If Israel Folau wants to continue preaching, he should quit rugby

Israel Folau appears to have a decision to make: continue to preach, or play rugby and keep his views to himself.

Waratahs star Israel Folau. Picture: AAP

Is it possible, with all the inflamed emotion churned up by his every utterance, for society to take a step back and, just for a moment, imagine themselves in the mind of Israel Folau?

Here is a young man who is convinced he has been spoken to by God and told to spread the message of repentance, because the End of Days is near. If you are able to believe that, even on a dispassionate level, then everything that Folau has said and done over the past couple of months flows logically.

Folau has been accused of hate crimes for what he has said about homosexuals. I don’t believe for a moment that what he has been done has been motivated by hate. From my observations of the man over the last six years he has been in rugby, “hate” is simply not a word I associate with him. And all the utterances of his teammates consistently testify to the positive influence he brings to the Waratahs and Wallabies.

Yet there is no question that what he is doing is harming people, potentially seriously. In his mind, he can probably justify that as being for the greater good, that he may be hurting them but saving their souls. There is no arguing with the inherent logic of that. There is no arguing with any of this, from his perspective. It’s where logic runs up hard against faith. To try to persuade him to desist would be utterly futile, as Raelene Castle, the embattled chief executive of Rugby Australia, has discovered.

Presuming Folau was watching Kick & Chase on Fox Sports on Wednesday night, he would have seen even George Gregan telling him that enough was enough.

“That’s my concern with this,” said Gregan. “Let’s talk football. Those beliefs that you talk about, keep them to yourself. I don’t see there’s a need to be putting it on a huge social platform because it takes away from what he is: a great rugby player.”

Those are strong words, even stronger by virtue of the fact that Gregan said them. He is not a man to utter such words lightly.

Another former Wallabies star Clyde Rathbone has taken basically the same view on Twitter, though he has expressed it in somewhat more volatile fashion.

“It has become painfully clear that Australia’s best rugby player is a religious lunatic bent on self-immolation,” he wrote. Rathbone then cites Aayan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim who renounced her faith and is now a vocal critic of Islam: “Tolerance of intolerance is cowardice.”

It has become painfully clear that Australia's best rugby player is a religious lunatic bent on self-immolation. As the ARU thumb through their 'Inclusion 'Policy' they would do well to heed @Ayaan's insight that “Tolerance of intolerance is cowardice.” https://t.co/QPLgles9lj

— Clyde Rathbone (@ClydeRathbone) May 9, 2018

Sounds disturbingly like a call to arms to me.

It may be that Folau is, at it were, hellbent on self-destruction. Except that would not be how he sees it. He would know from his Bible studies the fate of so many Old Testament prophets. Preaching an unpopular message comes at a terrible cost and he accepts that.

Those who thought he was bluffing when he said he would walk away from his career rather than stop obviously have not walked a mile in his shoes. He’s not bent on self-immolation. That’s not his goal. Indeed, he will do everything possible to avoid martyrdom, as Sir Thomas More was portrayed doing in that powerful movie A Man for All Seasons. But if, at the end of all that, once he has deployed and used all his wits, then he has given every indication he will accept the consequences as God’s will.

But here’s the thing. He is a professional rugby player who is being paid more than any other rugby player — union or league — in this country. He performed better than any of his teammates against the Blues last weekend but they still did not win a match that was there for the taking. Those are the matches he is paid the big bucks for, the 50-50 contests, and he was unable to deliver.

Rugby, of course, is very much a team game and there is only so much that one man can do. But is Folau doing everything in his power to get the Waratahs over the line this season? How on earth is that even humanly possible, given everything else that is happening in his life at present?

Seems to me he is confusing his roles. He is being paid to play, not to preach. The argument that Brendan Cannon made on Kick & Chase, that Folau is disrespecting his teammates who are having to stand up in front of the media and vouch for his worth, is a valid one. And if the Waratahs and Wallabies think they can handle all the distraction, perhaps they should cast their minds back to 2011 and what Quade Cooper was put through by New Zealand crowds, the whole “Public Enemy No 1” thing, for no other reasons than that he hadn’t played nicely with Richie McCaw.

From the look of all the build-up, with leading players TJ Perenara and Brad Weber making their disgust known, it would seem New Zealand are getting set to unleash on Folau in an even more frightening way. The All Blacks may well have been planning for some time to release their inclusiveness campaign when they did, at the height of the Folau controversy, but you can just imagine their glee when, in the process, they were able to take down the most dangerous Wallaby right at the same time.

Now they’re planning to make it as uncomfortable for Folau as they did for Cooper. There is no question that the Wallabies too will suffer, just as they did when they became collateral damage back in 2011.

So Folau would appear to have a decision to make.

He can either continue to preach, in which case he is almost honour-bound to take his leave of rugby. Permanently or just for a period — like the two years Reds No 8 and Wallabies contender Caleb Timu served as a Mormon missionary — it’s his choice. Or he can continue in the game and, as Gregan put it, keep his views to himself.

This half-and-half life he is leading, it’s taking its toll. Mostly on rugby which is trying to treat him respectfully but keeps getting burned when Folau feels the God-given urge to proselytise. Yet he himself appears to be paying a toll.

Either decision, to stay or go, would or at least should be treated with respect. No doubt he would have people in his ear telling him that unless he remains a high-profile footballing star he will, as it were, lose his pulpit. If he is doing God’s work, it won’t matter.