DOES GOD CARE WHO WINS?

It was Jan. 3, 1999, on this orb Earth and, as usual, he had the whole world in his hands.

While the nastiest storm in decades threatened to white-out Chicago, police in Jerusalem detained eight adults belonging to a Denver-based apocalyptic Christian cult reportedly intending to carry out violent acts to hasten the Second Coming.

The potential Y2K cataclysm was front and center while, in Washington, some U.S. senators urged President Clinton to postpone his State of the Union address.

There was a laundry list of pestilence, famine, disease and disaster to contend with and, if you believe God to be a sports fan, a can’t-miss NFC wild-card contest in San Francisco between the 49ers and Green Bay Packers.

The game ended, rapturously, in 49er victory when devout Mormon quarterback Steve Young fired the winning touchdown pass to born-again Christian receiver Terrell Owens, who caught the ball while enveloped by five Packer defenders, some of them God-fearing.

“Thank you, Jesus!” Owens screamed beneath the celebratory player pile.

Tears trickled down the receiver’s face as Owens, who had dropped four passes in the game and fumbled once, proclaimed his redemption as cameras rolled.

Holding short stick in this pigskin holy war was Green Bay defensive end Reggie White, the “Minister of Defense.”

God, White said, had called him out of retirement to play one last season.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

Or, was it?

Afterward, Packer and 49er players joined in a collective prayer.

Joseph Price, professor of religious studies at Whittier College, watched with scholarly interest as the scene unfolded on television.

“The number of Packers and 49ers gathered at midfield in unison in an act of prayer was one of the most unusual exercises in faith in a sporting context that I’ve seen in recent years,” Price said.

Welcome to the three-way intersection of sports, religion and big-screen television at the end of the millennium.

Too bad Marshall “the medium is the message” McLuhan didn’t live to see it.

Religion’s increased influence in athletics--one NFL insider estimates 35% to 40% of the league’s players are born-again Christians, has rekindled a question that probably has been kicked around, so to speak, since antiquity:

Does God care who wins?

“That’s one of the greatest questions to be asked,” Minnesota Viking quarterback Randall Cunningham, a devout Christian, said. “I think only God can answer that question. We can give our opinions.”

Cunningham has his.

He was out of football two years ago, laying tile in Las Vegas, when the Vikings coaxed him to return in a backup role. When starter Brad Johnson broke his leg in Week 2, Cunningham stepped in to lead the Vikings to a 16-2 record while earning the NFC’s player-of-the-year award.

Cunningham insists there should have been co-MVPs.

“I can’t go out and win unless I do it through Christ,” he said. “Does God care? Evidently, he’s cared 16 times, because we won 16 games, and not to say he didn’t care the other two times, but maybe he cared enough to allow the other team to win the other two times.”

John Freeman, an ordained United Methodist minister who teaches practical theology at Emory University in Atlanta, has a slightly different take.

“I don’t think God gives a hoot about who wins a game,” Freeman said. “When somebody says things went well for me because God caused them to go well, that doesn’t wash biblically. Look at Job. Job was a great human being and he lost everything. He got creamed.”

Welcome to the debate.

If God really keeps sporting tabs, many argue, how come the New York Yankees keep winning blasted championships?

What does God have against the Chicago Cubs?

Why did he dress Dennis Rodman in a skirt and have him lead the 11 o’clock news?

How come God made icons of off-the-field cads such as Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth?

And, if God truly wanted to send a messenger via sports, why didn’t he speak through Michael Jordan? (Talk about bang for your religious buck!)

A recent Gallup poll revealed 96% of Americans believe in God.

That’s all well and good but, between the lines and hash marks, just whose God is right?

White credited Jesus when the Packers won the Super Bowl; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a Muslim, praised Allah when he won NBA titles with the Lakers.

(Note: the following may be the first set-up line ever lobbed to a theologian.)

How come no one ever thanks Buddha?

“Because Buddha’s a pacifist,” said Whittier College’s Price, author of the book “From Season to Season, Sports as American Religion.”

“He doesn’t want to get involved. Buddha’s not a pulling guard.”

What if, gulp, the atheists are right, and there is no God?

“God’s right and we’re all wrong,” Cunningham said.

This much we know: Religious athletes in growing numbers are using their platforms to spread the word.

Truth is, as a vehicle to transport evangelism to the masses, sports is a Hummer.

“I know this game was given to me as a platform to proclaim his name,” White said.

Thus, White viewed consecutive Super Bowl appearances by the Packers as extended televised church services.

White: “That’s a [viewing] congregation of about 800 million.”

The Rev. Billy Graham doesn’t pull those kinds of numbers.

What’s Going On?

You can’t channel-surf these days without locking on to a postgame, postmatch, postfight interview in which a player thanks God for a punt, pass, putt, rebound or right cross.

Why in heaven’s name should God care if Deion Sanders, Dallas’ jewelry-jangling cornerback, returns a punt for a touchdown?

“Because sports is part of life,” counters heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield, who wears a “Jesus” cap into the ring before fights.

The murky area for many is in the minutiae.

Does God actually act, de facto, as Holyfield’s cornerman?

Does he roll up his sleeves and get under the hood at the Daytona 500?

Was it really Jesus, as an NFL player once suggested, who made an opposing quarterback throw into double coverage?

Many evangelical players do believe God calls all the shots.

“He knows who’s going to win in advance,” White said. “I believe God wants his name glorified. God will do anything to glorify his name. I believe he even allows a team to win.

“I know many people question whether it’s right to ask God for victory or not. But you look at the Old Testament. They always asked God to win when they went into battle. God doesn’t have a losing mentality. I think sometimes God may look down and say, ‘OK, I know these guys are going to glorify me, and I’m going to allow it to happen.’ ”

White contends God had a hand in the Packers’ Super Bowl win two years ago.

Yet, there was one player--quarterback Brett Favre--without whom the Packers might not have advanced past the first round.

When asked in 1997 by the Portland Oregonian newspaper what impact religion had on Green Bay’s success, Favre said, “I don’t think it makes any difference.”

The religious community has not quite locked hands on this God-as-Cheesehead/Dirty Bird/Dodger Blue bleeder theory.

Some athletes prefer to juke the issue altogether.

Asked once why he never thanked God publicly after games, the 49ers’ Young, a descendant of Brigham Young, successor to Mormon church founder Joseph Smith, said, “It’s almost too important to trivialize with football.”

Former Dodger Orel Hershiser, deeply religious, has said he would never blame Jesus for hanging a curveball.

Joe Gibbs, a born-again Christian who won three Super Bowls as coach of the Washington Redskins, said, “What I always prayed for was that God give me all the wisdom I can have.”

Many scholars argue that God is not a puppeteer, some celestial Geppetto hovering over a sporting world of Pinocchios.

Lonnie Kliever, chair of the religious studies department at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, thinks the notion that God keeps score is “fraught with such religious silliness.”

“God doesn’t play favorites in trivial games. Napoleon had the last word on contests between people and groups who prayed to the same god. His answer to that question, whose side is God on? was, ‘God is on the side with the biggest artillery.’ God is on the side with the quarterback that’s hot. To think God gives victory and imposes defeat in an athletic contest I think is, theologically, very, very suspect.”

Who’s right?

We’ll all find out.

Some day.

Mission Accomplished

There always have been athletes who have professed faith in public--New York Yankee second baseman Bobby Richardson in the 1950s and ‘60s, Dallas Cowboy quarterback Roger Staubach in the 1970s.

Branch Rickey, the Dodger executive who signed Jackie Robinson, helped start the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in 1954.

Yet, the religious athlete more frequently was the locker-room exception, cast in lore as a Bible-thumping, bead-rubbing caricature.

The religious jock in some quarters was seen as soft, at conflict with the often violent nature of sports.

No more.

The emergence of religious behemoths such as White, the quarterback-mashing pass rusher, and Tony Boselli, the Jacksonville Jaguars’ 300-pound left tackle, have eradicated some myths.

“Muscular Christianity” is what theologians call this flexing of religiousness.

And while league officials don’t keep head counts, the number of religious athletes appears to be rising faster than a Roger Clemens fastball.

Keith Johnson, the Minnesota Vikings’ team chaplain, estimates 30 to 40 players regularly attend chapel services.

Meaning, when Minnesota played at Detroit this season, it nearly was the Christians versus the Lions.

Johnson notes all six NFC playoff teams had strong Christian beliefs.

Baseball’s Texas Rangers have unabashedly courted “character” players to mesh with a new image courted by Manager Johnny Oates, a born-again Christian.

Spiritual gains aside, recruiting Christians makes good business sense.

“They tend to be better prepared behaviorally,” sports attorney Leigh Steinberg said.

But why the sudden stampede into our living rooms?

A few theories:

* Media exposure: Thirty years ago, religious athletes did not have the forum they have today. The explosion of television and cable channels has given players unprecedented access.

“Everyone is looking for an angle, and more microphones are getting put in front of players,” Price said. “Players are often getting the chance to talk in ways they were not given 30 years ago.”

* The grass-roots movement worked: Youth-based religious groups formed in the ‘50s and ‘60s--Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Athletes in Action--have effectively permeated the sporting masses.

In 1956, only 256 athletes and coaches attended the first Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp. In 1995, there were 13,048 participants.

It follows that many of those ministered to as youths would carry their faith into the professional ranks.

“We have a stronger presence in the country just to be able to canvass more of these teams and impact more of those athletes,” said Donnie Dee, state director for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in Southern California.

* Pressure: Increased salaries and media scrutiny have made the modern athlete more isolated and contemplative.

“So many athletes are looking for what the Rolling Stones called ‘Satisfaction,’ ” Ray Caldwell, the Los Angeles Metro director for Athletes in Action, said. “They get a million-dollar signing bonus, can buy anything they ever wanted, and after they bought it, they say, ‘Oh, this doesn’t give me happiness.’ In a sense, it drives them to their maker.”

* Jimmy Carter: The former president put teeth in the born-again cause. Carter’s election in 1976, one scholar says, made public professing acceptable.

“It not only became permissible talking about religion, it became cachet,” Kliever said, “because there was a born-again in the White House.”

* Safety net: In high-wire professions where context is so often lacking, faith provides athletes with a crash pad. Price says religion allows athletes to cope with wide emotional swings.

If a bitter loss was “God’s will,” the player feels less responsible for his actions.

“As exultant as victory can be, religion also provides a great deal of cushion that’s virtually unchallenged,” Price said. “It cannot be disproved.”

Johnson, the Vikings’ chaplain, disputes that theory.

“I don’t believe it’s just an emotional safety net,” he said. “I’ve seen guys that don’t believe at all, but when it comes to getting prepared to go out on the field, they know they need something greater than themselves to do the sorts of things they’re doing.”

Mickey, Willie, Duke . . . and Luke

Religion and sports, in a sense, have always shared a locker.

God has needled and pinned his way into our sporting quilt, serving as spiritual partner in its myths, tapestry and lexicon.

“Sports really does function as a quasi-religion in our society,” SMU’s Kliever said. “It forms a liturgical function, brings people together in a common place, with a common loyalty.”

It’s no coincidence that a desperation pass in football is called a “Hail Mary,” or that a critical stretch of golfing turf at the Masters is known as “Amen corner.”

Pittsburgh Steeler fans maintain the “Immaculate Reception,” Franco Harris’ famous cleat-string grab to defeat the Oakland Raiders in the 1972 playoffs, transformed the soul of the Steel City.

“When it happened, everything changed,” said Donald Musser, a Pittsburgh native and an ordained Baptist minister. “It was a religious moment because it’s one of those things that provide meaning in life.”

When soccer star Diego Maradona illegally punched in a goal to help Argentina to a 1986 World Cup win against England, fans christened it “the hand of God,” despite the fact that holding such a belief meant God was a cheater.

Baseball, of course, has its hallowed halls. It is not enough for its stars to be elected to the Hall of Fame.

“They are enshrined--it’s very religious,” said Whittier College’s Price.

And that’s no run-of-the-chapel mural of Jesus with arms outstretched on a wall visible from Notre Dame Stadium--that’s Touchdown Jesus!

“Notre Dame is the longest-running morality play of the 20th century,” Kliever said. “A phenomenon.”

Broadway and Hollywood have feasted on the sports and religion theme with “Damn Yankees” (Joe Hardy cuts a deal with the devil), “Angels in the Outfield” and “Heaven Can Wait.”

And then there’s this, religion’s bow to the absurd:

Believing his franchise might have been cursed, former California Angel general manager Buzzie Bavasi had an exorcism performed at Anaheim Stadium (God only knows why Bavasi allowed Nolan Ryan to leave as a free agent).

Bavasi was on target in this sense: Sporting edifices often serve as religious surrogates.

Recently, a couple was wed in the infield of the Daytona International Speedway.

“They thought this was great,” said Musser, who teaches a course called “Religion and Sport” at Florida’s Stetson University. “To them, it’s sacred ground. I think it’s fascinating.”

Religion and sport also can be serious business.

Muhammad Ali, the former Cassius Clay who converted to Islam in the 1960s, was stripped of his heavyweight boxing title for his refusal to fight in Vietnam because of his religious convictions.

Religion has even affected the outcome of important games.

Former Dodger star Sandy Koufax, who is Jewish, declined to pitch the 1965 World Series opener against Minnesota because it fell on Yom Kippur.

Don Drysdale replaced Koufax and was routed in an 8-2 defeat.

After the game, Lefty Gomez poked his head in the Dodger clubhouse and quipped to Manager Walter Alston, “Hey, Alston, I bet you wish Drysdale was Jewish too.”

Sometimes, a religion can’t wait to anoint a player of common faith.

Laker reserve Sam Jacobson, dubbed “the Jewish Jordan” while at the University of Minnesota, repeatedly has retorted, “I’m not Jewish and I’m not Jordan.”

The Lightning Rods

If only because of numbers, Christian athletes are lapping the liturgical field.

There are plenty of resonant voices, few more controversial than White, Cunningham and Holyfield.

* White is the Moses of the movement, an ordained minister with a big heart and a motor mouth.

The future Hall of Famer and NFL’s all-time sack leader first raised hackles when, as a free agent in 1992, he said God spoke to him and told him to sign with Green Bay instead of San Francisco.

Writing last July in the magazine “American Spectator,” Joe Quennan complained, “As a long-suffering Eagles fan, I have always been a tad perplexed, perhaps even annoyed, at the immense interest God manifests in the careers of Philadelphia’s professional athletes once they leave the city of Brotherly Love.”

What, a cynical Philadelphia fan?

After Green Bay’s Super Bowl loss to Denver last year, White says God told him to retire. Two days later, though, White said God changed his mind and White returned for another season.

Last March, in a speech before Wisconsin lawmakers, White caused a firestorm when he made insensitive remarks about the differences in races: Asians are so inventive they can “turn a television into a watch.”

White issued an apology for his “clumsy” characterizations.

“I’m an ordained Baptist minister,” Price said, “and I can’t say I agree with Reggie. I can’t explain Reggie. If I were to accept some of his theological premises, I would say, ‘Why didn’t Reggie go to the Bears?’ since I’ve been a Bears fans for years. It seemed like Reggie answered the call of the antichrist to go to the Packers.”

White has been dismissed as an evangelical radical by his detractors, but many others have swarmed to his defense.

Johnson, the Vikings’ chaplain and White’s friend, says it is not unreasonable to think God has been directing White down to the last decimal point of a multiyear contract.

“Reggie is a man I absolutely know God is working through,” Johnson said. “I believe God is speaking to people. There’s a story that says he even spoke through a donkey. If God is God, he is certainly capable of speaking to these guys, especially with the platform that they have.”

White says he is not trying to be controversial. He says man has always sought God’s direction, dating to Moses and the Ten Commandments.

“I remember when I made the announcement that I was coming back, and that God had spoken to me,” White said. “One reporter asked, who do I think I am, the pope? The pope isn’t the only man that can hear from God. And we don’t know if the pope does hear from God.”

* Cunningham used this year’s NFC playoff and his comeback-star status to drop this media bombshell: The world, just maybe, is coming to an end.

“There’s something going to happen that’s very, very powerful,” Cunningham said. “It’s no coincidence that we’re going into a new millennium, it’s no coincidence that our president is being persecuted.”

Cunningham offered that we might be experiencing “the birth pains” of Armageddon.

No surprise his comments drew criticism.

“I think it turns a lot of people off, because it trades on widespread social fears of the unknown,” SMU’s Kliever said. “It feeds a kind of private and public paranoia, that the world is getting worse and worse and we don’t have much hope and opportunity.”

Keith Johnson, though, maintains Cunningham’s quotes were all “biblically correct.”

Perhaps so, but was an NFL playoff game the place to broach the subject?

Cunningham says his comments were misinterpreted.

“I’m not talking about the end of the world,” he said. “What I’m doing is encouraging people to read the Bible a little bit, pray a little bit and have faith.”

* If God speaks through Evander Holyfield, then Jesus has a wicked uppercut.

Holyfield makes no secret about his faith. His ring robe is inscribed with a Bible verse, Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ which strengthen me.”

Some opponents have taken offense, however, accusing the boxer of a Holyfielder-than-thou attitude.

“Does he think no one else prays to God?” heavyweight Michael Moorer grumbled before his 1997 bout with Holyfield.

Holyfield is also controversial because of his relationship with Benny Hinn, a televangelist and self-proclaimed faith healer who was said to have healed the irregular heartbeat that forced Holyfield out of boxing in the mid-1990s.

Holyfield-Mike Tyson matches became more than boxing affairs; they were seen by some as religious wars: Holyfield, in one corner, fighting for Christianity against Tyson, in another, warming up for Islam.

“I certainly do not believe they were cosmic representatives in some sense of an Armageddon clash,” Price said.

Yet, although he beat Tyson twice in the name of Jesus, Holyfield says too much was made of the religious angle.

“I don’t know why people make the difference, ‘Oh, he’s fighting against a Muslim,” Holyfield said. “A Muslim is a person who wants to follow God. I want to follow God too. But I follow God through Jesus. The victory is that they got to hear a man confess, ‘I love Jesus.’ I can’t just sit here and say, I’m just good, and it’s all me.”

Fraud Watch

Warning: That linebacker signaling skyward after every routine tackle may in fact be preening for the cameras.

How do we separate the religious wheat from the chaff?

“I think the thing that should bother anybody, and it bothers me sometimes, is that I know guys who do it that are not serving God,” White said.

Jesus, according to Scripture, was not a fan of showboating.

In Matthew 6:5-6, Jesus says, “When you pray do not be like the hypocrites. . . . Go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.”

Yet, White says the actions of players are not inconsistent with biblical teachings.

“What Jesus was saying was, if you’re sincere, you can do it in public without making a show of it,” White said.

Said Cunningham: “It says in the book of James, ‘If any one are happy, he should sing songs of praise, if any one of you are in trouble, he should pray.’ ”

So how can you recognize a phony?

Sometimes, not even religious athletes can tell.

White says he has been taken for millions by crooks soliciting in the name of religion.

White: “God says the devil comes as an angel of light.”

Recently, several NFL players, among them San Diego Charger linebacker Junior Seau, were scammed for $11.5 million by John Gillette Jr., a financial planner who used religion as an inroad.

“Part of how they were able to sell the concept of power of attorney was through the Christian link,” said Steinberg, who referred some of his clients to Gillette. “Well, a not-so-funny thing happened. He absconded with a lot of money.”

Gillette pleaded guilty to 38 counts of grand theft and forgery and is serving a 10-year sentence.

Wary of con men, and coming to grips with the importance of responsible use of their pulpit, White, Cunningham and other NFL players have formed CAUSE (Christian Athletes United for Spiritual Empowerment).

White hopes CAUSE can provide an agency Christian athletes can trust with their careers and finances.

“Who better to minister to athletes than athletes?” White said.

Johnson, the Vikings’ chaplain who helped start CAUSE, says Christian players need to better understand the power of their pulpits.

“They have to realize it’s a huge platform, and everything they say does come under the microscope,” Johnson said.

The end game?

Some theologians think this swell of religion in sports will abate.

“These things run in cycles,” Kliever said, “and right now it’s a fad.”

White disagrees, saying God specifically has called on athletes to spread the word.

Recently, 175 current and former NFL players attached their names to a national newspaper advertisement urging White to keep the public faith.

“So get ready, America,” the ad read in part, “because we’re standing with Reggie to defend the Gospel.”

Ready, in White’s case, to stand and deliver.

“I think you have a breed of guys now that don’t care what people think about them,” White said.