As I sat here watching the first Sunday football games of the regular NFL season…I couldn’t help, but once again, notice the overt and non-humbling displays of pointing at the sky, kneeling in the end zone, and prayer huddles before, after and during the games. Geez! ENOUGH already! I was trying to take a break from all this…but alas no. So here I sit about to share with you about how far this Dominionist Athletes Movement has evolved.
Especially when the game ended that I was watching and cut to the last 5 minutes of the San Francisco 49ers/Arizona Cardinal game and the camera went to 49ers Coach Singletary, new this year, with a cross so large hanging around his neck it looked big enough to crucify a small animal – I decided that it is an appropriate time to talk about the intentional and growing evangelizing that is well organized and very well funded in ALL college and professional sports.
Campus Crusade for Christ is …
Volunteer with Athletes in Action
Learn how to invest your love of the game in the Great Commission.
You love sports - You love God - You love people.
Combine all 3 loves by volunteering with Athletes in Action, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.
AIA can equip and train you to reach people around the world with the life-changing truth of Jesus Christ by using the platform of sport. Your unique skills and passions can be used together. The Great Commission awaits.
The Great Commission is a term used in the Dominionist world derived from Matthew 28:16-20. Here is their version from the NIV Bible:
18Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
This is the passage that “commissions” them to convert all nations to ‘c’hristianity. A tall order? You betcha! So they creatively insinuate this mandate from God into every angle possible that will give them the greatest number of potential converts. And what a tremendously influential body to capture! Athletes who are often idolized by youth. Perfect for “harvesting” souls!
These organizations birth offshoots that focus more specifically on target populations. For example, Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Athletes in Action is the case in point in this instance funded and supported as a ministry of Campus Crusade.
About Athletes in Action
As of 2006, AIA has a ministry presence in 85 countries, on nearly 100 U.S. college campuses, and on 35 U.S. professional sports teams….AIA’s media tools and materials expose millions of sports fans to the good news each year. Countless volunteers, thousands of athletes, and more than 500 staff members stand together to share one message: Life’s greatest victory is found in a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Athletes in Action is a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ
Mission Statement
One World To Reach, One Language of Sport, One Message of Victory
Ministry
AIA is a global pioneer, innovator, and servant leader in sport ministry.
Mission
Building spiritual movements everywhere through the platform of sport
Measures
Giving 100 million people annually the opportunity to hear the gospel
Building a global movement of 15,000 spiritually mature athletic influencers
“Athletic influencers”? That sounds very innocuous now doesn’t it? But who is Campus Crusade for Christ in a nutshell? CCC was invented by Bill Bright, a former “Fancy Food” salesman and is directly linked to Loren Cunningham of Youth with a Mission and C Street fame as told by Jeff Sharlet in “The Family”; Billy Graham, Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition of America, the 7 Mountains Mandate that continues to resurface…and the list goes on and on and on.
In the not too distant future we will provide you with a very complete representation of how all these evangelical organizations and leaders, who have invented this movement over the years, connect to one another. Alex and I are diligently compiling this extensive list to make available for the first time in one place so that we can get the magnitude of the breadth of this Movement.
It demonstrates how we are unable to avoid the influence of Dominionism and their evangelizing and that is why it is so important to learn about just how viral they have become in our society. I have written a great deal on the Political Dominionist Movement and these are all interrelated.
Soooo…guess I had better look for another distraction because football is no longer going to be that fun mindless event for me anymore. Doggonit!
Ugh, so annoying. I agree, with these overt displays I cannot imagine how strong the coercion is for the athletes on these times. And as an example for all their young fans . . .
This reminds of this story from last week:
http://tinyurl.com/o7aytg
I know I don't have to explain how coercive such events are to high school athletes.
How can we, the rational, reverse blatant indoctrination? Wish I had an answer. There is no reasoning with any members of the paternalistic religions. Their motto "Don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up" gives us no avenue of intelligent discourse. No discussion can open their closed world view.
There is no tolerance, and certainly no loving kindness. All they have is the tyranny of "The Word".
Sorry – I just can't resist.
In my day 'real men' didn't go to church. They were busy hunting, fishing, and fixing things around the house. They spent the afternoon watching football and the evenings watching westerns. Church was for women, children, and sissies. Ah…..those were the days. I think my Dad would have choked on his beer if he ever saw Hoss making the sign of the cross.
I think I just told everyone my age.
Well I am 51, and that is absolutely the pic of Americana Christianity when I was growing up. BUT! There are those Dominionists poised to battle that sense of male exclusion from the church pews…such as…Palin's pick for Press Sect'y to take the place of Meg "Stapletongue" Stapleton, is David Murrow. Check out this guys site!
" At Church for Men, our focus is not male dominance, but male resurgence. "
And the difference would be……………?
I think I detect a game of semantics here.
I was going to vote in their micropoll, but I didn't like any of the choices. I was looking for The Origin of Species, or Theopalinism – you know, something a little more academic than The Three Little Pigs? Oh wait! Nah…never mind.