As the National Basketball Association resumes its shortened season in Orlando, Florida, one player is pointing to his faith as the guiding principle in his refusal to follow the league-wide participation in kneeling during the national anthem.
Orlando Magic forward Jonathan Isaac, who chose to wear his Magic jersey instead of a Black Lives Matter tee sported by his teammates, said his belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ outweighed participating in the display of unity.
“For myself, my life has been supported through the gospel,” Isaac said on Friday. “Everyone is made in the image of God and that we all fall short of God’s glory and that each and every one of us each and every day do things that we shouldn’t do, we say things we shouldn’t say, we hate and dislike whatever we shouldn’t hate and dislike. And sometimes, it gets to point where we point fingers about whose evil is worse, and sometimes, it comes down simply to whose evil is most visible.”
Jonathan Isaac became the first #NBA player inside the bubble to stand during the national anthem. He also chose not to wear a #BlackLivesMatter shirt
After the game the first question he fielded was “Do you believe Black Lives Matter?”
He responded: “Absolutely.”
Full answer: pic.twitter.com/SNBVar7pg7
— Daren Stoltzfus (@DarenStoltzfus) July 31, 2020
Players in the NBA, along with several other major sporting leagues around the world, have united in pre-game displays to illustrate the fight for racial justice. Isaac said he believes there are other issues in society outside of racism and that believing in the words of Jesus Christ was a more powerful rebuke of human error than wearing a T-shirt and kneeling during the country’s national anthem.
“I felt like I wanted to just take a stand, a stand on it. I feel like we all make mistakes but that the gospel of Jesus Christ is that there’s grace for us and that Jesus came and died for our sins and that if we all come to an understanding of that and understand that God must have a relationship with us that we can get past skin color and we can get past all the things in our world that is messed up and jacked up. I think if you look around, racism isn’t the only thing that plagues our society, that plagues our nation, that plagues our world. And I feel coming together on that message that we want to get past not only racism but everything that plagues us as a society, I feel like the answer to it is the gospel.”
Isaac told reporters that he “absolutely” supports the fight for racial justice but that he didn’t believe kneeling and wearing a T-shirt were the best ways to show his support.
“Absolutely, I believe that black lives matter,” Isaac said. “I thought that kneeling while wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt don’t go hand and hand with supporting black lives.”
