Why do Americans love football? This is the topic that Dr. Eric Miller, associate professor of history at Geneva College, explores in his article published in the September 2007 issue of Christianity Today.
His cover story, titled “Why We Love Football,” discusses the American pastime′s role in the lives of Christians. Many fear football′s role might veer on the edge of idolatry, but Miller writes in argument of the opposite, within reason.
“At its best,” Miller says, “sport may lead us more fully into an experience of health, an experience of community, play, joy—all good gifts of the Creator. But this happens only if it is enfolded within a grander, richer participation in life, in which another set of rites and symbols and songs takes us more deeply into gratitude and grace, sourced in the Creator and centered on the Cross.”
Miller completed his doctorate in American history at the University of Delaware in 2002. He graduated from Lancaster Bible College in 1988 with a degree in biblical studies and went on to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where he earned a master′s degree in Christian Thought in 1994.
In addition to Christianity Today, his work has appeared in publications such as History Teacher and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and he has given presentations at professional conferences and symposiums including Geneva, the University of Delaware and Georgetown University.
His biography of social critic Christopher Lasch will soon be published by Eerdmans, and Miller is also one of three editors of a volume on Christian faith and the historian′s vocation to be published by Notre Dame.
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