Muscular Christianity is a term applied to a religious movement that originated in England in the mid-19th century. It is an approach to life and social outreach which emphasizes the benefits of sport and other physical exercise to personal wellbeing, and as a healthy expression of masculinity. It is accompanied by a belief in discipline, duty and self-sacrifice. The term has been disliked by many of its practitioners.
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.
Connor, 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. It is influential within both Catholicism and Protestantism.
The movement does not have a central organization or codified philosophy.
Origins and background
Until the Age of Enlightenment, the aesthetics of the body within Christianity were concerned chiefly with holy suffering. Asceticism and the denial of bodily needs and beauty were of interest to laity and clergy alike in ancient history and the Middle Ages. 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.
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. Athletic metaphors attributed to Paul the Apostle: ; ; . 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.
Definitions and etymology The term Muscular Christianity became well known in a review by barrister T. C. Sandars of Kingsley's novel Two Years Ago in the February 21, 1857, issue of the Saturday Review. The term had appeared slightly earlier. The article is a review of a book of lectures by the theologian Alexandre Vinet. Kingsley wrote a reply to this review in which he calls the term "painful, if not offensive", but he later used it favorably on occasion. Quoted by
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". Quoted by Ladd and Mathisen). An article on a popular 19th-century Briton sums 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."
Despite having gained some support, the concept was still controversial. For one example, a reviewer mentions "the ridicule which the 'earnest' and the 'muscular' men are doing their best to bring on all that is manly", though he prefers earnestness' and 'muscular Christianity to 18th-century propriety. 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. A commentator said, "All this comes, we fear, of Muscular Christianity."
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 are physical manliness, chivalry, and masculinity of character. In Tom Brown at Oxford, Hughes states "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."Chapter 11, quoted by Ladd and Mathisen. 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.
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, 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.
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.
By 1901, Muscular Christianity was influential enough 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." 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.
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. Scholar Irén Annus links 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 (WASP) men became increasingly white-collar. These factors contributed to increasing anxiety over masculinity among WASPs in the United States. 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." An early pioneer 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."
President Theodore Roosevelt was raised in a household that practised Muscular Christianity and became a prominent promoter and adherent of the movement. Roosevelt believed "there is little place in active life 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. Roosevelt believed that a strong presence of masculinity along with Christian beliefs were extremely important for American society. Despite presenting himself as Christian, Roosevelt also promoted physical activity as he was pro-war, and believed that an active population was more likely to be victorious in armed conflict.Zirin, Dave (2008). A People’s History of Sports in the United States: 250 Years of Politics, Protest, People, and Play. New York: The New Press. p. [page number].
Fred Smith, a YMCA leader, organized the Men and Religion Forward Movement 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.
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."
Muscular Christianity has made a significant impact on evangelicalism in the United States, and through the latter half of the 20th century was promoted by organizations such as the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Athletes in Action, Promise Keepers, Power Team, and other Christian mixed martial arts (MMA) organizations. It has been suggested by scholars, such as Kristin Kobes Du Mez in her 2020 book Jesus and John Wayne, that Trumpism has elements of Muscular Christianity, with its emphasis on performative masculinity and religiosity.
Asia
Elwood Brown, physical director of the Manila chapter of the YMCA, promoted Muscular Christianity in the Philippines and co-founded the Far Eastern Championship Games which ran from 1914 to 1934. Japanese scholar Ikuo Abe argues 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.
South Asia 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. The North American YMCA also played a role in reshaping Indian physical culture, adopting some of the local sports and assisting in the formation of modern yoga while bringing Western sports to the country.
Africa