(Friday Church News Notes, July 24, 2026, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) –

 Fundamental Baptist pastors have a lot to answer for in modeling enthusiasm for the sports god culture. I received the following communication from a brother in Christ who is fed up with the worldliness of supposed Bible-believing churches and the role of sports in the worldliness: “I go to church to worship Jesus Christ. I expect to hear scriptures from the pulpit. The pulpit is not for the teams and its pro athletes. We don’t know the athletes, and they don’t know us. Why mention them? 

I know Jesus Christ in a personal way, and want to hear about Him and his scriptures. Professional sports teams, and its worldly athletes, might be the primary distraction for men in major U.S. cities. The culture is inundated with it. Businesses, billboards, grocery-store ads, and car decals flood the public, influencing the mind to think about pro sports. The teams are the gods of the culture. The athletes are revered like Hollywood actors. The ‘sports gods’ culture has bled into the church. It distracts Christians from witnessing, studying the Bible, doing devotions, and handing out tracts. 

Here’s a sad story: On the night of the Super Bowl in February of 2025, [a] Baptist pastor asked the congregation ‘What color does Philadelphia wear?’ There were 12-15 people in the congregation, and they all collectively answered his question by saying ‘GREEN!’ It was the most energetic response of the Sunday night service. None of those people said ‘AMEN!’ when the pastor preached scriptures. But they all perked up in the flesh when pro sports were mentioned. What a sad state of affairs. 

A useless NFL team gets more respect than the scriptures? Every liquor store in town has a Detroit Lions logo. That fact alone should make us preach against the NFL, not support it. Sunday is THE LORD’S DAY. The NFL literally keeps lost souls out of church, as it did to me from ages 18-32. I have an online book called Out of The Illusion, which is available on Amazon. It is 99 cents, only because I cannot make it free on that platform. Through the eyes of a saved soul, the booklet details the idolatry of my upbringing inside an NHL stadium, and a pursuit as a sportswriter inside the same stadium. It was all an illusion, a part of the world system to distract lost souls.”