The Spirit of the Game: American Christianity and Big-Time Sports

The Spirit of the Game: American Christianity and Big-Time Sports

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. " The Spirit of the Game will prompt you to rethink everything about sports and Christianity or encourage you to think about it for the first time. Filled with meticulous research, helpful frameworks, and riveting stories, this book will be a welcome read for both students of history and sports enthusiasts. It's game on for faith and sports!" -- Jemar Tisby, New York Times bestselling author of The Color of Compromise "Paul Putz demonstrates with fresh examples and penetrating prose the power of the ties between sports and religion. I firmly believe that The Spirit of the Game is the finest, most nuanced study of the subject. If it's not the final word on sport and religion, it sets the bar high." -- Randy Roberts, co-author of Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X "Does God want my team to win? Sadly not. Nevertheless, as Paul Putz demonstrates, the close relationship between religion and sports has shaped American life in profound ways. The Spirit of the Game is an engaging, insightful, and well-researched book that fans of sports, religion, and American culture will love." -- Matthew Avery Sutton, author of Double Crossed: The Missionaries Who Spied for the United States During the Second World War "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." -- Molly Worthen, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill " The Spirit of the Game is an important addition to the literature, which deepens scholarly understanding of the place of Protestant Christianity in the history of American sports." -- Gregg Twietmeyer, Christian Scholar's Review "In The Spirit of the Game , Putz illuminates the varied terrain of Christian engagement in sport, noting multiple theological traditions that propelled Christians' adaptation to the burgeoning national interest in sport." -- Sean Strehlow, Internationl Journal for Sports and Religion " The Spirit of the Game is a gem of a book-eloquently written, analytically balanced, and meticulously sourced. If you are looking for one book to explain the remarkable growth of the Christian "Sportianity" subculture, this is it." -- J.J. Carney, Living Church "Arguably, The Spirit of the Game is one of the most important publications within the fast-growing sport-faith literature during the past two decades." -- Nick J. Watson, Practical Theology "Paul Putz, in The Spirit of the Game : American Christianity and Big-Time Sports, wonderfully capturesthis tension (and its provisional resolutions) in the relationship between high-profile sports andProtestant Christianity in the United States with the first historical treatment of its kind." -- Jeffrey Scholes, Journal of Religious History " The Spirit of the Game is a valuable contribution to understanding American culture, offering a fresh perspective on the enduring power of both faith and athletics. Putz's accessible writing makes this a must-read for anyone interested in the cultural forces shaping our society." -- J. S. Sabol, Choice " Spirit of the Game offers much to students of twentieth-century Americansports and religious history. Its clear prose, topical relevancy, and well-constructed argument should make it a welcome additi