Tom Krattenmaker thinks that religion and sports don’t mix. At least certain kinds of religious conviction shouldn’t be allowed in the realm of athletics. With the release of his book on the subject, Onward Christian Athletes: Turning Ballparks into Pulpits and Players into Preachers, Krattenmaker looks to extend his peculiar views of religious discrimination to a larger audience.

His recent article in USA Today has has already begun that effort by taking aim particularly at University of Florida’s Heisman Trophy winner, Tim Tebow. Krattenmaker acknowledges the value of having some “moral guidance” infused into sports through religious, particularly Christian, sportsmen. But that good is outweighed by the bad that comes when kind of Christianity being espoused is Tebow’s type–the conservative and evangelical kind.

Tebow is singled out because he is outspoken about his faith in Jesus Christ–a faith that takes seriously the claim that Jesus makes about himself being the only way, truth and life and the only means by which anyone can enter into a right relationship with God (Gospel of John 14:6). Tebow often serves with his missionary father in Asia teaching this exclusive message of Jesus Christ and encouraging people to believe it. This causes great alarm to Krattenmaker because such work is “at cross purposes with the majority of Americans–indeed the majority of American Christians–and their more generous conception of salvation.”

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