Aspects of muscular Christianity in Norway and the United States: a historiographical comparison

Abstract

An evaluation of Norwegian historians' scholarly works concluded that the local and national scopes with respect to impulses and processes were taken for granted. In this article this contention is questioned. A comparison is made between my doctoral thesis on Sport and Protestantism in Southern Norway and three American studies within the scholarly field of muscular Christianity restricted to three topics: theology, Sunday observance, and manliness and masculinity. First, such a comparison has never been done before, and second, it produces important results. Theology is addressed widely in all the studies and plays a significant part in the studies. Sunday observance in the two groups of studies is treated differently, due to the difference of the two contexts. Similarly, the topic of masculinity is a main theme in the U.S. studies, but is hardly mentioned in the Norwegian context.