The Gridiron Gospel: Faith and College Football in Twentieth-Century America (Sport and Society)

ISBN: 0252088999

Author: Hampton, Hunter

Condition: New

From the games early days, college football and a strain of muscular Christianity built a mutually reinforcing culture that taught lessons in Americas dominant religious, gendered, and racial belief systems. Christians of many denominations embraced the game to shape and reshape their faith to meet the changing social demands of the twentieth century. Hunter M. Hampton analyzes the impact of football on Christian college campuses. Baptists and Latter-day Saints, Evangelicals and Roman Catholics sought spiritual and personal meaning on the gridiron. Fans watched the action to find Gods lessons for them. Wins and losses expressed the divine will while the games popularity offered a potent way to evangelize non-believers. Hampton also investigates the sports place in providing a stage for fostering Christian manhood, male community, gender dominance, and on-the-field displays of heroic savagery that served a higher purpose. Provocative and engaging, The Gridiron Gospel looks at the All-American fusion of physical and spiritual muscle.