Psalm 23, attributed to King David — a repentant adulterer and murderer — invokes pastoral imagery to depict the Lord as a gentle, loving shepherd and the speaker as a helpless, fearful sheep in need of guidance.
It’s ironic — or perhaps fitting — that this is the scripture that would speak so meaningfully to a man accused
of abusing, neglecting, torturing and killing dozens of dogs. But, as fallen NFL star Vick told students assembled Monday for Liberty University’s convocation, this is the passage he returned to again and again while serving a 23-month sentence on federal charges related to his dog-fighting operation. In his convocation address, Vick spoke passionately about his faith and animal welfare.
Vick, who grew up in a
non-church-going home but is a Christian now, began reading the Bible on his own when he was about 12 years old. He struggled to understand and interpret a book that he said he found “difficult,” but it was so important to him to do so, he shared, that he slept with it under his pillow.
But by the time he signed a historic contract with the NFL after a record-breaking college career at Virginia Tech, he had left that Bible behind, he
said.
Vick said he knew right from wrong when he was growing up. He always saw himself as an animal lover, growing up with various pets and bringing home stray dogs that he would care for. He even had teachers who advocated for animal welfare. He knew from a young age, he said, that caring for animals “was the right thing to do.”
But when he was 9, teenage boys in the city of Newport News,
Va., where he grew up, started taking him to neighborhood dogfights. The young Vick observed how these operations were largely ignored by neighbors and authorities. “My perception changed because what I saw was not the same as what I heard,” he explained. He began to see dog fighting in terms not of right and wrong but of competition. “I fell into the trap of thinking...
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