Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920 [Hardcover]

Clifford Putney (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674006348 | ISBN-13: 978-0674006348 | Publication Date: November 30, 2001

Dissatisfied with a Victorian culture focused on domesticity and threatened by physical decline in sedentary office jobs, American men in the late nineteenth century sought masculine company in fraternal lodges and engaged in exercise to invigorate their bodies. One form of this new manly culture, developed out of the Protestant churches, was known as muscular Christianity. In this fascinating study, Clifford Putney details how Protestant leaders promoted competitive sports and physical education to create an ideal of Christian manliness.

(20011015)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Long relegated to occasional academic journal articles and mediocre, hagiographic books, the relationship between Protestantism and sports in America now has the definitive treatise the topic has long deserved. Bentley College's Putney surveys "muscular Christianity" the attempts to make Christianity seem manly and macho from 1880 to 1920. Worried that the average American man thought of the church as a place for girls and women, churches tried to lure men by, for example, building bowling leagues in their basements; pastors who once adhered to strict blue laws declared that sports on Sunday might just be allowable. Putney challenges many assumptions that historians have held for years. He demonstrates, for example, that Christians were anxious about getting men into the church not simply because women outnumbered men in the pews, but because, at the end of the 19th century, women increasingly held church leadership positions. Second, he shows that not only pastors, but secular reformers, from reporters to professors to government officials, were worried about a feminized church. Putney is to be commended for including Mormons, black Protestants and women (like Girl Scout leaders) who embraced at least slices of "muscular Christianity." If historians will find Putney's revisions fascinating, the general reader will also be riveted by the story he tells; his prose is as vigorous as his subject matter, and the anecdotes he scatters liberally throughout the book are captivating. In an age when Christian leaders like Bill McCartney are again using athletics to get men into the church, this study couldn't be more timely.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

With vigorous prose, Putney (history, Bentley Coll.) shows how in the late 19th century Protestant clergy and lay leaders of the "muscular Christianity" movement abandoned the sentimentality and "feminine" forms of Victorian religion for a new model that "stressed action rather than reflection, and aggression rather than gentility." Worried about a decline of Anglo-Saxon Protestant power in urbanizing, industrializing, and Catholic immigrant America and influenced by writers such as psychologist G. Stanley Hall who called for drawing on "primitive" instincts to counter enervating intellectualism, men such as Theodore Roosevelt pushed for the "strenuous life" as a means of imposing self-discipline and reasserting the culture and interests of Protestants in America and abroad. Advocates of muscular Christianity promoted organized sports and outdoor activities like camping to build bodies able to evangelize and effect social reform. The movement faded in the 1920s, but its basic organizations persisted. Putney's focus on ideas and leaders misses the chance to observe how the boys and girls involved in Scouting, sports, and the YMCA understood the connections between healthy bodies and healthy faith, but his arguments on the construction of "muscular Christianity" add much to our understanding of the Progressive era and American cultural imperialism. Highly recommended. Randall M. Miller, Saint Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 310 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (November 30, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674006348
• ISBN-13: 978-0674006348
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #973,977 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A great study, February 21, 2011

By 

Jackson R. Pope III - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920 (Paperback)

A very interesting analysis of turn of the century Protestant America that looks at how a new conception of manhood was altering the character of mainline Protestantism to make it conform to ideas of masculinity. In part this reaction was imposed by a broader cultural movement which forced Protestant leaders to co-opt those ideas lest they open themselves up to criticism of overfeminization or lose converts to the secular "strenuous life" philosophy, but in large measure the effort to reemphasize the masculine aspect of Christianity and reassert control over Church life was not a calculated response to outside pressure, but motivated by various social anxieties that lead to new definition of manhood in general. In short, it examines a broad social process applied to Protestantism in particular. In any event, it should prove a very valuable resource for historians and sociologists studying various aspects of turn of the century America.

5.0 out of 5 stars Vastly Helpful, December 20, 2010

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Peter P. Fuchs (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920 (Paperback)

I have been reading this outstanding book as part of the research for a very complex project. Beyond being delightfully written, with great clarity and lack of pretension, it is vastly helpful as well. Historical analysis always involves, it seems to me, a certain simplification to trace a path, and the idea of "Muscular Christianity" is so resonant a category that it might qualify. But the proof of how valuable it is that it opens up many others interpretative realms for our culture. I am really grateful to this marvelous scholar for his insights. On a personal note, I feel I understand life in our strange culture much better with these analyses as background. And, also, it must be said that the cover photo of a choral group at the YMCA in 1909 is just too good to be true!

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best of what an academic book should be, October 20, 2009

By 

Gary Thomas (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920 (Paperback)

This is an excellent book; extensively researched, well-written, engaging, thoughtful and offering a fair treatment of an interesting movement in church history. Many of the issues are surprisingly relevant to today. Highly recommended.