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Displays of religious faith have become commonplace on America's baseball diamonds, basketball courts, football fields, and beyond. How did religion become so entwined with big-time sports in America?
The Spirit of the Game provides the answer to this question by offering a sweeping history of the Christian athlete movement in the United States--and its impact on American religion and the religion of sports.
List of contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Two National Religions
- 1. The Terrific Urge to Win
- 2. Unless the Playing Interferes with the Praying
- 3. Christian Democracy Is being Tackled for a Loss
- 4. To Be an Athlete is Different
- 5. Scoring Heavily in The South
- 6. Call it Sportianity
- 7. Doing Sports God's Way
- 8. Jesse Jackson has Reason to be Concerned
- Epilogue: Two Quarterbacks who Kneeled
- Notes
About the author
Paul Emory Putz is Assistant Director of Truett Seminary's Faith & Sports Institute at Baylor University. He specializes in the study of sports, Christianity, and American culture. His writing and research has been featured in Christianity Today, Slate, and Religion & Politics, and he has been interviewed as an expert on sports and Christianity by the New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Associated Press, National Public Radio, and more.
Summary
The star quarterback takes the field for the national championship game, "John 3:16" scrawled on his eye black. The NBA's Most Valuable Player leads his team in Bible study. The newly crowned World Series champion thanks God in a postgame interview while wearing a t-shirt that declares "Jesus Won." Such displays of faith have become commonplace on America's baseball diamonds, basketball courts, football fields, and beyond. How did religion become so entwined with big-time sports in America?
The Spirit of the Game provides the answer to this question by offering a sweeping history of the Christian athlete movement in the United States. Beginning in the 1920s, American Protestants sensed that sports were becoming a rival for Americans' devotion, so they sought to carve out a home for religion within big-time sports. Their success was remarkable. By the end of the twentieth century they had created a thriving religious subculture that provides spiritual support for coaches and athletes while also recruiting successful sports stars to promote an evangelical Protestant version of the Christian faith and the American story. The Spirit of the Game tells the story of this remarkable movement and its impact on American religion--and America's religion of sports.
Additional text
Putz weaves together an incredible range of characters and athletic endeavors to show that it is impossible to adequately tell the story of twentieth century American sports without paying serious attention to religion. He shows how the playing field, the basketball court, the racetrack--and every other athletic arena--were crucial battlegrounds in all the great cultural and theological battles of the century, from arguments over evangelism and anxieties about masculinity to white supremacy and the civil rights movement. A tour de force.
