Evengelical Wrestler To Preach In Coulee Region
Posted: Apr 13th 2009 By: CMBurnham
Next week, the Million Dollar Man comes to Tomah.
Longtime fans remember this villain from television wrestling, who battled the likes of Hulk Hogan.
Most don?t know the personal story of Ted DiBiase, who played the Million Dollar Man.
DiBiase, like his character, had a big ego. He partied. His first marriage fell apart.
On his way to Wrestle Mania 8 in 1992, his second wife confronted him with his adultery.
After realizing he had put the most valuable thing in his life at risk to serve his ego, DiBiase turned to a pastor friend and said he came to see Jesus Christ was willing to forgive and restore him even though he had turned his back on Jesus so many times.
And since 2000, DiBiase, an evangelical Christian now married 26 years, has been preaching the Gospel full time.
I spoke with DiBiase by phone on Holy Thursday, a day when many Christians remember a Jesus who got on his knees and washed the feet of his friends.
On this Holy Thursday, I awoke before dawn and read the story of the feet-washing, then spent the morning with three Muslim friends.
We shared stories and talked about ways to build relationships between our faith communities.
They talked about the challenges of living within a religion that so many distort. I told them we deal with the same thing in Christianity.
In my conversation with DiBiase later in the day, I was surprised that Islam came up again.
?Jesus said go and make disciples,? DiBiase said. ?It wasn?t a request. It was a command. And unfortunately in America, 90 percent of all people who profess Christianity never led anyone to Christ. So I?m an evangelist, and that?s what I do. I challenge people. We?ve got people who are willing to blow up themselves and buildings, die for something that is a total lie: Islam. ... But we have Christians who have never been a witness.?
I wondered what passion in him caused him to bring up Islam unprompted. And I thought of my Muslim friends, who had expressed their reverence for Jesus and Christians earlier in the day.
DiBiase went on.
He explained what the Quran says a true Muslim believes. Because his description sounded violent and contradicted my friends? beliefs, I won?t print it here.
As DiBiase continued to talk about his understanding of Islam, I asked where he learned these things. Had a Muslim told him?
He told me to turn on the news.
DiBiase identifies deeply with the story of David, the young boy in the Bible who slew Goliath, ?got a little lazy and cocky? as DiBiase put it, took another man?s wife, then repented.
?What I realized in studying David, in understanding the Scripture, is what God looks at is our hearts,? he said.
Before we got off the phone, DiBiase said he didn?t want to come to town and have every Muslim calling him a hate-monger. I told him they are a small community, but forgot to reassure him that, in my experience, they treat Christians with the same peaceful and loving hearts as they treat anyone else.
DiBiase will speak in Tomah next week at the following places:
Boys and Girls Club at 3 p.m. Friday, April 17
Church of the Nazarene at 8 a.m. breakfast on Saturday, April 18
Gloria Dei Lutheran Church at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 18, at 8 and 10:30 a.m. services and at a 4 p.m. youth event Sunday, April 19
First United Methodist Church at a noon lunch Sunday, April 19
For more information, call Gloria Dei at (608) 372-4758.
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