 Time.com The Other Born-Again President? By Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy Tuesday, Jan. 02, 2007 We can never know the real story about a President's faith. We only know what he does — or refuses to do — in God's name. Voters were unwilling to forgive Gerald Ford for his great act of forgiveness, the unconditional pardon of Richard Nixon. But there was another side to the pardon, the presidency and the 1976 campaign that received much less attention, in part because Ford wanted it that way. The contest between Ford and Jimmy Carter was a battle between two born-again Christians — but only one was willing to run as one. Ford's faith was ignited in Grand Rapids, Mich., a center of Dutch Calvinist congregations so strict that even in the late 1950s there were arguments over whether it was appropriate to read the newspaper on the Sabbath. Ford's upbringing was more relaxed. Some Sunday afternoons, he recalled, "I'd just go out and play baseball. Of course, some of my Dutch friends weren't allowed to do that." As a young Michigan Congressman, he met a gospel-film executive named Billy Zeoli who came by Ford's office and gave him a Bible. Over the next few years the two men became close — so close that Ford came to call Zeoli "an alter ego, a second self." Among their bonds was a love of sports: Ford had been an All-American football player, and Zeoli created a ministry for professional athletes. It was at a pregame "football chapel," Zeoli says, that Ford renewed his personal commitment to Christ. Zeoli was holding a service at a Washington-area Marriott hotel for the Dallas Cowboys, in town to play the Redskins. Ford, who was then the Republican minority leader in Congress, came to hear his friend preach on "God's Game Plan." Ford was especially moved by the sermon and hung around to talk with Zeoli privately afterward about Christ and forgiveness and what it meant. The inquiry felt real and raw; was that the moment Ford committed himself to Christ? "It's hard to say when a man does that," Zeoli says plainly. "That's a God thing. But I think that day is the day he looked back to as an extremely important day of knowing Christ." Ford later affirmed in a published tribute to his chaplain that he and Zeoli "both put our trust in Christ, our Saviour, and have relied on Him for direction and guidance throughout our lives."  When Ford became Vice President in the fall of 1973, Zeoli began sending him a weekly devotional memo that would be waiting on Ford's desk on Monday mornings. It always had the same title — "God's Got a Better Idea" — and began with scripture (always from the King James version, Ford's preferred translation) and ended with a prayer. Zeoli sent 146 devotionals in all, every week through Ford's presidency. "Not only were they profound in their meaning and judicious in their selection," Ford said, "I believe they were also divinely inspired." Beyond the memos, Zeoli and Ford would meet privately every four or five weeks for prayer and Bible study. Their conversations took place either in the Oval Office or the family quarters upstairs. One of his first acts as President was some spiritual housecleaning. Among the more ingeniously cynical inventions of the Nixon Administration was the much publicized White House Church Service, which in addition to providing genuine fellowship for those so inclined, was a prime tool for image building, fund raising, arm twisting and dealmaking for the President's men. Two days after Ford was sworn in, his wife Betty Ford would write in her diary, a little pointedly, "There aren't going to be any more private services in the East Room for a select few." During his first Sunday as President Ford and Betty went to the same church that they had attended for more than 20 years: Immanuel-on-the-Hill in Alexandria.  Wikipedia Billy Zeoli was an American evangelical leader, speaker and media executive from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Zeoli served as the White house chaplain to U.S. President Gerald R. Ford and Betty Ford during the mid-1970s[2] offering counsel on national spiritual matters, and acting as spiritual counselor to President Ford.[3] In the 1960s, Zeoli was an early organizer of what would become Baseball Chapel, a Christian organization that provides professional Baseball players, and other athletes, Sunday church services in their locker rooms before sporting events. Zeoli was perhaps most remembered as the long-standing president of Gospel Films Inc, later becoming Gospel Communications Inc, a leading Christian media company that distributed media and promoted ministry outreach around the world. Zeoli held the position from 1962 until he retired from the organization in 2006. … The two men became friends and Zeoli started sending Ford a devotional once every month in the early 1970s (these devotionals would later become a book called "God's Got a Better Idea", a twist on the Ford political slogan, "Ford has a better idea"). … Zeoli was working as the director for Indianapolis Youth For Christ when he was hired to lead a fledgling Christian film company in Muskegon, MI called Gospel Films. Under his 44-year tenure, Zeoli would come to be known as an innovator in para-church ministry. He appealed to the youth movement and was a devote of McLuhan, utilizing the media of the era to reach into new territory. He created a free film program for American schools, prisons and the military, while leveraging the power of media for evangelizing the globe though the use of indigenous clergy. Gospel Films and Zeoli were the executive producers of How Should We Then Live: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture. The 1977 documentary film series was hosted by the American philosopher and missionary theologian Francis Schaeffer of L'Abri fame. The American distribution of the film, an accompanying book, and subsequent film tour in the United States by the Schaeffers' was responsible for bringing many evangelical Protestants into the then largely Roman Catholic public protest movement against the United States Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) that supported legal abortion in the United States. Francis Schaeffer's son, Frank Schaeffer, with the help of wealthy American evangelical donors (such as Amway co-founder Richard DeVos) would go on to make a successful follow-up, entitled Whatever Happened to the Human Race. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IB3Qqj5M2k Wikipedia How Should We Then Live: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture is a Christian cultural and historical documentary film series and book. The book was written by presuppositionalist theologian Francis A. Schaeffer and first published in 1976. The book served as the basis for a series of ten films. Schaeffer narrated and appeared throughout the film series, which was produced by his son Frank Schaeffer and directed by John Gonser.[1] In the film series, Schaeffer attacked the influences of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Charles Darwin. The films were credited with inspiring a number of leaders of the American conservative evangelical movement, including Jerry Falwell. According to Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live traces Western history from Ancient Rome until the time of writing (1976) along three lines: the philosophic, scientific, and religious.[3] He also makes extensive references to art and architecture as a means of showing how these movements reflected changing patterns of thought through time. Schaeffer's central premise is: when we base society on the Bible, on the infinite-personal God who is there and has spoken,[4] this provides an absolute by which we can conduct our lives and by which we can judge society. This leads to what Schaeffer calls "Freedom without chaos."[5] When we base society on humanism, which he defines as "a value system rooted in the belief that man is his own measure, that man is autonomous, totally independent",[6] all values are relative and we have no way to distinguish right from wrong except for "synthesis, pragmatism, and utilitarianism."[7] Because we disagree on what is best for which group, this leads to fragmentation of thought,[8] which has led us to the despair and alienation so prevalent in society today.[9] This fragmentation is expressed in the visual arts in works such as Les Demoiselles d'Avignon by Pablo Picasso. This work is considered to mark the beginning of Modern Art.[10] Another premise is that modern relative values are based on Personal Peace (the desire to be personally unaffected by the world's problems) and Affluence (an increasing personal income.)[11] He warns that when we live by these values we will be tempted to sacrifice our freedoms in exchange for an authoritarian government who will provide the relative values.[12] He further warns that this government will not be obvious like the fascist regimes of the 20th century but will be based on manipulation and subtle forms of information control, psychology, and genetics.[13]  Influence among Evangelicals Duriez reports that the film series "became a sensation among evangelicals, drawing audiences of up to five thousand in the churches that screened it. The accompanying book was a best-seller in the evangelical market...", selling forty thousand copies in the first three months.[21] "...[In America] Conservative evangelicals had been looking for an explanation for the secular drift of their country, and Schaeffer's diagnosis of contemporary cultural ills gave them a framework for understanding it."[22] With this and his other works "Schaeffer gave an entire generation of ministers the permission to read philosophy and to be engaged with the culture. It was not unusual for a ministerial student to be accused of 'carnal-mindedness' for reading philosophers or, even worse novelists, in an attempt to broaden the range of Christian apologetics. Schaeffer...can be credited for overcoming the monopoly of biblical studies and theology in the education of Evangelical ministers."[18] Frank Schaeffer the creator/producer of the film series states "How Should We Then Live? and the second series..."Whatever Happened to the Human Race? are still standard works today in thousands of evangelical high schools, colleges, and seminaries around the world. For many evangelicals, Francis Schaeffer is their first, and perhaps only, introduction to what 'we' think about art, history and culture, and politics - not to mention 'life issues.'"[23] In America the film series/book's call to action against legalized abortion is seen as a key impetus to the development of a political Christian Right movement, "Conservative evangelicals' newfound devotion to the GOP stemmed partly from their increased attention to abortion. In 1980, evangelicals had opposed abortion, but they generally viewed it as only one of many national sins, including the sexual revolution, homosexuality, feminism, and pornography. In the mid-1980s, evangelicals moved closer to the conservative Catholic position on the issue and began to view abortion as a unique evil, far worse than other national sins. Evangelicals heightened concern about abortion was largely due to the influence of Francis Schaeffer and his son Franky."[22] It is generally admitted by Evangelical leaders, such as Ralph Reed, that "abortion only became a central issue for Evangelicals as a result of a book and ten-part film series in 1976, How Should We Then Live?"[18]   
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May 24, 2023 10:53
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How much money have you spent on accounts since you've been permabanned?
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May 24, 2023 16:43
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Koishi Komeiji posted:How much money have you spent on accounts since you've been permabanned? i think this is a different permabanned guy
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May 24, 2023 16:44
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Gerald Ford was a good man and you know you can trust him because he believes the Warren Commission
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May 24, 2023 19:06
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Courtesy the Gerald Ford Presidential Library Online Archives THERE'S A REVEREND BILLY IN THE WHITE HOUSE AGAIN, BUT IT'S ZEOLI, NOT GRAHAM Every Monday morning the envelope arrives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and is placed on President Gerald Ford's desk. It contains a passage from the Bible and a copyrighted prayer The prayer Is inspirational, colloquial and almost always fiercely cozy. "My dear God, why don't you just come and sit down in this chair and tell me what to do?" asks a recent example. "Love for- gets mistakes," another one goes; "nagging about them hurts the best of friends." These guileless missiles are sent to the White House by the Rev. William Judson (Billy) Zeoli, 42, who has emerged as Ford's unofflclal spiritual guide. A resident of Michigan, Zeoli met the future President on a visit to Washington when Ford was a congressman from Grand Rapids. "That was 15 years ago, and the friendship has matured, mellowed and grown," says Zeoli. Since Ford took office eight months ago, the mod, long-haired interdenominational preacher has been making monthly visits to the President's quar ters on the second floor of the White House. "We spend time reading the Bible and praying together," says Zeoli. "He's never told anybody that I know of about our time together, and I haven't either. It leaked out. We want this to be a private thing." In turn, the President recently said, "I have never been one to be ostentatious about my religious views. But I don't hesitate to say that Billy has had an impact on my perspective." "Mr. Ford and I," says Zeoli, "have our common Interests besides Christianity. In Washington there hasn't been an odd story about Jerry Ford doing something in 25 years. You haven't heard that about me either. We love our wives, we love our kids. When we're together, it's like two friends meeting to talk about issues and sports. Every football game we argued about last fall, he won. Fortunately I wasn't betting any hymn books." Over the years, Zeoli has become a close friend to the First Family. Arriving in Washington shortly before Betty Ford ("my children are just crazy about her," says Zeoli) went into the hospital for cancer surgery, he held a private prayer session with her. (There is a report that the buoyant Zeoli tried to cheer up the Ford family with a soft-shoe dance In the hospital while…  BILLY Z, GOD-RATED FILM MAKER by William T. Noble In the screening room of movie studio a tall, handsome man sits in the flickering light of the projector and studies the action of a teen-age girl as a scene unfolds. The girl is stretched out on a bed handling the telephone, that electronic security blanket of contemporary teens, with all the skill of a diva. “Look at her eyes and the way she wiggles her toes," says the man known to everyone here as Billy Z, “a real pro." He watches the rest of the movie and except for a minor scene involving a pair of adult amateur actors, hé is content with results. “We'll let it go," be says, unwrapping his legs from a chair, flicking on the lights and heading for another office. But he keeps tälking about the perils of moviemaking and the problems. "In one scene the actors, just amateurs, froze. That's what happens when you don't use pros. You could spot the difference between that girl in the bedroom and the adults in that other scene. And remember that nightclub scene? I think one of the girls in that one gets a revelation too soon. We should have dragged it out a little. Yet…” Talking almost as rapidly as he walks, Billy Z - the Rev. Billy Zeoli - was appraising one of his latest movies and checking on the status of others in various stages of production. An erstwhile associate of the Rev. Billy Graham and the son of a former drug addict and burglar, Mr, Zeoli, a colorful evangelist, has in the last few years become this city's Cecil B. De Mille. He produces religious and youth films. They are not rated PG, X or R, but God-rated. Only an atheist or drug pusher would feel uncomfortable at one of his Göspel Films screenings. And the producer himself has all the qualities any Hollywood film tycoon would quickly recognize, as “box offfice." He has the smoldering good looks of Joe Namath, or perhaps Marcello Mastroianni, more appropos since both are Italian. He wears his hair stylishly long. His well-cut sports coat, flared trousers and ankle high boots blend well with his hip-rich vocabulary. He looks, acts and talks more like a movie star than a producer. He is as much at home with a parlorful of millionaires as he is with a locker room of athletes or a gaggle of teenagers. Which is important, because all three groups are seeing more and more of this Michigan evangelist-film maker. His latest movie, “Flip Side," will be shown in 7,000 high schools, thousands of churches and service clubs across the country. It will be added to a growing number of professional movies that are produced here with Hollywood and New York actors. It has made this brawny industrial city the world's largest distributor of religious films. Last year there were 48,805 bookings. The mod-dressed evangelist, who can make a passage from Hebrew sound like the pages from a current novel, complete with the latest colloquialisms, has given religion a new look and sound. It was the enthusiarm and persuasion of this Philadelphia-born evangelist that 13 years ago radically changed the fortumes of a faltering Gospel Films. Now 40, Mr. Zeoli was executive secretary of Billy Graham's Crusade when in 1959 Charles Peterman, an executive of Gospel Films, urged him to leave the Crusade and breathe more spiritual and financial fire into the nonprofit organization that had been established in 1951. "These fine men," says Mr. Zeoli, “were owners of small restaurants and other businesses and contributing generously from their limited funds to fulfill a dream. But costs were becoming increasingly heavy." So heavy, the company' was nearly bankrupt. And there were other problems. Yet, Mr. Zeoli liked the idea of bringing a message of hope to millions of people through films. He reasoned that if the movie were expertly done they could be as efficacious as personal evangelism. In one of the original Gospel Films, amateur actors made up as Pilgrims were besieged by Max-Factored-Indians. But when the Pilgrims turned their heads upwards for help from above, 20th century telephone wires crisscrossed the sky. Such gaffes and the deus ex machina aspects in plots were eliminated…   BILLY ZEOLI: PRESIDENT FORD’S SPIRITUAL ADVISOR by Gerald Strober When Mrs. Betty Ford underwent Wher recent cancer surgery, one of the few non-family members gathered anxiously at the Bethesda Naval Hospital was a 42•year-old minister and film company executive named Billy Zeoli. The modishly dressed Zeoli, who calls himself an ”ambassador to Christ," held a private prayer session with Mrs. Ford in her hospital room just before the operation and remained with the family for most of the next four days. Says Michael Ford, the President's eldest son: “Billy helped us as a family to integrate and temper our emotions. He provided great strength." Says Mrs. Ford, through her chief aide, Nancy Howe: "Billy carries his church with him. He doesn't need a building to make you feel close to God; he finds his little sanctuary for Christ wherever he is. My children all adore him. He makes God feel human to the young. He's quite a man." Billy Zeoli has been a friend of the Ford family since 1960, when he first met the then Representative from Mich- igan on a visit to Washington. Their relationship has grown even closer since Mr. Ford's ascension to the Vice Presidency and then to the Presidency. Each week, Zeoli, who describes Mr. Ford as "a man who lives the Gospel in daily life," sends a one-page prayer memorandum to the President. They're mailed from Muskegon, Mich., where Zeoli works, on Friday, and placed on. Mr. Ford's desk the following Monday. The memorandums, entitled "God's Got a Better Idea," Consist of a Bible verse or passage along with a prayer composed by Zeoli. A typical recent Zeoli prayer said in part: "My Dear God, why. don't you just come and sit down in this chair and tell me what to do? It would be so easy if you would come and be with me and tell me the kind of things that I should do in life and what moves I should make." 
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May 25, 2023 09:36
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Sports Illustrated, May 1976 REACHING FOR THE STARS THE PREACHERS TO THE PROS, LIKE THE REV. BILLY ZEOLI (RIGHT), OFTEN ARE MODISH AND FLAMBOYANT, BUT THE SLICK SERMONS THEY DELIVER IN LOCKER ROOMS BEFORE GAMES PSYCH UP THE PLAYERS BY FRANK DEFORD Some guys who preach to teams are awed by the athletes," the Rev. Billy Zeoli says. "Some are even in it for money, for free tickets, and that doesn't do us any good. Professional athletes are the fastest guys in the world to spot a phony." Now that religion in sport—call it Sportianity—is booming, all major league baseball and football teams have Sunday chapel services, home and away, and by any standard Zeoli is the Most Valuable Preacher. (Trivia question: Who is the only man in history to be the first outsider embraced by both a winning Super Bowl coach and a winning World Series manager? Answer: the Rev. Billy Zeoli—by Tom Landry, Dallas, 1972, and by Sparky Anderson, Cincinnati, 1975.) Zeoli is also President Ford's personal pastor, and spends a lot of his time protesting that people make too much of a fuss about his being the President's pastor. Zeoli has good anticipation and if a fuss is not made, he sees one coming and protests in advance. One of the reasons that "Z"—as many players call him—gets along so well with the athletes is that he has many of the same ego problems they do. He is a celebrity at the height of his powers, and, like a ballplayer on top, is threatened by hotshot kids on the way up. Explaining the operation of his company, Gospel Films, Z suddenly declares, "At any moment I can reach more people around the world than any other minister alive." For emphasis, he glances at his watch. "Well, except maybe Graham. I don't know what he's doing right now." This particular Sunday morning, Z is personally going to reach only the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets.  Many in religion do not cotton to Zeoli; some are simply jealous of his success. Players who do not attend chapel services sometimes snicker and call him Elmer Gantry behind his back. [?!?]Z understands all this and accepts it. "I'm not trying to compete with anybody," he says. "I have enough problems with my personality, my chutzpah. But I pray to reach people that others aren't reaching. When I got into this, when I realized what I could do, I told God, 'Give me the chance to communicate with important people like athletes and I will promise You two things: that I will present the Gospel and that I will give You the credit. As a matter of fact, knowing me, I will give You the credit now, in advance.' " Even though Z seems to enjoy the limelight and to relish being more controversial than humble clergy are supposed to be, his self-perspective and good humor are saving graces. Some of the most subdued, thoughtful types in Sportianity, people who should be his natural enemies, go out of their way to praise Zeoli. His methods seem to work, they say, so we must accept him at face value; everybody seems to have a favorite story of Z's converting a hard-nosed linebacker, transforming him into a veritable St. Francis of Assisi with a few well-aimed verses of Scripture. For all Zeoli's contradictions and insecurities, nobody who knows him doubts his earnestness. Jim Hiskey, who formerly played on the golf tour along with his better-known brother Babe, helped start PGA chapel services… “This is a decade of searching, of looking inward," Hiskey says. "In fact, there might be too much introspection. But in sport, people are less introspective. Stars especially have a high self-image. While a star's image may be distorted, he almost must feel this way about himself to have gotten where he is. I think Billy Zeoli has the kind of message that reaches those people better than most of the rest of us. He is a Christian entrepreneur, and flamboyant, that's for sure, but he has a big heart. There's no question Billy Zeoli has had an impact on some lives out there."  On the surface, Z is something of a caricature. Half Italian ("My emotional side"), half German ("My brains"), he wears long adolescent bangs that tumble in a sexy Veronica Lake lock over one eye. He dresses in flashy ensembles, the kind that nouveau pro athletes and guys in pick-up bars favor. This day, for the Bills and Jets, he has selected a deep open-necked shirt to go with a rust-colored three-piece suit that matches the Bible he carries (beat that, Graham). If Zeoli has a prototype, it is not the complete, careful Graham but Dwight Moody, the 19th-century evangelist who broke through barriers to bring the message to America's industrialists. Unschooled and direct, Moody was sort of a businessmen's minister who thrived on being with fat cats, just as Zeoli plays that game with jocks…. This winter morning in New York, Z's two sons are with him. Often when he travels, he takes members of his family; there are also a daughter, and a wife, Marilyn, with whom he is excruciatingly happy. Quickly, he volunteers that his and Mrs. Zeoli's spiritual life together is matched only by the physical delights they find in one another. Z has barred photographers and a network TV crew from his service this day. He thinks the players would tab him as a phony if they saw him getting that kind of coverage. He and his coterie (some local Christians are along) go up to the assigned meeting room in the hotel where the Buffalo Bills are staying. There is excited speculation that O.J. may put in an appearance, but unfortunately only four players and a couple of assistant coaches—not a big name among them—show up, which leaves Zeoli visibly taken aback and, afterward, a bit petulant. At the service, though, he tailors his performance neatly for such an intimate group, cutting down on his more bombastic style, coming across rather like a life-insurance salesman instead of the used-car dealer that he often resembles before larger groups.  The essence of his message is the same. By his own proud admission, the Zeoli theology is brutally simple. "I am a total liberal when it comes to methods, but very conservative in theology," he says. As he tells the Bills, as he will tell the Jets, as he always says, Jesus was either the Son of God or a cuckoo—take it or leave it. God and man are separated by sin, which is labeled "The Problem." "The Answer" is to employ Jesus as the intermediary. So, there is "The Decision," and to avoid confusion Zeoli lays out the choices: "yes," "no," and "maybe." Taken as a whole, that is what Zeoli calls "God's Game Plan." The same theology appears throughout Sportianity. Zeoli considers it basic and obvious. A contrary view comes from an athlete who defected in disgust from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes; he calls God's Game Plan a "franchised religion, the McDonald's of the spirit." … He uses the God's Game Plan material that he had presented at the Bills' theater intime, but for this SRO crowd he dresses it in brighter verbal fabric and provides snappy animation. Zeoli has hit upon a method of preaching in which every few minutes, cued by a kind of cyclical body-clock, he interrupts the message with a divertissement: a small humor, a studied action (he chucks his watch into the crowd at one point) or even a sudden acknowledgment of someone: "Hey, good to see you again." He breaks up any sustained thought with fluffy interludes. He says this is unintentional and, as spontaneous as he is, no doubt this is true, but the device is most effective—especially with a young audience, with that generation raised on TV, among whom commercial breaks are expected and concentration limited. Many old-time preachers bludgeoned parishioners into submission; time was no object. Apparently, modern pulpiteers must score with flicks and jabs.  …Services in the NFL are now an integral part of every team's weekly schedule… football is at the heart of the Sportian movement. Tom Landry, the Cowboys' coach who is president of the FCA national board, is the top jock in religion, and his assistant pastor, Roger Staubach, is probably the biggest name. Significantly, Pro Athletes Outreach has signed up many football players, but neither PAO nor any of the other Sportian organizations has made appreciable headway in basketball or hockey. Elvin Hayes of the Washington Bullets and Shelly Kannegiesser of the Los Angeles Kings are the best-known of a handful of converts in those two sports. Wayne Smith, a vice-president of marketing for the Omni in Atlanta, the arena where the NBA Hawks play, is an ordained Presbyterian minister and the only NBA chaplain. It is his view, and the prevailing one in Sportianity, that pro basketball is not responsive to chapel services and religious involvement because of its frenetic schedule. Tom Skinner, the Redskins' chaplain, thinks that a football cleric could do just as well with a basketball team if he could take the job for a full season. Many basketball players, however, dispute these conclusions and maintain that it is hardly a matter of logistics. Instead, they argue that football and basketball players are distinctly different types. Phil Jackson of the New York Knicks is the son of rural Pentecostal ministers (although with his full beard he looks rather like a Talmudic student). He is one of the few pros in any league interested in the generic subject of religion. Says Jackson, "The kind of simplistic religion that appeals to so many football players is largely based upon submission. There is no room for argument, for examination. This fits perfectly with the football mentality, where players are the cogs in a machine. Basketball players, on the other hand, are individualists, they have a higher ego sense. I don't think there are more than half a dozen fundamentalist Christians left in the NBA."  Jackson's opinion is buttressed by the Muslim population in pro sports. Virtually all are in basketball. In the NFL only Ahmad Rashad (the former Bobby Moore) is Muslim, and there are none in baseball (Willie Davis is a Buddhist). If Christians can't reach basketball players because of the schedule, why aren't Muslims similarly blocked? The basketball players who turn to Islam offer much the same reasons other athletes do in accounting for their new devotion to Christ ("A void in my life," "Something bigger than me," etc.). Both groups are searching and/or disillusioned, young men looking for a spiritual anchor in their lives. It seems almost incidental, given their similar temperaments, that some went to Christ and others to Mohammed. A major distinction besides doctrine is the method of indoctrination. Conversion to Islam is usually a long, thought-out move that [requires a negative decision as well (renouncing Christianity). However, it is almost a point of pride with Christian athletes that they were converted quickly, in the blinding-light fashion of Saul on the way to Damascus. Moreover, Islam is more demanding, in terms of ritual and conduct... Muslims are required to pray five times a day, the first occasion before sunrise—but this and other requirements, such as fasting, can be adjusted for athletes when there is a conflict with their vocational responsibilities. Muslims are also obliged to tithe 2½% of their savings, but no conscious effort is made to use the famous Muslim athletes as evangelists. If only by their names, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the few other basketball-playing Muslims have given the impression to many whites that the Islamic religion has firmer roots in black America than in fact it does. In the public mind there also is no distinction between orthodox Muslims and the independent Black Muslim sect made famous first by Malcolm X and then by Muhammad Ali. Those Muslims who are black—as opposed to Black Muslims—are anxious to make it clear that theirs is not a racial religion.  "We've been badly stereotyped," says Abdul-Rahman, who is now a program evaluator for a college preparatory program at UCLA. "Those blacks among us are not out to join Islam to buck the slave thing. It has nothing to do with that. It is a return to a natural way of life, not an escape from the past or anything. I'm taking my name, Hazzard, back, as Jamaal [Wilkes, of the Golden State Warriors] kept his, to show respect for my father and my past. The whole Arabic thing bothers a lot of people. We are assumed to be anti-Semitic, when in fact Arabs are a Semitic people, too, so they could hardly be anti-Semitic. But I'm afraid there are people who haven't stopped fighting the Crusades." Abdul-Rahman stays out of the controversy, but other Muslims and black Christian players wonder why a young man of his obvious coaching ability cannot find even an assistant's job in the pros. It is darkly suggested in some quarters that Jewish executives want to keep Arab types off their teams and out of their league. Why else, it is asked, did Phoenix have so much difficulty trading the brilliant Charlie Scott, whose Muslim name is Shadid Abdul-Alim? But, in fact, it was a Jew, Red Auerbach of Boston, who finally took Scott. A Jewish NBA executive explodes at the charge. "Just tell 'em they're crazy. Does anybody seriously think I'm going to start thinking about the Gaza Strip if I can get a good shot at a guy like Scott or Wilkes?" These accusations upset Jews even more because so many of them have been active in the management of pro basketball, the sport in which blacks have obtained their greatest opportunities. Basketball has always been considered the most Jewish of games, even though the last great Jewish college player was Art Heyman 15 years ago, and the last great Jewish pro was Dolph Schayes, who also played in the early '60s. Nonetheless, Jews continue to be a substantial force in pro basketball ownership, just as preppy WASPs dominate hockey. Despite the publicity about black athletes being converted to Islam, the truth is that Christianity is growing faster among blacks in Africa than it is anywhere else in the world. Tom Skinner, who is the best-known black in Sportianity, says, "In this country we Christians have failed in communicating our beliefs to blacks. I don't mind saying that it is the thinking blacks who have turned to Islam. But I understand them. Black people often don't relate to Jesus Christ. We are presenting Him in the wrong light. Blacks see a man who is blond and blue-eyed, yet who comes from a country halfway between Africa and Asia, and they wonder who is putting them on. Besides, Christ seems docile, soft, even effeminate in his pictures, so that you have to work full time just to overcome that. If you can just get blacks to read the Scriptures, they'll see that He's gutsy, contemporary, radical—that He's got hair on His chest and dirt under His fingernails."  Though his father was a minister, Skinner became a homicidal gang leader in Harlem before turning to Jesus…. he has been the Redskins' chaplain since 1971, and he devotes 17 long weekends each fall to being with the team. At other times he counsels city people of all classes from executives to "survivalists," those indigents just trying to get from sunup to sundown. As it does for many ministers, football holds a special fascination for Skinner. "Football is representative of what life is all about," he says. "It has goals, opposition, bad calls." While all athletes have much the same reasons for turning to religion, football players, who live more intimately with violence and injury, seem most susceptible to the message…” Says Don Cutler, Episcopal rector and literary agent, "Certain kinds of religion prosper among people under stress… Mashing the quarterback—that doesn't bother the fans. It really is a little bit like the lions and the Christians. But for the players, people getting hurt does raise questions, because they may be the next ones injured. There is nothing in the symbolism of sport that helps them deal with that, so they turn to religion. "The kind of religion that predominates in sport solves a personal need. There are no philosophical issues, nothing is cosmic. God is a bit larger than Pete Rozelle, and if you can just get in good with Him, then He might keep you from getting hurt and He might even get you a better contract. Anyway, what have you got to lose?" ... The classic story is about the surfer who finally found the perfect wave, and immediately turned to God when he discovered that the ride had not made him happy. "The very reason why it is worth talking to these cats," says Billy Zeoli, "is they do have everything at age 23—money, fame, a sense of achievement, women chasing them—and yet still they're so empty." That emptiness is most often filled with women—"stadium lizards." Any clergyman who seeks employment in the pro locker room better understand that the bulk of his counseling will involve sex. "What else is there?" asks Arlis Priest of PAO. "Even the Christian guys are promiscuous," says Ray Hildebrand of FCA. "Players are pursued by these women," says Tom Skinner. "The temptations are constant. The average man can't even conceive of how many temptations, how often. I mean, he cannot conceive." The chaplains point out that infidelity in itself is not usually the cause of athletes' failing marriages. Promiscuity is so prevalent that many wives resign themselves to it or blot out the obvious. Instead, pros are so overpowered by stadium lizards, so spoiled by their fawning attentions, that they lose the ability to relate to their wives as individuals. It is not that a pro cheats on his wife when he is away from her, it is that he assaults her dignity when he is with her. The wife cannot cater to the pro's insufferable demands and ego.  … As effective as ministerial counseling may be, pregame and postgame team prayers strike many as phony and a misuse of religion. Before a game most players are fired up, single-minded, possibly even zonked out on drugs, and when they pray, many admit that they are only going through the motions. Afterward, their only thoughts are on whether they won or lost. Says Malcolm Boyd, who is an author, social critic and Episcopal priest, "This sort of slick, stage-directed prayer alienates people from religion because anybody can see that it is as shoddy as anything else in the world. The gimmick use of prayer before a game for the purpose of getting psyched up, this use of prayer as deus ex machina—I find it simply immoral. To use God in this way—it isn't holy. Hell isn't a bunch of fires. I think that Hell is when you're using anybody, even when you're trying to use God, as in this case." ... "All of us who read the sports pages and listen to the wisdom of color announcers are aware of the rewards of getting up for a game," says Don Cutler. "The religious contribution is largely that of enthusiasm, of morale. I would imagine that the movement is strongest in the most violent sport, where people are asked to act with the highest disregard of personal safety. Specialty teams strike me as not being appreciably different from Kamikazes. In football especially, you need every kind of motivation and zeal. If the religious experience is working in these locker rooms, it is working not for the best of reasons. It's merely a function of melding together, of enthusiasm and team spirit. Faith healing is a similar kind of transaction." … It might be a good idea right now to talk to the veteran GM in the sky about the possibility of a rebuilding year.  
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May 26, 2023 08:46
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