Boise rabbi’s letter to Coach Danielson: Balancing faith, inclusion in BSU football | Opinion

As a fervent supporter of Boise State football, I am in many ways impressed with head coach Spencer Danielson. As a rabbi and a Jew, I’m uneasy with his constant invocation of Jesus on the football field.

I wrote the following letter to express my concern:

Dear Coach Danielson:

As an ardent longtime Bronco fan, I want to congratulate you for a terrific season and thank you for your leadership. I’ve so enjoyed watching the team win back-to-back conference championships and compete in the college football playoffs. Your love and respect for the young men you are coaching shines through in both the words that you share and the way that they respond, proudly representing our community on and off the field.

I am also a rabbi, recently retired after serving Boise’s synagogue for the past 30 years. It is in this capacity, as a Jewish community leader, that I am reaching out to you with a concern about the role of religion in the locker room and on the sidelines.

Given your frequent Bible quotations and expressions of gratitude to Jesus in (all) interviews, I sense that your Christian faith is at the heart and soul of your humanity. I understand and appreciate that commitment, as I cannot imagine my own life without the blessing of my Jewish tradition guiding me through times of joy and sorrow, victory and defeat. Judaism forms the foundation of my ethics and orients me in the wider world. Like you, I am profoundly strengthened by my religious practice.

Being Jewish also reminds me daily what it means to be part of a religious minority. For many centuries, my people were persecuted by the Christian societies in which they lived, sadly in the name of religion. That is why I often feel discomfort when I hear you speak about Jesus around the football field.

While I am glad that you find such beauty in your faith, I worry that those who do not share it may feel left out in subtle ways, or implicitly pressured to follow along. When you take a knee and pray with your players — or participate in their baptisms — it is undoubtedly a powerful and intimate experience for those who share your Christian beliefs, but where does it leave teammates and other coaches who are Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or atheists? How do non-Christian Broncos experience being essentially excluded from an activity that is so clearly prized — and led — by their head coach?

I can guess the answer to this question because many years ago, when I played high school football, my own coach frequently led the team in Christian prayer. What he prayed for — integrity, sportsmanship and freedom from injury — was universal enough, appealing to people of all faiths and of none. But when he inevitably concluded, “We ask this in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ,” my heart always sank, because I knew that this “we” did not include me and other non-Christian teammates.

My coach’s tacit assumption that “we” were all turning to the Christian messiah was just plain wrong. And it hurt, because it suggested that I was not an equal member of the squad.

Coach Danielson, I assume that your intentions are truly for the best. I have no doubt that you care deeply for all your players and coaches, regardless of their religion or lack thereof. But it feels important to point out that we live in a time marked by rising Christian nationalism and anti-Semitism.

Across our state and nation, so many politicians and powerful people insist that America is not really a place of liberty and justice for all, but rather a Christian theocracy where non-Christians are, at best, tolerated outsiders.

I hope — and yes, I pray — that you will use your position as an influential community leader to actively affirm that there are many legitimate paths to the Holy One, and that Bronco Nation is stronger because it is a community comprising people of many faiths — and of none.

Sincerely,

Dan Fink