Muscular Christianity

by admin

Muscular Christianity is a movement which became active in the Victorian era, and in some form, still continues to this day. The movement came about through a change in the way of life for both men and women. And it’s a curious thing to think, and look about us, to wonder if the shape of society is really that far from how things were then.

19th Century England had a crisis of masculinity. In a very short space of time, mechanisation, the gift of the Industrial Revolution, changed the way people lived and worked. The majority of society was involved in agricultural work, which was undoubtedly made simpler by the advent of more complex machinery and tools – industrial processing soon became the new common labour throughout the country.

This change in labour styles led to an alteration in physique – manning machinery was not half as taxing as the work people had been used to; coupled with poor working conditions in the factories, the working male population, step by step, became weaker and sicker than they had been before.

The ease of labour also made it viable for women to enter work. In most cases women could perform equal to or better than men. Man, in a sense, became redundant. With a tumultuous political situation, and the threat of war looking all the more real, the crisis became apparent – a generation earlier had been chiselled from stone, tough as nails…and man now was flabby, useless and impotent.

The solution to the problem came in a strange shape. An oval. Through public schools there was a huge push on sporting activities, chief amongst them, rugby. Rugby, it was argued was a way to make a boy into a man. Of course, it would alter the player physically, making them rugged and tough, but also it was an important moral tool. It was viewed so, as a rite of initiation, one which would teach young boys good moral and physical breeding, fairness in retaliation, and the importance of the team over the individual. In short, it would prepare them for war.

Muscular perfection became equal to moral perfection. Ancient Greece, where the gymasium was just as valid as the school in terms of educational importance, became a model for Victorian schools to aspire to. An unconscious criticism crept into the mindset of the people – to be fat, slovenly, lazy, meant to be corrupted and morally crippled. If a man could not master his own body, how could he succeed at anything else, let alone succeed on a battlefield.

Today, the picture is very much the same. Technology has brought us further along the road we started on in the 19th Century – working in artificial environments and typing away at screens (that do not even buzz anymore), even the mechanised factory work of 100 years ago seems to be far more rooted in masculinity than we can imagine. God forbid we could fathom what the time before that was like. Our bodies continue to become fat, flabby and impotent – and many complain that we have reached a new low in terms of morality. There is the constant threat of war looming on the horizon.

It could be argued, that while women are now firmly established in the workplace; both sexes could be made feel redundent by youth. When technology is changing so rapidly, experience doesn’t count for much. Skills that once required dedication and training, can now be readily accessed by anybody, and indeed, changes in education mean that children are leaving schools more fully equipped to immediately get by in their profession.

The harshest effects of this ongoing crisis can be seen in the stupendous increase of male suicide in recent years – it is food for thought, whether we are simply on an unstoppable downward roll towards redundancy – or whether in our time we will develop a new rite of initiation…a last desperate attempt to brake something which is beyond our control.

Thursday, October 16th, 2008 and is filed under Days gone by, Prayer & the Christian life, Thoughts & Questions.