"Football is not a matter of life and death, it is more important than that."
Tony Adams and faith
Tony Adams refers several times to his belief in a “Higher Power”. However, it is hard to pin down quite what he believes.
The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous include the following statements:
“[we] came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity”
“turn our will and lives over to the care of God as we understood Him”
“Admitted to God…the exact nature of our wrongs”
“[We] were ready to have God remove all these defects of character”
“Humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings”
“Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”
From a Christian perspective the lack of reference to forgiveness is noticeable. The question of what is the source of our knowledge of God is unclear. The AA steps defines the divine as “God as we understood Him” rather than the God who revealed himself in Jesus.
Adams refers to taking “a quiet moment to pray” and to “the grace of god”. He states “now I try to begin days with prayer and meditation” but also writes: “I’m not religious”. He describes himself as being “under the new management of a higher power”.
The sentence: “I came to believe that there was a higher power in my life – some people choose to call it God” is a telling statement. He also refers to “the God of my understanding, a higher power”.
There seems to be a dichotomy between the references to a vague higher power and the assumption that the power will act as a personal God who hears prayer, intervenes in human life and changes lives.