“The thing I appreciate about Albert and Deidre is their tenderheartedness toward the Lord. They are growing in the grace and knowledge of what it means that Christ is the Lord of their lives.”
—Pastor Phil Hunter, West County Community Church
Four hundred years ago in England, a man sat for 12 years in a cold, stone prison cell for preaching without a license. The man, John Bunyan, made the most of his time by writing a book that has never been out of print since—The Pilgrim’s Progress.
The main character in the allegorical story is Christian, a man who seeks to escape from the “City of Destruction” and ends up traveling, through trial and travail, to the “Celestial City.” Through the allegory, Bunyan teaches the biblical truth that salvation from sin is an immediate gift of God that changes a sinner into a saint. Though the salvation of Christian takes place near the beginning of the story, he still has to walk a long road with trials and temptations that refine him.
The Christian life consists of both an initial act of God and a continuing progression of the pilgrim. A person cannot earn salvation by trying to progress, but neither does a person who has been saved decide to sit down and plateau (or even regress) in the faith.
Accordingly, Albert and Dee Dee Pujols are not perfect, but they are progressing. Todd Perry, CEO of the Pujols Family Foundation, says that God has given them all the notoriety and attention in stages, because if it had all come at once in 2001, they wouldn’t have been able to handle it. But it has been a slow progression.
“These guys are espousing faith—Albert, Kurt Warner, you name it—but don’t expect perfection from these guys,” says St. Louis broadcaster Rick Horton. “I’ve had plenty of people who come up to me and say, ‘There’s no way Albert’s a Christian. He can’t be a Christian. He’s too grouchy.’ But the Christian message has as much to do with God’s grace and mercy in our life and the peace and the joy that we have from being connected with him, not the all-of-a-sudden moral product that emerges.”
Though nobody thinks that Pujols lives without mistakes, he is well-known for his strong moral character and Christian conviction. “Sometimes baseball players will get kind of bad reputations for certain things. You hear about it in the news,” Cards pitcher Kyle McClellan said. “I’m not stepping out on a limb by any means by saying that you’ll never hear that about Albert. He’s about as straight as they come. He really takes pride in the fact that he does things the right way. He looks at that as a great accomplishment. He’s never in the news for the wrong reasons. Every time you hear about him, it’s either his greatness on the field or his greatness off the field. He doesn’t give anybody an opportunity to bring him down. I think that shows a strong presence
of the Lord in his life and that he’s headed down the right path.”
One foundation of Pujols’ growth as a Christian has been his reading and study of the Bible. The Bible feeds the Christian: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation” (
When Pujols arrived in St. Louis he began studying the Bible with his pastor, Phil Hunter, and Hunter’s three sons. “Pastor Hunter developed a system called ‘Who Jesus Christ Is,'” sportswriter Lee Warren wrote, “to teach Christians about the various character qualities of Christ from A to Z. Pujols went through the study with him.”
Walt Enoch, the Cardinals’ former Baseball Chapel leader, recalls an early example of Pujols’ commitment to the Bible: “The year he made it up [to the majors], I remember vividly, he met me as I came in from the parking lot, wanting a copy of Our Daily Bread [a Bible study booklet]. At that time we had a Bible study for players and their wives in spring training, and he and his wife came to the Bible study.”
Bible study among ballplayers takes place in stadiums through an organization called Baseball Chapel. Grant Williams, former offensive tackle for the St. Louis Rams, serves as the Baseball Chapel leader for the Cardinals. He sits down with the guys at the beginning of the year and asks them what kind of study they want to go through. Williams says one thing he knows about Pujols is that he doesn’t want to read a book about the Bible, he just wants to stay in the Bible itself. He says that Pujols insisted, “You can do any book in the Bible that you want, but we need to stay in the Bible.”
Pujols is faithful in attendance. “I’ll shoot them a text the day before saying, ‘Bible study tomorrow.’ It can be so easy for a guy not to come to some,” Williams says. “But Albert is always there—every chapel, every Bible study, in the middle of such a long season, on Wednesday afternoons at two o’clock when he could come in at three—he is always there. I think he missed
one chapel this year, and he came up and apologized afterward.”
Not content with being a warm body, Pujols shares in the discussion and personal reflection. “A lot of times Albert will speak up and give his side of a discussion and his thoughts and his experiences,” McClellan says. “People don’t understand this man deals with so much that we can’t even grasp. People are pulling and tugging at him so many different ways. When he sits there and
opens up in the study and talks about how he deals with it and how strong his faith is, and how he relies on that a lot—he and his wife—and a lot of the decisions he makes are very thought out on his part and prayed for a lot.”
Another catalyst of Christian growth comes as established believers pour themselves into new Christians through mentorship and accountability. Just as a veteran ballplayer can take a rookie under his wing and teach him from the reservoir of his own experience, so, too, can a mature Christian provide invaluable help and advice to those just beginning in the Christian life.
Such was the case in Pujols’ early spiritual pilgrimage. His first pastor, Jeff Adams, says, “When Albert was in his rookie season in St. Louis, Dee Dee was very encouraged by the fact that there were several believing players that worked with him. They would have Bible studies and pray together when they were on the road.”
Pujols related those experiences in an interview with James Dobson: “When Mike Matheny was on our team, he was pretty much the guy that took me under his wing in 2001. As a young believer, I didn’t know how tough it was going to be. Matheny was one of the leaders on the team that told me, ‘Everything is going to be all right, brother. Just relax and do your thing.'”
The early accountability that Pujols had with other Christians was invaluable. “We used to get together after the game,” he said. “It could be one o’clock in the morning and we were still talking about the great things God has done in our life. A bunch of Christians on the team—Mike Matheny, Woody Williams and J.D. Drew—would still be in the room at two in the morning, even when we had a day game the next day. That’s how much pressure there was, and how important it was for you to have that relationship with God.”
A Christian is not ashamed of the gospel (
The Christian life does not shield a person from trials, pressures or suffering. Identifying with Christ, the Savior who himself bore the suffering of a Roman cross, involves believing his words: “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (
Does being a Christian make a difference when the storms of life hit? “Albert has had his struggles. He struggles with a lot of things,” Perry says. “If it wasn’t for the Lord, he’d be a completely different person, because I think there are certain personality traits in Albert—as in me—that can war against the spiritual side.”
The Bible teaches a Christian to “count it all joy” when trials come into one’s life because “you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (
Former teammate Woody Williams says, “We’re all guilty of taking the game of baseball too serious, where it really starts to affect us, but I’ve seen him grow to where now he’s able to enjoy what he is doing, he enjoys his teammates, and enjoys playing. He controls his own emotions.”
Echoing that sentiment, McClellan says, “Albert is a strong follower of Christ. I think he can leave at the end of the day and say, ‘I might not have succeeded today at the field, but there are other things in life that are more important than baseball.'”
Just like his baseball play, Pujols’ Christian walk and leadership are best characterized by passion and consistency. “Sometimes he really gets going, and once something hits him, you can tell he’s just passionate about it,” McClellan said. “I think he tries to keep quiet, and then something will come up and he just can’t help it anymore. Sometimes when we are on the road, the chapel leader for the other team is busy or there’s not a lot of time for chapel. But Albert will be chomping at the bit, saying, ‘I’ll lead it. Let’s go. I’ll give everybody the Word.'”
Pastor Adams says, “Albert has a faith that appears to be absolutely rock solid, just that basic childlike faith that says, ‘This is the way it is, and this is who I am,’ and he doesn’t budge from that. That’s very consistent with the way that he does everything else in life.”
Or, as Dee Dee said in an interview, “You know, we’re just sold out for God and his plans for our lives.”
