Onward Christian Athletes - Part 3

This is the third in a series of five articles related to the recently released book, “Onward Christian Athletes – Turning Ballparks into Pulpits and Players into Preachers.” It is written by Tom Krattenmaker and published by Rowman and Littlefield. I have read and re-read the book in order to learn what I can from its pages. I would recommend that you buy a copy and read it yourself. This week’s notes will deal with chapters 3 and 4.

Chapter 3 – Faith Coach: Discipling Athletes for a Roster Spot on God’s Team
Chapter 4 – Winning for Jesus (But Finding Him in the Loss Column): The Tricky Relationship between Evangelism and Sports Success

In chapter 3 the author finds if offensive that the sports chaplains associated with professional sports teams are exclusively Evangelical Christians. He does acknowledge that they are the ones who have voluntarily served and invested themselves for years. He seems to indict those outside Evangelical Christendom for not showing up.

Sadly, the author only sees the “Sports Evangelism” model of ministry in sport. This model is most easily seen to the casual observer as it often works to capitalize on the media and its obsession with high profile sports people. He believes, sometimes correctly, that the “Faith Coach” or “Team Chaplain” is single-mindedly focused on discipling athletes for the purpose of public proclamation of the Gospel. He does not seem to be even aware of the other models of ministry in sport which operate outside the media spotlight.

The author points out what appear to him to be even more political ties between Evangelical sports ministries and the Christian right wing of the Republican Party. While most of those I know in sports ministry are not politically active, he sees these people as political pawns unwittingly using their popularity to promote the causes of the wealthy and powerful who fund their ministries and represent causes which they support.

He takes the Fellowship of Christian Athletes to task when he says, “FCA is largely silent on big issues in sport.” He points to racism, performance enhancing drugs, player safety, coaching ethics, sexism, etc… Given that he measures all things by national media exposure, I’d have to say he’s right. FCA does not publish widely about these matters, rather certain members of our staff and others in our network are working to be influential and to effect change related to these issues from within sport, rather than from outside it like a journalist.

The author quotes some of sports ministry’s critics when they reference the “lack of theological heft” in our work and communication. On this matter I believe he’s right. We are much too willing to have our expressions of Biblical truth displayed on a football player’s eye black, in a 6 second sound bite on the 6:00 news, a trite phrase or cliché scribbled on one’s shoes or other “bumper sticker” proclamation. We can do better than we have on this front.

The author is more than a little presumptuous in his call for a prophetic message. If he supposes to be the prophet, he’s way out of line. If he means to provoke a prophet from within the sports ministry community, he may get more than he can handle.

The author says, “American faith has met American culture – and American culture has triumphed.” He is absolutely right in this assertion. Much of the ethic which rules sports ministry places more value on winning contests, national rankings and the elevated profile of the Christian sportspeople than it does the more Biblical values of faithfulness, loyalty and commitment. He points out the Faith = Winning ethic in Christian sports ministry. He infers that Christian sports ministry’s message is that if one trusts Jesus, he or she will be more successful in sport. While this cannot be said of the entirety of our ministries, I know it to be true of some, either explicitly said or implied. Conversely, this same way of thinking leads us to believe that the Gospel has more power if it’s spoken by players who compete for the national championship team over against the bottom feeders of the sports world.

The author quotes a number of articles from sports ministry periodicals which detailed the growing numbers of players attending Bible studies and team chapels as their team was winning, but failed to mention anything about the decline once the team was losing. He quotes one such magazine which said, “The Lions were playing together because they were praying together,” implying their success was due to their attendance at the Bible studies and their conversions to Christ. He questioned the propriety of the reporting of players “getting saved” and other matters in the national media. I would agree with him. Matters related to private meetings should remain private. Public meetings are another matter entirely. Often times immature, zealous, enthusiastic, young Christians share information which we should be wise enough to protect from public scrutiny.

Probably the most painful parts of this whole book to read were the sections which quoted Reggie White (former NFL defensive lineman) in the last months before his tragic death. Simply said, Reggie believed that many people in sports ministry had “prostituted him” for the Gospel and for fund raising efforts. I am afraid that he may be right. That would certainly not be true of everyone with whom Reggie worked, but it could certainly be true of some of us. In our zeal to accomplish our mission, we could certainly be guilty of a utilitarian attitude toward sport and sadly even toward athletes and coaches. This has prompted me to carefully evaluate my practices and to confess and repent of such harmful attitudes when I find them in myself.

Hang on. There are two more weeks of these notes to endure. I pray that we can stand the bright lights of careful evaluation and I trust that we will emerge from the testing better equipped, purged of some unneeded baggage and ready to faithfully embrace the world of sport with a redemptive message and a loving heart.