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Religion affects different people in different ways. I have a friend who is a Sufi Muslim. He is the most peaceful, Godly man I know. At the same time there are Muslims who hate non-Muslims, especially Americans. I had a rabbi friend who was also a man of God as good as it gets, yet there are zealot Jews in Israel who want to drive out all Palestinians because they believe God gave the land to Abraham. There are many Christians I admire because of their commitment to social, economic, and political justice. Yet there are other Christians whose self-righteous judgmentalism makes me want to disown my own faith tradition.

What these contrasting examples suggest is that there is nothing inherently good or bad about being religious. It’s what people do with religion that makes the difference. Faiths that have sacred texts to guide them are always subject to contrasting interpretations about their meaning. Psychological and emotional issues also influence how religion affects people. Unstable people often use religion to justify their warped sense of reality. The point is that to be a religious person doesn’t necessarily mean you are a good person. You may in fact be a very bad person, or a person who makes the world worse rather than better.

I have been thinking about this lately because it seems some professional golfers have gone to wearing their faith on their sleeve. One was recently interviewed about the round he had just completed. The reporter asked him how it was “out there.” The first thing he said was that he had to thank his savior, Jesus Christ, for giving him the strength to play the game. Then he proceeded to say that the round was a lot of fun because of the person with whom he had been paired. “We are both Christians,” he said, “so we get along well and have a lot in common.”

Afterwards I sat in my chair trying to figure out what in the heck his point was. Was he suggesting that having fun depended on his golf partner being a Christian? Was he saying that had his partner not been a Christian he would not have had any fun? What exactly did being religious have to do with playing golf in the first place? Was his comment a not so subtle judgment about other tour players he knew were not religious? Was he saying Jesus was the reason he had a skill that had made him rich while most people in the world live in poverty?

I never figured out what he was trying to say, but I have a suspicion that his motivation was actually quite innocent. My guess is he said what he said because he belongs to an evangelical church that has convinced him that he should use every opportunity he has to testify to Jesus. It is a common belief based on a statement Jesus made that denying him before others would lead to his denying that person before God (Matthew 10:33). Understanding the text in this way is questionable at best, but more than a few athletes today apparently believe it compels them to declare they are Christians whenever they get before a microphone. I wonder how they would have responded had they heard as I did Muhammed Ali doing the same thing when he converted to Islam, only he used the name Allah instead of God. Anybody who knows me knows I was a fan of Ali’s through thick and thin, but to be honest his public witness of faith never did much for me. And neither do those I see today by Christian athletes.

The reason is simple. Public professions don’t tell me anything about the people who make them. They may be wonderful people. Then, again, they may not be. They may believe everyone who is not of the same faith as theirs is damned by God, or they may believe God is bigger than any single religion. They may live their privileged life and support tax breaks for the wealthy, or they may be concerned about the economic struggles most Americans are experiencing and believe rich people should pay more for the common good.

You see my point. I suspect that hearing a person say he or she is a Christian, Muslim, Jew, or something else doesn’t do much for anyone. What does is learning about what kind of person they are. And for Christians this should come as no surprise. After all, Jesus said that calling him Lord didn’t matter all that much, but loving the way God wanted us to love mattered a lot (Mathew 7:21). I suppose that doesn’t mean pro athletes shouldn’t talk about being a Christian when they are interviewed. But it does suggest that before they do they might bear in mind that most people know talk is cheap, and that actions always speak louder than words.