Measurement of muscular Christian ideals in sport: Validation of the Contemporary Muscular Christian Instrument

Abstract

Muscular Christianity’s influential role in establishing Western sport values and ideals during the 19th century has long been acknowledged by sport scholars. Yet these relatively dated sets of physical moral constructs are rarely understood as having lasting relevance, or as forming part of the contemporary attraction to sport, and thus have been missing in critical sociological analyses of sport. While shown to be valid and reliable, initial results from developing the Contemporary Muscular Christian Instrument (CMCI) also suggested that modifications to item wording could enhance readability and capture all six theorized factors of muscular Christianity, supported by literature. The current scale development study is aimed to strengthen the instrument and verify its structural validity and internal consistency among a more diverse sample population: spectators at the 2014 Tour de France. Following data collection and cleaning of data, a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted, and internal consistencies were examined. Results indicate strong support for the structural validity of the revised 20-item, 6-factor CMCI, showing strong factor loadings across all items and acceptable internal consistencies for all six-theorized factors. Findings among this international sample of sport spectators suggest that historic muscular Christian themes used to develop this instrument continue to shape and influence perceptions of what is deemed good, right, and valuable in sport. Our findings point to the importance of understanding these six moral constructs as contemporary discussions on the social value and importance of such activities evolve. The revised CMCI provides sociologists of sport a tool by which to examine theorized muscular Christian constructs, promoting certain values about sport and its social “good,” and allows for further investigation into sports’ social significance, meanings, and values within related topics. This paper details the improvements to the survey instrument, the CFA results, and recommendations for future application and research using the survey instrument.

Keywords

confirmatory factor analysis Contemporary Muscular Christianity Instrument morality religion scale development values

Introduction

Sport scholars have long discussed the importance and meaning of muscular Christianity as a social, political, and physical movement as it was influential in shaping modern sport, physical activity, and physical educational ideals (Ladd and Mathisen, 1999; MacAloon, 2006; Parker and Watson, 2017; Putney, 2001). Muscular Christian ideals were widely prevalent in both the United Kingdom and the United States during the mid-19th through early 20th centuries. Its Christian values and mores were coupled with Victorian physical and sport ideals, as muscular Christians claimed sport and exercise to be valuable social activities, benefiting those who participated and holistically developing individuals both physically and spiritually. The movement was made popular through the writings of Christian scholars such as Thomas Hughes and Charles Kingsley, and its influences can be found in organizations such as the Young Men’s Christian Association, founded by George Williams, and the modern Olympic movement, organized by Baron Pierre de Coubertin in the 1890s, as both men ascribed to muscular Christian ideology (Watson et al., 2005). However, there remains little empirical evidence of the lasting impacts of muscular Christianity and how its ideals and mores continue to influence contemporary understandings, emphasis, and experiences of sport and physical culture, even as sport scholars continue discussions of its historic and modern impacts (see Holden, 2018: 126; Turpin, 2016: 120–122).

Our research hypothesizes that muscular Christianity hegemonically continues to shape what is deemed to be good, right, and valuable in contemporary sport, recreation, and physical activity even as discussions evolve about the social value and importance of such activities. For example, the increased promotion and occurrences (King, 2006; LeClair, 2014) of “physical philanthropy” (Meyer and Umstattd Meyer, 2017: 51), sporting and physical activity events through which people train and use their bodies to promote health and social causes, reflect muscular Christian ideals. The historic muscular Christian tenets “protect” and “cause” were observed in an analysis of LIVESTRONG (a for-cause cancer-related organization) survey data set, related to participant perceptions toward their physical body and in what “good” ways their bodies could be used. Evidence from this sample suggested these muscular Christian themes persisted, while also highlighting the tendency of participants to be predominantly white, male, and of higher socioeconomic status, reflecting similar sociodemographic characteristics of original muscular Christian education (Meyer and Umstattd Meyer, 2017: 57). Additionally, moral conversations about athletes using their physical bodies to kneel or stand in protest on sidelines points to lasting vestiges of historic muscular Christian ideals in conversations about what athletic bodies should or should not do (Styles, 2017). While examples such as these do not explicitly avow muscular Christian ideals, they do reflect the hegemonic authority of muscular Christian ideology in how we think about and engage with modern sport culture.

Sport is one of humanities most ubiquitous cultural activities; socially and culturally unique and universal in its practice and appeal. However, few understand how contemporary global sports’ values and ideals perpetuate historic muscular Christian justifications of its social benefits and notions that sport is a “good” and “necessary” social activity, developing well-rounded individuals. The aims of this study were to test whether revisions made to the original Contemporary Muscular Christian Instrument (CMCI) adequately measured all six theorized and historically supported muscular Christian tenets, confirm the structural validity of the revised CMCI, and examine its validity among a broader sample of international sport spectators. In developing this scale, we hypothesized historic muscular Christian ideals and values hegemonically influence values and assumptions across the modern sport landscape, informing conversations and critiques of sport, and we set out to develop a tool that allowed sport scholars to measure such ideals. Regardless of one’s critical position of contemporary sport, its value and social role, the muscular Christian moralistic justifications for sport as a desirable and good social activity, through which human excellence can be demonstrated, persist in modern sport. These revisions were made to provide social sport scholars a valid and reliable instrument to more easily and systematically collect data, evaluate, describe, and understand how individuals, and collections of peoples, engage with such sport ideals, and express relationships among sport, the physical body, and the valuable role of each as social “goods.” Our efforts here detail the methods and outcomes of developing such an instrument that measures and examines theorized historic muscular Christian tenets that continue to exert hegemonic influence on modern sport culture.

Results from the original confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the CMCI demonstrated the persistence of historic muscular Christian tenets among college-aged students at two elite sporting universities in the United States (Meyer et al., 2017). The original CMCI measured dimensions of muscular Christianity, gleaning information about how college students understood sport, their physical bodies, and the value these two perceptions had in their lives. The constructs measured emerged from scholarly agreement on six core tenets of muscular Christianity (see: Richards, 1999; Solc, 2009: 31; Watson et al., 2005: 3), found in the writing of Thomas Hughes (1861: 83), which are that (1) A man’s body is given to him (by God), (2) to be trained, (3) and brought into subjection, (4) and then used for the protection of the weak, (5) for the advancement of all righteous causes, and (6) for the subduing of the earth which God has given to the children of men (see Table 1 for muscular Christian tenet and related CMCI factors). These core tenets relate to the views muscular Christians believed about their bodies, what the purpose of an athletic body is, and the “good” and “right” purpose of one’s God-given body in the world (Hoven, 2016).

Table 1.

Muscular Christian Tenets and related CMCI factors.

Muscular Christian Tenet Hughes (1861)	Factor
A man’s body is given to him (by God)	Create
To be trained	Exercise
And brought into subjection	Control
Used for the protection of the weak	Protect
For the advancement of all righteous causes	Cause
For subduing the earth which God has given to the children of men	Influence

CMCI: Contemporary Muscular Christian Instrument.

Based on the CFA results, the original CMCI effectively measured five of the six theorized tenets of muscular Christianity among the sample of college-aged students. While the initial instrument and study demonstrated a valid and reliable scale, it was agreed by the researchers that with refinement, a reexamination of the original scale items and CFA results, and distribution among a more diverse sample would better ensure that all six historically supported muscular Christian tenets were represented in the scale. This process involved assessing and revising original item wording to confirm theoretical fit and establish clear factor structure (acceptable factor loadings without cross loading on multiple factors) (Smithson, 2003: 11). To address this, we sought to keep original items with acceptable validity and reliability in the revised instrument, while refining language and wording of items with low factor loadings or cross loadings, as well as organize scale questions to enhance the survey’s readability. This paper details how these modifications to the original instrument enhanced its usefulness and validity, confirmed that original scale items with strong factor loadings remain strong, and exposed the muscular Christian tenet cause as a valid and independent sixth factor, which was not captured in the original CMCI. We also discuss how this instrument can be useful in evaluating such themes among a diverse sample of international adult sport spectators, further supporting the utility of the instrument for demonstrating and supporting arguments of muscular Christianity’s hegemonic influence on modern sport. Our conclusions highlight the revised CMCI’s usefulness for social sport scholarship and adds another valid and reliable measurement instrument to help further our understanding of hegemonic social constructs and how these ideals shape our conversations and understandings of sport.

Literature review

Muscular Christianity

Sport scholarship is replete with evidence of the significant influence muscular Christianity had in the development of modern sport (MacAloon, 2013; Meyer, 2012; Putney, 2001; Watson et al., 2005). As a social theology, muscular Christianity set forth notions that sport and physical activity could make the “bad of society good” (Ladd and Mathisen, 1999: 13), “prove that Jesus was a tough guy” (MacAloon, 2006: 689), and that moral lessons learned through sport could be transferred to life beyond the playing fields (Mangan, 1981). Muscular Christianity was part of the social, political, and theological revisions occurring in Victorian Britain; and cultural ideals related to sport, health, and the body, were woven into idealistic Christian notions of manliness, empire, and social responsibility. Proponents and authors of muscular Christianity argued sport and physical activity were socially and morally desirable activities necessary for the full development of young men and maintenance of the British Empire (Tozer, 2015). As Bennett (2016: 257) points out, the muscular Christian ethos espoused by “the English public-school tradition produced ‘a manly straightforward character’, lads prepared to bear ‘a man’s part in subduing the earth, ruling its wild folk, and building up the Empire’.”

Muscular Christians promoted sport and physical activity as “good” (Kidd, 2013: 405), “on the moral grounds that games were a preparation for the battle of life and that they trained moral qualities, mainly respect for others, patient endurance, unflagging courage, self-reliance, self-control, vigor, and decision of character” (Freeman, 1997: 127). The writings of Thomas Hughes, Charles Kingsley, and many others, focused on “the prevalence of weak and effeminate men in Victorian society… and merged traditional Anglicanism with a form of manliness that favored physical and moral strength, courage, and aggression…” (Farooq and Parker, 2009: 280). Contemporary theorists interested in sport have also detailed muscular Christianity’s pivotal role in shaping other cultural themes, perceptions, and ideals of modern sport (Hübner, 2015; Kidd, 2013; Miracle and Rees, 1994; Parker and Weir, 2012).

Although the Meyer et al. (2017) article fleshed out Hughes’ (1861) six core tenets of muscular Christianity in greater detail (tenets also identified by other scholars as core ideals of muscular Christianity (see Watson, 2007: 82)), we wish to briefly provide readers of this article an overview. The first three tenets of muscular Christianity relate to notions of the physical body; where it comes from, and how it should be treated. The second three tenets point to how muscular Christians should use their physical bodies in the world, to be in accordance with a divinely mandated life purpose.

Hughes’ first tenet suggests that a man’s body is given to him by God. The notion of a given body underscores the Judeo-Christian nature of the movement as Adam’s body was given by God, and thus his descendants’ bodies were as well. The second tenet is that the God-given body is to be trained, which reflects traditional ascetical practices common to religious practices in general and in sport ideals; muscular Christians deem sport and physical activity to be activities that inherently condition, shape, and train bodies for physical competition, but also, in their view, as a means for spiritual discipline. The third tenet of Hughes’ muscular Christian characterization is the result of a trained God-given body which has been brought into subjection. (The subjection of the body is commonly found in Victorian literature, as it was a popular social issue of the time (see Adams, 2011: 164) and continues to be emphasized through modern sport practices.)

Hughes’ fourth tenet, protection of the weak, tells muscular Christians what they are to do with their God-given, trained, and subjected body. This tenet, as well as the final two, reflect the Christian social gospel movement of the period, which muscular Christians ascribed to, and provided actions that Christians should be doing with their bodies to fulfill their divine purpose on Earth. We see these actions reflected in numerous pro-social outreach programs of contemporary professional athletes and sport leagues. The fifth tenet, advancing all righteous causes, additionally defines how muscular Christians are to use their strong well-exercised bodies for Christianly purposes. (As a modern example, Meyer (2012) has written on the ways American cyclist Lance Armstrong’s media portrayal embodies this muscular Christian ideal through his cancer-related, for-cause organization, prior to his admittance of using performance-enhancing substances.) The sixth muscular Christian tenet, the subduing of the earth which has been given to the children of men, again reflects the centrality of the Judeo-Christian God for muscular Christians, as well as recognition of a God-created world that is central to daily life activities, including sport and physical activity.

These six-historical muscular Christian tenets from Hughes (1861) guided the development and refinement of this scale.

Scale development and refinement

Quantitative analysis was used to establish evidence of the reliability and validity of the revised CMCI scale. This effort examined and measured muscular Christian tenets in a contemporary sport setting, as we understand “theory” to play “a vital role in the development of measurement scales, which,” as DeVellis (2003: 13) states, “are collections of items that reveal the level of an underlying theoretical variable.”.

Religion and sport scholars have called for “empirical research” to bolster and inform theoretical conversations over the past several decades (see Watson and Parker, 2013: 41). Social sport scholars have also discussed “the lack of real evidence for the alleged ability of sport to solve a number of society’s ills” (Grix, 2014: 200). “The idea that theories ought to be testable” (Grix, 2014: 200) drove our research efforts to move beyond theoretical and historical examinations of muscular Christianity’s claim of sports’ ability to fix social problems. To date, the CMCI is the first instrument of its kind (to our knowledge) to use close-ended survey methodology to examine historical muscular Christian tenets, hypothesized to persist in contemporary sport, and thus examine how individuals might make meaning from their involvement and relationship with sport. One strength of developing an instrument that incorporates this type of methodology into the sport sociology field, is to more broadly examine themes in present cultures and among larger samples, or as Smithson (2003: 11) states, “larger sample sizes” will “yield narrower intervals.” A noted limitation of the original CMCI was that its validation was derived from a sample of American college students and needed to be further examined and cross-validated in other broader and more diverse samples (Meyer et al., 2017: 643). Validation independent of original scale development that is, a separate validation study among a different population, improves the “validity” of a measurement instrument and leads to proceeding with greater confidence in the instruments’ structural integrity (Smithson, 2003).

Kirk and Miller (1986: 42), use the term “diachronic reliability,” referring “to the stability of an observation through time.” As they claim, diachronic reliability is “only appropriate” if the units being studied “remain unchanged in a changing world” (42). DeVellis (2003: 133) adds that “if data from different samples of individuals on different occasions produce essentially identical factor analytic results… the likelihood of those results being a recurring quirk is quite small,” and “rediscovering a prior factor structure…as may happen with repeated exploratory analyses, can be very persuasive.” The implementation of our improved instrument, among a wholly different demographic and more culturally diverse sample population, enhances the credibility of its validity and strongly suggests the instrument measures the theoretical constructs it was designed to measure (Golafshani, 2003; Morse et al., 2002).

Our efforts here also sought to capture all six independent tenets of muscular Christianity in the survey instrument. To do this, our analysis of the data examined if the muscular Christian factors hypothesized in the scale were in fact different factors, also known as discriminant validity. Henseler et al. (2015: 116) state that “discriminant validity ensures that a construct measure is empirically unique and represents phenomena of interest that other measures in a structural equation model do not capture.” Without establishing discriminant validity, researchers may not be able to determine if their “constructs [have] an influence on the variation of more than just the observed variables to which they are theoretically related,” resulting in uncertainty about confirming whether their “hypothesized structural paths are real or whether they are a result of statistical discrepancies” (Farrell, 2010: 324). These efforts allowed us to examine and confirm that all six of the hypothesized CMCI factors, including the sixth muscular Christian tenet, “cause,” were independently represented in our sample and model.

Methods

Instrumentation

The original CMCI (Meyer et al., 2017) was established as a valid quantitative measure to investigate muscular Christian values among two independent samples of college-aged students at two American universities; allowing for initial assessments of how these ideals influence notions of sport, the body, physical activity, and other social indices (age, race/ethnicity, gender, grade point average, etc.). Content face validity had been established by basing item creation from the muscular Christianity literature and conversations with experts in the field. DeVellis (2003) additionally suggests the survey instrument be analyzed by an expert panel prior to distribution, which was conducted in our efforts to evaluate and refine original scale items. In this current study, wording of several of the 19 originally proposed items used to develop the original CMCI were modified to ensure items from all six-theorized muscular Christian tenets were represented. This resulted in the revised CMCI including 21 items used for this study. Following the original CMCI validation publication, the researchers sought to enhance the scale’s readability and reexamine full theoretical representation of muscular Christianity within the items. Wording of items that did not adequately measure one of the tenets of muscular Christianity (as assessed by several indicators, such as low factor loading levels and/or cross loadings on more than one dimension) were the focus of this revision effort and assessment.

The revised 21-item survey included items representing the five muscular Christian tenets identified by the original sample (Meyer et al., 2017), and items representative of the sixth historically and theoretically supported muscular Christian theme “cause,” that were not captured independently by the original CMCI. The six muscular Christian tenets hypothesized to be measured in the present study were Protect, Control, Create, Influence, Exercise, and Cause (see Table 1). In these revised items, the tenets “Protect,” “Influence,” and “Cause” were each measured by four items and “Control,” “Create,” and “Exercise” were each measured by three items (see Table 2). A 5-point rating scale was assigned to each item, with response options ranging from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (5).

Table 2.

CFA results and descriptive statistics of the revised CMCI.

Item (Factor)	Factor Loading	SE	Mean	SD	Cronbach’s alpha
Control			4.34	0.67	0.71
My body is mine (it belongs to me)	0.64	0.038	4.52	0.78
What I do with my body is up to me	0.81	.0044	4.34	0.87
I am in control of my own body	0.53	0.042	4.15	0.87
Create			2.64	1.34	0.96
I believe God has given me my body to work in this world	1.00	.0053	2.65	1.35
We live in a God-created world that requires us to work hard	0.91	.0056	2.63	1.39
My body is exactly how it was created to be	—	—	—	—
Exercise			4.36	0.59	0.81
It is good to have a well-exercised body	0.72	0.027	4.57	.065
How I train my body determines how I feel	0.72	0.033	4.12	0.78
It is good to train my body	0.84	0.027	4.40	0.66
Influence			3.13	0.89	0.93
I use my body to control the environment	0.86	0.035	3.10	0.99
I want to use my body to control the environment	0.93	0.034	3.15	0.98
I can use my body to control the environment	0.88	0.035	3.16	0.99
I should use my athletic body (ability) to control the environment	0.85	0.035	3.12	0.94
Protect			3.44	0.80	0.90
I protect others weaker than I am using my body	0.75	0.035	3.39	0.88
I want to use my body to protect those weaker than me	0.84	0.034	3.42	0.92
I can use my strength to protect other who are not as strong	0.88	0.033	3.58	0.93
I should use my physical strength to protect others	0.83	0.036	3.37	0.96
Cause			3.31	0.78	0.91
I use my body and physical strength to help others and/or advance good causes	0.83	0.034	3.51	0.92
I want to use my body and physical strength to help others and/or advance good causes	0.89	0.031	3.62	0.88
I can use my body and physical strength to help others and/or advance good causes	0.84	0.031	3.69	0.84
I should use my body and physical strength to help others and/or advance good causes	0.83	0.032	3.6	0.87

χ ² _{df =154} = 449.26, RMSEA = 0.05, NNFI = 0.95, CFI = 0.96; NFI = 0.94; GFI = 0.92.

CFA: confirmatory factor analysis; CFI: comparative fit index; CMCI: Contemporary Muscular Christian Instrument; GFI: goodness-of-fit index; NFI: normed fit index; NNFI: non-normed fit index; SD: standard deviation; SE: standard error; RMSEA: root-mean-square error of approximation.

Eleven of the items (3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 18, 20, and 21) were unchanged from the original CMCI scale. Items 3 and 5 represented “control”; 4 and 7 represented “exercise”; 8, 9, 10, and 11 represented “protect”; 18 represented “influence”; 20 and 21 represented “create”. Wording of seven items were modified to enhance readability, understanding, and clarity, and three new items were added to ensure that all six muscular Christian theorized tenets were represented clearly in the instrument. Additions and changes made to items reflected our desire for greater organization in the revised survey and increase distinction between tenet items for enhanced measurement of the six-core muscular Christian tenets. An example of wording changes to enhance understanding, clarity, and readability can be seen in items 1 and 2. Originally, item 1 read “My body is mine.” The revised item included a qualifying statement “My body is mine (my body belongs to me)” to emphasize the distinction for participants between identifying their body as only theirs or that it belongs to God. Muscular Christians believed that the body was given by God, and by making this item more declarative, we aimed to enhance specificity so that participants could reply more precisely to this muscular Christian concept. Item 2 was reworded from the original CMCI of “My body is exactly how I was created” to “My body is exactly how it was created to be,” again enhancing clarity of this item by asking respondents how they understand her/his body (it) rather than one’s person (I).

In preparing the revised CMCI for distribution in a broader and more diverse sample, it was deemed helpful for all survey items to have as consistent a rhythm as possible. To this end, revised survey items, representing three muscular Christian tenents, were reworded and organized more specifically to follow a “do,” “want,” “can,” and “should” order. In the original CMCI, only the “protect” construct used this format. To improve consistency and interpretation across the revised items, this metre was intentionally integrated for the “protect,” “influence,” and “cause” construct items. We found the Thurstone scaling method to be helpful for generating “items that were differently responsive to specific levels of the attribute in question” (DeVellis, 2003: 71). For example, items 8–11 of the revised CMCI read: “I protect others weaker than I am using my body,” “I want to use my body to protect those weaker than me,” “I can use my strength to protect others who are not as strong,” and “I should use my physical strength to protect others” (emphasis not in survey). The “do,” “want,” “can,” “should” order of these items reflect the rhythmic organizational changes made to the survey, while also capturing different value meanings through the slight variations in word choice. As reliability “refers to the degree of variation in response in repeated trials” (Blair et al., 2014: 257), we wanted to ensure that revised items still reflected the original items’ aims, as they were shown to be valid and reliable. We observed that the original “protect” items were worded in this manner and felt it helpful to use this structure in the revised scale to provide more consistency across items, particularly with the “influence” and “cause” items, since they measured action aspects of muscular Christianity: what one is to do with their God-given, trained, and subjected body. In rewording “influence” and “cause” items and repeating a pattern that worked in the original instrument with “protect” items, we maintained consistency between instrument iterations and can also now detect nuance of items under the same tenet, while also comparing items across similar “action” themes of muscular Christianity.

Procedures

All data collection occurred in north central England in early July as part of the first three stages of the 2014 Tour de France. The research team consisted of the principle investigator and four student-research assistants. These five researchers distributed surveys, including the revised 21-item CMCI, among spectators gathered at the starting line for these stages of the 2014 Tour de France. The research assistants completed data collection and survey ethics training, which included required methodological and data collection procedural readings and participation in a four-hour in-person training session, led by the principle investigator. The purpose of this training was to ensure consistency in methods across research assistants, for research assistants to learn and practice survey distribution procedures and data collection techniques, reduce bias in data collection, and ensure ethical human subjects research. The research team arrived approximately 5 hours prior to the scheduled start time at each of the three stages and were spread out individually to distribute and collect as many surveys as possible before the official race start. After each data collection event, the research team gathered for reflexive debriefing sessions to strengthen data collection procedures and discuss any issues encountered during the study.

Participants

The 2014 Tour held the first three stages in the Yorkshire region of England, with the cities of Leeds, York, and Cambridge designated as start cities. The modified 21-item survey was disseminated to adult spectators 18 years or older, and approved consent procedures, required by institutional and federal mandate, were followed. The sampling locations (Leeds, York, and Cambridge), days, and times were selected because they were start-line locations where spectators gathered in high number, as well as representing a predominantly English-speaking/reading population. While language would represent interesting variabilities (i.e., race/ethnicity), we chose to conduct this study at English speaking sites for consistency between the original sample and this one, as well as for convenience as most spectators spoke English. Watson lives and works in York, Stage 2’s location of the 2014 Tour, and he coordinated the research students for data collection as well as aided in survey development to help ensure survey questions were culturally appropriate (Blair et al., 2014: 270–274). Emphasis was placed on obtaining data from individuals attending the pre-race events so that we could capture stationary spectators, waiting for the event to start and with little else to do. The Tour de France is an open event, meaning that there are no tickets for spectators and no seats to purchase. The start and finish lines were open venues, with crowds gathered along the first few kilometers of the stage. These groups of mostly stable spectators, many of whom brought their own chairs, provided crowd stability in our approach of potential survey takers. Collecting data at this event necessitated a crowd sampling best-practices approach for survey distribution, as spectators were not confined to seats (Haghani and Sarvi, 2018: 255). There were also no predetermined criteria for subject selection, except that an individual needed to be 18 years of age or older and could respond in English. We sought to gather data from anyone who would complete the survey, thus reducing potential sample bias, and ensuring the generalizability of our potential findings (Blair et al., 2014: 96). This sample also represented improved diversity from the original, which were American college-aged students completing the survey during class time. While original participants were free to not participate, and over 18 years of age, they were a more captive and homogeneous sample (e.g., 18–25 years of age, 92.4% identified religiously as Judeo-Christian, and all college educated in some capacity; Meyer et al., 2017).

A minimum sample size was calculated based on the statistical methods used, results of past research, and desired statistical power (i.e., the probability of identifying existing relationships). Sample size calculation was based on the use of covariance structural analysis to allow for a CFA to be examined. As MacCallum et al. (1996) suggest, sample size calculations should be based on the statistical power desired, the maximum root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA), and the minimum degrees of freedom of the measurement model (i.e., a goodness-of-fit test; Steiger and Lind, 1980). A minimum statistical power of 0.80 was used (Clark-Carter, 1997), with a maximum RMSEA of 0.08 (Steiger and Lind, 1980) and a minimum degree of freedom equal to 55, based on the original CMCI measurement model (Meyer et al., 2017). The result of this calculation indicated n = 335 as the minimum sample size necessary to conduct the CFA (Preacher and Coffman, 2006). A total of 590 surveys was collected, with 589 surveys determined to be usable and thus included in this analysis.

Data analysis

After removing incomplete responses and testing for the data for assumptions related to each of the statistical tests, a CFA analysis was conducted to assess relationships among observed variables and associated underlying latent constructs in the modified 21 items among the Tour de France spectators (Brown, 2006; Suhr, 2006). We also calculated Cronbach’s alphas as a measure of internal consistency for each muscular Christian tenet. Structural validity of the revised CMCI was tested using LISREL 9.1 to calculate the goodness-of-fit statistics in the CFA, including the RMSEA, comparative fit index (CFI), and non-normed fit index (NNFI) (Byrne, 1998). For the RMSEA, values ⩽ 0.08 indicate acceptable fit (Steiger and Lind, 1980). For the CFI (Hu and Bentler, 1995), values ⩾ 0.95 indicate acceptable fit; and Bentler and Bonett (1980) designated values ⩾ 0.95 as acceptable for the NNFI.

Results

Demographics

Surveys (n = 589) were completed by respondents across the three days of data collection at the 2014 Tour de France. Included in the present CFA analyses, of those reporting gender (n = 540), 47.6% were men (n = 257), with respondents reporting an average age of 46.5 years (SD = 15.6, range 18–88). Over half of respondents reported graduating from college/university or completing post-graduate work (57.5%; 36.3% college/university graduate, 21.2% post-graduate), with other respondents indicating some college/university or less in describing their educational attainment (0.5% primary, 12.4% secondary, 22.4% some college/university). More than half of respondents reported a religious affiliation (56.4%; 19.5% Anglican, 8.1% Catholic, 13.1% Protestant), with 15.8% identifying as Atheist and 15.8% identifying as Agnostic. Additionally, Hindu (n = 5), Jewish (n = 1), Muslim (n = 1), and those reporting other (n = 69) represent 12.9% (n = 76) of the sample.

Scale CFA results

CFA was used to examine the historically and theoretically supported (Hughes, 1861) six-dimension model of muscular Christianity. Of the 21 items (see Table 2), one (my body is exactly how it was created to be) exhibited a high cross loading with more than one tenet. Hence, this item was removed from the remainder of analyses, resulting in clear factor structure supporting a 6-factor model with the remaining 20 items. Final CFA goodness of fit indices (χ²_df=154 = 449.26, RMSEA = 0.05, NNFI = 0.95, CFI = 0.96) indicated that the revised 20-item CMCI measurement model fit the data well, demonstrating clear factor structure supporting a 6-factor model, while retaining all six historically and theoretically supported muscular Christian tenets including the factor “cause,” which was not included in the original CMCI. Table 2 contains the results of the CFA, descriptive statistics for each item, and descriptive statistics for each of the six dimensions (tenets) of the revised CMCI. It should be noted that the original 5-factor model (Meyer et al., 2017) was subsequently examined in this data and also fit the data well (χ²_df=94 = 291.91, RMSEA = 0.06, NNFI = 0.95, CFI = 0.96); however, it does not include the sixth tenet.

Discriminant validity and internal consistency

CFA results confirmed that the revised CMCI consists of six independent, but related dimensions. Furthermore, bivariate correlations between the six dimensions (r = 0.04–0.72, see Table 3) were below a 0.85 cutoff (Brown, 2006), further supporting the independence of the dimensions and demonstrating discriminant validity. As an indicator of the reliability of each of the revised CMCI factors, we examined internal consistency for each dimension and observed acceptable levels (α ⩾ 0.70) (Tavakol and Dennick, 2011: 54). These results (Table 2) indicate that the items comprising each of the dimensions measure the same general construct (e.g., a dimension/tenet represented in the CMCI: all “cause” items reflect the “idea” of cause). It is important to note that these results indicate improvements over the original instrument (see Meyer et al., 2017).

Table 3.

Pearson Correlation coefficients among CMCI factors representing the six muscular Christian tenets.

	Controln = 567	Createn = 556	Exercisen = 565	Influencen = 542	Protectn = 556	Causen = 553
Control	—
Create	−0.038	—
Exercise	0.385^*	0.054	—
Influence	0.122^*	0.292^*	0.212^*	—
Protect	0.140^*	0.239^*	0.243^*	0.490^*	—
Cause	0.176^*	0.256*	0.249^*	0.528^*	0.718^*	—

= Statistically significant two-tailed correlation (p ⩽ 0.005).

CMCI: Contemporary Muscular Christian Instrument.

Discussion

The three main aims of this study were to refine the CMCI items to ensure that all six theoretically and historically supported muscular Christian tenets were independently represented in the instrument, confirm the structural validity of the revised CMCI, and examine its validity and reliability among a more diverse sample, broadening its generalizability. Results suggest the modifications resulted in an effective and improved instrument, providing a validated and cross-validated tool by which to empirically measure, understand, and more deeply examine muscular Christian ideals about the body, physical activity, and how assumptions of sport as a social “good” are hegemonically perpetuated in modern sporting contexts. The revised CMCI will allow social sport scholars to gather and examine data on how different groups involved with sport (fans, athletes, consumers, promoters, etc.) understand these relationships, so that we can more effectively and critically evaluate their underlying assumptions.

Our results also demonstrate the instrument’s effectiveness in measuring muscular Christian tenets among this diverse sample of international sport spectators and confirmed its structural validity, suggesting that the revised CMCI was a useful and valid instrument to measure the prevalence of all six muscular Christian tenets among this sample. This scale provides sport sociologists a tool to measure and analyze data relating to moral and ethical themes embedded in sport, and how these themes continue to perpetuate original muscular Christian moral ideals upon which modern sport was founded. As sport sociologists will forever be tasked with exploring and understating the social role of sport as it changes into the future, we must continue to understand how these founding moralistic ideals persist, how they are represented (hegemonically), and how they are perpetuated in and through the increasing global sport context.

Additionally, the revised CMCI assists sport scholars in how they can understand the persistence and perpetuation of moralistic codes and ideals in sport, as well as in individual sport cultures. Using this scale, along with other measures, will allow sport scholars to describe which tenets persist, where points of resistance may exist to alleviate observable negative influences and effects of sport, and which ideals promote values important to a specific group of people, time, or circumstance. Sports, in and of themselves, are neither good nor bad. People, their operational ideals, and the individual and collective decisions they make about sport, shape such labels. Thus, we developed a measurement instrument to assess the presence of these tenets, which can also be combined with other scales, to further examine how these tenets influence the goods and ills of modern sport, and how sport sociologists can inform conversations about making changes to and through sport.

To expand these understandings, future researchers should examine potential relationships between muscular Christian tenets using the revised CMCI and other variables related to hegemonic moral and value-laden constructs of contemporary sport. For example, this scale could be used to effectively examine life meaning derived through philanthropic (for-cause) sport and physical activity events, celebrity-athletes as role models, and sport for development and peace (organizations and efforts), in addition to the innumerable examples of sports’ purported moral value and social “good” expressed across modern sport ideology.

Changes made to the original CMCI items enhanced the readability of the instrument, organized and captured all six historically supported muscular Christian tenets (Create, Control, Influence, Protect, Exercise, and Cause) with consistent language, and potentially enhanced the flow of the one-page survey by organizing items for efficient distribution among a widely dispersed crowd. These modifications were made while ensuring discriminant validity of each of the six factors and seeking to retain items representing the tenet “cause” as an independent factor, which was not the case in the original CMCI CFA. Using one’s God-given body to do “good” in the world is one of the six key tenets of muscular Christianity. We therefore sought to understand why it was not represented in the original sample. We have successfully modified the “cause” items to represent this independent tenet, as it is evident among the Tour de France spectators in the present study.

Items 8–19 of the revised CMCI reflect the most significant changes to the appearance and flow of items from the original CMCI. Through the modifications of how these items were worded, we attempted to better describe the differences between the “protect,” "influence," and “cause” items. These twelve questions were about the body and its relation to doing good for others and the environment. Using the modified wording format of “do,” “want,” “can,” and “should,” these items were modified or added in the revised CMCI. In its original understanding, Hughes (1861: 99) states that the difference between muscular Christians, and those who selfishly exercise their bodies (musclemen), was that the former put their exercised bodies to do “good” in the world. This difference between strong well-exercised and subjected bodies, and what that means for muscular Christians, is how these bodies are implemented to protect others and advance righteous causes in the world. The original CMCI did not capture these distinctions and thus the delineation of these factors in the revised instrument was a central focus. We believe that rewording and reorganizing survey items enhanced its readability, providing clear factor structure for all six historically and conceptually hypothesized tenets of muscular Christianity, improving upon the original CMCI through strong and improved factor loadings and a reduction in cross loadings.

The distribution of this survey among a diverse international sample of sport spectators further adds to the usefulness of this instrument in a variety of settings. As described previously, DeVellis (2003: 133) states that “if data from different samples of individuals on different occasions produce essentially identical factor analytic results… the likelihood of those results being a recurring quirk is quite small.” The original sample of American college students was adequate to establish structural validity and enhanced through collecting data from students at two different universities. The present study expands on this as we have now also demonstrated that the revised CMCI is structurally valid and internally consistent in a much more demographically and culturally diverse sample of adults. Across this diverse sample, our findings provide evidence of the cross-national nature of muscular Christian tenets that hegemonically influence the way individuals understand their physical bodies, and how sport and physical activity operate in their lives. While this paper focused on scale improvements and validation, we expect to find potential correlations between muscular Christian tenets and variables such as age, gender, and income. For example, in their analysis of LIVESTRONG data, Meyer and Umstattd Meyer (2017) found that more white men, with a higher socio-economic status, reported using their bodies to “help others” through physical philanthropy, evidence of these traditional muscular Christian values persisting and relevant in contemporary populations. The benefits of now having a tool by which to measure these tenets underscore the usefulness of the instrument for collecting data among diverse populations that will allow for further examination of possible relationships between muscular Christian values and other social characteristics, behaviors, and values. We encourage future investigators to use the revised CMCI in their own research to further identify, understand, and describe the areas in which these muscular Christian tenets are evident.

Conclusion

The CMCI was the first instrument to offer a quantitative examination of muscular Christianity and the present study details our improvement of the original instrument, ensuring that all six historically and theoretically supported muscular Christian tenets were independently represented, while also providing a valid and reliable measure for use in broader and more diverse samples. In moving forward, researchers should consider using the revised CMCI to explore muscular Christian ideals in relation to other constructs or variables of interest in sport and/or physical activity contexts, including individual psycho-social characteristics, sport promotion and event management, moral and ethical dilemmas within sport, and the power and importance of sport as a cultural phenomenon. Future research should also be conducted in other sport settings and diverse populations, using the revised CMCI to ensure generalizability of the present findings and document these tenets beyond what has historically been their assumed spaces of prevalence (e.g., examining these tenets in less competitive physical activity and/or sporting contexts, etc.).

Ultimately, these constructs and values continue to influence our ideas and conversations about sport and its social “good.” We encourage the use of the revised CMCI to examine how muscular Christian hegemonic norms influence individual and collective perceptions of the role of sport and physical activity around the world. We can also better understand the meaning and importance of sport in people’s lives by understanding how muscular Christianity continues to influence such sentiments. The revised CMCI provides sport scholars with a valid and reliable measurement tool, adding to the theorized content widely available in sport studies, allowing sport scholars to further investigate the social significance of sport, as its meanings, values, and norms are promoted in a variety of ways, deepening our understanding of the individual and socially meaningful roles sport has in 21st century cultures.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: We would like to thank the Department of Health, Human Performance and Recreation at Baylor University for funding this project.

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