A New Goal

James C. Deming, retired associate professor of modern European church history, centered his research around the secularization of Europe and what happens when religion is demasculinized. “Traditionally, logic and rationality were tied to masculinity, and religion was marginalized to the private, non-rational sphere,” he says. “In other words, there was a growing belief that real men don’t do church.” A trained French historian, Deming’s research was largely focused on how the French Revolution, the Evangelical Revival, and how other historical contexts have impacted Christianity and church participation. But, his research focus landed on a unique topic: the church and soccer.

“I thought I’d do a lecture on sports and Christianity in Europe and, in the course of putting together the lecture, I realized there was more here than just one hour,” he says. Deming’s one-hour lecture, over time, turned into a semester-long course. And he quickly realized that there was space in academia for in-depth research on this topic. In fact, he’s currently working on a book-length history of soccer and religion in modern Europe.

In it, Deming focuses on England, where modern soccer began as an elite game for the country’s wealthy during the Victorian Era, before trickling down into the working classes and, by the turn of the century, permeating nearly every facet of life. “At the same time, Christianity was dealing with ‘the boy problem;’ in other words, once young men were confirmed, the church didn’t see them until they were married,” he says. “The dilemma was: how do you keep these boys in pews? Ultimately, the tactic was to use sports.”

As Deming explains, English churches sponsored and created soccer teams (about a third of the current English Premier League teams began as church clubs, he points out). But, unfortunately for them, the plan backfired: local football clubs became the center of people’s identities and began to fill the functions previously filled by the church. For example, Christianity traditionally organized the week and year; before long, the soccer season provided structure to the week and year much in the same way. “It made it easier to leave the church because these social functions were now being serviced by another institution,” Deming says. “Secularization was taking place not because of soccer, but because soccer made it easier in many ways.”

An elder in the Presbyterian church, Deming is welcoming this next chapter in his research. “I played soccer most of my life, but it wasn’t until I played on a recreational team with some Seminary students that I thought of it as a topic for academic study,” he says. “There is a tendency in academia to look at sports as a frivolous distraction. Yet, each week in England twice as many people sit in their ‘pew’ for a soccer match than go to church. It doesn’t seem like something to be ignored.”