He’s the best historian of Christianity and sports in the business and now he is taking his talents to Substack. Here is Baylor University historian Paul Putz‘s introduction to “The Spirit of the Game“:
Ten years ago I enrolled in a history PhD program and started on a journey to understand the ways Christianity and sports were intertwined in American culture.
It was sparked by my own story as a Nebraska-born, sports-obsessed pastor’s kid who participated with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and played basketball at a small Christian college. I knew that my identities as a Christian and an athlete had been central to who I was. I also knew that my involvement in sports had been more important in shaping me as a person than the classes I took or the subjects I studied in school.
Yet, as I began to dip my toes into the study of American religious history, I did not see many historians taking sports seriously as a site for Christian formation and a subject worthy of study.
So I decided I wanted to dive into that story. I wanted to explore the origins and development of the ideas I had been taught about what it means to be a Christian athlete. I wanted to write a cultural and intellectual history of the ways Christians had connected their faith with sports—and examine the ways those ideas were shaped by broader social and political trends in American life.
Ten years later, my book exploring those questions is complete and will be coming out with Oxford University Press (read more about the book here). But even though I’ve written a whole book on the subject, my questions and curiosity haven’t stopped. I continue to be endlessly fascinated by the significance we assign to sports, by the meanings we make from the games we play.
And that’s why I’ve started this newsletter.
A few things you can expect:
Read the rest here.
Also, did you know that Paul Putz is one of the few historians to have made multiple appearances on The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast? Check out these episodes:
Episode 69: “Be Like Mike.” We talk about the ESPN documentary “The Last Dance”
Episode 39: “Sportianity”
Also check out Nadya Williams’s interview with Paul at Current‘s “The Arena” blog. Paul talks about his new book “The Spirit of the Game: Christian Athletes, Big-Time Sports, and the Transformation of American Protestantism.”