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If anyone ever doubted that Sophie Cunningham was a committed Christian, they would be wrong.

The controversial 30-year-old American WNBA star was baptised in April.

It’s a welcome surprise.

For years, the Indiana Fever guard has hinted at where her soul’s allegiance is.

A blatant example of this is a pinned 2016 post on X quoting Romans 8:28.

Finding Identity in Christ

She posted a video of the full-immersion event on TikTok and reshared it on X in April.

On TikTok, she wrote, “I got baptised when I was little, but I was feeling a tug on my heart to do it on my terms as an adult! Such a fun, amazing day. Thank you, Jesus.”

This coincided with a much shorter comment on X where she wrote, “Loving Jesus is fun, try it.”

In September, she told Shannon Spake’s Sons and Daughters’ podcast, “I definitely have faith. So, I find my identity in Christ. And I think that has really set my baseline and my boundaries of maybe why I don’t care what people think of me.”

“As long as I’m, like, as long as I’m in the Word and I’m trying to align my life and my values with that and my morals with that, then I’m not going to let other people — my basketball, my stats, anything — be my identity, and with that there’s so much freedom, and therefore I’m allowed to just be me.”

Talking about beauty and the value the world places on appearances, Cunningham said, “I just found from a young age that you know it’s not what people look like. It’s who they are to the core. And I still believe that today.”

She then explained, “But at the end of the day, it’s about who you are on the inside. Who are you becoming? Where is your mind? Where is your faith? And where’s your heart?

“And I just think that when you can truly peel back all those layers and just try to find love and try to find peace and make other people feel better about themselves and want them to be more successful and happy than yourselves. Like that’s when we’re winning as a culture. And so, I think it has nothing to do with the physical. I think it all has to do with what’s inside of people.”

Cunningham Criticised over Sports Illustrated

For context, Cunningham was featured in this year’s Sports Illustrated (SI), and her decision to do so wasn’t entirely free of criticism.

Therapist Paula Reinhart wrote in the American Thinker that this was Sophie’s one mistake.

Reinhart encouraged the athlete to expand her efforts to protect younger women. Beyond opposing male participation in women’s sports, she urged Cunningham to consider the message her SI photoshoot sends young women.

Offering some advice, she encouraged Cunningham to stop feeding false notions about the body as a tool for power.

The therapist explained, “When Sophie appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated, she normalises something that costs other women, slowly but eventually: their innocence and dignity. Those young women show up in therapists’ offices like mine, wondering why they feel worthless.”

Contrasting Cunningham’s Christian confession with the SI photos, Reinhart said, “Perhaps the ironic touchstone in this saga is Sophie’s own recent adult baptism. ‘Thank you, Jesus,’ she said, calling this experience ‘one of the better things I’ve done in my life.’ There’s a whole beautiful world behind that door, and I, for one, hope Sophie finds it in spades.”

Sophie’s Tenacity

Reinhart’s critique was balanced with applause for the sports stars’ tenacity in the battle to end the trans takeover of female-only spaces.

This is a far cry from the far left who’ve labelled the basketballer “MAGA Barbie.”

Cunningham, who is at odds with her coach on the trans ideology invasion, told ESPN in July that she was weighing in on how to “protect women’s sports” because she’s in that world and feels qualified to speak into it.

“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,’” ESPN quoted her as saying.

“I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”

WNBA Star Sophie Cunningham DOUBLES DOWN On Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports as ESPN Reporter SEETHES About the Trans Community

“I said what I said. I think it’s kind of common sense. I stand on what I said.”

“When it comes to protecting young girls and women in sports, I feel very strongly about that.”

“I’m there to love but I’m also there to love biological women”

“I’ll never falter in my beliefs”

How refreshing.
https://t.co/7Pd8VOxafh

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 23, 2026

Her statement went viral, and despite the inevitable charge from the cancel culture pitchfork posse, Cunningham famously refused to back down.

Cunningham’s tenacity didn’t end there. Sponsorships rolled in after an on-court showdown between her and Mercury forward DeWanna Bonner went viral and became a meme.

Cunningham firmly pointed into the air, and Bonner took offence. So, Sophie kept doing it. According to CBS Sports, as licensees, the WNBA prohibited the use of the video, stating that it was “derogatory.”

Riley Gaines has attributed Cunningham’s tenacity to her faith in Christ.

Asked about her recent connection with Sophie, Gaines said, “Watching her relationship grow with the Lord over these past few months has been really, really powerful and really, really beautiful.”

Gaines made the comments at Turning Point USA’s Faith Forward conference in August.

That seems legitimate. Cunningham recounted the straight-up gospel with Theo Von on his podcast four days ago, saying that she loves Jesus.

Sophie said, “I rely a lot on my faith because of what I do for a living. You get a lot of hate, you get a lot of praise. And I think that just like morally in my head, everything like it just keeps me stable and it keeps me to be who I am.”

To this, she affirmed that her Christian faith keeps her grounded because she’s “not living for people’s praise.”

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Image: screenshot of YouTube.