Which sport has essentially the most brazenly Christian skilled athletes – baseball, basketball, soccer or hockey?
Jap Illinois College's Ryan P. Burge analyzed the Twitter profiles of athletes from Main League Baseball, the Nationwide Basketball Affiliation, the Nationwide Soccer League and the Nationwide Hockey League to get the reply.
At concern was Burge's curiosity about what number of skilled athletes among the many 4 manufacturers included a Bible quote of their Twitter bio.
In an entry on the web site Faith in Public printed Monday morning, Burge discovered that MLB gamers are the most certainly to cite Bible verses on their bios, with 8 % of 1,265 accounts having not less than one verse.
Behind them was the NFL with roughly 4 % of profiles. Far behind the MLB and NFL was the NBA, with solely 3 of the 359 gamers together with a Bible verse and not one of the NHL gamers.
Burge speculated that the variations might be attributed to demographics, as MLB gamers had been extra rural in America, whereas NHL gamers typically got here from secular European international locations.
“It doesn't take an excessive amount of of a theoretical leap to contemplate that a whole lot of baseball gamers are white and grew up in rural areas. That's the place evangelicalism is strongest,” Burge wrote.
“The NHL is getting higher and higher at recruiting its gamers from around the globe, particularly from Scandinavia and Jap European international locations. In each areas, non secular involvement is among the many lowest on the planet.”
Burge additionally discovered that by far the most well-liked verse quoted by skilled athletes on Twitter was Philippians 4:13, “I can do all issues by way of Him who provides me power.”
“It was a little bit of a foolish venture and was motivated extra by technical challenges than theoretical, however there's nonetheless lots to gather,” Burge continued.
Burge's survey of Twitter bios comes shortly after the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the New England Patriots in Tremendous Bowl LII to clinch their championship.
After the historic win, Eagles head coach Doug Pederson thanked God for the victory in a postgame interview, reported by Philly.com.
“I can solely reward my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for giving me this chance. And I'll inform you one thing. I’ve the most effective gamers on the planet and it's a resilient group,” Pederson mentioned. .
Eagles quarterback Nick Foles, who led his staff to a 41-33 victory, has been open about turning into a youth pastor after his soccer profession ends.
“It's on my coronary heart. I took a leap of religion final yr and signed up for seminars,” Foles mentioned earlier than the large sport.
“I needed to continue learning and difficult my religion. It's a problem since you're writing articles which are biblically right. You wish to contact folks's hearts.”
Free, to launch Spiritual Freedom Replace
Be part of 1000’s of others and get it ALLOWANCE OF FREEDOM free e-newsletter despatched twice weekly from The Christian Publish.
