Harrison Butker Commencement Controversy

KEVIN HARRIS: Fans of the Kansas City Chiefs know who Harrison Butker is. He is their 28-year old kicker and one of the most accurate kickers in NFL history. He’s also a conservative Catholic. His commencement speech at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas^[1] has lots of people upset. But apparently not everyone. His jersey is selling out! It's the hottest selling NFL jersey right now, surpassing everyone else. So let's talk about the backlash. But first, Bill, I wonder what your thoughts are on his delivery and presentation? Could he have been more diplomatic, or was his rather firm approach necessary to express his views?

DR. CRAIG: Well, I must say that this young man is an accomplished public speaker. I was very impressed. I thought he was excellent in his delivery and presentation. Even though he was expressing very strongly felt views, there was no tone of anger or defensiveness about what he shared. He shared from his heart and expressed his beliefs very clearly. So I thought that the delivery was just excellent.

KEVIN HARRIS: By now I'm sure most of our listeners are familiar with the key points of the 20 minute speech. Here's a compilation of what are considered the most controversial points in that 20 minute speech. Listen to this.

Our own nation is led by a man who publicly and proudly proclaims his Catholic faith, but at the same time is delusional enough to make the Sign of the Cross during a pro-abortion rally. He has been so vocal in his support for the murder of innocent babies that I’m sure to many people it appears that you can be both Catholic and pro-choice.

He is not alone. From the man behind the COVID lockdowns to the people pushing dangerous gender ideologies onto the youth of America, they all have a glaring thing in common. They are Catholic. This is an important reminder that being Catholic alone doesn’t cut it.

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We must always speak and act in charity, but never mistake charity for cowardice.

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The world around us says that we should keep our beliefs to ourselves whenever they go against the tyranny of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

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I am certain the reporters at the AP could not have imagined that their attempt to rebuke and embarrass places and people like those here at Benedictine wouldn’t be met with anger, but instead met with excitement and pride. Not the deadly sin sort of pride that has an entire month dedicated to it, but the true God-centered pride that is cooperating with the Holy Ghost to glorify him.

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For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives. I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.

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because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife, and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.

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To the gentlemen here today: Part of what plagues our society is this lie that has been told to you that men are not necessary in the home or in our communities. As men, we set the tone of the culture, and when that is absent, disorder, dysfunction, and chaos set in. This absence of men in the home is what plays a large role in the violence we see all around the nation.

So, were you triggered by any of that, Bill?

DR. CRAIG: I certainly resonated with a lot of what he said. As a fellow Christian, I share some of those same beliefs, and I also am troubled by the degradation and secularism in our contemporary American culture. So I certainly did resonate with much of it. Now, as a committed Protestant, I don't share all of the very conservative Catholic values that Harrison Butker expressed. You noticed he even plumped for the Latin Mass and for Catholic birth control. These are issues that are not important for me. But on the fundamentals – the fundamentals of a Christian worldview – and drift and degradation of our contemporary culture, there I am on the same page.

KEVIN HARRIS: It's been actually harder than I thought to find examples of opposition to the speech. Even CNN, Whoopie Goldberg, and Bill Maher have stated that they disagree but they don't know what's so controversial about this. He's a conservative Catholic talking about conservative Catholic theology at a conservative Catholic college.

DR. CRAIG: If I may say, I think that in a sense the real story here is the fake controversy that the media has attempted to generate about this speech. As you said, when you went out looking for clips of liberal backlash, it was hard to find anything! Everyone seems to respect this young man for his sincere deeply held beliefs and his deep commitment to walk the talk, to practice what he preaches. And everyone seems to admire him for that. I have the feeling that this supposed controversy is really illusory. It's manufactured by the media. Oddly, in this case, not by the liberal media but by the conservative media like Fox News who want to make it look as though there is this terrible progressive backlash against Harrison Butker when in fact it just isn't out there.

KEVIN HARRIS: There is one dissension here that I'll read for you quickly. It's a group of nuns associated with the school. They published a statement^[2] reading in part:

The sisters of Mount St. Scholastica do not believe that Harrison Butker’s comments in his 2024 Benedictine College commencement address represent the Catholic, Benedictine, liberal arts college that our founders envisioned and in which we have been so invested.

Instead of promoting unity in our church, our nation, and the world, his comments seem to have fostered division. One of our concerns was the assertion that being a homemaker is the highest calling for a woman. We sisters have dedicated our lives to God and God’s people, including the many women whom we have taught and influenced during the past 160 years. These women have made a tremendous difference in the world in their roles as wives and mothers and through their God-given gifts in leadership, scholarship, and their careers.

Well, yeah, we want unity. The question is how do we accomplish that without compromise?

DR. CRAIG: Yes. Harrison Butker didn't say that being a wife and mother was “the highest calling” that a woman could have. He is highly respectful of the so-called religious in the Roman Catholic Church, and that would include these women who, as nuns, consider themselves as married to Christ. They don't have an earthly husband. They are wed to Christ himself and have dedicated themselves to living for him and carrying out his purposes in their lives. Obviously Harrison Butker is not in any way demeaning their calling as religious. He would be highly supportive of them. I think the irony here is that in our culture today on the one hand diversity is so trumpeted – that we want diversity – and yet on the other hand we condemn someone for being divisive! I mean, what is the difference between divisive and diverse? That's a very subtle distinction. It seems to me that if a person stands for a view and thinks it's true then he should stand up for it and defend it and articulate it and let the chips fall where they may.

KEVIN HARRIS: The NFL issued this statement:

Harrison Butker gave a speech in his personal capacity. His views are not those of the NFL as an organization. The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger.^[3]

There's another irony. Inclusion means everybody but you! Here's a Catholic man giving his Catholic views at a Catholic place, and isn't he included in the inclusion?

DR. CRAIG: Yeah! Exactly! This is this crazy diversity, equity, and inclusion again. What did Harrison Butker say to exclude anyone? He didn't say anything that was excluding of people. So I think it's really ridiculous to see him as being offensive in that way. I notice his teammates on the Chiefs (not only Mahomes, but also Travis Kelce) have come out in support of him. Even if they don't agree with all of his views, nevertheless they respect him for his stand, his courage, and for living out his profession.

KEVIN HARRIS: By the way, Mahomes was quarterback when my son, who passed away, Tanner, was in high school at Whitehouse High School. They went to high school together. Tanner was always pretty excited about how good he was in high school, just as an aside. There's an online petition circulating for the Kansas City Chiefs to fire him. I think it's up to about 300,000 people. It's a pretty good example of cancel culture.

DR. CRAIG: Yeah. That is just so irresponsible here, and I'm glad to say that his teammates are being fully supportive.

KEVIN HARRIS: Let's check out a clip from the Greg Hill Show. This is a sports station in Boston. This is a member of the show – Courteney Cox.

The fact that he got up there, looked all of those children, young adults, in the eye that were about to walk across the stage, these women that are finishing their degree. And listen, I give all the credit in the world to those that want to be stay-at-home moms, that are stay-at-home moms . . . hardest job in the world. But to look at all of these women and say that a majority of you are looking forward to being wives and mothers instead of career business women is despicable.

And to suggest that women have been told a lie, which is, I'm guessing, that they can be . . . what does he think the lie is? That they can be successful in the business world and be a mom?

You can tell he’s one of them deep south type of dudes. What a clown.

He goes on to talk about IVF and surrogacy. You're talking to a bunch of people and statistically there are women in that audience, whether they are mothers that are sitting in the crowd who probably had to use IVF or surrogacy to have their child and there are women sitting as graduates who may have that issue in the future, to look at all of them and talk about the fact that they've been sold IVF and surrogacy. Like, I can't have another man try to say that IVF is hurting society. There are women that cannot get pregnant without IVF.

Why do they say it hurts society?

Because they think that that's like a way to get around having a child naturally, having it with your husband. No, a lot of these people have tried with the natural loving sexual way to reproduce, and their bodies can't do it without the help.

KEVIN HARRIS: Couple of things there. Let's start with in vitro fertilization, IVF as they're calling it. As you mentioned earlier, that's a distinct issue in Catholic theology. That, birth control, surrogacy doesn't seem to be quite as big a problem among Protestants. But in that clip she certainly sees Harrison's comments as a denial of good medical technology.

DR. CRAIG: Yeah, I don't think that the young woman here appreciates that the question of in vitro fertilization is an ethical question that needs to be discussed. And you don't settle an ethical question by saying, “Well, apart from this these women couldn't have children.” That kind of consideration doesn't settle whether something is right or wrong. As a sort of reductio ad absurdum, imagine that the only way in which a couple could have children would be to lie on their adoption papers for a child, or even worse to kidnap someone else's child. I think we'd all agree that that doesn't justify what they're doing. Similarly here, this is an ethical question that needs to be discussed and rationally settled and is not to be settled simply by practical considerations like “this is the only way they can have children.”

KEVIN HARRIS: Secondly, Harrison Butker said “I would venture to guess” (in other words, he suspects) that the majority of women present at that commencement are most excited about their marriage and future children despite their pursuit of a career or degree. Courteney, from that clip, finds that despicable.

DR. CRAIG: Yeah, here she really overreacts. As you pointed out, all Harrison Butker is doing there is giving a kind of analysis of the demographic of the audience before him. It's as though he were to say, “I imagine that most of you attend Mass” or that “Most of you come from two parent families.” And those would be reasonable surmises based on the nature of the audience before him. So to say that he surmises that probably most of the women graduating from this conservative Catholic college are looking forward to being wives and mothers more than being career women is not at all despicable. He's just making a surmise, and probably a pretty good one. But I want to go further than that. I would be more radical. I want to say in response to that sportscaster that it is highly improbable that these career women can “have it all” – that is to say, to have a successful professional career and at the same time be successful as wives and mothers. 50% of the marriages in this country already end in divorce, and if you choose to pursue your own career that makes the odds of success in your marriage and family even lower than 50%. So I would say that if you are going to embark upon a professional career, you probably won't succeed at having it all. You may have your career, but the odds are (given the statistics) that you’ll probably wind up divorced and not succeed in that dimension of your life. So I think that young women really do need to seriously consider the odds of trying to have it all. It's not impossible. There are plenty who do. But nevertheless I would say, given the odds, it's pretty improbable that you're going to have it all.

KEVIN HARRIS: Here's a clip from the Today's Show that includes Tavia Hunt, wife of the Kansas City Chiefs owner, reacting to the speech. Here's that piece.

The NFL has said Butker doesn't represent its views, and the Chiefs have not commented. But overnight Tavia Hunt, the wife of Chief's chairman and CEO Clark Hunt, writing “affirming motherhood and praising your wife as well as highlighting the sacrifice and dedication it takes to be a mother is not bigoted.”

But others associated with the game have expressed outrage at Butker’s comments, including the wife of a fellow NFL player. “My life didn't start when I married my husband.” And a former Chief's cheerleader, “When you said, ‘Stay in your lane’ ten-plus times, bro, take your own advice.”

The Los Angeles Chargers taking the opportunity to mock Butker in its schedule release video showing the player in a kitchen in a simulated video.

For the Catholic community, the debate is real. Some support. “A Catholic man encouraging Catholic beliefs to Catholic students is a breath of fresh air.” But his words rubbed some Catholic students the wrong way. Mary Ocker graduated from Benedictine College in 2019. “What offended you about his remarks?” “It's disheartening. All of that was boiled down to, ‘I bet you're most excited to go out and start a family.’”

KEVIN HARRIS: It's a fear of being relegated to barefoot and pregnant, I think. It seems to be irking a lot of ladies. The term “homemaker” has just fallen out of favor. But notice that Tavia Hunt and others in that segment like Harrison's priority and emphasis on family.

DR. CRAIG: I don't understand these emotional reactions to someone advocating the value of being a wife and mother. These are high callings and I think should be prioritized over career. Someone who prioritizes his or her career over the lives of one's spouse and children has his priorities messed up. So I don't understand these emotional reactions to what he has to say.

KEVIN HARRIS: One thing about this speech is that he mentions aspects of Roman Catholicism that Protestants often are unaware of. I plan to correct that. I found myself unfamiliar with the role of bishops and parishes that he mentioned in his speech. Some of the language. Also, Reasonable Faith has a lot of Catholic followers. You've been on several Catholic podcasts and interviewed by Bishop Robert Baron.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. I think it's remarkable the way in which Reasonable Faith has been able to defend and articulate what C. S. Lewis called “mere Christianity” – those central core Christian doctrines that belong to all of the great confessions of Christendom whether Catholic or Coptic or Eastern Orthodox or Protestant. We are all united on these. So it has been a thrill to me as we travel and speak to meet Coptics and Orthodox and many Catholics who say, “Your work has been tremendously beneficial to me and to my faith.” And that is so gratifying to have that sort of wide impact for the kingdom of God.

KEVIN HARRIS: I know there's a lot of content in this speech to ask you about as we wrap up today. The reaction from some people to this speech certainly shows how deep the cultural divide continues to be in our country and in the West. Harrison did emphasize that before the culture at large can be fixed that there are correctives within the church that must be addressed first. It's very convicting. But I think one of your main concerns is how the so-called backlash is mostly a false narrative. Summarize your thoughts for us.

DR. CRAIG: I think that the lesson to take away from this speech is that boldness and firmness are needed in a decaying culture in which we live. Therefore, those of us who are Christians should not be intimidated or cowed by opposition or criticism. We need to speak out boldly and firmly for what we believe, and then we need to live out our beliefs in an authentic Christian life. Even if people disagree with us, that is the kind of life that they will respect.^[4]