What Percentage of Pro Athletes are Christians?
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Here’s an interesting read for you while you’re trying to make sense of what happened on LOST last Thursday. It’s an article from the archives, published in February 2005 on msnbc.com, that talks about the role of Christianity in collegiate and professional sports. Some stats I found interesting…
“The figure commonly cited by those who work with them is that about a third of the players in the major American team sports are born-again or evangelical Christians — a little more in the NFL, a little less in the NBA and significantly more in NASCAR. Grant Teaff, the former head of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes who is now executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, has said as many as two-thirds of college football coaches are devout Christians.”
The article also talks about athiests in sports who feel like they can’t be open about their views because of the generally pro-God culture in locker rooms. I think the same thing applies to the rest of the world though. Most people, in general, have a negative connotation with the word “athiest”.
But back to the numbers, one-third of all athletes seems a bit high to me. Only because the number is nowhere near one-third at any job I’ve ever worked at. What do you think? Is this number high or is there a reason that many athletes are spiritual?
2/3 of the coaches? I doubt it. My brother in law used to work with _ _A (sports ministry) and he talked about the _ _A coaches and the _ _A coaches. The _ _A guys were discipled and very serious about their relationship with God. He noticed some of the _ _A guys were but some just wanted to say they were believers but didn’t really live it. He worked in that arena so I don’t know for sure.
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:58 pmI think 1/3 is a bit much. My experience, not with athletes, but people, is that many of them will say the are Christians, but their lives show that they are not. What is the litmus test to prove these 1/3 are Christians? What they say? Or, do the surveyors actually watch their lives???? Probably their words. I watched Snoop thank Jesus for an award and then rap about getting blunted. Is he part of the 1/3 of rap artists that are evangelicals?
March 4th, 2008 at 9:30 am