Paige Bueckers credits God for the UConn women’s basketball team’s win over South Carolina in the national title game:
If I could say one thing, it would be to stand firm in who you are. There’s a lot of people who write you off, there’s a lot of narratives that could be trying to put you in a box, tell you ‘you got to do this,’ ‘you got to do that,’ ‘you got to more like this player,’ ‘you got to be more like that player.’
There’s people that doubt you because they think you’re doing it on your strength alone. We lean on God’s strength here. We’re for God’s power, for God’s purposes. We’re not doing this alone, and we have the village that we lean on.
This sort of thinking is common among college and professional athletes. Athletes raised in religious cultures that teach them that “without Jesus you can do nothing” typically give God/Jesus credit for their physical abilities and wins. I usually ignore such religious utterances, seeing them as the product of indoctrination and conditioning. Bueckers is an outstanding player because of two things: genetics (natural ability) and hard work. God has nothing to do with it.
If God was behind UConn’s win, that means he willed South Carolina’s loss. The latter naturally follows from the former. The same goes for Christians who credit God for healing them. Such statements imply that God is in control of everything. If God heals, it necessarily follows that God chooses NOT to heal.
Claims of God helping teams win ballgames trivialize Christianity; that God is more interested in the outcome of a basketball game than he is the suffering all around us. Woo! Hoo! Our team won! Praise Jesus! And what about the thousands of children who will die today from malnutrition, starvation, war, and disease? God says, “They should have played basketball for UConn.”
I’m sure Bueckers meant well, and that her pronouncements reflect her religious upbringing. However, I see no evidence for the claim that God helped UConn win their latest title.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Hi Bruce,
I recall a similar thread you posted awhile back about a baseball player.
Of all the things that christian s do I find objectionable, this one is near the top. While I completely agree with:
“I’m sure Bueckers meant well, and that her pronouncements reflect her religious upbringing. However, I see no evidence for the claim that God helped UConn win their latest title.”
Nothing against Bueckers. But she and so many other christian athletes make these ridiculous pronouncements
without thinking it through. She was probably tournament MVP. I’m not sure.
I went to college at UF, (The Gators) they (The men’s team) just won the National Championship. They BEAT UCONN. I guess God didn’t care much for the UCONN men’s team, lol. Thankfully the UF men’s players did not
spout this stuff too much.
Christian athletes are conditioned to make such statements. I enjoyed Tim Tebow’s play at UF, he made these statements all the time as well.
But if one thinks it through logically (an attribute christian’s do not possess) one must conclude, as you state,
“God has nothing to do with it”, there is no evidence for such a supernatural being. Or if such a being exists
he clearly has immense bias.
Where I REALLY get torqued up about such stupidity is when survivors of Earthquakes, Tornado’s, Hurricane’s Flood’s, War, Plague’s and Accidents spout this drivel. Usually as they are walking over the dead with some idiot reporter holding a microphone in their face. “Thank God”, “I attribute my survival to God” they say, …SURE……, but just to confirm, all those dead folks all around you, were clearly not favored by the same supernatural being.
I know people are conditioned to say such ignorant things, hell, I do too, but if you think about it, It’s a pretty horrible thing to say. An honest person should just say, God saved me and let them die, because that’s the God
we worship, AMEN.
Jeff–In reading Bruce’s post, I had thoughts similar to yours. If God willed Bueckers and UConn, or any other athlete or team to victory, does it mean he wanted South Carolina and its players to lose? If so, why? And what of someone who thanks God for surviving a tornado, earthquake, fire or some other disaster that killed other people? Did God want that particular person to live when the others died? If so, for what reasons?
For that matter, did Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris in the most recent election because it’s what God wanted? Although I voted for KH, I am not a fan. But I still wonder why God would choose to let one of the most amoral people in the world win an election against her.
Bruce, MJ, and Jeff, I agree with you all 100%. As an athlete myself (though not on par with these athletes of course, but I do ok in my sport for my age group), I can affirming that NO amount of praying makes up for the hours of training necessary to compete. If I don’t get up 6 days a week and follow that training plan, putting in the work at effort, I guarantee that I WILL NOT be able to compete at the necessary level. It just won’t happen. And if someone trained harder or is better than me, no amount of praying will help me overcome that deficit I face. In August, I will face a tough competition against a strong field, and you better believe my training leading up to that race will be tough. I won’t expect some deity to come save my ass just because said deity feels like it.
It’s so appalling when people attribute their survival of a disaster to a deity. No, you were fortunate. That’s it. Don’t imply that the deity was ok with other people – not you – dying or suffering. That arrogance is unappealing.
Now it’s time to go train.