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.

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.