“Savage Saints” historiographically reconfigures “Muscular Christianity.” It studies the close and positive relations of martial arts and combat sports to Muscular Christianity, and it argues the central importance of the concept of “human nature” to Muscular Christian theology and practice. Many have shown that the Muscular Christian movement took shape as a critical reaction against the perceived unhealthy and enfeebling ways of American culture. Decrying the physical stagnation of indoor life prompted by urban environs, the poor dietary customs of American foodways, and the general lack of play among both children and adults, the movement solidified as a large-scale Protestant “commitment to health and manliness.” My work refines this understanding of Muscular Christianity. Muscular Christianity was a response to various rumored cultural “crises”—particularly regarding health and manly vigor. More fundamentally, Muscular Christianity was (and continues to be) a rejoinder to America’s supposed divergence from Creation’s Purpose and Nature’s Laws. Muscular Christianity, then, was a natural theology that sought to correct unnatural modern ills by discerning and following a designed human plan. And the human design that Muscular Christians revealed was a violent one, wherein fighting was integral to “human nature”—an instinct placed within us that was both original and good. Fighting was uniquely foundational for Muscular Christians. Cast as a natural act prior to and outside of an unnatural American civilization, fighting occupied a privileged place in Muscular Christian theory and praxis. Opposite the perceived “overcivilizing” trends of the nation—i.e. the culturally inflicted threats to health and manly vigor—fighting showcased “human nature” and God’s Creation in its purest form. Languid, impotent, and chronically ill Americans, so it went, had neglected the value of rough-and-tumble action. Combat sports and martial arts gave wayward Americans a rare glimpse into what was and what should be. Finding the Divine in the bellicose, Muscular Christians looked to the fighting arts as a socially curative and individually salvific countermeasure to American “overcivilization.” Filling a historiographic void, then, “Savage Saints” accounts for the Muscular Christian attraction to and use of combat sports and martial arts in the 20th-century United States. Muscular Christians readily advocated and took up Japanese jiu-jitsu at the turn of the century, boxing during and immediately after the First World War, judo, karate, and other eastern martial arts in the second half of the century, and mixed martial arts (MMA) from the 1990s to the present day. If sports and a newly emboldened physical culture defined Muscular Christianity’s restorative and revisionist program, fighting was clearly an essential component. In the overall saga of Muscular Christianity and fighting, “human nature” was the primary protagonist and the praiseworthy hero. Pugnacious human nature was the God-given guide inside us. Physical aggression was the natural instinct created within. Employing the exemplary practices of martial arts and combat sports, Muscular Christians vested “bare life”—a life outside and before American civility—with a masculinized sense of primal bellicosity and theological meaning. As God created it—and as evident through fighting—human nature was virile and potentially savage. The Nature that American culture forgot was the Nature that Muscular Christianity sought to remember. Fisticuff knowledge was not lost to all, however. Muscular Christians often looked to culturally untainted youths, and more naturally attuned foreigners for ideas for living rightwise. Physically aggressive children and combat proficient eastern cultures were valued as those less subject to the detrimental effects of American overcivilization. Looking to children, eastern cultures, or within themselves, Muscular Christians fabricated a forceful instinct—the Word in the flesh. Americans, so it went, simply had to remember who they were—aggressive and physical—as they were made. By enabling special access to “human nature” through fighting, Muscular Christianity popularized masculinized notions of persons as originally, purposefully, and virtuously atavistic. With fighting as an instrumental practice, and with the quarrelsome Word as an inner guide, Muscular Christians constructed persons as godly barbaric selves, as savage saints. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2017. / May 1, 2017. / boxing, evangelicalism, gender, martial arts, masculinity, United States / Includes bibliographical references. / John Corrigan, Professor Directing Dissertation; Joshua Newman, University Representative; Amanda Porterfield, Committee Member; Michael McVicar, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_552332 |
| Contributors | Park, Adam (authoraut), Corrigan, John, 1952- (professor directing dissertation), Newman, Joshua I., 1976- (university representative), Porterfield, Amanda, 1947- (committee member), McVicar, Michael J. (committee member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Arts and Sciences (degree granting college), Department of Religion (degree granting departmentdgg) |
| Publisher | Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text, doctoral thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (267 pages), computer, application/pdf |
| Coverage | United States |
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