The Case for Christian Martiality
Why all Christian men should train martial arts
A few weeks ago I returned to training BJJ after a year-long hiatus. I had stopped training because of logistical reasons and because last year I chose to prioritize working on my business over training consistently.
Even during that “sabbatical” I took from training Jiu-Jitsu, I kept training martial arts, as for some months I boxed weekly with a couple of friends. However, those sparring sessions stopped somewhere around the middle of last year, and I ended up not doing any martial arts for at least the final semester of 2025.
The malleability of the human spirit is such that one can very easily adapt to new circumstances and thus quickly forget the particular benefits of a habit or practice. As it happens —and I only noticed this after I came back to training—, I had become totally unaware of the tremendous mental and spiritual value of consistent martial arts training, caught up as I was in the rush of the daily grind.
The topic of training martial arts as a Christian man has always been the source of very heated debates, with some claiming that it’s unfit for a Christian man to practice such violent disciplines. I stand on the other side, alongside those who claim that a Christian man is practically required to train martial arts, especially in a world in which the standard of masculinity is so incredibly weak and low.
Why It’s Not Sinful To Practice Martial Arts
Bear in mind, this article is not about watching MMA as entertainment or practicing it professionally, as a way to earn a living. Those are separate topics that require a different, more nuanced approach. This article is merely about the act of training martial arts.
I felt it was necessary to clarify that, as most of the arguments against Christian participation in martial arts (that I’ve seen) are about watching it for entertainment or engaging in them competitively.
Some Christians, however, are completely opposed to any and all forms of participation in what they consider to be a “violent” and “degrading” practice, including just training martial arts in a controlled environment. I understand where this concern comes from. Christ commands us to turn the other cheek, to love our enemies, to be peacemakers. How does learning to fight fit with that?
The answer is that learning to fight and choosing violence are not the same thing. A Christian man trains in martial arts not to dominate others, but to protect the weak, defend his family, and build the virtues necessary for spiritual warfare.
I believe most objections against fighting for Christians stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of martial arts as a whole, and about what actually goes on inside dojos throughout the world. The harshest critics of martial arts are almost always those who have never practiced any form of it, and can thus very easily make up false ideas in their minds about what practicing these sports actually entails.
Few are the men who have entered a martial arts gym and emerged more violent. The complete opposite is usually true, as these places serve as training grounds for multiple masculine virtues, such as fortitude and temperance, both of which are becoming increasingly uncommon among men today.
On the question of whether or not it’s sinful to practice martial arts, Catholic doctrine provides a clear answer:
In short, as long as you don’t pursue martial arts training with the intent to hurt others, you do it moderately and safely and not in an attempt to exercise unjust violence, it’s perfectly fine to train and become competent martially.
Practical Benefits of Training
Beyond the more important spiritual benefits —of which we’ll talk about later—, there are several important practical benefits to practicing martial arts, which are difficult to find anywhere that isn’t on the mats:
Skill. The most obvious benefit to training is learning the skill of self-defense. As protectors and providers of our families, it’ll never be a bad thing to be physically capable of defending yourself and yours against unjust aggression.
Flow state. There are few things which can get you into a state of complete focus quite like martial arts training. When you’re in the ring or on the mats, you essentially cannot be thinking about anything else beyond the combat you’re engaged in. We are perpetually distracted nowadays, and it’s incredibly refreshing to be fully present, fully focused in the task at hand. This, in my experience, is difficult to experience outside of martial arts.
Clarity of mind. That same flow state leads to a clarity of mind that makes it easier to then focus on your other daily tasks, on your work, and even on your relationships. Experiencing flow state clears your mind from stress, anxiety, and the worries that are so common in the masculine mind.
Fraternity. Male friendships of the real kind are built by enduring hardships together. There is a deep longing in the masculine heart to find brothers in arms, men you can depend on, men whom you can trust in high-stakes situations; competent and loyal friendships built on mutual respect. In martial arts, you find men with actual spines because the training naturally filters for them. You can't fake toughness on the mats. You can't maintain an image when you're getting choked or punched. What you get is authentic masculine friendship built on mutual respect and shared suffering, the kind that's nearly impossible to find in modern society.
Practical benefits are cool and all, but the real reason why I believe all Christian men should practice martial arts is actually spiritual.
Physical Decay, Detachment, and Spiritual Combat
Some of the most important benefits that a man will experience after training martial arts consistently for some time are not physical or practical, but more so mental and spiritual.
Some might even argue that there is no physical benefit at all, as the toll that martial arts training takes on the body significantly outweighs any physical benefits that training might offer. But we’re all decaying physically. In a few decades we will all be hurting for different reasons. So, for me, the fact that martial arts can cause some bodily damage is not a reason not to practice them, but rather a way to learn to detach from the physical, temporal world, and set our hearts on eternity.
At the dusk of your life, will you be full of scars and injuries as a result of a life lived fully, a life in which you have used your body, you have fought, ran, sacrificed, grown and suffered?
Or will you suffer the pains of inactivity, of sedentarism and cowardice, of atrophied muscles and bones as a result of a whole life spent idolizing safety?
You don’t get to choose complete physical preservation.
You just get to choose what you do while your body decays.
Besides, the pain of physical effort that helps you detach from this world also hardens not just your body but so too your mind and your spirit.
Enduring the discomforts, the falls, the losses, and the blood of combat strengthens you to endure the discomforts and sufferings that are natural and necessary in Christian life:
It’s not a coincidence that St. Paul uses combat metaphors constantly: “Fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Tim 6:12), “I have fought the good fight” (2 Tim 4:7). Ephesians 6 describes the “whole armor of God.” It’s because physical combat training teaches spiritual combat principles:
How to stay calm under pressure
How to endure pain without quitting
How to face an opponent without fear
How to lose, get up, and fight again
Martial arts training thus prepares a man for the inevitable spiritual battles he will have to fight. One of the most prevalent ones being the fight against weakness and effeminacy:
The effeminacy that plagues Christian men today would disappear in an instant if all of us committed to practicing martial arts in a spirit of Christian development, intentionally pursuing the endurance of discomfort for the sake of building virtue.
The Christian world is missing men who live like men, who balance the gentleness of our faith with the active pursuit of masculine virtue that necessarily leads us towards danger, towards risk, towards fighting against something.
We are in the midst of a great spiritual war, that has already spilled over into the physical realm.
If God ever needed warriors, competent mentally, physically and spiritually, it is now. And those warriors are built nowhere else but in the sweat and blood of combat.
Ad Maiora Nati Sumus,
Juan
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Couldn’t agree more as a BJJ coach and someone who practices boxing/kickboxing. How long have you been training for, what belt are you?
My martial arts training long predates my conversion, and in childhood it arose from my love of fantasy. I'm not a naturally violent guy, and I was fired up by the idea that the goodies could train themselves up to beat the baddies at their own game. 25 years of training later, I recognise a lot of my own reflections in this piece. I would only counsel, as a 40 year old still training, to go a little steady with the idea of smashing your own body up because it's going to decay anyway. Train smart, pay attention to what your body is telling you, and you'll keep training for much longer.