How does Jesus relate to Brazilian jiu-jitsu? On the surface, nothing: Jesus was no fighter, and no one comes to the mats because of their faith. But the Christian is called to take everything captive to Christ — to plunder the Egyptians, as Origen said — and jiu-jitsu, it turns out, has a great deal to teach about the body, the will, and the surrender at the heart of the gospel.
Written by a pastor who trains, these sixty short devotionals pair a structural position of jiu-jitsu with an aspect of the life of faith. Christianity is a bodily religion — our bodies are saved, not just our souls — and both the mat and the following of Christ reward the same thing: not conceptual knowledge but practice, the daily drilling and live rolling where control is learned and, in the end, relinquished.
Sixty days, one position at a time. The first title on Wroot Press's Spirituality & Devotion shelf.