Historian Hunter M. Hampton of Stephen F. Austin State University presents as history of how, from the game's early days, college football and a strain of muscular Christianity built a mutually reinforcing culture that taught lessons in American's dominant religious, gendered, and racial belief systems. His book The Gridiron Gospel: Faith and College Football in Twentieth-Century America, examines how Christians of many denominations embraced the game to shape and reshape their faith to meet the changing social demands. Wins and losses expressed the divine will while the game's popularity offered a potent way to evangelize non-believers.
