I was going to do a big post on Eastern Orthodox Christmas which some celebrate today according to which calender they are on.. However sigh the LSU / Texas A & M game is getting in the way.
Andy though in the comment box has highlighted two articles from a NFL player that is EASTERN ORTHODOX and not shy about it.
The first was this one from a couple of months ago. See
Patricia Sheridan's Breakfast With ... Troy Polamalu .
I really like that article and how the paper is taking time to highlight his faith in profession that on the player level is very protestant I suspect. I did chuckle at this:
There isn't, but if you want to talk about religion and one's existence, you can't really go into that gray area. You know? You can kind of try to be ignorant and say, "You know, I think God exists and I think I'm comfortable with where I'm at with God." But if you say you are a Christian and you really study what the Christian struggle is -- there is no gray area. There has to be the one truth and it has to be taken seriously. So I went in depth. What is Christianity? There are all these different religions -- where were they all founded? I wanted to get to the source, because if I saw there was a flaw in the source, then there's a flaw in the religion. I saw that Orthodoxy, without a shadow of a doubt, is a flawless religion.
FLAWLESS!! Ah the zeal of a Convert which is why we need them. That comment reminded of a great Rod Deher piece related to this. But Converts are needed and I am very glad that this NFL player is using his position to promote the Orthodox Faith.
Before moving on I found the this part of the Q and A interesting:
Troy, how do you reconcile the Samoan warrior spirit you've talked about in other interviews, with your Christian, Greek Orthodox teachings?
Well, yeah that is a strange dichotomy. In one sense I do come from an ethnicity that is full of the warrior mentality. It is a struggle. But let's not separate what a physical warrior and a spiritual warrior can be. In one sense you can be a soldier. In another, you fight, as the Bible describes, bodiless powers. In one sense that's where my struggle is -- trying to be a valiant Christian warrior struggling against my own passions.
It would be interesting to get Troy and former LSU player, now former NFL player, fellow person of Samoan descent , and fellow Christian (though not Orthodox) Kevin Mawae in the same room to discuss that.
Moving on the Pittsburg Paper again highlighted him with a very well done piece on Orthodox Christmas to day. See Troy Polamalu says 'Kala Christougena!'
Hope to see him highlighted elsewhere on this besides the local paper.
This is fantastic. I had no idea. Thanks to you and your friend for the heads up.
ReplyDeleteGuess I need to pay more attention to NFL football?!?
Yeah a couple of pretty cool articles . I keep a look out for articles that profile the religious faith of college and NFL players.
ReplyDeleteI find this story very interesting because well there are not a lot of lot of players that are Orthodox.
In fact with the number of African American players at both levels the faith you hear about is going to be evangelical or Protestant with the occasional Muslim or Catholic.
So this is sort of different and he seems to take his position seriously to talk about his Orthodoxy which is pretty cool.
I talked to a religious reporter that with the number of people converting to Orthodoxy that it should get more attention than it does. So it is nice to see at least the local paper commenting on it