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Muscular Christianity is a Christian commitment to piety and physical health, basing itself on the New Testament, which sanctions the concepts of character () and well-being (). The movement came into vogue during the Victorian era and stressed the need for energetic Christian evangelism in combination with an ideal of vigorous masculinity. Historically, it is most associated with the English writers Charles Kingsley and Thomas Hughes, and in Canada with Ralph Connor, though the name was bestowed by others. Kingsley and Hughes promoted physical strength and health as well as an active pursuit of Christian ideals in personal life and politics. Muscular Christianity has continued itself through organizations that combine physical and Christian spiritual development. It is influential within both Catholicism and Protestantism. ==Origins== Muscular Christianity can be traced back to Paul the Apostle, who used athletic metaphors to describe the challenges of a Christian life.〔Watson, Nick J. ''(Muscular Christianity in the modern age )''. Sport and spirituality (2007), pages 81–82. Athletic metaphors attributed to Paul: * (1 Corinthians 6:19 ) * (1 Corinthians 9:24–25 ) * (2 Timothy 4:7 )〕 However, the explicit advocacy of sport and exercise in Christianity did not appear until 1762, when Rousseau's ''Emile'' described physical education as important for the formation of moral character. The term "Muscular Christianity" became well known in a review by the barrister T. C. Sandars of Kingsley's novel ''Two Years Ago'' in the February 21, 1857 issue of the ''Saturday Review''.〔 (The term had appeared slightly earlier.)〔 The article is a review of a book of lectures by the theologian Alexandre Vinet.〕 Kingsley wrote a reply to this review in which he called the term "painful, if not offensive",〔Watson, Weir, and Friend, paragraph 6.〕 but he later used it favourably on occasion.〔 Quoted by 〕 Hughes used it in ''Tom Brown at Oxford''; saying that it was "a good thing to have muscled, strong and well-exercised bodies," he specified, "The least of the muscular Christians has hold of the old chivalrous and Christian belief, that a man's body is given him to be trained and brought into subjection, and then used for the protection of the weak, the advancement of all righteous causes, and the subduing of the earth which God has given to the children of men."〔Chapter 11, quoted by Ladd and Mathisen.〕 In addition to the beliefs stated above, muscular Christianity preached the spiritual value of sports, especially team sports. As Kingsley said, "games conduce, not merely to physical, but to moral health".〔 Quoted by Ladd and Mathisen).〕 An article on a popular nineteenth-century Briton summed it up thus: "John MacGregor is perhaps the finest specimen of muscular Christianity that this or any other age has produced. Three men seemed to have struggled within his breast—the devout Christian, the earnest philanthropist, the enthusiastic athlete." The idea was controversial. For one example, a reviewer mentioned "the ridicule which the 'earnest' and the 'muscular' men are doing their best to bring on all that is manly", though he still preferred "'earnestness' and 'muscular Christianity'" to eighteenth-century propriety. For another, a clergyman at Cambridge University horsewhipped a friend and fellow clergyman after hearing that he had said grace without mentioning Jesus because a Jew was present. A commentator said, "All this comes, we fear, of Muscular Christianity." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Muscular Christianity」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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