"This is unprecedented," says Todd Stiefel, chair of Openly Secular. "He is the first active professional athlete, let alone star, to ever stand up in support of gaining respect for secular Americans."
Arian Foster, 28 year old NFL running back for the Houston Texans, is an atheist, and he's coming out.
The Confession of Arian Foster by ESPN Senior Writer, Tim Keown, is a fascinating glimpse into the christian dominated world of the NFL and an atheist's experience from within.
Arian Foster, 28, has spent his entire public football career -- in college at Tennessee, in the NFL with the Texans -- in the Bible Belt. Playing in the sport that most closely aligns itself with religion, in which God and country are both industry and packaging, in which the pregame flyover blends with the postgame prayer, Foster does not believe in God.
"Everybody always says the same thing: You have to have faith," he says. "That's my whole thing: Faith isn't enough for me. For people who are struggling with that, they're nervous about telling their families or afraid of the backlash ... man, don't be afraid to be you. I was, for years."
The initial fear of telling people what you don't believe in, then being secure enough in yourself to engage and refine, the coming out, is something all atheists can identify with. We know exactly what oppression looks like and the freedom standing firm confers.
The language of the unburdening, of the coming-out, is telling. The politicization of religion, and the religionization of politics, has created a feeling of marginalization among those who don't believe. Religion has become so entwined with the culture of sports that it has become its own language. Open Christianity is a subtext that draws players toward one another, even if they've never met, as if a single shared belief grants membership to the club.
Foster, who has run for more than 6,000 yards and been named to the Pro Bowl four times, understands the sensitivity of the topic and how telling his story might be perceived negatively within the conservative, image-obsessed league. "They're going to stay away from anything taboo, which makes sense," Foster says of the NFL.
He also acknowledges the possibility of backlash in heavily evangelical Houston, home of Joel Osteen and the city that helped put the mega in megachurch. "You don't want to ruin endorsements," he says. "People might say, 'I don't want an atheist representing my team.' Now, though, I'm established in this league, and as I'm digging deeper into myself and my truth, just being me is more important than being sexy to Pepsi or whoever. After a while, what's an extra dollar compared to the freedom of being you? That's the choice I made."
The discrimination and othering atheists feel is brought into sharp contrast. Our professional lives are always at risk because of ignorance and misconceptions about what being an atheist really is. In a world cocooned in christianity, it can be stifling, at best.
Arian thought college should be an adventure that demands adaptability and invites discomfort. He verbally committed to Oregon during a 2,000-yard senior season before changing his mind and choosing Tennessee, partly because he kept hearing local coaches say he'd never be an SEC-level running back. ("My rebellious ass," he says.) Foster says he believes he was the only member of the team who did not identify as either Christian or Catholic, which made him a source of speculation and misconception. His views, and his eagerness to share them, engendered an emotion that angled toward fear. He says his contrarian side sought out religious arguments with fundamentalist teammates, who would often attempt to dismiss the discussion
by insisting, "Well, you must believe in something." He pressed, telling them no, he believed in nothing, not Allah or God or the divinity of Christ. He wielded his defiance like a sword, reveling in the discomfort it generated. If he alienated teammates with his willingness to be different, all the better. His verbal ferocity was all rawness and sharp edges, and it allowed people to project upon him their worst fears.
"I get the devil-worship thing a lot. They'll ask me, 'You worship the devil?'" he says. "'No, bro, I don't believe there's a God, why would I believe there's a devil?' There's a lot of ignorance about nonbelief. I don't mean a negative connotation of ignorance. I just mean a lack of understanding, a lack of knowledge, lack of exposure to people like me."
There is so much good in this article, I could easily run afoul of the copyright gods if I'm not careful. Honestly, the article does as good a job as any bringing these issues to light.
I despise professional sports. I don't know this guy from Adam. But don't let that stop you from taking a few minutes to read the whole thing. You won't be disappointed.
One more quote and we're done.
The words hang. The rain has stopped. I head out, past the cabinets and carpet and curtains. Two hours later, a racist with a gun will be welcomed into a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and an hour later, a gun will be pulled. Dylann Roof now stands charged with killing nine of the worshippers. The question will be asked: "How could God allow such a thing?" And God's mysterious ways will once again be invoked. The congregants of the church will draw strength from their faith and express their truth through words of forgiveness for the shooter. At the time the murders occur, [Arian] Foster will be in an auditorium in Houston, listening to Neil deGrasse Tyson give a lecture on the cosmos, an entirely different set of mysteries, equally unknowable.
That paragraph ends Keown's "
The Confession of Arian Foster" and places the interview with Arian Foster at an intersect with history, full of portent. The story ends with the 'big questions,' just as it began.
Arian Foster just addresses and answers them differently than most people do.
So do I.