{"id":6857,"date":"2019-07-07T15:46:01","date_gmt":"2019-07-07T15:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/infed.org\/mobi\/?p=6857"},"modified":"2025-08-18T18:32:52","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T17:32:52","slug":"muscular-christianity","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/infed.org\/dir\/welcome\/muscular-christianity\/","title":{"rendered":"Muscular Christianity"},"content":{"rendered":"

The notion of Muscular Christianity was an important feature of some key discourses around work with boys and men in the second half of the nineteenth century. Here Clifford Putney explores the origin and use of the term.<\/h2>\n

contents<\/strong>: muscular christianity \u00b7 bibliography \u00b7 how to cite this article<\/h6>\n

<\/a> \"pictureMuscular Christianity can be defined as a Christian commitment to health and manliness. \u00a0Its origins can be traced to the New Testament, which sanctions manly exertion (Mark 11:15) and physical health (1 Cor. 6:19-20). \u00a0But while muscular Christianity has always been an element in Christianity, it has not always been a major element. \u00a0The early Church sometimes praised health and manliness, but it was much more concerned with achieving salvation, and it preached that men could achieve salvation without being healthy and husky. \u00a0This doctrine seemingly squared with the Gospels, and it reigned supreme within the Church for centuries. \u00a0It did inspire criticism, however, and that criticism was especially fierce in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when droves of Protestant ministers in England and America concluded that men were not truly Christians unless they were muscular Christians.<\/p>\n

The phrase “muscular Christianity” probably first appeared in an 1857 English review of Charles Kingsley’s novel Two Years Ago (1857). \u00a0One year later, the same phrase was used to describe Tom Brown’s School Days<\/i>, an 1856 novel about life at Rugby by Kingsley’s friend, fellow Englishman Thomas Hughes. \u00a0Soon the press in general was calling both writers muscular Christians and also applying that label to the genre they inspired: \u00a0adventure novels replete with high principles and manly Christian heroes.<\/p>\n

Hughes and Kingsley were not only novelists; they were also social critics. \u00a0In their view, asceticism and effeminacy had gravely weakened the Anglican Church. \u00a0To make that church a suitable handmaiden for British imperialism, Hughes and Kingsley sought to equip it with rugged and manly qualities. \u00a0They also exported their campaign for more health and manliness in religion to antebellum America, where their ideas failed to catch on immediately due to factors such as Protestant opposition to sports and the popularity of feminine iconography within the mainline Protestant churches.<\/p>\n

Opposition to muscular Christianity in America never completely disappeared. \u00a0But it did weaken in the aftermath of the Civil War, when changes in American society placed health and manliness uppermost in the minds of many male white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. \u00a0These men, who included Social Gospel leaders such as Josiah Strong and politicians such as Theodore Roosevelt, viewed factors such as urbanization, sedentary office jobs, and non-Protestant immigration as threats not only to their health and manhood but also to their privileged social standing. \u00a0To maintain that standing, they urged “old stock” Americans to revitalize themselves by embracing a “strenuous life” replete with athleticism and aggressive male behavior. \u00a0They also called loudly upon their churches to abandon the supposedly enervating tenets of “feminized” Protestantism.<\/p>\n

As evidence that there existed a “woman peril” in American Protestant churches, critics such as the pioneer psychologist G. Stanley Hall pointed to the imbalance of women to men in the pews. \u00a0They also contended that women’s influence in church had led to an overabundance of sentimental hymns, effeminate clergymen and sickly-sweet images of Jesus. \u00a0These things were repellant to “real men” and boys, averred critics, who argued that males would avoid church until “feminized” Protestantism gave way to muscular Christianity, a strenuous religion for the strenuous life.<\/p>\n

The heyday of muscular Christianity in America lasted roughly from 1880 to 1920. \u00a0During that time, the YMCA invented basketball and volleyball, the Men and Religion Forward Movement sought to fill Protestant churches with men, and the churches took the lead in the organized camping and public playground movements. \u00a0These efforts to make muscular Christianity an integral part of the churches lasted throughout World War I. \u00a0But in the pacifistic 1920s, there emerged widespread discontent with many of the ideals that had flourished during World War I, including muscular Christianity. \u00a0Protestant leaders such as Harry Emerson Fosdick and Sherwood Eddy blamed muscular Christianity for encouraging militarism. \u00a0And satirists such as H. L. Mencken and Sinclair Lewis skewered muscular Christianity in their writings.<\/p>\n

The postwar devaluation of muscular Christianity was evident not only in literature but also in the mainline Protestant churches. \u00a0By the 1930s, these churches were gravitating toward the Neo-Orthodoxy of Reinhold Niebuhr, who argued that divinity resided not in men’s muscles, but with God. \u00a0As Neo-Orthodoxy arose in the mainline Protestant churches, muscular Christianity declined there. \u00a0It did not, however, disappear from the American landscape, since it found some new sponsors. \u00a0They include the Catholic Church and various rightward leaning Protestant groups. \u00a0The Catholic Church promotes muscular Christianity in the athletic programs of schools such as Notre Dame, and the evangelical Protestant groups that support muscular Christianity include Promise Keepers, Athletes in Action, and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. <\/a><\/p>\n

Bibliography and further reading<\/h4>\n

Hall, Donald, ed. \u00a0Muscular Christianity: \u00a0Embodying the Victorian Age<\/i>. \u00a0Cambridge: \u00a0Cambridge University Press, 1994.<\/span><\/p>\n

Higgs, Robert. \u00a0God in the Stadium: \u00a0Sports and Religion in America<\/i>. \u00a0Lexington:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 University Press of Kentucky, 1995.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kimmel, Michael. \u00a0Manhood in America: \u00a0A Cultural History<\/i>. \u00a0New York: \u00a0Free Press, 1996.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ladd, Tony, and James Mathisen. \u00a0Muscular Christianity: \u00a0Evangelical Protestants and the Development of American Sport<\/i>. \u00a0Grand Rapids, Mich.: \u00a0Baker Books, 1999.<\/span><\/p>\n

Macleod, David I. \u00a0Building Character in the American Boy: \u00a0The Boy Scouts, YMCA and Their Forerunners, 1870-1920<\/i>. \u00a0Madison: \u00a0University of Wisconsin Press, 1983.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mjagkij, Nina, and Margaret Spratt, eds. \u00a0Men and Women Adrift: \u00a0The YMCA and the YWCA in the City<\/i>. \u00a0New York: \u00a0New York University Press, 1997.<\/span><\/p>\n

Putney, Clifford. \u00a0Muscular Christianity: \u00a0Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920<\/i>. \u00a0Cambridge, Mass.: \u00a0Harvard University Press, 2001.<\/span><\/p>\n

Vance, Norman. \u00a0The Sinews of the Spirit: \u00a0The Ideal of Christian Manliness in Victorian Literature and Religious Thought.<\/i> \u00a0Cambridge: \u00a0Cambridge University Press, 1985.<\/span><\/p>\n

Picture: Calisthenic College for Lady Muscular Christians – Wood engraving 1867. Unknown artist. Currently included in the Granger Collection, it is used here as a cc0, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/p>\n

<\/a>How to cite this article<\/b>: Putney, C. (2003) ‘Muscular Christianity’, The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education<\/i>, www.infed.org\/christianeducation\/muscular_christianity.htm<\/a>. The article first appeared in ABC-CLIO (2003) Men and Masculinities: A Social, Cultural, and Historical Encyclopedia.<\/i><\/p>\n

This article [excerpt] is reproduced by permission of ABC-CLIO, Inc. and appears in Men and Masculinities: A Social, Cultural, and Historical Encyclopedia \u00a9 2003 by ABC-CLIO<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The notion of Muscular Christianity was an important feature of some key discourses around work with boys and men in the second half of the nineteenth century. 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