Bobble-head Jesus? A crucifix in your Cracker Jacks? This is the valley of the shadow of greed Major League Baseball hath begun to venture into after the July 27 debut of “Faith Days and Nights at the Park” at Turner Field in Atlanta. Faith Days is a spectacle, as the New York Times wrote, where “churches will get discounted tickets to family-friendly evenings of music and sports with a Christian theme. And in return, they mobilize their vast infrastructure of e-mail and phone lists, youth programs and chaperones, and of course their bus fleets, to help fill the stands.”
Baseball teams have tried all sorts of gimmicks and promotions to get fans into their stadia. Turnstile counts are the economic lifeblood of a team, so a team’s promotion and marketing folks are always angling for new ways to put butts in the seats. The idea of “Faith Nights”, then, is hardly surprising. After all, Christians like baseball, right? So why not cater to them in an effort to attract a few more fans?
Of course, like anything else where religion is involved, it’s not nearly that simple.
It’s easy to mock the transparent commercial trappings of Faith Days. Major League owners, once called “a den of idiots” by late Orioles boss Edward Bennett Williams, are clumsily trying to maximize their manna with little concern as to whether Christ himself would toss them out of the temple. It’s also easy to point out that despite PR efforts calling the Faith Days scheme an ecumenical promotion, no synagogue, mosque or Buddhist temple has been invited to take part.
There should be no doubt that, botom line, this is an effort by Evangelical Social Conservatives to find yet another avenue to proselytize and recruit. Of course, that’s their right in a free country, but spare us the hypocrisy that this is an “ecumenical” effort. Unfortunately, “Faith Nights” are merely little more than a thinly-veiled efort by Right-wing Evangelical Republicans to not only win souls for Christ, but also to their narrow, hatred-based agenda.
But Faith Days is about more than family-friendly Christian entertainment with a twist of commerce. Beneath the veneer, it represents the ugliest edge of right-wing evangelism and its advancing influence. The Higher Power behind Faith Days and Nights is a group called Third Coast Sports. Third Coast Sports president Brent High says, “We’ve been very careful to make sure what we’re not about is ambush evangelism.” But go to their website, and it’s quickly revealed who the mastermind behind Faith Days is: Third Coast Sports proclaims with pride that “Focus on the Family, one of the largest evangelical organizations in the nation, has joined Third Coast Sports to sponsor ‘Faith Nights’ and ‘Faith Days’ at ballparks nationwide this summer.”
But the owners aren’t eager to let the public in on that bit of information. In all the articles about the start of Faith Days, including the press release of the Atlanta Braves themselves, there is no mention of Focus on the Family’s role behind the proceedings. It’s not hard to see why. According to People for the American Way, FOF is “anti-choice, anti-gay, and against sex education curricula that are not strictly abstinence-only…. FOF also focuses on religion in public schools, encouraging Christian teachers to establish prayer groups in schools. FOF supports student-led prayer in public schools, although it points out that it doesn’t support teacher-led prayer for fear that a teacher would encourage Christian students ‘to pray to Allah, Buddha or the goddess Sophia against the wishes of the parents and/or students.’ ” It is also perhaps the leading proponent of “reparative therapy” for homosexuality, and its leaders agitate against the adoption of children by gay couples. Their obsession with what they call “the homosexual agenda” is shared by Smoltz, who in 2004 likened gay marriage to “marrying an animal.”
It would be nice to think that “Faith Nights” are just an honest, legitimate way for baseball teams to try and create a more family-friendly environment. If this is such an “ecumenical” effort, then why have no Jews, Muslims, or people of other faith persuasions been invited to have their own promotional nights? Why? Because underneath all the clever talk about ecumenism and creating a family-friendly environment, it’s really all about indoctrinating the faithful with the tenets of a narrow, hatred-filled agenda that has little if anything to doing with the love of Jesus Christ.
While the concept is laudable, the execution leaves much to be desired, especially when you consider that so much of what and who is behind “Faith Nights” is conveniently kept quiet.
So, what have we learned here? Well, how about that there’s no boundary the Religious Right will not cross in their never-ending efforts to propagandize the American sheeple. If you’re not scared, it’s only because you haven’t been paying attention.
WAKE UP AND SMELL THE CAT LITTER….
