Evangelicals And Sports

By Dr. Mike Stallard

[Dean of Baptist Bible Seminary, Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania]

Raised in the state of Alabama as a fan of the Alabama Crimson Tide football team and having lived in northeast Pennsylvania almost seventeen years, I face a profound dilemma. I cannot decide who is crazier—Alabama fans or Philadelphia Eagles fans. In a recent article in Christianity Today, the author recounts two bizarre stories. One is of an Alabama couple who missed their own daughter’s wedding because it fell on the day of the Alabama-Tennessee game. The other story is about the man who ran onto the field during a 2005 Eagles-Packers game spreading the ashes of his mother (a life-long Eagles’ fan) onto the field. The man told police, “She’ll always be part of Lincoln Financial Field and of the Eagles.”[1]

Americans have always been a bit fanatical about their sports. Evangelicals have not been immune from such interest.[2]

In fact, evangelicals have consistently taken advantage of the popularity of sports to spread the gospel of eternal life through faith in Jesus. However, the success of evangelistic and other ministry efforts by evangelicals in this venue has caught the attention of critics who have begun to talk and write about perceived problems brought about by such success. In particular, this article will focus mostly on the book Onward Christian Athletes: Turning Ballparks into Pulpits and Players into Preachers by USA Today contributor Tom Krattenmaker.[3]

The Matter Of Tone And Theme

We will begin the analysis by making a few comments on the overall tone and the general direction or theme of Krattenmaker’s book. His work is well written for the most part and extremely riveting for someone who has an interest in sports. Of course, the intensive criticism of evangelicalism that is part of his message would likely keep an evangelical engaged in continued reading (if one does not get too mad!). In short, Krattenmaker, an ecumenical nonevangelical,[4] has produced an extremely readable book that has the added bonus of alerting evangelicals to how they are perceived in large swaths of the sports world and our culture.

Going beyond writing style, there comes out at times a spirit in Krattenmaker showing willingness on his part to understand the evangelical mindset more fully and commend the good that he finds. For example, he commends evangelicals for the good influence they have had upon pro athletes:

To its credit, the movement brings pro athletes something they very much need: encouragement to become better individuals. Even critics of the ministries must acknowledge that a sports-industrial complex awash in sexual aggression, greed, and a win-at-all-costs obsession is in dire need of perspective and morality. Numerous players are encouraged to become better husbands, fathers, and teammates thanks in part to the teachings of the Christian ministries. The unique pressures of their line of work often leave them in need of spiritual guidance and counseling—resources energetically provided by the ministries operating in sports.[5]

After visiting the headquarters of Athletes in Action in Xenia, Ohio, Krattenmaker remarks in an article, “For those of us in blue states or blue states of mind, it might be useful to journey to places such as Xenia, Ohio, if only metaphorically. We’ll probably return home with a less black-and-white idea about those crazy evangelicals.”[6] In this way, he challenges nonevangelicals to talk to evangelicals instead of just talking about them. This should be welcomed by evangelicals who often see those outside the movement as simply being dismissive and voicing caricature. To be sure, there are times, as we will see, when one wonders if Krattenmaker takes away with his left hand what he has given with his right. But the positive spirit should be duly noted.

Along with this attempt to understand evangelicals, Krattenmaker asserts that he is not trying to remove the evangelical place in sports but to create a forum for allowing other religious groups to have a similar place.[7] He notes, somewhat grudgingly, “Even if we graciously concede a role for evangelical Christians and their beliefs in pro sports, as this book attempts to do, the time has come that we stop taking ‘no’ for an answer. The rest of us—we Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, progressive and moderate Catholics and Protestants—have a stake in this, too.”[8] Taking him at his word is somewhat difficult when later in the book his description of the evangelicalism that he envisions is an emasculated version that is not really evangelicalism at all. However, the dynamics of the debate must be sorted out in our later discussion.

Another feature worthy of note in Onward Christian Athletes is the awareness Krattenmaker displays of various evangelical subcultures. This trait is often missing in journalists, including sports journalists, so it was refreshing to see it here in small ways even if it could be improved. The word evangelicalism in this paper is being used to speak of a born-again Bible-believing Christianity. This covers a lot of territory and many different people with diverse theological beliefs in the details. Beyond the simple definition used here, there are many who use the tag of evangelical out of tradition even when they no longer hold to or have distorted the definition. It is quite non-analytical to suggest that all evangelicals can be lumped together and criticism leveled at them as a whole across the board. Krattenmaker appears to avoid this sin to some degree. One illustration (I am giving the benefit of the doubt here to Krattenmaker) is his ability to define the Christian Reconstructionist movement somewhat accurately as an “ultra-right” view trying to “install strict biblical law in the United States.”[9] Apparently, he does not put everyone into the same mold although he does show the shared concerns such a group of evangelicals would have with the wider group (e.g., pro-life concerns).

Krattenmaker also joins evangelicals in rejecting the secular option. The three options that are laid out relative to religion in sports, especially professional sports, are (1) evangelical dominance, (2) pluralism, and (3) secularism. The first is the status quo from his point of view. The second category is where Krattenmaker wants us to go. The third option removes the influence of religion entirely from sports in America. In his rejection of the third option, he makes a strongly worded statement:

Some, in the final analysis, would prefer that religion be kept out of sports. After all, as some ask, what does religion have to do with sports, anyway? But a complete separation of church and sport is neither practical nor fair. Religion permeates nearly all aspects of public life in America and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The installation of complete secularity in and around pro sports hardly constitutes a fair and neutral playing field for diverse America.[10]

To be sure, Krattenmaker calls the secular approach tempting in light of the “excesses of sports world evangelicalism.”[11]

Nonetheless, he defends evangelicals at this very point: “But while a clean separation of church and sport would meet the needs of nonreligious fans (and probably would not offend the many religious fans who approach their faith in quieter, more private ways), would it be fair to evangelical players and fans—people whose faith compels them to bring their God, and their Jesus, with them wherever they go?”[12] He answers in the negative. Evangelicals should shout in hearty agreement to such statements.

However, within the evangelical psyche (at least in this writer’s evangelical psyche) there resides some suspicion. The pluralistic option can be viewed as a slippery slope to the secular option—a sneaky way to arrive at the devaluing of faith. The liberal spectrum of professing Christendom and the other religious groups that would benefit from the second option are, in fact, among the most secularized religious groups in America. The form that a pluralistic approach would take must be carefully chosen—not all pluralisms are alike. Therefore, the issue of pluralism will be dealt with in greater detail below. For now, it is enough to say that perhaps the greatest area of agreement between Krattenmaker and evangelicals in the matter of sports is a rejection of the secular choice. This helps the tone of the book and keeps an evangelical engaged in the issue more than he likely would have done otherwise.

On the negative side, at times the book comes across as piling on after the play is over. Krattenmaker labels one of his chapters “Winning for Jesus (But Finding Him in the Loss Column).”[13] The main theme of the chapter is quite appropriate. Evangelicals have sometimes exaggerated the connection between God and winning. They can easily give the impression that God is with them when they win, but when they lose they do not really talk about him. This idea is true in religious life in both the evangelical and nonevangelical worlds. There are those who will credit God and thank him when things go well but wonder if he has abandoned them when things go bad. Pastors deal with this issue all the time. These are important points that need to be surfaced. However, Krattenmaker spends page after page tackling evangelical John Kitna, the former quarterback of the Detroit Lions, as the poster child for overdoing the connection between winning and God’s blessing right before the season goes the wrong direction followed by the perfect record of 0-16 the following season. How many pages of examples does it take to make the point? Two pages would have been fine. The extraordinary amount of detail given to Kitna comes across like an offensive lineman stepping on the hand of the running back, or in this case the quarterback, while he is down in the pile.[14] Such an approach colors the tone in an unsavory direction.

A Brief Summary

A summary of the book chapter by chapter is of some benefit in this case because Krattenmaker’s work is chock full of examples and issues that are worthy of discussion, the piling on notwithstanding. Onward Christian Athletes begins with an introduction highlighting the public testimony of evangelical Kurt Warner, a high-profile MVP quarterback of the NFL. The Cardinals quarterback represents to Krattenmaker a frequent and common example of modern day sports being “drenched with Christian religion.”[15] Krattenmaker, who grew up a Minnesota Twins fan, does not like this focus on conservative Christianity in America in general and in sports in particular. He states his agenda this way: “And short of banning religion in sports—a nonstarter in a culture that values religious freedom—we have failed to shape a vision for a more appropriate, fair, and thoughtful form of faith in sports.”[16] He is attempting in this book to outline a way to wrest the religious influence in sports away from evangelical dominance to what he says is a more inclusive approach.[17]

Chapter 1 is entitled “On Any Justice Sunday.” The title comes essentially from a trend that is disturbing from Krattenmaker’s view. He presents his concern through the story of Herbert Lusk, a running back for the Philadelphia Eagles, who in 1977 became the first player to kneel down to pray publicly in the end zone after scoring a touchdown against the New York Giants. Lusk, an African American, is now the pastor of the Greater Exodus Baptist Church in the Philadelphia area. Krattenmaker laments the connections that Lusk has to the so-called Christian right, including President George Bush, rather than the traditions of a more liberal direction:

Given the social justice tradition of the black Christian church in America, the combination of his [Lusk’s] race and religion, in a different time, might have compelled him to stand for progressive-leaning racial and social justice, in the mold of a Jackie Robinson or Gale Sayers. But where faith, sports, and politics intersect today, you will find few black Christian sports stars standing up for so-called liberal issues. Like Lusk, they are more likely followers and promoters of a Christian Right movement that has not found much room on its agenda for the issues—racial equality, economic justice, peace—that found their voice in Martin Luther King Jr.[18]

Included also in the analysis of this chapter is a review of James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; Brent High, inventor of “faith days” at sporting events; and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA). The example of FCA is instructive since it will play a role in the discussion about pluralism later on. Krattenmaker bemoans the fact that the organization was not founded to be the Fellowship of ‘Religious’ Athletes. That way others besides conservative Christians could be involved in helping athletes with their spiritual needs.

Although several examples are mentioned in the second chapter (“A Cross on the Logo”), Krattenmaker here continues to unveil the rise of evangelical dominance in the professional sports world through the example of Dwight Howard, the power player for the Orlando Magic NBA team. Howard publicly let it be known that he drew a cross on the logo of the NBA in his bedroom as a symbol of how his Christian faith would take advantage of his NBA position. The author does not fail to mention that “word leaked out in 2008 that the young superstar had fathered a child out of wedlock with a former member of the Magic’s dance team.”[19] In this chapter, Krattenmaker also spends quite a bit of space covering the public Christian testimony of Curt Schilling which got a boost from the Red Sox come-from-behind win in the playoffs against the New York Yankees in 2004. Both Howard and Schilling serve as examples of sports positions being used to advance the evangelical cause.

Chapters 3 and 4 continue the same approach with slightly different emphases. Chapter 4 was described above with the comments about Kitna. Chapter 3 (“Faith Coach: Discipling Athletes for a Roster Spot on God’s Team”) dips for the first time into the world of chaplains to sports teams, giving quite a bit of space to the experience of Kevin Harvey, former chaplain of the Philadelphia 76ers NBA franchise. Krattenmaker presents Harvey as a balanced kind of evangelical with some sensitivity to how he relates and speaks to others of different faith backgrounds. He also mentions Coach Tom Landry of the Dallas Cowboys and James Dobson again for their connections to the FCA. Tim LaHaye also gets mentioned as “anti-gay and anti-public education crusader.”[20] In this chapter, Krattenmaker also contrasts the apparent silence of FCA on racial issues today with Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers executive who brought Jackie Robinson into Major League Baseball as the first African American player. Yet Rickey himself was instrumental in the founding of FCA. Krattenmaker wonders where this emphasis has gone.

Chapter 5 is entitled “Church at the Ballpark.” The subtitle reveals the direction of the author’s concern: “Baseball Chapel and Its Exclusive Theology in an Age of Growing Religious Diversity.” The opening issue is the controversy over the 2005 statements of the Christian chaplain (Jon Moeller--supplied by Baseball Chapel) of the Washington Nationals. In response to a direct question by one of the players, he affirmed that Jews who do not believe in Jesus are doomed, meaning “doomed to hell.” The outcry was enormous with Jewish rabbis claiming that the baseball team was being used to promote hate. On the other side, the inevitable suspension of Moeller was viewed as an attack upon the religious liberties of Christians.[21] The rest of the article gives examples of baseball chapels, Christian players, and the issue of how evangelism is done in that context—a style question for the most part that may have major implications.

The heart of the chapter may be Krattenmaker’s question: “When religion goes wrong—when a player speaks of Jews and other non-Christians being destined for hell, for example—does Baseball Chapel bear responsibility?” The author in the wording of this question shows that, from his view, any religious claim that is exclusive (at least on statements about the afterlife) is not to be tolerated in public.[22]

Chapter 6 is entitled “From Coors Field to Eternity: Faith Days in Major League Baseball.” Here the author expands his coverage of the story of Brent High and the start of Faith Days at ballparks, times when after a game, an evangelical program using the stadium seats or a tent in the parking lot provides a place for Christian music, preaching, and testimonies as a means to evangelize. Players and former players such as Dave Dravecky and John Smoltz are highlighted as well as the message of “salvation-through-Christ-alone.”[23] This is the real concern of Krattenmaker in this chapter. The exclusive message about eternal life through Christ rankles when the special nights for others like the Shriners are known more for their humanitarian side.[24]

Besides the issue of exclusivity in evangelical sports ministries, Krattenmaker also dislikes strongly the tie to conservative politics found in such ministry efforts. This comes across in almost every chapter and refers to things like gay rights among others. However, he devotes his whole Chapter 7 to the question: “For God, Country, and the Republican Party: The Conservative Politics of Jesus’ Pro Sports Warriors.” Curt Schilling gets special mention for his public pro-Republican statements. However, single issues such as the war in Iraq, abortion, and homosexuality surface in this chapter in a strong way, with Krattenmaker following his right to embrace the liberal side on each issue. Anticipating possible objections to the case he makes about the connection between conservative evangelicals in sports ministry to conservative politics (which seems a natural fit), he notes, “Of course, trotting out a series of examples cannot alone make the case that Christian sports figures are co-opted by Republican politics….Yet the picture becomes clearer when one exams the sports-faith-politics landscape for counterexamples—for instances of Christian athletes taking liberal positions—and comes away virtually empty-handed.”[25] Thus, evangelical dominance has from his point of view negative overtones that extend beyond religious expression.

Chapter 8 is entitled “Domesticated Christianity: The Political Acquiescence of African American Christians in Sports.” His opening salvo is to slam Tony Dungy for his reply to CBS announcer Jim Nance when he held up the Super Bowl winner’s trophy following the 2006 season. Nance had asked him what it meant to be the first black coach to win a Super Bowl. Dungy responded:

I tell you what—I’m proud to be representing African American coaches…and to be the first African American to win this. It means an awful lot to our country. But, again, more than anything—I’ve said it before—Lovey Smith and I are not only the first two African Americans but Christian coaches showing you can win doing it the Lord’s way. We’re more proud of that.[26]

In Dungy’s mind, his faith in Christ transcended the importance of the color of his skin—something similar to the earlier words of Martin Luther King Jr. However, Krattenmaker sees this as a lost moment and opportunity: “There was a time when some of the country’s leading African American athletic figures, religious or otherwise, spoke out for racial justice and addressed the pressing social justice needs of the day.”[27] The remainder of the chapter details good and bad examples of social justice representation. It seems that the author always comes back to Dungy and the coach’s penchant for standing up for conservative evangelical interests instead. At the end of the chapter, I wrote in the margin, “my least favorite chapter.” In my judgment, this chapter hit below the belt.

Chapter 9 was more intriguing – “A Match Made in Heaven—or Hell: The Dissonance between the Values of Jesus and the Values of Big-Time Sports.” Here I found more common ground with the author. Several good questions are asked. In doing so, Krattenmaker rejects Deion Sanders’ statement that “faith and sports go together like peanut butter and jelly.”[28] Instead, he ponders the possibility that the relationship is more like oil and water.[29] As Krattenmaker notes, “To the cheating, violence, materialism, hedonism, and the promoting of sex we could add gambling, which flourishes in and around professional sports, often in illegal form, at the same time that socially conservative Christians are frequently mounting political opposition to pro-gambling legislation.”[30] In his thinking, the values of the sports world are not the values of the Christian faith. In this assessment, he is quite right. However, many evangelicals in sports ministry would respond with something along the lines of the need for Christians to be in the sports environment, just like in all others, to bring light into the darkness. His opening in the chapter is the story about Coach Bill McCartney who founded Promise Keepers. Krattenmaker reminds us of the fifth down that the officials gave to the Colorado football team, coached by McCartney, which allowed them to score a last-minute touchdown and win against Missouri in 1990. Colorado went on to win the national title. The issue of fairness, honesty, and even cheating is raised by McCartney’s refusal to forfeit the win after the problem was discovered. Krattenmaker interestingly points to a similar event fifty years earlier when Cornell beat Dartmouth with a fifth down mistake by officials. Cornell correctly chose to forfeit the game.

The point of Krattenmaker is that the winning-at-all-costs mentality in sports goes contrary to the spirit of Jesus. I have no trouble in agreeing with him on this point. I do wonder how far this must be taken. For example, when a basketball official calls a foul on one player guarding another player and there was no foul, should the player argue with the referee about the call or be silent? Officials might not want to go that route due to the dynamics of a fast game and the amount of arguing that already exists! Higgs notes the outcry of “unchristian” which was leveled at Amos Alonzo Stagg when he introduced the hidden ball trick into football.[31] So, in my mind, there are some areas where the line is fine and not as obvious as the fifth down scenario.

Krattenmaker could have been a little more generous in this chapter by pointing to more evangelical examples of honesty in sports. Al Worthington, a Major League pitcher in the 1950s and 1960s, is a case in point. He is well known in baseball circles for choosing to be sent down to the minor leagues rather than play in the majors for the White Sox because they were cheating by stealing the signs of the opposing catcher which was contrary to the rules.[32] Others say that stealing signs is part of the game. Worthington disagreed. Certainly the evangelical sports minister must take into account the teachings of Jesus and make sure that the players being ministered to understand the difference between genuine Christian living according to the ways of Christ and the atmosphere and environment that is the sports industry. In this way, Krattenmaker does a good job of raising appropriate issues that need to be on the evangelical radar.

The last chapter of the book is entitled “The Salvation of Sports: ‘Getting it Right’ in an Emerging New Era of Faith in Sports.” Here Krattenmaker presents his vision of what the relationships should be in the future. He champions some evangelicals who, in his view, are more open than others to change. He also borrows from some professing evangelicals the language of the “whole gospel,”[33] language that distorts the biblical view of the gospel of eternal life, to support the idea that the individual salvation message is not all that the sports world needs. While I would agree with this point (without using the phrase “whole gospel”), I would want to make sure that the social aspects of Christian living do not push out the message of eternal life through Christ. Some particular emphases in Krattenmaker’s future vision are the need for all Christian ministries in sports to address race issues and to challenge the worship of winning and its implications. The overall frame for the vision is the earlier mentioned choice of pluralism as the vehicle of across-the-spectrum participation. Evangelical dominance should be surrendered in favor of more equal footing on the playing field.

What Kind Of Pluralism?

There are many other areas that could be discussed and critiqued further concerning Krattenmaker’s book such as his inadequate use of the Bible,[34] the issue of “how” evangelicals share their faith, and his strong aversion to conservative politics. However, the big game before us is the proposal for a pluralistic environment in the relationship between religion and sports which we have mentioned at a few points along the way. I view this as a microcosm of the larger question of pluralism in our culture at large.[35]

D. A. Carson described for us three kinds of pluralism: (1) empirical, (2) cherished, and (3) philosophical or hermeneutical.[36] Empirical pluralism is the statistical presence of differing views. It is a fact that we live in a pluralistic culture. There is nothing earth-shattering about the obvious. However, the second kind of pluralism is “cherished.” That is, it is approved or welcomed. If this means that one welcomes the belief content of differing views, then evangelicals cannot buy into this. If cherished pluralism means the celebration of the existence of many different views, including those against Christ, then again the evangelical must abstain. There is no sense in which an evangelical should live by the motto, “I’m OK; you’re OK.” If cherished pluralism means that we welcome the context of many views existing around us so that we have opportunity to speak the truth into those contexts, then there might be a way for an evangelical to buy in. However, it might be better simply to see this as taking advantage of empirical pluralism. There is no cherishing of pluralism as a worldview.

As Carson notes, the third kind of pluralism—philosophical pluralism—is the most troublesome for the evangelical. He defines this kind of pluralism as support for the view “that any notion that a particular ideological or religious claim is intrinsically superior to another is necessarily wrong.”[37] Thus, any claim to absolute truth must be abandoned.

Which of these kinds of pluralism is being urged by the book before us? Does the writer promote a pluralism in which pure evangelicalism can have a place or is there in his approach a muzzle put on the sports-minded evangelical? His promotion (in more than one place in the book) of the idea that the FCA should be the Fellowship of Religious Athletes may be instructive. If this means that the organization or any other evangelical organization like Baseball Chapel should be forced to be internally pluralistic, he is out of bounds. Such an approach would violate the First Amendment rights of the evangelicals. I do not believe that Krattenmaker explicitly goes to this option. He notes, “The challenge, rather, is to create a pluralistic environment in professional sports, where no one form of belief or nonbelief takes over, but where all are welcome, all are free to act and speak in accordance with their creeds and beliefs, so long as they do not blatantly infringe on the rights of others.”[38] This is somewhat acceptable to the evangelical depending upon what the last part means – “do not blatantly infringe on the rights of others.”

In light of the fact that some Jews believe that evangelism of Jews by evangelicals is anti-Semitic by its very nature, evangelicals have the right to doubt the intention stated here.[39]

To explore this thought further, one is drawn to Krattenmaker’s finish to his book where he gives a word to Christians in sports:

The vision sketched above is not intended to silence you. If anything, your message will come through louder, and resonate more clearly and with far more listeners, when it is expressed through your ethical witness in addition to your get-Jesus evangelism. The nonevangelical rest of us will be more likely to relax our defenses and engage you in an open, hospitable manner if you consistently lead with your hearts rather than a rigid theological proposition about Jesus, heaven, and hell that will inevitably exclude and alienate large numbers of us.

Two things about this statement need to be made: one good and one bad. Krattenmaker is quite right and has a sensitivity that many evangelicals should have concerning ethical behavior (although I would disagree with the author on the list of sins and the behaviors in question). Evangelicals in sports or in all of life speak more strongly when they are coming from a posture of strong ethics. However, the idea that we should not elevate our “theological rigidness about Jesus, heaven, and hell” comes perilously close to telling us to leave our gospel at home when we are doing sports ministry. Is this what he means? Mohler has characterized Krattenmaker’s message with the following words: “Krattenmaker repeatedly stresses that he believes athletes should be free to express their faith. Nevertheless, he argues that belief in the exclusivity of the Gospel of Christ is out of bounds for such expression.”[40] I agree with Mohler’s assessment.

Krattenmaker, probably from the vantage point of philosophical pluralism, must in the end be intolerant toward those who believe in absolute truth. The sports world he envisions full of religion has no one telling anyone else they are wrong about the afterlife. The evangelicalism he envisions as part of this mix is not really evangelicalism at all, since the gospel of eternal life through Christ alone must be downplayed or eliminated. But that is what is most important to the evangelical. Krattenmaker would have just as much success asking the Pope to become a Protestant. This does not mean that the evangelical would be opposed to other religious groups developing support ministries for the sports world. They have that right and should not be kept out. But that is their responsibility to develop and work. The evangelical must continue to do his best to share his faith in ways that are not obnoxious. However, Jesus said that his teaching would divide people: “Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division” (Luke 12:51). If the message itself offends rather than the messenger, the evangelical must still step up to the plate and deliver the pitch.

Notes

1. Shirl James Hoffman, “Whatever Happened to Play,” Christianity Today (February 2010), 21. The Alabama story is taken from Warren St. John’s Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer (New York: Three Rivers P, 2005), 10. I can still remember a defining moment in my young Christian life about a year after I became a born-again Christian in the middle 1970s. Alabama was ranked first in pre-season polls and opening at home against an upstart Missouri Tigers. Missouri won convincingly 20-6. Alabama was never close to winning. As I was leaving Legion Field in Birmingham at the end of the game, I saw grown men putting their programs in their seats and then jumping up and down on them as they howled and cried their disapproval. I was certainly disappointed, but I thought to myself, “I am glad that my ultimate joy does not depend upon this game.” Winning as the “only thing” had been taken away from me as a sports fan. Vince Lombardi might not approve, but Jesus might.
2. The book that piqued my interest in religion and sports is Robert J. Higgs, God in the Stadium: Sports and Religion in America (Lexington, KY: UP of Kentucky, 1995). This book went beyond the realm of evangelicalism but set the stage for some of my thoughts in this arena. I have also read over the years an assortment of biographies of famous sports figures, mostly Christian but not always. Among them are Keith Dunnavant, Coach: The Life of Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant, rev. ed. (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2005); Bob St. John, The Landry Legend: Grace Under Pressure (Dallas, TX: Word, 1989); Tom Osborne, Faith in the Game: Lessons on Football, Work, and Life (New York: Broadway Books, 1999); Gene Stallings and Sally Cook, Another Season: A Coach’s Story of Raising an Exceptional Son (New York: Little, Brown, and Co., 1997); and Bobby Bowden and Mark Schlabach, Called to Coach: Reflections on Life, Faith, and Football, forewards by Tony Dungy and Joe Paterno (New York: Howard, 2010). For a refutation of the thought that sports activity has nothing to do with character development, I would urge the reading of Jim Dent, Twelve Mighty Orphans: The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football (New York: Thomas Dunne, 2007). To show how sports and religion seriously overlap in American culture, see Ed McMinn, God Bless the Crimson Tide: Devotions for the Die-Hard Alabama Fan (New York: Howard, 2007), which, of course, I have read cover to cover!
3. Tom Krattenmaker, Onward Christian Athletes: Turning Ballparks into Pulpits and Players into Preachers (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010).
4. Krattenmaker never reveals his religious or philosophical persuasion with any precision in the book.
5. Krattenmaker, Onward Christian Athletes, 16.
6. Tom Krattenmaker, “The Evangelicals You Don’t Know,” USA Today (June 2008) <http://tomkrattenmaker.com/?p=65> (accessed 4 November 2010). See also Onward Christian Athletes, 194-98.
7. Krattenmaker, Onward Christian Athletes, 206-7.
8. Ibid., 26; emphasis added.
9. Ibid., 143. There can never be any theological reconciliation between Christian Reconstructionism and dispensationalism, the position of this author.
10. Ibid., 207.
11. Ibid., 121.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., 69-86.
14. In a spirit of full disclosure I must reluctantly note that the Detroit Lions are one of the teams that I follow.
15. Krattenmaker, Onward Christian Athletes, 3.
16. Ibid.
17. Unfortunate for Krattenmaker is his statement in this chapter that “those who pay attention to politics know that the outsize influence of conservative Christians in American politics has waned. Barack Obama, whose stands on abortion and many other issues are anathema to the Christian Right, has won the White House” (Ibid., 7). I am not sure he could have written such a statement after the mid-term elections of November 2, 2010. His statement could just be wishful thinking.
18. Ibid., 14.
19. Ibid., 32.
20. Ibid, 57.
21. Ibid., 87-89.
22. In this chapter, pages 102-4 were perhaps the most problematic to me in Krattenmaker’s book. Here is the beginning of the suggestion to remake evangelicalism into a form of evangelicalism that is really not evangelicalism. This will be one of the major issues in our discussion below on pluralism.
23. Ibid., 115.
24. Ibid., 122.
25. Ibid., 138.
26. Quoted in Ibid., 149.
27. Ibid., 150.
28. Ibid., 170
29. Ibid., 171.
30. Ibid., 179.
31. Higgs, God in the Stadium, 191.
32. Jim Thielman, Cool of the Evening: The 1965 Minnesota Twins (Minneapolis: Kirk House P, 2005), 112-14. See also <http://www.cooloftheevening.com/al_worthington.htm>.
33. Krattenmaker, Onward Christian Athletes, 198.
34. Ibid., 17, 136, 172. Krattenmaker does a good job of outlining the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20 as he acknowledges the evangelical need to evangelize. However, he woefully abuses Romans 2:1 (“Therefore you are without excuse, every man of you who passes judgment…”) in attempting to assert that Paul’s meaning is we should not make judgments about homosexuality (136). Somehow he ignores the many teachings throughout the Bible where Christians should stand against sin (he stands against his own privileged list of sins himself). The bottom line disagreement is over what sin is, not whether judgment should be made. Krattenmaker also mislabels the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand as a parable (when it is an actual historical story—the text never calls it a parable). He comments, “What seems beyond doubt…is that the loaves-and-fishes story teaches believers that God’s salvation is universal, a ‘championship’ granted to all who believe, not just those strong enough or powerful enough to out-do a rival for the eternal prize” (172). However, the fact of the matter is that the passage has nothing to do with eternal salvation at all. Nothing in the context tells someone what they must do to be saved (that is in the next chapter not in this story). The miracle gives an occasion for Jesus to demonstrate his power to prove who he is. To apply the passage the way Krattenmaker does is simply to sloganize the text.
35. The issue of pluralism is far from a new issue in culture. The debate predates the existence of the church. It is a major issue in the early centuries of the church. While it is fashionable to view any conservative expression of Christianity as intolerant in light of pluralistic realities or desires (usually using Middle Ages scenarios as the examples), the conservative Bible-believing church has often done a better job than its reputation allows. Even Emperor Constantine is getting a facelift among some scholarly studies which show a far greater toleration for minority religious expressions within his empire (see Peter J. Leithart, Defending Constantine [Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2010], 106ff).
36. D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 13-54. This work may be the most important evangelical book written during the 1990s.
37. Ibid., 19.
38. Krattenmaker, Onward Christian Athletes, 207.
39. For an interesting assessment of the relationship of evangelicals and Jews, see David A. Rausch, Building Bridges (Chicago: Moody P, 1988), 227-33.
40. Al Mohler, “Time to Separate Church and Sports? A New Agenda Takes Shape,” Almohler.com, <http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/ 10/16/time-to-separate-church-and-sports/>http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/10/16/time-to-separate-church-and-sports/ (accessed 4 November 2010).