What does American football reveal about who we are and who we’re becoming?
Watch the video of this episode on YouTube here.
Russell Moore talks with cultural critic and essayist Chuck Klosterman about his new book Football and what the sport tells us about masculinity, community, memory, violence, and belief. From Roman gladiator games to Super Bowl halftime shows, and from church attendance to television economics, Klosterman argues that football is more than entertainment: it’s one of the last truly shared experiences in American life—and one that may not survive the century.
Even for listeners who don’t care about football at all, this conversation is about the deeper question beneath the spectacle: what happens when a culture’s rituals outlast its imagination?
Moore and Klosterman discuss football as a made-for-television phenomenon, the way fandom shapes identity and irrationality, and how football functions as an unofficial secular holiday—one that churches once resisted, then accommodated, and eventually surrendered to. Along the way, they examine agency, violence, masculinity, and why moral critiques of football provoke more outrage than theological disagreements ever could.
The conversation widens to include politics, class, religion, and even Billy Joel—ending with the question: when future generations judge our era by one piece of football culture, what will they see?
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Football by Chuck Klosterman
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“The Russell Moore Show” is a production of Christianity Today
Executive Producer: Clarissa Moll
Host: Russell Moore
Producer: Leslie Thompson
Associate Producer: McKenzie Hill
Senior Producer: Matt Stevens
Audio engineering by Kevin Morris
Video producer: Sam Cedar
Theme Song: “Citizens” by Jon Guerra
