Christian manliness

Christian manliness is a concept and movement that arose in Victorian England specifically rooting in Protestantism and characterised by the importance of the male body and physical health, family and romantic love, the notions of morality, theology and the love for nature and finally, the idea of patriotism with Jesus Christ as leader.[1]

Charles Kingsley, English clergyman and novelist who introduced the concept of Christian manliness.

The concept was first brought up in novels by the British Victorian writers Charles Kingsley and Thomas Hughes.[1]

Christian manliness is often confused with Muscular Christianity, however Muscular Christianity focuses mainly on the physical and athletic aspects of masculinity while Christian manliness encompasses moral manliness as well as physical manliness.[1]

Origins

The term "Christian manliness" originated in a popular religious work written in 1867 by Reverend S.S Pugh and was used frequently by Victorian preachers to link Christian virtue with other secular notions of moral and physical prowess.[1]

However, it was mostly introduced in Charles Kingsley and Thomas Hughes' novels like Alton Locke (1850) and Tom Brown’s School Days (1857). Kingsley was a Broad-Church priest of the Church of England, a social reformist and a novelist. He associated with Christian Socialism and was sympathetic to Charles Darwin’s concept of evolution. Thomas Hughes was a lawyer, politician and writer, most known for his novel Tom Brown’s School Days (1857). The novel takes place in Thomas Arnold’s Rugby School. These schools had for goal to produce the perfect Christian gentlemen. They focused on three ideas: religious and moral principles, gentlemanly conduct and intellectual ability.[2] These ideas were popular during the Victorian Era during which there was a strong religious drive for higher moral standards. They are the basis for the concept of Christian manliness.[1]

Characteristics

Male body and physical health

The veneration of the male body is an integral feature of the idea of Christian manliness mostly because of its parallelism with the body of the Christ.[3] This aspect is why it is often confused with Muscular Christianity which focuses on physical strength and athleticism specifically in sports. This idea is also very often linked to physical needs and physical drives.[1][4]

This notion of the male body and the role it plays in the idea of Christian manliness in Victorian times leads to the importance of physical health. For Kingsley, physical manliness also showed “condition of psychological, moral and spiritual health.”[1]

About this, Norman Vance writes "physical strength, courage and health are attractive, valuable and useful in themselves and in the eyes of God."[1]

Family and romantic love

Charles Kingsley believed that marriage and family are necessary for human and manly dignity.[1] In this aspect of the notion of Christian manliness, we can see its roots in Protestantism rather than Catholicism. This advocacy for marriage and family comes with the role of the patriarch, and a stress on “family relationships as the proper context of manly Christianity.”[1] This idea is very much linked to sexuality and physical drives as well that are encouraged rather than dismissed.[4] Kingsley valued physical relations as a capital part of manhood.[2]

About this Norman Vance writes "the emotional ties of family and of romantic and married love are natural and pleasing to responsibilities."[1] David Alderson also writes that “marriage is part of that true relation to the world which is indicative of manhood.”[3]

Morality, theology and love for nature

"The natural world was created for man to admire and to understand and subdue through sustained intellectual and scientific enquiry which would also disclose the pattern of the moral universe underlying the natural world."[1] By this, Norman Vance means that men should end up with a proper moral and spiritual understanding of the world God created.[1] Kingsley, having lived at the same time as Charles Darwin was familiar with the theory of evolution and was even sympathetic to it. The perfect "Christian Man" should admire the world created by God and study it intellectually and scientifically.[1]

Patriotism and service to Christ

"Man, endowed with strength and natural affections and the capacity to explore and work in the service of his brother man and of God, as patriot or social reformer or crusading doctor."[1]

In the 1890s, the conversation around degeneration, created a concern for the British Empire and the British people.[2] These concerns that the British Empire might be flagging, led to a deep surveillance of the nation’s fitness.[2] This aspect of Christian manliness groups both types identified by Vance, physical and moral manliness. This also encouraged tougher education similar to the Rugby School as well as the Boy Scouts program created by Baden Powell.[3][2][1]

Connection with the Age of Imperialism

There is little doubt, that the expression of Christian manliness put forth by writers and clergymen such as Kingsley and Hughes, laid the foundation for imperial expansion. The successes of the colonial empires, led to further embellishment, and the creation of movements such as the Boy Scouts.

In Kingsley’s novel Alton Locke (1850), the man “explores the nature of human society and the opportunities for manly Christian work within and for it”.[1] Kingsley vouched for the “adventurous openness” combining “the courage of the pilgrim or questing knight with the intelligence and alertness of the Baconian scientist”.[1]

During the days of the British Empire, notions of Christian manliness were infused into books for young men and stories for young boys. Elegant poems flowed forth from pens, and works were written, drawing upon relevant passages in the Bible.

21st Century Relevance

Within the emerging field of Masculinity studies, Christian manliness is being studied and understood. The study of the movement has also been of particular use to historians operating in the field of Victorian studies.

An internet culture, called the Christian Manosphere, with such groups as r/ChristianManliness, is starting to emerge, along with Bret McKay's Art of Manliness. The emerging culture is broadly critical of popular representations of masculinity, widespread internet pornography and post-modern gender relation ideology.

See also

References
  1. Vance 1985.
  2. Tosh, John (2016). Manliness and Masculinities in Nineteenth-century Britain: Essays on Gender, Family, and Empire (Women and men in history). London: Routledge.
  3. Alderson, David (1998). Mansex Fine: Religion, manliness and imperialism and nineteenth-century British culture. Manchester University Press.
  4. Wesseling 2010.

Bibliography
  • Alderson, David (1998). Mansex Fine: Religion, manliness and imperialism and nineteenth-century British culture. Manchester University Press. OCLC 40636431
  • Tosh, John (2016). Manliness and Masculinities in Nineteenth-century Britain: Essays on Gender, Family and Empire (Women and men in history). London: Routledge. ISBN 9781315838533
  • Vance, Norman (1985). The Sinews of the Spirit: The Ideal of Christian manliness in Victorian Literature and Religious Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OCLC 11550261 (all editions).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Wesseling, Lies (2010). "Unmanning Exoticism: The Breakdown of Christian manliness in the book of the Heathen". In Kohlke, Marie-Luise; Gutleben, Christian (eds.). Neo-Victorian tropes of taruma: The politics of bearing after-witness to nineteenth-century suffering. Neo-Victorian series. 1. Amsterdam: Rodopi. OCLC 694729215 (all editions).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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