Sophie Cunningham: I Love Jesus, Revival Is Happening

WNBA star Sophie Cunningham told comedian Theo Von she believes a Christian revival is happening in America, saying on his podcast "This Past Weekend" that she was raised Catholic but now simply loves Jesus. The 30-year-old Indiana Fever guard, speaking on episode 692 of the show, said more and more public figures are finding the courage to speak openly about their faith.

It was not a polished testimony delivered from a stage. It was a conversation, the kind where one honest answer leads to another, and the guest ends up saying the thing she actually believes.

Cunningham has never been shy on a basketball court, and she was not shy here either. "I love Jesus," she said, plainly, as if it were the simplest thing in the world to say on one of the biggest podcasts in America.

The interview landed in the first week of November, and it spread fast because it touched two nerves at once. Cunningham is a well-known athlete at the top of her game, and she was talking about faith the way teammates talk about a game plan: directly, without apology, and without waiting for permission.

Sophie Cunningham Christian revival on Theo Von podcast

"I feel like there's a revival happening," Cunningham told Von, pointing to the growing number of celebrities and athletes speaking publicly about their beliefs. "There's more and more people coming out that they are Christians and that they are believers. It's cool to see them be able to be bold and courageous and come out about Jesus."

She admitted it can be frightening to speak up, because many people have had bad experiences with church. Cunningham did not pretend the Church is perfect, or that faith is easy. She said the revival she sees is happening anyway, carried by people willing to be open about Jesus even when it costs them something.

Her own journey explains why she talks that way. Cunningham grew up in Missouri in a Catholic family and played college basketball at the University of Missouri before her WNBA career.

"I was raised Catholic but now I'm just like more Christian," she said on the podcast. She now identifies as a nondenominational Christian, and because of the travel her career demands, she says she does not have a home church. "I love Jesus and I rely a lot on my faith because of what I do for a living," she said.

Sophie Cunningham baptized as an adult

The faith she described on Theo Von's show is not new, and it is not a pose struck for a podcast audience. Earlier this year, Cunningham was re-baptized as an adult at Christ's Church of the Valley in Phoenix, Arizona. She shared a video of the day on TikTok, writing that she had felt a tug on her heart to be baptized on her own terms as an adult.

That decision is the hinge of her story. It is one thing to inherit a faith from childhood, and another to choose it for yourself in front of people, knowing the cameras are there. Cunningham did that, and then she kept talking about it.

She has also paid a price for speaking her mind. Cunningham drew national media attention this season for objecting to male trans-identified athletes in women's sports, a position that brought her both fierce support and fierce critisism.

"I don't care what people's opinions are about me because I'm not living for their praise," she said on the podcast. The line sounds like a basketball player talking, and it is, but it is also a statement of faith: an audience of one.

What Sophie Cunningham told Theo Von about God's love

The most striking moment of the interview came when Von admitted something vulnerable of his own. He told Cunningham he often wishes his connection with God were stronger, and that it weakens when life gets busy and he is not "prayed up".

Cunningham did not lecture him. She gave him the gospel in a single breath.

"There's nothing that you can or can't do that's going to separate you from God's love and grace and forgiveness," she told him. "That's why Jesus came and died on the cross, because he already knew everything you were going to do. You're already forgiven."

It was, in the words of one report, a message for everyone listening, not just for the host sitting across from her. She went on to say that after salvation, educating yourself and reading the Bible matters, and that she feels most connected to God when she is prayed up herself.

The exchange captured why the interview travelled so far. A famous athlete was not performing faith for an audience. She was sharing it with a friend who had just admitted he was struggling, and in doing so she said the thing millions of listeners needed to hear: that God's love is not earned, and that it cannot be lost by a bad week.

WNBA Sophie Cunningham faith and the wider revival

Cunningham is not alone in talking this way. Athletes and artists have been speaking about Jesus more openly in recent years, and her revival comment echoes a wider mood that other believers have named too. A 40-day season of prayer and fasting for America was launched only days before her interview aired, as reported in Steven Andrew Launches 40-Day Revival for America Nov 7, and prayer for the nations was at the centre of the Pacific Islands' presence at the climate talks, as covered in Charissa Suli Leads COP31 Prayer for Pacific Islands Today, so Cunningham's voice joins a chorus that is getting harder to ignore.

Her story also fits a pattern seen across music and sport, where artists who grew up in the Church are choosing faith again as adults, on their own terms. Gospel singer Grace Graber released a new album this month after her own journey of faith and artistry, as reported in Grace Graber Releases Sophomore Year Album Nov 6. Cunningham's version of that same choice happened on a basketball court and a podcast, but the shape of it is the same: a childhood faith, a grown-up decision, and a public yes.

Cunningham is now an unrestricted free agent after two strong seasons with the Indiana Fever, and her next team is still to be decided. What is decided is the centre of her life. She does not have a home church, and she is not pretending to have all the answers.

What she has is a faith she chose as an adult, a baptism she asked for herself, and a sentence she is willing to say anywhere: "I love Jesus." The question her interview leaves hanging is how many others, watching from the stands or listening on a podcast, are ready to say it too.

But the most surprising part of this story is yet to come — keep reading.