Abstract
The purpose of this article is to address the psychic tension that arises between theological conviction and personal striving. In particular, it addresses the tension between the author’s possessing both a Lutheran theology of grace and an opposing personal striving toward self-justification, signified in a fitness regimen. Drawing upon William James' (1902/2012) and his concept of the conservative nature of conversion in his Varieties of Religious Experience, the author “experiments” with this urge to self-justify, particularly through fitness as a form of playing, in which he generates new religious ways of being in the process of self-reconciliation. Ultimately, such playing involves experimenting within the tension between “forbidden” impulses and religious ideals. Playing, then, can be particularly of service to men, who often struggle to be their own saviors while desiring a salvation derived from without.
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Notes
I am hesitant to label this experience as outright “mystical,” akin to how James would describe it in his case studies of others in Varieties or in his own nature- and athletic-induced trances in the Adirondacks (see Richardson, 2006). However, I intend to leave room for this interpretation.
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Acknowledgements
The author of this paper would like to express his appreciation to the Philadelphia Group for Pastoral Theology with Boys and Men.
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Burt, H. Running and Righteousness: Fitness as a Variety of Religious Experience. Pastoral Psychol 72, 765–776 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-022-01043-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-022-01043-x