In the midst of his crazy schedule of starting the 2016-17 NFL season with a new team (the Baltimore Ravens), helping his wife Kirsten raise their five kids, running his non-profit organization (One More), promoting his new book (Under Our Skin), and being a sought-after voice of reason in America’s current racial tensions, my friend Benjamin Watson was kind enough to take a few minutes to chat about God, football, abortion, and race in America today, for our Turning Point blog interview series. Once on the phone, we chatted for almost an hour, so due to length it will be posted in three parts. UPDATE: If you haven’t been online in the last few days, then you might not have noticed that Part 1 and Part 2 have already been reposted by numerous news outlets – Fox News, MSN, the Christian Post, The Drudge Report, the Washington Times, The Daily Caller, Charisma News, The Inquisitr, Life News, Christian Today, The Gospel Herald, and CBN News, as well as groups like #BlackLivesMatterAustin. It was also a top trending topic on Facebook on Friday, August 5 (#1 as I write this!). The message that the right to life matters, no matter what your race, is resonating with people all across America, and we thank Ben for being a voice for the voiceless. The interview concludes here with One More question:
TPPRC: When we first met, you asked me if I knew of any opportunities to help with the pro-life movement but it sounds like you recently came up with a great way to do so. Can you tell us more about the One More Movement?
BW: “Our foundation is called “One More” and it’s about spreading the love of Christ to one more soul. We do that by meeting people’s real life needs, by promoting education, and partnering with existing charities. We do a few events wherever we are. When we were in New Orleans, we partnered with a couple homeless shelters, and did some events focused on domestic violence, and for sexual abuse victims. I was nominated last year for the Walter Payton Man of the Year award, and its about honoring a player’s volunteer and charity work, so my wife and I started thinking about how we could better engage with people. A lot of time, people want to get involved and help, but they just don’t know where to start. We’ve had the opportunity to connect people to different organizations that we felt were doing something positive or some good work in the community. Our latest fundraiser we did, we partnered with New Orleans family justice center, which provides services for people that are victims of sexual abuse, stalking, and the like. They do everything from providing food to hiding for some people who have to go into hiding, and stuff like that. So, for a week we did this “One More” campaign with the hashtag #onemoresurvivor. The goal was to raise money for one more survivor. We went on social media and got people to give small donations, and also bring awareness to the organization for people who may need their services. That way, they know we are involved with them and can trust them to receive help if they need it. So we have been thinking about different causes that are important to us, obviously the pro-life cause is important to us, and are thinking about different ways we can use the One More Movement to help specifically in that area. Stay tuned in to the website and our social media platforms to hear more about it when it happens!”
Last words: “God doesn’t need football. But He can use it. And I want to try to leave as big an impact as I can while I have the opportunity to play this game.”
Please click here to donate to Turning Point PRC to help them in their mission to educate, encourage, and empower women facing crisis pregnancies. Stand with Ben and TPPRC to help them save #onemorelife together.
Also make sure to check out our previous interview with David Daleiden, the man who singlehandedly took on Planned Parenthood in 2015 and won.