muscular Christianity
noun [mass noun]
A Christian life of brave and cheerful physical activity, especially as popularly associated with the writings of Charles Kingsley and with boys' public schools of the Victorian British Empire.Then in England, since it does seem to be a legacy of the Victorian public school and its ethos of muscular Christianity (the Christianity has taken a very back seat), it alienates most of the population immediately....
- 108 years ago they started out in Athens on the coat-tails of muscular Christianity, activities for fine, fit young men.
- Rules were imposed through the playing of football of various kinds at the public schools, from which it was disseminated as part of an evangelical culture of muscular Christianity in a drive to reform the urban working class.
Derivatives
muscular Christian
- At home muscular Christians addressed themselves to preaching the Social Gospel and to reforms; and abroad, the goal was ‘The evangelization of the world in this generation’.
- Linking athletic activity to the Victorian Protestant middle-class values of discipline, self-reliance, and human perfectibility these ‘muscular Christians’ justified the explosion of sport around mid-century as a moral force.
- The impact of secular interests, rather than muscular Christians, in the development of sport is difficult to estimate, but should not be overlooked.
- willingly
- willingness
- Williston
- williwaw
- Willkie, Wendell
- will-o'-the-wisp
- willow
- willow grouse
- willowherb
- willow pattern
- willow ptarmigan
- willow tit
- willow tree
- willow warbler
- willowware
- willow wren
- willowy
- willpower
- Wills Moody, Helen
- Wills, William John
- will the real —— please stand up
- willy
- willy-nilly
- willy wagtail
- willy-willy