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The Gridiron Gospel: Faith and College Football in Twentieth-Century America
From the game's early days, college football and a strain of muscular Christianity built a mutually reinforcing culture that taught lessons in America's 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 God's lessons for them. Wins and losses expressed the divine will while the game's popularity offered a potent way to evangelize non-believers. Hampton also investigates the sport's 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.
Book Details
- Publisher: University of Illinois Press
- Publish Date: Dec 23rd, 2025
- Pages: 224
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 9.11in - 6.11in - 0.81in - 0.90lb
- EAN: 9780252046872
- Categories: • Football• Christianity - History• College Sports
Praise for this book
"In The Gridiron Gospel, Hunter Hampton deftly explores how Christianity and college football became intertwined, rooted in the country's virtues and vices. Hampton tells a powerful story about how religious universities have used football not only as a bulwark against attacks from outsiders but also as a means of assimilation and advancing cultural aspirations."
--Johnny Smith, author of Jumpman: The Making and Meaning of Michael Jordan
--Johnny Smith, author of Jumpman: The Making and Meaning of Michael Jordan