I have listened to the entire commencement speech on YouTube that Harrison Butker gave at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan. Butker has the right to say whatever he wants and I will always defend that right.
However, I have a connection to the school: I attended Benedictine College for one year, played football there, and my name is listed in the Raven Athletic Hall of Fame as a member of the historic 1985 football team.
I also have a personal connection: My call to ministry started there through the love and care of Sister Mary Sweet in my freshmen religious classes. I have been an ordained Baptist minister for 30 years, completed a master of divinity degree and served churches for 34 years.
Kevin Ritter
I have to deal daily with the attitudes Butker is professing.
As a lifelong Kansas City Chiefs fan, I like Harrison Butker — as a place kicker. He is phenomenal.
After listening to his commencement address at Benedictine College, I suffered a great deal of sadness and I feel sorry for him. He might have some painful learning to do. I would suggest he take his own statement and apply it to his own life a bit more: “Accept your lane and stay in it.”
He is correct when he says his words do not come “from a place of wisdom, but experience,” and my experience is that he needs more experience.
Much of his talk seemed to be politically motivated by a far-right conservative view of the Catholic-only type faith that can seem righteous and noble while delving out a great deal of disguised (and maybe a bit unintentional) pain and injustice.
Staying in your lane doesn’t mean you can’t have opinions, but it might inform when you try to speak authoritatively and when you are expressing a mere opinion.
Butker expresses opinions on the competence of President Biden, Anthony Fauci, Pope Francis (without naming him) and many others. Most of the people he criticized are much older, more experienced and even authorities in their field.
At one-point Butker says, “It is not prudent as the laity for us to consume ourselves in becoming amateur theologians.” Yet this is exactly what he is doing. He is speaking, knowing it will go much further than this commencement event, in a manner of dispensing moral advice and knowledge to guide people in their life decisions.
In his attempt to guide, he is even becoming very judgmental and missing the nuances of several theological and moral approaches to these issues. Moreover, he is painting with a wide brush. I applaud him for sharing his wife’s journey, but to assume that journey is the best decision for all women and to insinuate that to do otherwise is listening to diabolical lies is way outside his lane.
I would suggest that at 28, we all still have a lot to learn. At that age, I was just beginning my first position as a senior pastor. I did not always understand how my uninformed statements that lacked wisdom could hurt people. I read some books and articles and then quoted them like they were perfect truth.
Kevin Ritter’s Hall of Fame certificate
At times it was life-giving to people, at other times, I did damage to how people saw their own value or even how they experienced their faith journeys. I am sorry for the pain and difficulties I caused.
Sometimes, you can only learn how to use your voice with time and after making mistakes. Butker needs to understand that his experience and faith are being lived out much differently than most people. Projecting his ideal life onto others is not healthy for him or others.
I imagine his views are a minority in the Catholic faith, much less society as a whole. So I hope he pays attention to the backlash he is receiving. It isn’t all correct, but it might help him gain experience and learn how better to use his voice.
The most difficult part for me as I listened was how he made his far-right talking points over and over to an audience that seemed to accept it. The ideas that just “men set the tone of culture” and encouraging men to “be unapologetic in your. masculinity” can be used by many men who are not well grounded in faith and their own personhood to become emotionally and even physically abusive.
I must operate in a position as a pastor every day realizing institutions identified with Christianity like the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention have used the ideas of masculinity, pastor/priest authority, sola Scriptura, church tradition and so many more to systematically abuse and control millions of people. Butker is perpetuating these hurtful attitudes and actions in his address.
It has been from this narrow and abusive thought pattern that Christians have championed the Crusades, slavery, racism, sexual abuse cover ups and devaluing women. If he ever takes time to get to know someone who has been abused through this institutional wickedness and understand the hell on earth it has caused, I hope he will rethink how he presents some of his ideas.
“His words will make it harder for me to get those who have been hurt and broken by Christian institutions and amateur theologians to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
I know his words will make it harder for me to get those who have been hurt and broken by Christian institutions and amateur theologians to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I knew the academic life at Benedictine College to be a challenging, loving and caring place. I can imagine bringing Butker there seemed like a good idea. He is known in the area. He is known as a Catholic. He has spoken at a commencement before.
Oh, yes, that speech from 2023 should have given President Minnis and others pause in inviting Butker to speak. But it also was the cheers from the people gathered there that helped me realize things are much different at Benedictine. The kindness and love shown to me as a freshman student with a Protestant background by the staff, teachers (like Sister Mary Sweet) and priests must not be the norm any longer. Maybe Benedictine has accepted more of what I experienced as a football player with the hazing and demand from the coaches that I take steroids — a body lacking a true moral compass and conforming to the systematic sins of big institutions that thrive by controlling people. It is very sad.
Kevin Ritter serves as pastor of Centerville Baptist Church in Chesapeake, Va.
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Butker’s commencement speech echoes MacArthur and other male supremacists | Opinion by Rick Pidcock