Symbols are always contested spaces—and the sports world is notorious for it. A tomahawk chop is an honoring tradition to some and a harmful caricature to others. Kneeling can signify a prayer; a protest against injustice; or, to others, an unpatriotic act of defiance. Bible verses written in eye black, fists raised at podiums, American flags on uniforms. Symbols are loaded and don’t come with universally agreed-on definitions. They never have.
The rainbow is the latest contested symbol in sports.
Last Friday night in San Francisco, three Giants pitchers took the field wearing team (and MLB) issued hats for the team’s annual Pride Night. But their hats were modified from the versions the rest of their teammates wore. Landen Roupp, J. T. Brubaker, and Ryan Walker had each written “Gen 9:12–16” on the rainbow-logoed hats the entire team wore during the game, with the notable exception of Sam Hentges, who opted to wear his traditional hat without the rainbow.
Manager Tony Vitello said after the game, “Individuals [on the team] have the freedom to do what they think is best.” Was wearing the hat mandatory? No. But anyone who has been inside a locker room knows the unwritten rule: When the majority opts in, the social pressure on everyone else is real.
By Monday, MLB had issued an official warning for violating the league’s policy on adding messages of any kind to team uniforms. By Tuesday, it was trending everywhere. JD Vance weighed in. Comedian and actor Rob Schneider offered to pay any fines. The Giants organization issued an official apology to the LGBT+ community.
There were polar reactions. Some said the athletes didn’t go far enough. Others called it hate speech.
What does faithfulness look like in moments like these? How do we evaluate what these players did as a model?
Start with the Right Question
The temptation is to go straight to “Was this the right thing to do or not?” But Jesus gives us a better starting place for questions like this: Love God and love others (Mark 12:28–31).
So before we ask, “Should they have written on the hat?” it’s worth wondering, “What does it look like to love God and love others in this situation?” That reframe probably doesn’t make the decision easier, but it does make it cleaner by shifting the weight of the response from self-protection and fear of man to genuine faithfulness and care for others.
I don’t know these players. I don’t know their motives, any potential agendas, or their spiritual maturity. The only thing I can evaluate is the strategy they employed to contest the symbol that most of their team decided to wear as part of their uniform.
Daniel Showed Us This First
One of the best models for this kind of cultural moment isn’t a playbook or a policy. It’s a person.
Daniel lived faithfully in Babylon, a city whose culture and values were openly (even violently) opposed to the God he served. And his response wasn’t to conquer Babylon or retreat from it. He resisted both assimilation and isolation through what I’d call obedient involvement.
He wore the Babylonian uniform. He sat at the Babylonian table. But he didn’t bow to the Babylonian idol. There were boundaries he was unwilling to cross: He wouldn’t eat some of their food or wine that would cause him to become unclean (Dan. 1:8). Was this offensive to some of the Babylonians who regularly partook in this? Most certainly. But he found a way to live among them—and still peacefully oppose some of their practices.
Daniel found a way to live among the Babylonians—and still peacefully oppose some of their practices.
Even if they did it imperfectly, these three athletes modeled a similar approach. Like Daniel, they didn’t assimilate (wear the hat and say nothing). They didn’t isolate (refuse to take the field). They chose contested participation, marked by a quiet, respectful, and clear statement of their conviction of what the rainbow means to them.
What the Giants Pitchers Did—and Why It Matters
Genesis 9:12–16 is the passage where God establishes his covenant with Noah after the flood by placing a rainbow in the sky as a sign of his faithfulness and mercy to all living creatures. It’s God’s promise that, out of love for his creation, he won’t direct his wrath by means of flooding the earth. The rainbow signifies a meaning that both predates and exceeds its current cultural use.
That’s what symbols do. They mean different things to different people. For Christians, the rainbow carries the weight of an ancient covenant. For the LGBT+ community, it carries the weight of identity and belonging. Writing “Gen 9:12–16” on a hat certainly doesn’t resolve that tension. But it does something important: It draws a line and shows one way (though certainly not the only way) of Christianly contesting a symbol.
Here’s how Roupp explained it after the game:
It’s just about God’s covenant and a promise that he makes to us that, you know, his faithfulness and his mercy. And that’s just kind of something I believe in, and I stand firm in that, and I’m thankful we live in a country where, you know, we have the freedom to believe what we want . . . and express what we want. . . . There’s no hate at all. It’s just what I stand for, and what I stand in. I believe in God.
Roupp told the truth about what he believes and why. When pressed, he had a thoughtful answer. Could it have been more polished? Sure. But it sounded like a present-day application of 1 Peter 3:15.
Peter doesn’t call us to write on baseball hats, but he commissions us to speak: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (NIV).
Was This the Best Move?
Here’s what I’ve learned from spending years working at the intersection of faith and sport: There’s rarely a one-size-fits-all application in situations like this. Christians share the same foundation. But different contexts, platforms, and relationships all shape how faithfulness gets expressed.
There’s rarely a one-size-fits-all application in situations like this.
That said, I do respect the decision these athletes made, because I believe it reflects what faithful involvement could look like in our cultural climate. Perhaps the only truly wrong move in a moment like this is acting out of fear of others. Whether an athlete chooses to wear the hat, decline it, or write something on it, the question each must stand before God and answer is whether that choice comes from love and conviction or from pressure and self-protection. These men chose the former.
That matters.
Roupp, Brubaker, and Walker acted on their personal convictions about what was best. But that certainly doesn’t mean their method is prescriptive for every other Christian athlete in a similar situation.
It’s worth noting that their method of contesting was received poorly by many in the LGBT+ community. That’s not surprising, nor is it entirely unfair. The church has a checkered past when it comes to finding ways to show Jesus’s love to this particular community, and that history doesn’t disappear because one pitcher’s intentions were good. Roupp may have said (and meant), “There is no hate at all.” But symbols carry history, not just intent. When the symbol lands on a person who has been wounded by it before, the wound is real regardless of the hand that delivers it.
Deeper Invitation
These guys contested a symbol based on their convictions. They weren’t jerks about it. They played the game. They thoughtfully answered the questions. Did they contest perfectly? Probably not, but that’s the whole point of contesting something. All sides will contest how something is contested! And that’s OK. But from my 30-plus years as an athlete, coach, and sports minister, I consider this a pretty good example of what it means to be theologically, culturally, and humanly ready.
Here’s what I want Christian athletes, coaches, and sports ministry leaders to take from this moment: The three Giants players showed us what it looks like to prepare.
- They were prepared theologically, knowing what Genesis 9 says and what it means.
- They were prepared practically, having a physical act (the Sharpie) ready to go.
- They were prepared relationally, acting in community with one another.
- They were prepared communicatively, responding to the media’s questions thoughtfully and respectfully. This is important: They weren’t jerks.
This kind of preparation doesn’t happen in the moment. It usually happens in locker-room conversations, team chapel sessions and Bible studies, and the discipleship relationships that nobody sees. The visible act on that Friday night was the fruit of invisible formation and conviction happening long before the cameras showed up and social media fueled the fire.
That’s what Christian athletes need. All of us, actually.
Symbolic gestures will always draw conflicting interpretations. We’re not going to resolve this by being louder or more strategic. But we can be the kind of Christians whose gestures are grounded in something deep enough to survive the scrutiny. We need to contest in a way that loves God and others. Sometimes this looks like what Daniel modeled in Babylon.
And sometimes it looks like three men writing a Bible reference on a hat and then playing a baseball game.
