Harrison Butker’s Speech: Right, Wrong, and Possibly Prophetic

Getting more flak than most of his fellow kickers would if they had missed a 20-yard field goal, the Kansas City Chiefs’ Harrison Butker “kicked up” quite a controversy with his recent address at the Benedictine College 2024 commencement. His speech deserves attention—for what it gets right, what it gets wrong, and how it could (believe it or not) tie into Bible prophecy.

Concerning what it gets right, the speech boldly called out many of today’s evils for what they are and represents a passionate call to embrace many biblical values that our society has increasingly rejected as backward, passé, and even vile. Noting the poor leadership society has suffered in recent years, Butker called out our society’s fascination with many facets of the culture of death, such as abortion—which he rightly called “the murder of innocent babies”—and euthanasia. He noted how these things, “as well as a growing support for degenerate cultural values in media, all stem from the pervasiveness of disorder.” Lest he be misunderstood, Butker described the “pride” so celebrated by the homosexual community as “the deadly sin sort of pride that has an entire month dedicated to it.”

The Chiefs kicker went further and pointed to biblical concepts of gender roles and the family. He charged men to be “unapologetic in your masculinity, fighting against the cultural emasculation of men.” And to women, Butker was blunt: “I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you.” He noted that many of them are surely looking forward to successful careers, but conjectured, as well, that the majority of the young women listening “are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.” Commenting emotionally on how his wife’s support has been vital to his and his family’s success, he praised her for choosing to “embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.” As the Register notes, the comment brought an 18-second burst of applause from the students attending.

To be sure, hearing a 28-year-old man using his platform to push back against the wickedness of our age is encouraging. We should not think he is alone in his generation; many are waking up to the fact that the world is not what it should be. In fact, sales of the kicker’s Kansas City Chiefs jersey have soared after his speech.

However, we must notice that Butker’s speech is far more than a call to embrace traditional values, conservative values, or even biblical values. It is a call to embrace Roman Catholic values—actually, to embrace traditional Roman Catholicism, itself. Of course, this shouldn’t be surprising; Mr. Butker is a passionately traditional Catholic, and he was speaking at a Roman Catholic university. But for all the good in his address, it is in its Catholic-centeredness that the speech loses its footing.

Butker asserted that the “Catholic faith has always been countercultural”—but it hasn’t. In fact, much of what we see in the traditions of Catholicism are purposeful adoptions of pagan culture, adulterating the original teachings of Christ. He declared it to be “the Church founded by Jesus Christ,” when, again, it’s not. Its teachings, in ways large and small, contradict those of the Church Jesus Christ established and the “faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). He points to “the holy sacrifice of the Mass” as “more important than anything else,” when the ritual would be considered foreign and even unlawful by the original followers of Jesus Christ—a perversion and corruption of the biblical Christian Passover.

Interestingly, Harrison Butker illustrated in his speech that even most of those who recognize the growing evils in our society don’t truly understand the source of those evils, nor the only real solution. And turning from the satanic hedonism we see around us to Satan’s counterfeit Christianity as a “solution” would be as wise as the leap from frying pan to fire.

Lastly, here is where we see potentially prophetic significance in Butker’s speech. Because Bible prophecy is plain: The counterfeit Christianity to which he would point his audience will one day wield massive authority in the world—as no other religion ever has. Both political and military power will be at its disposal, used to persecute those unwilling to accept its apostate doctrines and abandon the true biblical faith.

In an age when many Catholics are frustrated by seeing their church, headed by a progressive pope, appear to compromise with worldly values in an attempt to “modernize,” the robust and unapologetic devotion to “old school” Roman Catholicism that Harrison Butker represents could catch on among the next generation. A global religious organization of billions, in which every member embraces, in Butker’s words, “our duty and ultimately privilege to be authentically and unapologetically Catholic” would be a force of startling and unprecedented power—and Bible prophecy is plain that startling and unprecedented power is exactly what the end-time counterfeit Christianity will possess.

If this article was of interest to you, find out more by watching the Tomorrow’s World telecasts “The War Against Parents” and “The Mark of the Beast Revealed!”