From Little Rock to the NFL, Jerry Jones has often claimed to be “just observing.” But silence in the face of injustice is complicity, and football’s rise as America’s religion only sharpens the stakes.
By Kairos Reed · InnerKwest Sermonettes · October 15, 2025
In 1978, the Kansas City Star ran a piece lamenting that on football Sundays the pews were empty, while the stadiums were full. Football, it said, had become a kind of American religion. Decades later, that observation still rings true — and Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, stands as one of its high priests.
He was there in 1957, a teenager in the North Little Rock crowd when six Black students tried to integrate the school. His explanation? “I was just observing.” Yet the photo shows him standing in the way. Years later, Jones would stand again — against Colin Kaepernick’s protest, against the influence of Deion Sanders, even against the spiritual counsel of Dr. Tony Evans, his team’s chaplain. The pattern is hard to ignore.
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Scripture:
“Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17).
Observation without intervention is not neutrality — it is complicity. In Little Rock, silence lent strength to the mob. In the NFL, silence on justice sounded louder than the anthem. And when prophetic voices rise — whether through players on a knee, a chaplain at the table, or a prophet in the pulpit — Jones’ instinct has been to protect the brand rather than the truth.
Jerry, Jerry — quite contrary. How does your kingdom grow? With billion-dollar stadiums and Sunday pews left empty, while the prophets at the gate are told to keep silent.
The truth is, America’s fascination with football has always flirted with idolatry. The Kansas City Star saw it in 1978: football was commanding the loyalty once reserved for God. Today the rituals are even stronger — the jerseys, the chants, the weekly liturgy of kickoff. If football has become a religion, then Jerry Jones is one of its high priests. But the problem with false priests is that their altars demand silence from the prophets and sacrifice from the people.
So the question isn’t whether Jerry Jones was shouting in 1957 or kneeling in 2017. The question is whether he ever stood with the oppressed. Because the Gospel calls us not to be observers in the crowd, but witnesses of the truth.
“Choose this day whom you will serve,” Joshua declared (Joshua 24:15). If we serve the game, then the cross will always be inconvenient. But if we serve Christ, then no game, no owner, no cultural idol can silence the witness of justice.
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