One piece of evidence of the enduring legacy of the Bible in America’s culture is the regularity and comfort with which its athletes quote Scripture. Kelsey Dallas takes a closer look:

What you might not realize is that such shoutouts to scripture appeared in sports media as early as the late 19th century, when today’s major leagues were taking shape. For example, Amos Alonzo Stagg, a star pitcher for Yale University who became a prominent football coach, spoke in the 1880s about turning to Ecclesiastes 9:10 during games.

The New York Knicks star Josh Hart offered an impromptu Bible lesson . . . when asked about how he takes on the mental and physical challenge of playing all 48 minutes of an NBA playoff game. . . . “The whole game, I was reciting Isaiah 40:29, ‘For the weak, he renews strength,’” Hart said. . . . In April, he shared a different verse from Isaiah 40 after his team beat the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 1 of their first-round series. . . . Two days later, he spotlighted Proverbs 11:2. It reads, “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.”

Of course, Hart and the other athletes Dallas profiles quote the New Testament too. Since it might be of interest to Mosaic readers, I kept score: the result was a tie.

One of the greatest, and most baffling, of America’s errors since October 7 has been its indulgence of Qatar, a nominal ally that tends to act as anything but. Over the next week, I’m going to use this space to point to some of this regime’s bad behavior, and its deadly consequences. Today, I’ll focus on Al Jazeera, a state-sponsored media conglomerate that churns out anti-Israel and anti-American propaganda in a variety of languages. Douglas Murray calls attention to some of its employees in Gaza:

Take Muhammad Washah, whom Al Jazeera presented as a stellar part of the press corps merely reporting the truth. Unfortunately for them, their man is also a senior commander in Hamas. He used to be in Hamas’s anti-tank missile unit, but since 2022 he has been in charge of research and development for aerial weapons. Known to you and me as “rockets.”

It’s quite something to pull off. On the one hand, Washah can spend his days making rockets to fire at Israel. But in the evenings he can report on the terrible destruction in Gaza caused by the “Zionist entity.” . . . He might have kept getting away with it if IDF soldiers in Gaza had not managed to get a hold of his laptop.

And that’s why, Elliott Abrams explains, supporters of freedom of the press should have no qualms about Washington pressing Doha about the network—or about Israel’s decision to prevent it from operating within its borders:

While organized as a private company, Al Jazeera is the voice of Qatar’s regime. It was founded and financed by the then-emir of Qatar. Whenever I am told that this is not true, and that Al Jazeera is really an independent news source, I ask a simple question: show me one time since its founding nearly 30 years ago that it has voiced one criticism of the Qatari government. I’m still waiting.

And it’s not just Al Jazeera: Qatar owns other news media that are equally awful. . . .

These news sources are not free; they need to stay close to the Qatari official line and never contradict it in significant ways. . . . And that is what makes their pernicious role so consequential: Qatar could turn them off, or turn them into actual independent news sources, if it wished. Instead it wishes to promote and laud violence.