MUSCULAR CHRISTIANITY: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880–1920

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. (Nov.)