After a while, the boy announced he was going to take his girlfriend home, and asked whether or not I still wanted to watch the game. I told him to leave it on, mostly because the 4th quarter was pretty interesting, and because I was too lazy to go look for something else to put on. So I listened to it while working the puzzle more than I watched it.

The Texans won on the road, and now they’re in the playoffs. I couldn’t have picked out any of the players on either side if they were in a police lineup, that’s how disinterested I am in the overall sport, but it was the game after the game that made me look up and start watching.

C.J. Stroud is the rookie quarterback for the Texans, and he had a pretty phenomenal game. He didn’t look or act on the field like a rookie, and during his post-game interviews, he sure didn’t sound like your typical football player. Here’s his interview with ESPN sideline reporter, Lisa Salters.

When I saw this, I had two immediate reactions. First, what a humble, decent young man Coleridge Bernard Stroud, IV seems to be. He is fearless about his Christian faith, and it genuinely seems to animate him in a way sufficient to provide calm in the middle of the chaos of a professional football team needing a win to make it into the playoffs. That was very refreshing to see. My other thought was that ESPN must have hated this with the heat of a thousand suns. He’s one of the brightest young quarterbacks on the horizon – tons of talent, lots of poise, but…that constant Jesus talk. I’m sure suits at the sports network are trying to figure out how to get him to tone that down a bit, or even better, a lot. Then, he’d be the perfect Cinderella story.

ESPN’s formal coverage of the game ended a few minutes later, and then they threw it to legendary nighttime SportsCenter anchor, Scott Van Pelt. He did what all anchors do – tell us what an amazing game we just watched, being that it was on ESPN and all. After doing the recap and ramifications of the win by the Texans, he came back from break and was joined from the sidelines at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis by the aforementioned quarterback, C.J. Stroud. He asked him what it was like pulling off a game of that magnitude.

 

Again, not too caught up in the moment, but fully recognizing and appreciating the blessings of God to even be in a situation like this. It’s very admirable to see and hear in a young player. Van Pelt didn’t like the direction this was going, and very much wanted to de-God it the rest of the way.

Let me translate what Van Pelt was throwing down in his question. “C.J., don’t talk to me about your faith. Set that aside. Tell me what you were feeling, and again, don’t mention God and faith anymore, because it doesn’t resonate with this network or most of our viewers, our market analysis data shows.”

To his great credit, Stroud stayed calm and gave credit to his coaches and the hard work the entire team put in to prep for the game, and closed his answer by saying God put him through all sorts of things in order to be ready for a moment like this. In other words, he’d already said about three times between his previous sideline interview and this one that God was the source of his calm and poise on the field, something believing Christians know full well. Van Pelt was trying to get him to attribute his calmness to another source, and Stroud wasn’t having any of it.

As I was watching this, it kind of stuck in my craw a bit, but then this is how the interview wrapped up.

Niko Collins is one of the Texans’ new wide receivers, and he had himself a phenomenal game as well, literally from the first play to the final winning drive. He also happens to have graduated from the University of Michigan, who will be vying for the national championship this week. Stroud is an alum of The Ohio State University, two opposing teams of perhaps the fiercest rivalry in college football. Van Pelt tried to exploit that rivalry and how it affects their working relationship. Stroud answered it about perfect, but being a young player, gave Van Pelt what he was looking for. “Yeah, it sucks that he went there.”

Van Pelt laughed out loud. He got his payoff. He replied with, “You finally answered a question honestly.” Excuse me, what was that? All of his previous answers about his faith were dishonest? C.J. Stroud is a liar when he professes his faith? No one honestly believes in Jesus? Those that tell you publicly they do are scam artists? Is that what I’m sensing from the anchor of ESPN? I know he was trying to do jock talk, but the kid is who he is, not who Scott Van Pelt or some sports network would like him to be. It makes you wonder if there’s any record of hostility towards Christianity from Van Pelt.

Back in 2013, the anchor found himself at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, and tweeted out this message after apparently seeing an episode of Duck Dynasty on a television screen:

People on TV YELLING at each other about what a guy who makes duck calls said about stuff. Instead, let's see how much Chick-Fil-A I can eat

— Scott Van Pelt (@notthefakeSVP) December 19, 2013

Fairly innocuous in and of itself. Duck Dynasty certainly struck a chord with a large chunk of America during that period of time, and like most successful reality shows, the subjects of these reality shows tend to be eccentric at the very least. But while the Robertson’s are quirky, they are very fundamental practicing Christians, as are the owners of Chick-Fil-A, the Cathy family. He got a few instant reactions, thinking he was committing a drive-by on Christianity. He disagreed strongly, issuing this response.

 

@rednose2711 my faith is not anyone's business because I chose not to make it that

— Scott Van Pelt (@notthefakeSVP) December 19, 2013

And that’s the extent of his public profession on the subject of faith. Now I intuit from this that Van Pelt does in fact believe in something greater than himself. I deduce that by the phrasing he used. Typically, an atheist wouldn’t refer to their unspoken atheism as ‘my faith’. We don’t know in whom or in what Scott Van Pelt believes. But if he were to be counted in the overall religion of Christianity, be it Catholic or Protestant, there’s really only two main rules – 1. Believe Jesus is who He says He is and what He came here to do, and 2. Tell others. Van Pelt, if he is a Christian at all, may be treating Christianity like Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and the Colorado Supreme Court are treating the 14th Amendment. They’re firm believers in Section 3 and the whole insurrection disqualification stuff, but seem to ignore section 5, which says it’s up to the Congress to enforce the provisions of the Amendment.

Scott Van Pelt’s religious status remains unknown, and it certainly is up to him whether he ever wants to make that status known. But if he is a believer, he’s not doing it right. If he’s a believer, you typically don’t insinuate that other professing Christians are liars because they are public in their faith. And if he isn’t a Christian, well, I think we maybe just saw a poker tell to that effect in his interview of C.J. Stroud.

As a Christian, I turned off the television after that, and said one prayer for two people – that God would continue to use C.J. Stroud as an example of how to be In, But Not Of this world, to quote a book written by someone I know pretty well, and that Scott Van Pelt would realize that Christian faith is not something to avoid or mock, but something to celebrate when you look around the world today and see the direction it’s headed. It’s high time we had more people bold enough to profess their Christian faith in leadership. History has given us plenty of godless leaders, and they have a stellar failure rate – 100%, given enough time.