In an NFL Network interview broadcast just four days before his death, football great Reggie White said he felt he had been used and “prostituted” by people in the evangelical movement who had urged him to capitalize on his football fame to promote Christianity. The legendary football star for the Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers and Carolina Panthers, who died unexpectedly last week at his Lake Norman home, had been well-known during his career for mixing religious proselytizing with his hard-hitting play. Since retiring from the NFL, though, White’s religious feelings had deepened and in an effort to lead a more authentic Christian life, he had turned away from the kind of in-your-face promotion for Christianity that had earned him the nickname of “Minister of Defense.”In the televised interview, White said, “Sometimes when I look back on my life, there are a lot of things I said God said. I realize he didn’t say nothing. It was what Reggie wanted to do. I do feel the Father … gave me some signals … but you won’t hear me anymore saying God spoke to me about something — unless I read something in scripture and I know.”
White told his interviewer that he had quit using his star status to spread the Christian message. As pointed out in a Jan. 3 Salon.com article by Tom Krattenmaker, a Philadelphia writer who is working on a book about Christianity in pro sports, White’s new attitude directly contradicted one of the founding goals of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes when it formed a half century ago. Yes, there’s organized, behind the scenes pressure in pro sports for athletes to give those inspiring shout-outs to Jesus every time they score a touchdown or hit a home run.
“Really, in many respects I’ve been prostituted,” said White. “Most people who wanted me to speak at their churches only asked me to speak because I played football, not because I was this great religious guy or this theologian … I got caught up in some of that until I got older and I got sick of it.
“I’ve been a preacher for 21 years, preaching what somebody wrote or what I heard somebody else say. I was not a student of scripture. I came to the realization I’d become more of a motivational speaker than a teacher of the word.
“Maybe I was wrong,” he said in the interview. “I used to have people tell me, “God has given you the ability to play football so you could tell the world about him.’ Well, he doesn’t need football to let the world know about him. When you look at the scriptures, you’ll see that most of the prophets weren’t popular guys. I came to the realization that what God needed from me more than anything is a way of living instead of the things I was saying. Now I know I’ve got to sit down and get it right.”
Toward the end of his life, White was learning Hebrew in order to study the Old Testament in its original language. “I came to the realization,” White said, “that if I’m going to find God, I’d better find him for myself.” According to White, however, some of his previous evangelical supporters found his new, searching attitude heretical and some ministers had actually warned other Christians to keep away from him.
This article appears in Jan 5-11, 2005.
