When a reader recently posed the following question, I knew its answer wouldn’t be too hard to find: French Footballer Kylian Mbappe’s Faith Journey: Muslim Or Christian?
After all, we’ve got some big Mbappe fans in our house. For the burgeoning soccer stars among us, Kylian Mbappé (better known, simply, as Mbappé) is everything.
He’s arguably one of the best soccer players in the world.
An immigrant, Mbappé was born in Paris and grew up in a Parisian suburb called Bandy. According to Brittanica, “his mother, Fayza Lamari, is of Algerian descent, and his father, Wilfried Mbappé, had immigrated from Cameroon.” He started playing on a local youth club soccer team where his father coached when he was six years old and quickly came up the ranks. His speed and ball handling landed him a spot with AS Monaco when he was fourteen, and the rest, one might say is history. (Want to know more about his sports career? The stats speak for themselves).
But we’re not here to rift on sports: we’re here to explore the influences that shaped his religious identity. If our reader is lucky, we’ll discover whether or not Mbappé aligns with the Christian or Muslim faith, even as we unveil the complexities of his beliefs amidst the spotlight of professional football
Here’s what we know: Mbappé was raised in an intercultural, inter-religious household. His mother was a practicing Muslim, his father a practicing Christian. Although some articles speculate that we, as readers, cannot knowthe nature of his personal faith beliefs, we do know his religion is important to him.
And when religion is important it shows up in different ways in our lives. It might mean that we cross our chests before soccer games or bow toward Mecca, five times a day. It might mean praying with our family before dinner starts (as generally tends to be the case in our house) or attending worship services with people that feel more like family. It might mean reading daily prayers found in a holy book every morning or lighting a candle for a time of meditation.
Practices of religion are as different as the people who call different religions their own.
It’s no different for Mbappé. Although some articles claim he has publicly shown Muslim religious habits, like attending weekly prayers at mosque close to his home, and decidedly not shown Christian religious practices (according to the writer of the article), other sources say otherwise.
As is often the case with young children, truth often lurks just below the surface — or blares in bright neon letters when a young boy asks him to talk about the place of religion in football.
Although he initially responds by answering, “The place we want to give it. Everyone has their own way of seeing religion,” when pressed as to if he is a believer and then a practitioner, he responds in the affirmative to both questions.
Finally, a third child asks, “In which confession are you?” And to this he replies, “Christian.”
To this we have our answer — even if much of the world believes he would instead say “football” (or, for the purposes of this article), that “Muslim” is his religion, Christianity is Mbappé’s religion.
For if a man — or woman, or person, or human being in general — says that Christianity is their religion, then we, the receivers of this information, get to believe such declarations.
Of course, it comes as no surprise to me that just as Mbappé’s family is important to him, his religion is important to him as well. Being raised in an inter-religious (and, as previously stated, intercultural) household means being raised with an honor and a respect toward different religions.
By all outward accounts, his mother attended the mosque, while his father attended a local parish or church. Seeing as most mosques do not allow men and women to be in the same space during worship (with women either behind a barrier or partition, or in another room altogether), attending a local parish or church with his father could have been something the two of them were were able to do together.
I am, of course, purely speculating, but the truth remains: religion is often another way of being together. As a parent, the littlest things matters to me when it comes to doing life with alongside and with my children.
I doubt it was any different for Mbappé growing up or for his relationship with his family now. If it’s something they can do together, then by all means, show up and lean in and (in this case) put the tenants of Christianity into practice.
What do you think?
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