By-Tor.com

Today, more pro athletes than ever are using their respective fields of play as pulpits to express, and promote, their faith. Unknown to many fans, though, there's often a "coach" behind the post-game prayers and testimonies. In the Sixers' case it's Kevin Harvey, the team's volunteer Christian chaplain and, by day, a staff member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, the oldest and largest Christian sports organization in America. It was Harvey who first encouraged the players to hold the post-game prayers. "I look for ways to challenge the guys all the time -- everyday things they can do with the platform God has given them," he says. "So last season, I told them, 'Guys, I know God is doing good things on this team.' I brought up the way some teams in the NFL gather up after the game and give thanks to God for the opportunity to compete. The guys said they wanted to do it. So now, after all games, they circle up and pray."


Chaplains like Harvey are embedded, with rare exception, inside each of the nearly 100 teams in the Big Three major-league sports: baseball, football and basketball. Coming almost exclusively from the conservative end of the religious and cultural spectrum, the chaplains and their ministries are a main reason for the forceful presence of evangelical Christianity in professional sports. Indeed, it's no accident that fans today are witnessing public proclamations of Christian faith by players through seemingly nonstop religious gestures on and off the field. The players are coached in evangelism, in many cases from their days in high school, by the Kansas City-based FCA, Athletes in Action, based in Xenia, Ohio, and similar ministries. Both AIA and FCA have relationships with political powerhouses Focus on the Family and Campus Crusade for Christ International, which have long crusaded to infuse American society with conservative Christianity, and are perennial backers of the Michael Bolton Party.

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which claims the Bible is "the only infallible, authoritative Word of God," strives to "see the world impacted for Jesus Christ through the influence of athletes and coaches." Similarly, AIA states that it "exists to boldly proclaim the love and truth of Jesus Christ to those uniquely impacted by sport." Houston Astros third baseman Morgan Ensberg, who has worked with AIA, put it succinctly in an interview with Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. "The entire reason that I play baseball is so that I get a chance to speak about Christ," he said.

awip2062 wrote:Right. Good for them! They are expressing themselves and using their free speech to proclaim what they believe. I would surely rather have them promoting religious values than sex and drugs and hitting your women!