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This is an adapted excerpt from Steve Eubanks’ new book “Godball: How Athletes are Saving Christianity,” out June 9 from Center Street, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc., and used with permission.
The 2020s have seen the birth of a movement, a Christian revival bordering on a revolution. Pastors and Christian leaders see it, as do many secular observers. But nowhere is the trend more evident than in sports.
Content analysis shows a massive uptick in athletes sharing Christian messages. But you don’t need a study or even be a believer to recognize that something is happening. Tune in to any postgame interview or press conference, and it won’t be more than a minute before you hear someone giving a Jesus shout-out. Some of these events turn into full-blown testimonials.
You saw it within seconds of the biggest American sporting spectacle of every year. As the clock ticked down to zero on the Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl LIX victory over the Kansas City Chiefs at the New Orleans Superdome, Fox Sports reporter Tom Rinaldi and his cameraman jumped in front of Philadelphia Eagles’ head coach Nick Sirianni.
“Super Bowl champions,” Rinaldi said, the timber of his voice capturing both excitement and gravity. “What does the moment mean?”
“God’s blessed us very much,” Sirianni said, drenched in Gatorade and looking upward while holding back emotions. “He gave us all the talents to get here, so first and foremost, thanks to Him. This is the ultimate team game. You can’t be great without the greatness of others. … Thank God. Thank you, Jesus.”
A few seconds later, another reporter asked Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts that same question. “God is good,” Hurts said, speaking solemnly, privately, as though unaware that his words in this moment were being broadcast to a record audience north of 127 million viewers. “He’s greater than all the highs and the lows.”
Neither reporter seemed even mildly annoyed by the faith proclamations; indeed, they would have been more surprised if those shout-outs—what television producers called “the Jesus bite”—hadn’t come. In the two previous Super Bowls, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes did the same thing in his postgame interviews; and Chiefs owner Clark Hunt had used the Lombardi Trophy ceremony to praise the Lord.
Why is this important?
Sports accounted for eighty of the top one hundred most-watched broadcasts in 2024, larger by levels of magnitude than any organized Christian outreach. But events like the Super Bowl are no longer one-night affairs. Since the 1990s football’s Big Game has become a weeklong extravaganza with concerts, banquets, awards, and more than six thousand members of the media on hand. Unlike the past, events surrounding the last few Super Bowls have sounded more like an old-time Christian revival than a sports contest.
During “media day,” a free-for-all where players and coaches rotate around the arena and answer questions from print journalists, podcasters, and every media member in between, the Eagles’ star running back Sequan Barkley said, “I don’t think it’s ironic that the year I try to home in on and grow my faith, I happen to have my best season. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I know the Bible like a hundred percent, in and out. It’s something that I’m learning, and I’m challenging myself to get better at it with my family and my friends. I’m lucky that my agent is a pastor and I’m able to have Bible studies with him. But I’m just growing. That’s the beautiful thing about it. That’s what religion and faith is, having a relationship with God and understanding who Jesus is. That’s what I’ve been trying to do this year. But my faith is everything, and I know that I wouldn’t be here without the man above.”
Mahomes made similar professions. “Praising God is important to me every single day,” the Chiefs quarterback said. “It’s not about football. It’s about giving glory to God for being able to walk around and live my life; to have a beautiful family; to be able to have an impact on others. I’m going to use that stage and that platform, win or lose, to give glory back to Him and hopefully to bring others close to Him so that they can find the same love for life that I have because of that.”
Those Christian messages were uttered an easy walk from Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club and Stripper King on Bourbon Street.
A year before, the Super Bowl was played in Las Vegas, a town that would make the residents of Gomorrah blink. There, Minkah Fitzpatrick, the safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers, won the Bart Starr Award, which honors a player for his outstanding character, integrity, and leadership on and off the field. In his acceptance speech Fitzpatrick said, “A good man is a man willing to pick up his cross and follow Jesus. A good man is a man willing to get up on that cross daily, pin his flesh to it and continue to follow Christ. As I receive this award for my good relationship with the Lord, I just want everybody to know that I am nothing but a product of sitting at the feet of Jesus. I am nothing but the product of a man sitting at the foot of the cross, letting God mold his heart and mold his mind. I’m not a perfect man in any way, shape, or form. But if you want to be a good man, if you want to be a great brother and a great son, great husband, just sit at the foot of the cross. Sit in silence with Jesus, let Him mold you and work in your heart. You’ll be everything that you want to be.”
This was not in a one-on-one interview; it didn’t air on a Christian talk show; it was on a stage in Sin City. The fact that Fitzpatrick dove so hard into his message, not just shouting out his faith, but making an evangelical plea to others, and no one blinked or blushed or booed—in fact, he received thunderous applause—demonstrated the societal and cultural shift taking place in sports.
The most outspoken Christian in the NFL has been 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy, who used 2024 Super Bowl media day to say, “Whether I do good or not, I’m rooted in my faith in God. That’s it. ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters.’ That passage is saying I already have what I need. I have a Good Shepherd. I’ve been studying Psalm 23 and it’s what I go back to every single day.”
If this movement were relegated to American football, it could be easily dismissed, as many have tried to do in the past: too many blows to the head, or the contemptuous notion that it’s easy to pray when you know you are one bad hit away from a hospital bed. But casual observation reveals that the revival is not pigeonholed to a particular league or small group of players and teams.
It is being driven by athletes up and down the sports landscape. In ways big and small, athletes are stepping out of their sports-talk comfort zones and relaying a bigger message about the faith they rely on throughout their lives and careers.
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