chicago bears
Belmont University/Wikimedia Commons
A Belmont University freshman “is no longer a student” at the Christian school after sending a racist Snapchat post about three African-American football players who had protested the treatment of minorities in America.
The post was sent under the Snapchat username “juswoodard97” during the Sept. 19 game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Chicago Bears at Soldier Field in Chicago.
It showed Eagles players Malcolm Jenkins, Ron Brooks, and Steven Means with their fists raised during the national anthem and was captioned with a racial slur followed by this threat: “Every one of them needs a damn bullet in their head. If you don’t like this country get the hell out.”
Israel Idonije started Blessed Communion in 2009. Image courtesy Teresa Myers/RNS.
Defensive lineman Israel Idonije was recently released from the Chicago Bears and, as a free agent, he isn’t sure what the future holds. But when he’s not on the gridiron, the Nigerian-born Idonije has another page in his playbook. Idonije has a side business, Blessed Communion, that sells pre-filled Communion cups to churches.
Posting an unpopular position in a blog post online can be a bone jarring hit to your ego. Many people will come out of the woodwork to claim you have brain damage. Such was the result of my post last year about no longer supporting football on Christian grounds. I stopped watching football because of the new research that shows that playing the game will, in most cases, lead to brain damage. I could not, in good Christian conscience, support such suffering simply for my watching pleasure.