Posted on 12/07/2011 4:16:03 PM PST by rhema
In Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow, the football gods have offered up a star that every father in America should be grateful for (provided they don’t root for a rival team in the AFC West).
Tebow is respectful, wholesome, and a man of God. He has no obvious failings besides an inaccurate throwing arm. If Disney were to concoct the plot of a movie about an altogether admirable young man who joins the NFL and is scorned by all the experts for his unorthodox style, yet wins week after week, Tebow would play the lead. In fact, at this point Disney could make it a documentary.
Nonetheless, Tim Tebow is considered “controversial.” It’s now cutting edge to be a straight arrow. It’s countercultural to be an outspoken Christian. A player who embodies everything meant by the cliché “role model” is for his critics a figure of fun, or even hatred.
Tebow is widely mocked for “Tebowing,” praying on one knee before or during games. Imagine Rodin’s “The Thinker” with a football helmet in one hand. Tebow didn’t originate the practice, or single-handedly bring religion to the NFL. If there’s one staple of professional sports in America, it’s players saying prayers and acknowledging God.
The New York Giants famously prayed on the sideline during Super Bowl XXV for Buffalo Bills kicker Scott Norwood to miss a potentially game-winning field goal. Major-league baseball players are always thanking the Almighty for their home runs or their saves. Tebow is more conspicuous about it than most, but a genuflection is quaint compared with, say, post-touchdown dance celebrations worthy of the Rockettes.
An evangelical Christian, Tebow wears his faith on his sleeve. At times during his college career, he literally wore it on his eye black — “John 3:16,” for instance. Tebow does this out of a sense of obligation to his faith. It is ultimately a statement of modesty and, as such, profoundly out of step with a culture of self-glorification and ostentation in our sports and in our society.
When a Detroit Lions linebacker sacked Tebow a few weeks ago, he derisively Tebowed beside the fallen quarterback. Tebow brushed it off. No trash-talking, no vows of revenge.
Peter King of Sports Illustrated calls Tebow “the most polite interview in NFL history.” When he talked to him after the quarterback engineered a comeback against the Minnesota Vikings last weekend, King asked Tebow if anyone had said anything memorable after the game. Tebow told him he had been able in a post-game TV interview to say the name of Blake Appleton, a child with cancer. “That’s what I’m proud of today,” Tebow noted, before concluding the interview: “Have a good day, Mr. King. And God bless you.”
Raised by missionaries and home-schooled, Tebow sets off cultural tripwires. He says he’s a virgin. Feminists were outraged by a gently pro-life Super Bowl ad he did with his mom about her troubled pregnancy when she was carrying him. But as writer Daniel Foster notes, what is most off-putting to some people about Tebow is his utter lack of irony and sheer earnestness. Doesn’t he know life isn’t a 1950s sitcom? Can’t he leaven his impossible goodness with a few readily identifiable vices? You can almost hear his critics urging him, “Shut up already about God, and please start failing.”
By any reasonable standard, though, Tebow is a blessing. He won’t be getting arrested for groping a woman at a Halloween party (Julian Edelman), for accidently shooting himself with the Glock he smuggled into the dance club (Plaxico Burress), or for running a dog-fighting ring (Michael Vick). He won’t be taking performance-enhancing drugs. He may or may not continue his success on the field, but he will do everything he can to respect his teammates and his God.
Here is a prominent player who will almost certainly never require fathers to make awkward explanations to their kids about some spectacular scandal. Rejoice, America, rejoice.
Matthew 6:5. TT should read it. Also Matthew 7:6.
The problem with Mr Tebow is God forbids him from hiding his light under a bushel. So he does not hide it and leads to the best of his ability and sets and awesome example. God is blessing his walk and the world hate that because Jesus said they would. Tis really that simple when you walk the walk you will be persecuted and made fun, maligned.
He's ignoring socialist democrat anti-Christs and their incessant whining?
Then you get married but not really married and get paid like, you know, like, money. And then you get on magazines and stuff like that. You know!
For sure! Like it is so simple!
Don't, like, you know, you people get it! OMG! You are are so superficial and like, you know, don't know ANYTHING! Gosh!
Thank you for posting. God bless Tim Tebow.
My late husband went to Mass almost every day - that was just a part of his spiritual practice. Most people can’t even begin to comprehend a person like that...imho, we as Americans really need to change the way we think and evaluate our world.
Nothing is wrong with Tebow. Everything is wrong about the world which is in thrall to Satan.
The War on Christianity has been going on for Centuries. We used to have a Christian country-—and since the corruption of our legal system by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and the adoption of Marxist/atheist paradigm and the banning of God from the public square and the schools (Public Schools used to teach the Bible quotes and ethics up until the socialist Dewey who threw out the McGuffey Readers).
Public schools have been corrupting and brainwashing children into mocking God and hating Judeo/Christian Ethics for decades through their Skinner curricula-—which allows one way to think (mass conformity) to Marxist ideology (atheism)—they control the media—ever since Archie Bunker days they started destroying the morality and corrupting the minds of children.
The schools and media are conditioning their “students” to hate and ridicule the Tim Tebows in the world. Marxists hate Christianity—it’s philosophy creates independent, strong people loyal to family who will never follow mass movements of mobs—that sick ACORN mentality—typical of public schools and OWS.
It’s refreshing to find a public figure who is proud of his faith and doesn’t mind if those who aren’t are annoyed. Think how differently things would be if everyone was determined to lived their faith at work.
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
I am happy to see him keep winning!
It’s great to see.
Ah see, there’s the thing. Kurt Warner was also a very big Christian, but he didn’t, how do I put this, flaunt it. I would say he was a better, more mature Christian than TT, but then the latter is young too. He’ll probably have matured by his 30s as well.
I know a lot of people want to admire Tebow for his beliefs, but Jesus did say not to trust those who feel the need to pray in public. I have no doubt he’s sincere about his religion, but I think one’s beliefs are a private, personal matter and if I were him, I would not do as he does.
If you don’t want to draw out the atheists and other pests, you avoid doing things that provoke them. God’s everywhere; he can hear you all the same whether you’re praying on a football field or in the middle of a forest.
And after Steve Tulloch mocked him on the field, I am happy to see Detroit keep losing.
To be fair, remember Kurt Warner did not become a Christian until he met his wife. Mr. Tebow was raised in a family that were missionaries in a foreign land, at least for awhile. So his parents were Christian. He experienced Christianity in a much different way. I do not know how Mr. Warner grew up.
Sounds like spiritual cowardice to me.
Believe what you want and I’ll believe what I want. You know the saying: “Don’t go away mad, just go away.” :)
People say Tebow lacks experience and throwing accuracy. You know what else Tebow lacks? A consecutive game losing streak.
Yes sometimes God shows us all what a great sense of humor He has.
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