If you follow me regularly, you’re not surprised with the topic God has me writing about this week, as it has relentlessly filled the news cycles. Actually, there’s so much written about it, I wondered what I could share that you hadn’t already read or heard.
But I think I might be able to offer a different perspective and how we as committed Christians can find hope and encouragement to share our own faith and beliefs as openly and honestly as Harrison Butker did, especially when like him, we’re speaking to our faith peers. The world notices when we speak out because typically, we tend to keep our beliefs inside the walls of our church. Or we let the atrocities and evil we see daily in our culture not affect us personally, emotionally, or spiritually.
Even though we don’t all have a platform like Harrison Butker, a three-time Super Bowl Kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, God will reveal to us places and times we can be bold for Him. I don’t know much about football. I had to ask my husband if a “kicker” only plays on the field when it’s time to kick the ball. While his kick can determine the outcome of a game, he’s also only visible when kicking.
Yet, Butker was quite visible when he gave a commencement speech on his own time at Benedictine College, not as a Chief’s Kicker, but as a Catholic man, husband, and father to an audience of Catholic graduating students. As a speaker myself, it’s imperative to know your audience and speak to issues that will affect, motivate, and encourage them. When I speak to a group of Christian women, I’m not addressing the secular world or media. I might speak about those topics and my thoughts on how we can be a light in a dark world or even change it, but I’m not expecting the secular culture to agree with me.
I may however receive a negative response to something I write publicly. For example, I posted on a community Facebook group page about pornographic books targeting children in our local library that started a firestorm of positive and negative comments. I was surprised at all the negatives, but soon I knew I’d touched on a topic that liberals expect conservatives to just tolerate as “normal,” accept, and stay silent. Unfortunately, that’s been our typical pattern which is how we’ve arrived at orgy parades in front of children during a month devoted to sin, coming up in a couple of weeks. The left also promotes killing babies in their mother’s wombs as “normal healthcare,” so when conservatives speak out against anything evil, we’re the “radical” “extreme” ones.
The next time I posted something on the community Facebook page, I was prepared for the pushback. I told the first person with a snarky comment that I was expecting this and they didn’t disappoint. I suggested they were the very ones who needed to hear my message most. The result was silence and no one else has posted a negative remark yet.
Did Butker expect the firestorm he started? I rather doubt it. I’ve heard him interviewed before. He speaks out against abortion often and the left’s woke evil agenda. But this time was different. People in the media, who he wasn’t speaking to, felt they needed to chime in and critically attack him for having values different than the woke ones they’re trying to normalize. They got defensive because they expect us to literally let them call good evil and evil good, shut up, and take it.
The culture, starting at the White House, has rejected God and God’s way of life and we’re watching violence, crime, broken families, single-parent families, divorce, Marxism, suicide especially amongst teens, addictions, dissatisfaction with how God made you, war on women, pro-terrorist support, and lies called gaffes from a president who lies every time he opens his mouth.
Some criticized Butker’s speech because they said he was taking women back to the 50’s. That’s rich from the same people advocating the erasure of women and can’t even define a woman. They believe women should be more like a man or replaced by a man pretending to be “her”! Women should have abortions because the economy needs more women in the workplace instead of nurturing families at home. How absurd and evil is that!!
The graduates at Benedictine College in Butker’s audience didn’t protest or walk out. They were respectful, applauded often, and gave him a standing ovation. That’s the difference between a Catholic or Christian College like ORU where they sang praise songs at commencement, and the elite indoctrination colleges where students tear up their diplomas, hold up signs for terrorism, yell, walk out, and disrupt the speaker. Which student would you want to hire? Which student would you be proud of as a parent?
What’s All the Fuss?
If you haven’t heard, the NFL Kansas City Chief’s Kicker Harrison Butker gave a commencement speech at a Catholic College where he spoke about not only his own Catholic faith practices, but also what were probably the same beliefs of every Catholic student in the audience. They had a common ground and common faith foundation, so he was mentoring and confirming how to live out their faith in the real world. Critics who weren’t students, and in most cases weren’t Catholic, were offended by his profession of faith and how dare him share it in the public square?!
Every day the liberal news is full of glowing articles praising and glamorizing the antics of his fellow Chiefs player Kelce consorting with Taylor Swift. They think it’s big news that should interest us. They love writing about his childish antics like jugging a beer during his commencement speech. But when a clean cut, Catholic married father speaks on the virtues of loving, providing for, and cherishing your wife and family as a masculine husband and father, those same news pundits go crazy. How dare he speak of virtues like that to impressionable college students! How dare he say that God blessed women with the capability of birthing and nurturing children! How dare he declare that God created marriage to be between a husband and wife!
The NFL had their “chief diversity and inclusion officer” issue a statement distancing the league from him, and as you read this, 150,000 people have demanded his immediate firing. Head Coach Andy Reed says no way. “I’m not losing a great kicker to this whole woke thing. Not on my watch… If they get rid of Harrison. They get rid of me.”
Jason Yates’, CEO of MyFaithVotes, in an email to MFV Action Partners shared some points in Butker’s pro-faith speech that critics found offensive.
On Biden: “Our own nation is led by a man who publicly and proudly proclaims his Catholic faith but at the same time is delusional enough to make the sign of the cross during a pro-abortion rally.”
On Women: “It is you, the women, who’ve had the most diabolical lies told to you. Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world. But I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”
On Men: “…the absence of men in the home is what plays a large role in the violence we see all around the nation. Be unapologetic in your masculinity. Fight against the cultural emasculation of men.”
On Pride Month: “I’m certain the reporters at the AP couldn’t have imagined that their attempt to rebuke and embarrass places and people like those here at Benedictine [University] wouldn’t be met with anger, but…with excitement and pride. Not the deadly sin sort of pride that has an entire month dedicated to it. But the true God-centered pride that’s cooperating with the Holy Ghost to glorify Him.”
Yates concluded with: “This attempt to CANCEL Harrison Butker is nothing but anti-Christian bigotry. We cannot allow Christian values to be pushed out of the public square.”
God Will Use All of This for The Lord’s Glory!
Do you respect the NFL that stood behind Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the National Anthem, hosting pride celebrations and jerseys, drag shows at games, silent when players arrested for spousal abuse, reckless drunk driving, murder…but one of their players speaks out for God and godly values and they disavow him? Is this an organization you care about what they think?
Do you care what the gossiping liberal women on The View think?
Do you care about liberal media’s meltdown over conservatives and Christians?
Here’s my “view.” When the culture wants to cancel you, you’re probably doing something right! Wear it like a badge. It’s an honor when the world persecutes you for your faith because you’ve hit a nerve. They know in their core that what they’re doing and saying is wrong, but Satan has convinced them his ways are more fulfilling than God’s ways. In the end, everyone will answer to God for their choices and actions. Satan leaves that truth out of his crusade for perversion and sin.
What Satan means for evil, God will use as good. Butker could literally be saying today, like Joseph said to his brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives (Gen. 50:20).
Benedictine is a small college, but just look at how many people are actually reading or listening to Butker’s speech that has gone viral. His enemies are listening to it, even though they take much of it out of context. His truths, even when ridiculed, are broadcast on every news channel, talk show, social media, written commentaries, and opinion articles.
Even atheist liberal “Real Time” host Bill Maher defended Butker’s right to profess his beliefs and points out the hypocrisy of the attacks. Maher said, “I can’t express how much this guy is not like me. He’s religious. He loves marriage. He loves kids… And he’s now history’s greatest monster . . . Again, I don’t agree with much with this guy, but he said… ‘Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world.’ Ok, that seems fairly, like, modern. ‘But I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.’ I don’t see what the big crime is. I really don’t . . . I find it very ironic that he’s saying, ‘You know what, in my world, you know, we like the women to stay at home and just have babies’ and the college kids and the young people find this absolutely abhorrent, but they’re demonstrating for Hamas, who make that the law! . . . It’s not just an opinion in Hamas, that you stay home and have the babies. They will enforce you [to do] that!”
Rob Schmitt Tonight on Newsmax did an entire opening monologue defending Butker, saying the critics expect us to just stay silent when we’re offended. If you speak up, you’re vilified. We’re supposed to be tolerant to forceful indoctrination.
Then Schmitt interviewed Christian Jason Whitlock who reiterated that culture has abandoned God. In the interview Schmitt admitted, “I’m not a particularly religious person, and I don’t really share that with many people. But I can see what’s happening to our society and I can see the general hedonism that we’ve moved towards, and I can see the decay. I can see the loss of the quality of life as we move more towards leftism. More towards where the state is the thing to be worshipped rather than something above. I can just feel the failings of that ideology. I don’t believe necessarily everything that he [Butker] said, I disagree with him on a number of points, but I would never be offended by what he said, and I would never stop him from saying them. There are people vilifying this man and when you listen to his speech, he’s just such a kind-hearted good person who cries talking about meeting his wife. Their anger is so interesting to me.”
Jason Whitlock’s response addressed Schmitt’s admitted lack of faith! “Rob, I appreciate the transparency and the honesty. I do think that as time continues to pass, I think you’re going to come more and more into the understanding of why religious faith is so important and why Christianity is so important.”
Whitlock was able to actually witness to Schmitt on TV and Schmitt was intensely listening. Hear the entire interview here.
I hope that Butker is overlooking the negative criticism, while smiling at how often his faith values are being spoken over the airways and written in words.
Could anyone speak their faith today and not be called offensive or divisive? Are the critics suggesting we should just stay silent when we’re offended? Butker believes, as do I, that the lack of faith in God and Jesus is largely responsible for the culture’s moral decline. Like many of us, he wasn’t afraid to say so. I applaud him!
Here’s what we can never forget—good will NEVER unite with evil. There’s no grey area. So, for those saying his speech was divisive, it wasn’t divisive to his Catholic audience. It was marching orders to take your faith into everything God calls you to do. The only people who call it divisive are those who are complacent and tolerant of evil. That would not, and should not, be Jesus followers. Jesus came into the world to forgive us our sins not to be tolerant, complacent, or accepting of sin.
Good can NEVER unite with evil. In today’s culture, everyone wants us to go along with evil, but we must speak up just as Butker did. Satan wants us to be quiet and let evil reign, but we must NEVER let that happen. Jesus had a dividing line. All Butker did was speak truth. Let’s pray more of us start following his example.
I think his Chief’s jersey #7 is prophetic! The number 7 holds profound biblical significance, symbolizing completion, perfection, and rest. It’s mentioned over 700 times in the Bible — more than any other number, indicating its significance in biblical narrative and prophecy. This number’s recurrence is no coincidence — in fact, it reflects divine order and the spiritual completeness found in God’s creation.
It looks like many people, especially women, are going to be wearing #7, since it’s reported that Harrison Butker’s jersey is the most popular in the NFL shop and women’s jerseys are sold out for now!
For I fully expect and hope that I will never be ashamed, but that I will continue to be bold for Christ, as I have been in the past. And I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ, whether I live or die. Philippians 1:20 NLT
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Johsua 1:9
Better yet, listen to his emotion as he gives this speech. Harrison Butker | Commencement Address 2024 | Benedictine College (youtube.com)
Do you agree with this article heading? Harrison Butker, Not His Critics, Represents the Mainstream!
You might also enjoy reading one of my past blogs A Society Crumbles That Doesn’t Recognize Sin! — Woman to Woman Mentoring
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