyball, skateboarding, snowboarding and Ultimate are American inventions, some of which have become popular in other countries. American football and baseball diverged greatly from the European sports from which they arose, having evolved into distinctly American sports; baseball has achieved international popularity, particularly in East Asia and Latin America, while American football remains a niche. Sports like Lacrosse and surfing derives from indigenous activities that predate Western and European contact.
There has been an extremely long history of the involvement of Christianity and association football. In 16th-century England, Puritan Christians opposed the contemporary forms of football, due to its violence and its practice on Sunday, the Sabbath day of rest. However, from the 19th century, Christians espousing the movement of "Muscular Christianity" encouraged the game for its physical and social benefits. Several of England's leading clubs, including Everton, Manchester City and Southampton, were founded by churches, as was Celtic in Scotland. There have also been leagues set up specifically for Christian clubs outside of the normal national league pyramid.
Christian manliness is a concept and movement that arose in Victorian Protestant England, characterised by the importance of the male body and physical health, family and romantic love, the notions of morality, theology and the love for nature and, the idea of healthy patriotism, with Jesus Christ as leader and example of truest manhood. The concept was first brought up in novels by the British Victorian writers Charles Kingsley and Thomas Hughes. Schoolmaster of the Rugby School, Thomas Arnold, was responsible for reforming the British public schooling system according to notions of biblical manhood. The Christian manliness movement can still be observed in the Anglosphere today, and although it shares a great deal with the notions and ideals originating from the Victorian era, it is distinct and shaped by the constraints and conditions of the modern post-industrial era. The American evangelical community places emphasis upon Christian manliness.
The National Council of Young Men's Christian Associations of the United States of America is part of the worldwide youth organization YMCA.
Western physical culture is the form of physical culture that originated mainly in the West.
Muscular Hinduism is a philosophy that advocates for Hindus to be physically strong. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Swami Vivekananda are considered to have been major early proponents in the early 20th century. Muscular Hinduism intertwines with Hindu nationalism and communal violence in India.
Muscular Islam is a sometimes-used term to describe the push for physical fitness amongst Muslims.
↑ Andres, Sean (2014). 101 Things Everyone Should Know about Theodore Roosevelt. Adams Media. pp.31–32. ISBN978-1440573576.
↑ David Yamane; Keith A. Roberts (2012). Religion in Sociological Perspective. Pine Forge Press. ISBN9781412982986. Retrieved 1 August 2011. Muscular Christianity's main focus was to address the concerns of boys directly, not abstractly, so that they could apply religion to their lives. The idea did not catch on quickly in the United States, but over time it has become one of the most notable tools employed in Evangelical Protestant outreach ministries.
↑ Alister E. McGrath (2008). Christianity's Dangerous Idea. HarperOne. ISBN9780061864742. Retrieved 1 August 2011. Nor is sport a purely Protestant concern: Catholicism can equally well be said to promote muscular Christianity, at least to some extent, through the athletic programs of such leading schools as the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.
↑ Michael S. Kimmel; Amy Aronson (2004). Men and Masculinities: a Social, Cultural, and Historical Encyclopædia, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO. ISBN9781576077740. Retrieved 1 August 2011. As neo-orthodoxy arose in the mainline Protestant churches, Muscular Christianity declined there. It did not, however, disappear from American landscape, because it found some new sponsors. In the early 2000s these include the Catholic Church and various rightward-leaning Protestant groups. The Catholic Church promotes Muscular Christianity in the athletic programs of schools such as Notre Dame, as do evangelical Protestant groups such as Promise Keepers, Athletes in Action, and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
↑ Kingsley, Charles (1889). Letters and Memoirs of His Life, vol. II. Scribner's. p.54. Quoted by Rosen, David (1994). "The volcano and the cathedral: muscular Christianity and the origins of primal manliness". In Donald E. Hall (ed.). Muscular Christianity: Embodying the Victorian Age. Cambridge University Press. p.17. ISBN0-521-45318-6.
↑ "News of the Week". The Spectator. 34 (1702): 124. Feb 9, 1861. Retrieved 2012-01-30.
↑ "Argumentum Baculinum". The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art. 11 (276): 141–142. Feb 9, 1861. Retrieved 2012-01-30.
↑ Schwer, Mary Angela (1998), Day, Gary (ed.), "Imperial Muscular Christianity: Thomas Hughes's Biography of David Livingstone", Varieties of Victorianism: The Uses of a Past, Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp.25–39, doi:10.1007/978-1-349-26742-2_2, ISBN978-1-349-26742-2
↑ Heather, Hendershot (2004). Shaking the World for Jesus: Media and Conservative Evangelical Culture. University of Chicago Press. p.226. ISBN0-226-32679-9.
↑ Christine Thomasos (2012). "Tim Tebow Brings In a New Wave of Christian Athleticism". The Christian Post. Tebow inspired a new term by ESPN, known as "muscular Christianity." The QB showcases his faith by wearing bible verses on his face, tweeting scriptures and publicly admitting his love for Jesus Christ, while drawing fans' attention on the football field.
↑ Mary Jane Dunlap (March 13, 2012). "KU professor researching Naismith, religion and basketball". University of Kansas. Archived from the original on October 29, 2012. Retrieved March 14, 2012. "Less well-known is that his game also was meant to help build Christian character and to inculcate certain values of the muscular Christian movement." Although times have changed, Zogry sees analogies between the beliefs and activities of 19th-century sports figures such as James Naismith and Amos Alonzo Stagg, a Yale divinity student who pioneered football coaching, and those of 21st-century athletes such as Tim Tebow and Jeremy Lin.
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