Proverbial Edge Goes to White

NEW ORLEANS — The Good Book tells us “Thrice is he armed that hath his cause just.”

This could be very disturbing news to the New England Patriots. Just as it seemed things couldn’t get any worse--they’re already two-touchdown underdogs--they face the prospect now of finding out they are not on the side of the angels.

Don’t misunderstand. Make no mistake about it, the Rev. Reginald Howard White makes no pretense of enlisting divine help today. Far from it. The Rev. White accepts whatever happens as the Lord’s will. He fully appreciates the Lord has better things to do than decide a football game. And he appreciates there are righteous people on both sides of the ball today.

But the Rev. White is something unique to the ministry. The Rev. White is a defensive end, the best in the business and one of the best there ever was, maybe the best. It’s his business to hurt people, in a manner of speaking. Not consciously, as in pugilism, but accidentally--on his way to victory, not mayhem. The hurting is incidental rather than deliberate.

He sees no dichotomy in his twin professions--spreader of the word of God and Holy Scripture on the one hand, and of quarterback sacks on the other. He renders to Caesar.

The Rev. Reggie was thrice armed at birth. Strong, fast, fearless, he grew into a 300-pound man, 6 feet 5 inches tall, all gristle, a human landslide.

He could have been the scourge of the neighborhood growing up in Chattanooga, Tenn., but two things happened: First, Mama was not above using a twig to punish misbehavior, and second, a minister of God, a white man as it happened, the Rev. Ferguson came into the neighborhood and taught the black kids the word of God. The wages of sin ultimately, he told them, is no wages in the NBA, NFL, major league baseball or any other part of corporate America. Reggie White listened. He was given a best-seller on the subject to read--the Holy Bible.

For Reggie, it was all Revelation. At age 9, he became a Christian soldier. No one laughed. Would you?

It wasn’t as if he wasn’t tested. Job had his oxen and camels taken, and the fire and drought burned his land and smote him with sore boils. The Rev. White had eight years with the Philadelphia Eagles, which is almost the same thing.

The Rev. White never wavered in his commitment. Like Job, his relationship to God only improved. He became an ordained minister, assistant pastor at the Inner City Church in Knoxville.

On Jan. 8, 1996, someone set the church on fire. Burned it to the ground.

White didn’t shake his fists and rage at the sky (“A wrathful man stirreth up strife; but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife.” Proverbs 15:18). He used the incident to call the attention of the national government to the appalling epidemic of such church burnings. And the people of Wisconsin responded by raising about $300,000 for restoration. White announced he was going to pray for the arsonists. (“The righteous shall never be removed; the wicked shall not inherit the earth.” Proverbs 10:31).

On the field, the Rev. White is like an archangel. He swoops and captures. He brings the pass rush to a virtuosity it has seldom seen. He doesn’t run, he explodes. He is the all-time sack leader in NFL history. Offensive linemen would rather face a hungry leopard.

How does he reconcile his love-one-another Christian beliefs with the violent nature of the game the way he plays? “It’s not violence, it’s socially acceptable aggression,” he insists. “What I do is not based on hate, it’s based on proficiency. Violence is drive-by killings. We’re in control. Violence is out of control.”

He has been known to quote Scripture to a fallen quarterback--as he picks him up.

He is on first-name terms with God, anyway. They converse daily. God made him a Green Bay Packer, he told a press audience the other day. “I was somewhat confused at the time, I was on my knees praying to the point of crying because I thought God wanted me to go to San Francisco. I really wanted to go to San Francisco. So, I said, ‘God, what do you want me to do?’

“And I heard God speak to me and he asked me, ‘What do they call the ‘West Coast offense?’ Then, he said, ‘Where did the head coach and the offensive coordinator and the defensive coordinator [of Green Bay] come from?’ And I said San Francisco. And he said, ‘Well, that’s the West Coast offense I’m talking about. I want you to go to Green Bay.’ And I said, ‘Why didn’t you just say so?’ and he said, ‘Because then you wouldn’t have been crying and you wouldn’t have been on your knees!’ ”

I don’t know about you, but if I were the New England Patriots, I’d give some thought to not showing up today.

The Rev. White is fully aware the skeptics are out there. (“A scorner seeketh wisdom and findeth it not, a scorner loveth not one that reproveth him.” Proverbs 14:6).

“They tell us to be the role models that the league and the people around the country are crying out for. They don’t want us to be Dennis Rodmans. Then, they tell us we can’t pray, they don’t want guys praying on the field. That’s amazing. Wish they’d make up their minds. We’re not forcing our prayers on anyone. It’s between us and our God. Nobody’s business. It’s amazing. We’re humbling ourselves, not glorifying ourselves. Did prayer ever hurt anybody?”

Rushing the quarterback is easy for the Rev. White. It’s the rest of the NFL that baffles him. His real coaches are not those guys wearing the headsets and carrying charts. Rev. White’s coaches are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And his commissioner is not the one on Park Avenue, it’s the One farther out.

The Rev. White says other people shouldn’t be jealous. Anybody who wants to can dial in God, White says. He’s on everybody’s Internet.