USA Today on banning evangelical faith from sports?

Point of View

Oct 15, 2009
TOM ASCOL

Tom Krattenmaker thinks that religion and sports don't mix. At least certain kinds of religious conviction shouldn't be allowed in the realm of athletics.

ASCOL

With the release of his book on the subject, Onward Christian Athletes: Turning Ballparks into Pulpits and Players into Preachers, Krattenmaker looks to extend his peculiar views of religious discrimination to a larger audience.

His recent article in USA Today has already begun that effort by taking aim particularly at University of Florida's Heisman Trophy winner, Tim Tebow. Krattenmaker acknowledges the value of having some "moral guidance" infused into sports through religious, particularly Christian, sportsmen. But that good is outweighed by the bad that comes when kind of Christianity being espoused is Tebow's type--the conservative and evangelical kind.

The problem, as Krattenmaker sees it, is that "civic resource know as 'our team'--a resource supported by buying, game-watching and tax-paying--is being leveraged b a one-truth evangelical campaign that has little appreciation for the beliefs of the rest of us." Despite acknowledging that "Jesus-professing athletes are among the best citizens in their sector" who "commit good deeds daily in communities across this country" he is deeply concerned about a "shadow side" of their influence that comes from the exclusivity of their faith.

Here is the real horror of it all: "If their take on God and truth and life is the only right one--which their creed boldly states--everyone one else is wrong." To those whose only truth is relativism and only virtue is tolerance, that is heresy and those who espouse it are guilty of the unpardonable sin.

Tebow is singled out because he is outspoken about his faith in Jesus Christ--a faith that takes seriously the claim that Jesus makes about himself being the only way, truth and life and the only means by which anyone can enter into a right relationship with God (John 14:6). Tebow often serves with his missionary father in Asia teaching this exclusive message of Jesus Christ and encouraging people to believe it. This causes great alarm to Krattenmaker because such work is "at cross purposes with the majority of Americans--indeed the majority of American Christians--and their more generous conception of salvation."

Evangelical Christians do not determine what to believe by majority opinion. They are, as they like to say, people of the book, meaning the Bible. Their devotion to Jesus Christ as Lord goes hand-in-hand with their confidence in the truth and goodness of the Bible. That is why they study it and work to live according to it no matter where they are or what they are doing. That is why Tebow, and other evangelical athletes, do not check their faith at the locker room before taking the field. Their trust in Jesus Christ is not merely a part of their lives, it defines them.

When Krattenmaker asserts that evangelical Christianity's "exclusiveness sometimes morphs into a form of chauvenism and mistreatment of non-Christians," he panders to the basest fears of his readers. Have people been mistreated in the name of Christ? Certainly. Do evangelical Christians espouse such actions? Hardly. They condemn them.

Stupidity and immorality insinuate themselves into even the most noble and virtuous realms of life. It is evident that guild of sports writers and news paper publishing is not immune. If the exceptions are to be used to characterize the whole, then not only will evangelicals be banished from football fields, but common sense and sound judgment will be outlawed from civic discourse.

Tom Krattenmaker's views are helping pave the way to such a world.

Tom Ascol is pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral and executive director of Founders Ministries (www.founders.org) where this article first appeared on Ascol's blog. Used with permission

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