‘Godball’: Are outspoken athletes Christianity’s most powerful evangelists?



Christian affiliation in America has been in steep decline for decades, with church attendance falling and nearly 30% of adults religiously unaffiliated.

Pew Research Center has argued that there is “no clear evidence of a religious revival among young adults,” but sports fans might reach a different conclusion when tuning in to post-game interviews and press conferences, where they frequently hear athletes boldly professing their faith and giving glory to Jesus Christ.

‘You’re not alone in seeing it, and you’re not alone in recognizing that it is a revival.’

While Pew’s latest polling shows that the long decline has only plateaued, New York Times bestselling author and sports journalist Steve Eubanks believes there are undeniable and meaningful signs of revival, particularly among athletes.

Teed up

In his forthcoming book, “Godball: How Athletes Are Saving Christianity,” which releases June 9, Eubanks takes a deeper look at the faith resurgence sweeping America and how these outspoken athletes have become Christianity’s most powerful evangelists.

“I don’t think I would have noticed it if it hadn’t been for the event that you and I talked about three years ago,” Eubanks told Blaze News, referring to a 2023 incident in which the leading golf publication he then worked for attempted to censor his interview with professional golfer Amy Olson. When Global Golf Post refused to run the piece unless Eubanks removed Olson's references to her Christian faith and pro-life views, he “resigned on the spot.”

At the time, Eubanks told Blaze News that widespread leftist bias had created a “sad state of affairs” for journalism.

But now Eubanks says the experience had a silver lining: showing him that outspoken Christian athletes like Olson were more common than he realized.

“I thought, ‘Wow, for an athlete to say something like this is extraordinary,’” Eubanks told Blaze News.

“Well, then I started paying attention, and I thought, ‘Maybe it’s not that extraordinary; maybe it’s something that’s happening every day, and I just hadn’t noticed.’”

Jesus first

Combing through press conferences and pre- and post-game interviews proved his hunch correct. More and more athletes seemed to be using the spotlight to profess their faith, sidestepping questions about athletic performance to give thanks to Jesus and share the gospel.

“It’s a huge movement now,” Eubanks declared. “Really, it’s a revival.”

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Steve Eubanks. Image source: Steve Eubanks

When asked why athletes tend to be more outspoken than other public figures, Eubanks pointed to the confidence that comes from succeeding in “one of the few meritocracies left.”

Leaderboard

Sports also instill a willingness to resist the herd, Eubanks said.

“From the time they were 7 or 8 years old, they were the leaders of the teams,” Eubanks said. “They had been told by the coaching staff, ‘Look, you’re the person who has to step up.’ And it’s a natural extension of that.”

Eubanks asserts one of the main reasons these athletes are speaking out now is tied to the COVID lockdowns. He highlighted that an athlete’s career is significantly shorter than most other professions and that, during the lockdowns, everything they had dedicated their lives to was put on hold for an uncertain, lengthy period.

“I just think COVID radicalized these kids,” he stated. “Those people realized that their entire lives could be taken away from them in an instant and that it was important for them to stand up for the things that were really important and to go ahead and make these proclamations of faith.”

He argued that athletes have become the “cultural drivers” of American society, more so than artists and musicians.

Bad bets

Eubanks hopes that church attendance, particularly among young men, continues to grow, but expressed concern about one emerging threat within the sports community that could impact the current Christian revival.

Image source: Steve Eubanks

“If there’s anything that could derail it, it is the sports gambling,” Eubanks told Blaze News. “It can compromise the integrity of the sports themselves.”

He detailed how throwing a game used to mean deliberately manipulating the entire outcome, but recently, some athletes have been indicted for allegedly engaging in spot-fixes, rigging small moments, such as a specific baseball pitch, for prop bets.

Eubanks also noted that the barrier to gambling has been substantially lowered, from having to seek out a local bookie to using your phone to place numerous bets in seconds.

“It’s almost the slot machine effect. There’s just enough bells and whistles to keep you engaged and to keep you throwing money down the rathole,” he said. “There’s a huge, huge addiction problem out there with this that we haven’t recognized yet, but that could really derail this revival movement in my eyes.”

RELATED: When Archie Comics found Jesus: Strange artifacts from a once-Christian culture

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images

Walking the walk

To sustain and grow the revival, Eubanks believes athletes must become more vocal about their faith and take a stand against immoral practices in the sports industry, including opposing sports betting and the playing of songs with obscene lyrics at stadiums and arenas.

“In order to walk the walk, you’re eventually going to have to stand up and say, ‘This is not right; we shouldn’t be doing this,’” he said.

Eubanks hopes that readers of “Godball” understand this revival movement is significant and expanding. He also aims to inspire young athletes to express their faith publicly, which could spark a domino effect of fans being drawn to Jesus Christ.

“There’s an entire legion of people out here who are seeing exactly the same thing. You’re not alone in seeing it, and you’re not alone in recognizing that it is a revival,” he stated.

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Stephen King's biggest fear? Christianity



Stephen King got rich by tapping into something universal: the primal, human fears that haunt us all, regardless of race, class, or creed. Books like "The Shining" and "Salem's Lot" are effective whether you read them in Borneo or Bangor, in Czech or Chinese.

Never mind the master of modern horror's recent fixation on America's president — a figure who (at least for King's senescent Woodstock-generation cohort) represents an evil worse than Pennywise and Randall Flagg combined. The author's late-career Trump derangement syndrome can't undo the undeniable impact his more than 60 novels, countless short stories, and a flood of TV and movie adaptations continue to have on pop culture.

King once described organized religion as 'a dangerous tool.' His online tirades often single out Christians, casting them as theocrats, hypocrites, or villains.

That is an impact well-worth examining, especially for Christians. Beneath the lurid gore, King's books can seem oddly comforting and even wholesome. King has a knack for creating heroes out of "regular" Americans, flawed but well-meaning small-town folk who watch "The Price Is Right," drive Chryslers, and buy Cheerios at the supermarket.

What's more, these heroes do battle in a world where good and evil are clearly delimitated, with the former always triumphing over the latter. King seems to adhere to the sort of "culturally" Christian worldview that still held sway in the America of his youth (he was born in 1947).

Folly of faith

But a closer look at King's more than 50-year career reveals a consistent tendency to subvert Christianity. Indeed, it seems that King has applied his considerable storytelling gifts to denigrating faith as much as inducing fear.

King doesn’t simply tell tales of terror. He builds worlds where Christianity is a sickness, believers are lunatics, and God is either cruel or indifferent to our suffering. His work isn’t just critical of religion, but a deliberate inversion of it. The sacred becomes sinister, and devotion becomes disease.

In "Carrie," King’s first novel, the villain is not the telekinetic girl but her mother — a wild-eyed Christian who punishes her daughter for being human. Blood becomes sin, the Bible becomes a weapon, and faith is presented as the root of madness. Millions of readers met Christianity through that book and learned to detest the believer more than the devil.

The monster in the pews

In his novella "The Mist," he repeats the theme. Trapped townsfolk turn to a hysterical woman who quotes scripture on her way to presiding over human sacrifices. She becomes a prophet of panic, a parody of piety. The monsters outside may be frightening, but the believer inside is worse. Once again, King’s message is clear: The sacred is the scariest thing of all.

Then comes 2014's "Revival," perhaps King’s clearest expression of his contempt for Christianity. It begins in a small New England town, where young Jamie Morton meets Reverend Charles Jacobs, a gifted preacher who wins hearts and fills pews. But when tragedy strikes his family, the reverend’s faith vanishes. From his own pulpit, he mocks belief, denounces God, and is driven out in shame.

Years later, Jamie — now a weary musician addicted and adrift — meets Jacobs again, no longer a man of God but a man of wires and obsession. The reverend has replaced prayer with experiments, chasing power instead of purpose. When he finally forces open the door between life and death, what he finds isn’t heaven or hell, but a monstrous parody of creation — an insect god ruling over the void. It’s less revelation than ridicule, King’s way of saying that only a fool would still look to God for guidance.

Pulling punches

It’s worth noting what King never touches. He spares Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism the same disdain he reserves for Christianity. To mock those faiths would be called “punching down” by the cultural gatekeepers he aligns himself with.

But his compass is as broken as his conscience — spinning wildly, always pointing away from truth. He pretends he’s striking upward at power when, in truth, he’s sneering downward at the poor and ordinary believers who build churches, not empires. It’s all fair game in art, so long as the victims are mostly white and Christian. Mocking Islam would be “insensitive.” Ridiculing Hinduism would be “problematic.” But tearing into Christianity? That’s considered brave. In King’s moral universe, faith is fair game, as long as it’s practiced in small communities, not gated ones.

RELATED: Stephen King forced to apologize for Charlie Kirk remarks, threatened with lawsuit, ripped as 'evil, twisted liar'

Photo by BENJAMIN HANSON/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

'Spiritual vandalism'

Another important point worth emphasizing is that King’s world isn’t godless. Quite the opposite, in fact. It’s god-haunted, but the divine is turned on its head. His priests prey instead of pray. His crosses offer no comfort, only despair.

This is not accidental. King once described organized religion as “a dangerous tool.” His online tirades often single out Christians, casting them as theocrats, hypocrites, or villains. He preaches clarity while painting conviction as madness. The man who once wrote about demons now sees them in ordinary Americans.

What King practices is a kind of spiritual vandalism. He keeps the architecture of Christianity — the rituals, the icons, the language — but fills it with sacrilege. The chalice still shines, but the wine is poison. Grace becomes guilt, creation becomes cruelty, and salvation becomes surrender. It is not atheism but corruption — the gospel rewritten in reverse.

King vs. the King

Yet even in his rebellion, King can’t escape the faith he so clearly despises. His stories are soaked in scripture, each one haunted by the very God he denies. Every curse echoes a prayer. Every desecration betrays a longing for what was lost. Behind his hatred lies hunger. A need for meaning, even if that meaning must be mutilated to be felt.

The irony is almost biblical. King writes of hell because he still dreams of heaven. He rejects the transcendent but cannot stop reaching for it. That is why his work feels so spiritual even in its cynicism — because rebellion is, in its way, a strange kind of worship.

This Boomer icon may never kneel before Christ, but his stories do — in rage, not reverence. They curse the altar, yet can’t look away. Stephen King may write about death, but his real subject is the divine he can’t quite kill.

Not every battle needs a microphone



My martial arts training kicked in as I noticed someone walking up behind me at a busy intersection in Aurora, Colorado, not exactly America’s safest city, and I was not in the best part of town. I shifted slightly to see her and kept her in view while we waited for the light to change.

She was young, Gen Z perhaps, heavily tattooed, with the kind of piercings that make me wince and wonder how she ever gets through TSA with that much metal. Jewelry swayed from her nose and ears as she stood beside me at the crosswalk. It was a long wait for the light, and let’s be honest, when someone looks that rough, it’s easy to tense up — especially these days. With headlines full of random violence and senseless attacks, wariness can feel like common sense.

In an age of combat and argument, the most radical engagement may be quiet compassion.

Overhead, a bald eagle circled the hospital towers where my wife had been staying for nearly five months. I lifted my phone for a picture. She noticed and said quietly, “That’s cool.”

Quoting John Denver, I replied, “I know he’d be a poorer man if he never saw an eagle fly. This morning, I don’t think we’re poor, are we?”

She smiled, sadly, almost as if it were forced. “I needed that ... given what I’m carrying.”

The light changed, and we stepped into the crosswalk together. I asked the only question that mattered: “What are you carrying?”

She told me about her ex, abusive, threatening, promising to show up at her house. Fear shadowed every word. I asked if she’d filed an order of protection. She said she was in the process, but her voice carried little confidence. Then I asked if she had a firearm. In an instant, fear gave way to shame. She dropped her eyes and admitted she couldn’t own one because of a past conviction.

On the other side of the intersection, I offered her specific guidance that she could implement right away, practical steps to increase her safety and protect herself. But as I spoke, it became clear that the deeper issue wasn’t just logistics. I didn’t get the sense she believed she mattered.

So I looked at her and said, “Do you understand that your safety matters? That you are worth protecting?”

Her eyes said she didn’t believe it. So I told her again, this time as a fact, not a question: “You are worth protecting.” Tears welled up.

Then I asked if I could pray with her. She nodded tearfully, and right there, on the sidewalk of a busy Aurora street, we bowed our heads.

I can’t count how many people prayed for my wife and me that morning or throughout our long journey. But I can count the number praying for that young woman on a street corner in Aurora. And it wasn’t just me. We have a Savior who “always lives to make intercession” for us (Hebrews 7:25).

That’s all it took. Not a debate. Not an argument. Just seeing her, giving her steps to take, praying for her, and offering her what she could not yet tell herself.

It was an unusual encounter, but crossings like this will only become more frequent, because a generation is struggling with anxiety, depression, and despair at levels we’ve never seen before. According to the Springtide Research Institute (2022), 55% of Gen Z report being moderately to extremely anxious, and 47% say they are moderately or extremely depressed.

RELATED: Reckless hate cannot win: Christ has already broken it

Photo by artplus via Getty Images

Some of them may look odd to us. They may dye their hair in garish tones, pierce their bodies, or cover themselves in ink. But Henry David Thoreau’s line remains true: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Some of us just wear our wounds differently. Blood is still red. Wounds still hurt. And scars still speak louder than arguments.

In the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, many people — young people especially — are rushing to the debate stage, eager for verbal combat. Strong voices still have a space in the public square. But not every meaningful moment requires a microphone or a mastery of apologetics.

That morning in Aurora, I wasn’t looking to change anyone’s politics. I was simply a caregiver, walking to the hospital to sit with my wife after decades of surgeries. Yet a brief exchange at a crosswalk became a chance to remind someone that her life mattered. She never knew what I carried. She didn’t need to. She benefited because I stopped to care. What began as caution in a rough neighborhood turned into an encounter that spoke directly to another human being’s heartache.

A generation is struggling. Those of us of a certain age may not know their world very well. But our scars can speak. It costs little and requires no training to be kind to a wounded soul.

We only need to be ready at a moment’s notice “to comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God” (2 Corinthians 1:4). In an age of combat and argument, that may be the most radical engagement of all.

DHS trolls Zach Bryan after apparently anti-ICE song clip goes viral



Over the weekend, country music star Zach Bryan posted a song clip to his Instagram with the caption "the fading of the red white and blue." Since then, Bryan has faced a wave of backlash over some of his apparently "anti-ICE" lyrics, but one of the best responses came from the Department of Homeland Security.

On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security's X account posted a compilation video of law enforcement with one of Zach Bryan's more famous songs playing over it.

'When you hear the rest of the song, you will understand the full context that hits on both sides of the aisle.'

The caption of the post reads, "We’re having an All Night Revival."

The video depicts several scenes of arrests by law enforcement, riot control, and even a clip of the commander at large of the U.S. Border Patrol, Chief Gregory Bovino, who recently allegedly he had a murder hit put on his head by a Latin Kings gang member.

RELATED: Country singer Zach Bryan gets nailed with backlash over anti-ICE song

Photo by James Smith/Sam Snap/Getty Images

Zach Bryan's song "Revival" plays over the DHS video. "Revival" has over 390 million plays on Spotify and is among Bryan's top 10 songs.

The lyrics from the new melancholy song clip mention ICE while suggesting the slow decline of America.

"ICE is gonna come bust down your door," it reads. "Try to build a house / no one builds no more."

The lyrics end, "Got some bad news / the fading of the red, white, and blue.”

Hours after the DHS video dropped on Tuesday, Bryan posted an explanation on his Instagram story: "To all those disappointed in me on either side of whatever you believe in just know I'm trying my best too and we all say things that are misconstrued sometimes."

He suggested that there is more context in the full song: "When you hear the rest of the song, you will understand the full context that hits on both sides of the aisle."

He has not given any indication of the planned timing for the song's release.

Blaze News made multiple attempts to contact Zach Bryan and his management team for comment but was ultimately unsuccessful.

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Church is cool again — and Gen Z men are leading the way



Amid a broader spiritual collapse, one trend stands out: Young men are returning to church in growing numbers. Generation Z, in particular, seeks structure, meaning, and community in a world fractured by chaos and alienation.

For decades, the dominant story in the West told of religion’s slow death. Church attendance dropped year after year, while “nones” — those who reject any religious affiliation — surged. But recent data complicates that narrative, especially among younger Americans.

The return of young men to the church is a cultural reckoning and a budding flower of renewal.

Gen Z remains the least religious generation on record, with 34% identifying as unaffiliated — higher than Millennials (29%) or Gen X (25%). Yet signs of revival are breaking through. One recent survey found that 31% of Gen Z attend religious services at least once a month, while 25% actively practice a faith.

Similar trends are occurring in the United Kingdom. A report by the Bible Society reveals that Catholics now outnumber Anglicans by more than two to one among Generation Z and younger Millennials. In 2018, Anglicans made up 30% of churchgoers ages 18-34, while Catholics accounted for 22%. By 2024, these figures had changed to 20% Anglican and 41% Catholic.

According to the Becket Fund’s 2024 findings, members of Gen Z attending religious services at least monthly rose from 29% in 2022 to 40% in 2024. Similarly, those who consider religion important in their lives increased from 51% to 66% over the same period.

Religious is the new ‘rebellious’

What explains the sudden shift? For generations, youth pushed back against the dominant order, and for much of the 20th century, that order was Christianity. But what happens when Christianity fades, replaced by atheism or whatever postmodern creed happens to be in vogue? The instinct to rebel remains. Only now, the rebellion turns back toward order, tradition, and moral clarity.

For years, legacy media and Hollywood told young men they were disposable — interchangeable, expendable, even dangerous. That narrative failed. And now, young men are driving the revival.

Historically, women filled the pews in greater numbers. But in 2024, that dynamic flipped. According to the Alabama Baptist, 30% of men attended weekly services compared to just 27% of women — a quiet but telling reversal of a long-standing pattern.

Men lead the charge

Traditional, structured worship has become a magnet for young men seeking discipline and meaning. Orthodox and Catholic churches — with their rituals, hierarchy, and deep historical roots — have seen a marked rise in male converts.

A 2022 survey reported a 78% increase in conversions to Orthodoxy since 2019. Catholic dioceses across the country have posted similar gains. From 2023 to 2024, some reported conversion spikes of up to 72%. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles alone welcomed 5,587 people into the Catholic Church this Easter, including 2,786 baptisms at the Easter Vigil — a 34% jump over last year.

But this resurgence goes deeper than doctrine. Churches offer young men what the modern world fails to provide: real community. According to the Barna Group, 67% of churchgoing adults report having a mentor — often someone they met through church. Among Gen Z and Millennials, that number rises to 86% and 83%, respectively.

Small groups and discipleship programs allow young men to wrestle with challenges, seek counsel, and build genuine friendships. These are exactly the structures secular society neglects — and precisely what my generation craves.

Cultural shifts have accelerated the return to faith. The internet may connect everyone digitally, but it often isolates people in the real world. Local churches still offer something screens can’t: brotherhood, accountability, and face-to-face contact. In a culture that demonizes masculinity and treats male virtues as liabilities, the church remains one of the last institutions to honor strength, discipline, and leadership without shame or apology.

A cultural mandate

Many young men today feel discarded by a society that marginalizes their natural instincts and virtues. Christianity offers them something different — a call to action rooted in service, discipline, and brotherhood. It gives them a place where effort matters, strength is welcomed, and belonging isn’t conditional. The need to connect, to matter, and to be respected — long ignored in secular culture — finds real expression in the life of the church.

This return of young men to the pews marks more than a spiritual revival. It’s a cultural reckoning. In many ways, it echoes the moral foundation laid by America’s founders. Though denominationally diverse, the founders agreed that freedom without faith could not last. George Washington said it plainly: “Religion and morality are indispensable supports” to political prosperity.

Today’s young men appear to understand what many in power have forgotten — liberty without virtue cannot endure. As America drifts, a new generation looks not to slogans or screens but to God — for strength, clarity, and the courage to rebuild what has been lost.

Young people are FLOCKING to the Catholic Church — here’s why



According to several recent reports, including one from the National Catholic Register, we’ve seen a huge surge in Catholic conversions — especially among younger generations. A recent New York Post article highlighted the “growing number of young people turning to the Catholic Church from other denominations, religions and even no faith at all.”

What’s behind this sudden flocking to Catholicism?

Glenn Beck says that people are drawn to Catholic rituals because they offer order and meaning in this era of progressive chaos.

He reflects on Michelle Obama’s infamous 2008 speech, during which she claimed that “we are going to have to change our conversation; we’re going to have to change our traditions, our history.”

A decade and a half later, and it’s clear that uprooting tradition results in division, displacement, and disorder.

Tradition, Glenn explains, is “deeply human” and serves to “mark moments that matter in our lives” and “helps organize things in our mind.”

Catholicism, which is predicated on tradition, can restore the emptiness our current culture has adopted.

“Rituals in Catholicism — the Eucharist or the confession — elevate this instinct, this need to the sacred, so it’s not just a routine; it is a bridge to meaning,” says Glenn. “That matters because when you have meaning and there's a storm in your life, it gives structure so it doesn't feel like the storm is just going to wipe you out entirely.”

Modern worship doesn’t seem to offer the same stability as traditional worship. The Post article notes that “Gen Z crave clarity and certainty” and are therefore “rejecting lax alternatives of modern worship.”

“Why? Because modern worship tells you you can believe anything; there are no real rules,” says Glenn.

The problem is, that kind of progressive doctrine lacks substance, which is what the human soul is designed to thirst for. Ritual and tradition can offer a solution because they “build communities — like a congregation singing together in unison or a neighborhood block party,” says Glenn.

“We now live in a world of screen and rush,” he explains. But rituals and traditions “will slow you down, make you present in the moment.”

“They're not about rules; they're all about meaning if you do it right. This isn't about recognizing one faith over another. This is about recognizing what rituals do for us.”

To hear more of Glenn’s analysis, watch the clip above.

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