Salvation on the Gridiron: Fundamentalism, Football, and Christian Manhood at Wheaton College, 1900–1949

Abstract

From the turn of the twentieth century through World War II, the preeminent fundamentalist institution of higher education was Wheaton College. From its campus in suburban Chicago, Wheaton shaped the faith and minds of America’s fundamentalist youth from across the country. The college’s conservative stance on Christian doctrine trickled into its approach to athletics. Wheaton football reflected the shifting goals of the college. Investigation of how the football team became a site for the school’s gendered religious instruction expands the chronological constraints historians placed on muscular Christianity. While it certainly began as a mainstream-Protestant Progressive-Era movement, limiting it as such fails to grasp the depth and breadth of its appeal to American Christians. Conservative Christians used muscular Christianity’s intersection of sport, faith, and masculinity to navigate from fundamentalism to a brand of evangelical faith that sought to influence and help shape mainstream culture. Win or lose, Wheaton’s administrators, fans, and athletes believed that the football field presented a new, manly face of Christianity to the world around them. This new Christian man worked to shape his personality, body, and faith to attract others to Christ.