by Joshua R. Colson and Brandon K. Presley
In the preceding articles of this series, we explored the developing relationship between Christians and sports from the early church until the eve of the Reformation. While the New Testament is replete with sports metaphors and illustrations, the earliest Christians had an uneasy relationship with organized sports due to the idolatry and, often fatal, violence inherent in the Roman games. As Christianity was legalized and then recognized as the state religion of the Roman Empire, sports became less violent and more humane, thus opening the door for Christian involvement. Yet the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 spelled the end of their culture’s organized sports. Medieval Europe witnessed the rise of ballgames for the peasant classes and jousting tournaments for the upper classes, the latter of which were roundly condemned by the Roman Catholic Church for their disregard for human life.
With respect to their views of sports, the common thread connecting the earliest Christians and their medieval counterparts was their respect for human life as sacred. Thus, the earliest Christians abhorred the violence of the Roman games, and most medieval Christians abhorred the violence of jousting. Even so, medieval theologians began to push the relationship between Christians and sports in a positive direction, arguing they could promote human flourishing by providing a space for recreational and honing skills. As we turn to the Reformation and early modern eras in this article, we shall see that many Christians continued pushing for a positive view of sports even while others raised objections on new grounds.
Luther and Calvin
While Martin Luther found much in the medieval scholastics with which to disagree, he nonetheless shared their general view of nonviolent sport as a good thing. Indeed, the man we now know as the father of the Protestant Reformation is also a father of sorts to the modern-day sport of bowling, often “credited with settling on nine as the ideal number of pins.”[1] William J. Baker explains that Luther believed “a sound mind and soul functioned best in a sound body” and “urged his followers to pursue ‘honorable and useful modes of exercise’ such as dancing, the ‘knightly sports’ of fencing and archery, and the more physically demanding exercises of wrestling and gymnastics.”[2] Thus, like some of his medieval forebears, Luther viewed a Christian participation in sporting events as being positive.
John Calvin, the other towering figure of the Reformation, also believed that nonviolent sport has value. As Baker puts it, Calvin “provided a weekly period of youthful recreation [at his academy in Geneva], but ‘in such a way that all silly sports be avoided.’” Though Calvin neglected to define what he meant by “‘silly sports,’” he “set an example in discrimination. According to contemporaries, he occasionally played at bowls and quoits.”[3] However, some of those closely adhering to Calvin’s theology would become the most vocal critics of Christian participation in sport in all of church history, especially when those sports took place on the Lord’s Day. For instance, Scottish Presbyterians, says Baker, “regularly railed against golfers who illegally appeared on the links during the ‘time of preaching.’”[4] Hence, like Luther, Calvin adopted a healthy respect for sport, but some of his followers were critical of participation of sports on the Lord’s Day.
The English Puritans
However, the English Puritans were the group that raised the most ardent and most famous objections to Christian participation in sporting events. Baker identifies four major reasons that the Puritans raised against Christian participation in certain sporting events including their anti-Roman Catholicism, stringent morality, strong work ethic, and high view of the Christian Sabbath.[5] We will discuss each of these in turn below.
The Puritan movement began shortly after Henry VIII broke with Rome and Parliament voted to form the Anglican Church. Puritans sought to “purify” the Anglican Church of Roman Catholic rituals and practices that had persisted in Anglican worship and English culture, including the church calendar. As it happens, sports were often played in conjunction with the holidays of that calendar, causing Puritans to view such games with a skeptical eye.[6] Even if sporting events themselves were nonviolent, explains Baker, “their ancient connection with pagan and catholic festivities, smacking of popery and priestcraft, made them deplorable to the Puritans.”[7] If church and society were to be purified of Rome’s influence, many Puritans thought that games needed to be forsaken along with the church calendar.
Beyond their penchant for anti-Romanism, Puritans held exacting standards of ethics and morality. In sixteenth-century Britain, competitive sport was closely associated with gambling, which Puritans viewed as a vice. For instance, during this time, a premodern version of tennis was commonly played in Britain and players often gambled by placing coins beside the poles (or stakes) of the match, leading to the term “stake money.” One Puritan, in 1579, stated, “Honest recreations are meet for honest men, but carding and tennis players are not honest recreations.”[8] While Puritans may not have viewed sports as sinful in se, they did understand them to be closely associated with practices that were sinful, and thus off limits to believers.
While the following concern may seem odd to us, the Puritans contended that sport contributed to idleness. For Americans today, sport is often encouraged for youths because it is believed to offer structure and discipline. A quick internet search leads to a myriad of articles describing the benefits of sports for both children and adults by ways of fostering discipline and attention to detail.[9] For the Puritans, however, sports were often seen as little more than a waste of time and a distraction from God’s work.[10] The Puritan William Perkins, for instance, even went so far as to say that those who spend their time “‘eating, drinking, sleeping, and sporting’ live by no calling.”[11] The Puritans saw time as too precious and work as too important to waste away the days playing games.
Paramount to other reasons, Puritans saw participation in these activities on Sunday to be especially detrimental because Sunday was to be wholly devoted to contemplation of the Divine. Any distraction from this telos on Sunday was, for the Puritans, contra Christianity.[12] The Puritan view of the Sabbath and recreational activities on the Sabbath led to direct disagreement with the English crown on more than one occasion, eventually prompting James I’s declaration on sports.
Queen Elizabeth I and King James I
While the Puritans were skeptical of the good of sport, the English crown was not. In the late sixteenth century, as the Puritan movement grew in England, Puritans and some Anglicans took steps to outlaw recreational and sporting activities on Sundays. In 1585, when Puritans had strong parliamentary representation, they passed a law banning sporting activities (such as hunting and bear baiting) following Sunday services. Elizabeth I promptly vetoed this bill because she believed people should be able to enjoy their Sunday afternoons however they saw fit.[13] But Queen Elizabeth was not the only monarch to take such actions in favor of sport and recreation.
Her successor, James I, expanded on her opposition to limiting sports on Sundays. In 1618, while visiting the county of Lancashire in England, he was provided a petition from the local commoners complaining that local Puritan ministers and magistrates were not allowing recreational activities on Sundays following services. Such prohibitions angered James, resulting in a royal proclamation known as the Declaration of Lawful Sports.[14] Within this proclamation, James contended that all forms of “lawful recreation” must be permitted after Sunday services.
James argued that prohibitions of such activities could result in two evils. First, by barring sport and recreation, priests would “breed a great discontentment in our people’s heart.” By not allowing people to participate in honest recreation after “Divine Services,” the British people would be “vexed” and believe that all “honest mirth and recreation” would be intolerable to the Christian faith. Second, if people are barred from enjoying games after Sunday services, then when can they enjoy recreation? As James noted, people worked six days a week and had only one day of rest and recreation. Furthermore, if people were barred from participating in “honest mirth and recreation,” they would be more likely to participate in activities that are not wholesome or honest, such as simply being idle or becoming drunkards. James also observed that if recreational activities were forbidden after Sunday services and people could exercise their bodies, they would not be in shape physically, should a war arise and they be called on to serve the crown and defend the country.[15]
Significantly, James did not want people participating in sporting events until after they had participated in Sunday church services. He still viewed the Lord’s Day as a day of rest and worship. He simply felt that sports, when played appropriately, might fit into those restful and worshipful practices of the Christian Sabbath.
Conclusion
From the early church through the medieval period, Christian perspectives on participation in sports were marked by a desire to avoid idolatry, protect human life, and promote human flourishing. These ‘through-lines’ can be traced through the Reformation era and beyond. As we have seen, many Christians like Luther, Calvin, and King James I believed that nonviolent sports should be lawful because they promote human flourishing. Others, like the Puritans, cautioned that even nonviolent sports could become idolatrous and inhibit human flourishing by leading into all sorts of vices and idleness. The tension between these two poles of Protestant thought has persisted to the present day and will be the subject of our next and final article of this series.
About the Authors:
Joshua R. Colson is a native of Southern Illinois where he currently resides with his wife, Hannah. Joshua serves as the pastor of Angelville Community Church and as an adjunct instructor at Welch College. He holds two degrees from Welch College (B.S., Biblical Studies and General Christian Ministry; M.A., Theology and Ministry) and one from Vanderbilt University (M.T.S.). His academic interests include systematic theology, church history, and politics. In his spare time, Joshua can be found on a golf course, in a tree stand, or taking in a St. Louis Cardinals ballgame.
Brandon K. Presley and his wife, Dakota, serve as the resident directors for the men’s dorm at Welch College. They are members at Good Springs Free Will Baptist Church in Pleasant View, TN. He holds an M.A. in Theology and Ministry from Welch College and an M.A. in History from Arizona State University. He and his wife are the proud parents to their one-year-old daughter, Mary Kathryn. Brandon enjoys teaching history, reading literature, and engaging with American politics.
[1] “History of Bowling,” United States Bowling Congress, accessed February 7, 2025, https://bowl.com/about-us/history-of-bowling. Cf. William J. Baker, Sports in the Western World (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1982), 73.
[2] Baker, Sport in the Western World, 73.
[3] Baker, Sport in the Western World, 74.
[4] Baker, Sport in the Western World, 67.
[5] Baker, Sport in the Western World, 74–78.
[6] Patrick Kelly, Catholic Perspectives on Sports: From Medieval to Modern Times (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2012), 14–16.
[7] Baker, Sport in the Western World, 77.
[8] Baker, Sport in the Western World, 75–76.
[9] E.g., “Life Lessons from Sports,” KU Online Sport Management, accessed February 11, 2025, https://onlinesportmanagement.ku.edu/community/life-lessons-from-sports.
[10] Baker, Sport in the Western World, 77.
[11] William Perkins, as quoted by Christopher Hill, “Puritans and the Poor,” Past & Present, no. 2 (1952): 45. http://www.jstor.org/stable/650123.
[12] Baker, Sport in the Western World, 77.
[13] Paul Lim, “The Puritans Burn the Book of Sports,” Religion and Sports (class lecture, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, Spring 2022).
[14] Baker, Sport in the Western World, 79.
[15] James I, “The King’s Majesty’s Declaration to His Subjects Concerning Lawful Sports to Be Used,” in Documents Illustrative of English Church History, ed. Henry Gee and William John Hardy (New York: Macmillan, 1896), 528–32.
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