by University of Florida football quarterback, and Heisman Trophy winner, Tim Tebow is the worst kind of Christian: Self-promoting, crass, entitled, fragile, haughty, and invoking the sacred right of Crybabyism when God doesn’t answer his prayers. During every football game, Tebow advertises his public love of God in quaint Bible verses printed on homemade eyeblack patches. Each week his his mommy sends him a list of quotes to use.
Tebow is a phony Christian because he publicly prays for God to give him the win — just as, I’m sure, Christians on the other side of the ball also pray for the win.
Asking God to pick winners in football games is a horrible mockery of the Christian faith and it degrades the notion of God to someone petty enough to care about the score of a game while the rest of the world is suffering and on fire.
The most fascinating part about these public Jesus lovers like Tim Tebow is the fact that when they lose — when God does not shine down on them — they become crybabies and whiners.
Why can’t Tebow just accept that it was “God’s Will” that he lose to Alabama? Why cry about it? If God predestined the defeat of Tebow, why not be gracious about it? Why not shine in defeat as you have in victory?
I have yet to see those who praise God in a win turn around and also praise him in a loss… with something like this…
“God didn’t want me to win today and it sucks.”
“God answers all prayers, and today, the answer for me was ‘no’ — and while I’m devastated, I’m glad to honor Him, but I wonder why we even play these games if they’re already predetermined.”
“I prayed to Baby Jesus today for the win — and the Messiah spit in my face with a defeat — and I while I accept the loss, next time I’m praying to his mother instead.”
Yes, those examples are ridiculous and I’m sure some people are outraged! OUTRAGED! Remember that feeling because that’s how non-believers and different-believers and other non-Christians feel when people like Tebow rub their faith in our noses.
College football and the NFL are international companies with worldwide interests — when it comes to religion and other private, personal matters — they should both clamp down on public displays of private worship.
Let the players pray in the privacy of the locker room and if they insist on forming a prayer circle in the middle of the playing field, don’t show it on television as if you are somehow, tangentially, invoking the love of God into your broadcast.
It’s unseemly to peep on praying people.
The final Tebow atrocity and affront to public values and community morality is his participation with his mommy Pam, in an anti-abortion advertisement that will be shown during this year’s Super Bowl television broadcast:
Abortion rights groups are angry that CBS will run a pro-life ad during the Super Bowl from the rabidly homophobic and anti-abortion group Focus on the Family. Few have actually seen the 30-second spot. But we know that it will feature football phenom Tim Tebow, whose mother chose to ignore her doctor’s advice to terminate her pregnancy.
Did you catch that? Ms. Tebow was presented with a choice.
She was a missionary in the Philippines when she was stricken with amoebic dysentery. Doctors feared for her life and urged her to abort her fetus. That she would give birth to a son who would become the first underclassman to win the coveted Heisman Trophy is wonderful. Also wonderful is that Ms. Tebow was able to make an informed decision. Her doctors weren’t muzzled by far-right zealots who want women to carry their pregnancies to term no matter what. And she wasn’t forced by those doctors to end her pregnancy.
Focus on the Family is touting Ms. Tebow’s right to choose while trying to deny the same opportunity — the same right — to other women. Whether CBS is right to run this advocacy ad after rejecting others in the past, I’ll leave to others for the moment. But abortion rights advocates, such as the National Organization for Women, would do well to point out this hypocrisy with an ad of their own.
Pam Tebow: Please keep your vagina out of our Super Bowl! We don’t want your uterus tilting into the salsa!
Tim Tebow: Get control of your life — and your mother — and temper your Christian partisanship with private humbleness and accept the public fact that your Godforsaken eyeblack might just insult more fans than it converts, and that some of your teammates might have different beliefs than you… and that doesn’t mean they are any less good, less deserving, or less faithful, or less human than you.
Whenever I lose a game I thank G-d for letting me play as well as I did.
In more serious circumstances, when someone in the Jewish community dies we say Baruch Dayan HaEmes — Blessed is the True Judge.
I agree that if you accept G-d’s will with the good you must accept it with the bad as well.
That’s well said, Gordon. I just wish Tebow would live his life in deeds and not Bible quotes. Sure, I know he think he’s “spreading the world” with that silly eyeblack — but he’s doing it in a simpleminded way that really brings no new light to his Christian mission.
I’m sure Tebow and his teammates pray to do well, and to work with honor, etc. — but when you learn those eyeblack quotes are intended for him only from his mommy… for leadership, or healing his hurt body… the idea becomes too cute for the room and the entire message is cheapened by the grandstanding.
Wow. This guy and his mother need to grow up — sorry for being so rude.
Ha! Love the blunt truth! It cuts so much cleaner straight to the heart of the matter.
Yes, the Tebows appears to believe they have been specially selected by God to lead us and for us to follow their example. It’s too much to bear. Are you a football player or a preacher? You cannot be both — and trying to be both will rip you asunder.
There’s a rumor going around that if Tebow is drafted by an NFL team he doesn’t want to play for — let’s say the Buffalo Bills — he will turn down the multi-million dollar contract and go on a Christian mission instead, and then come back to play professional football in the NFL when he can pick the team he deems worthy of him. Ugh.
I hope he goes on a mission and stays there. Every interview I’ve seen him do on TV so far involves an invoking of God and the like and it’s just so obvious and self-serving.
Yes, those who kill others in the name of God and those who pray even for a proper bowel movement – both the species are equally disgusting.
If someone wants to preach, fair enough…that’s their calling – but they need to stick to it and find the right audience…having it both ways – sucks.
Absolutely right — but these facts are totally lost on them — because we do not believe and, therefore, we cannot understand.
Who are you to judge his faith? Although he may have bad to him, as does everyone because its part of being human, he is trying to lead by example. Of course he’s going to pray for the win but he probably prays for other things such as being able to show God through example to the other players during the game etc. It also reads in scripture to turn to God in all aspects of your life. What’s the matter with him being close to his mom? Is it bad to love your mom? You have such a one sided look on things.
Who are you to judge me? Why bother everyone by coming here to point out the obvious?
Tebow’s acts of faith on the professional field are not being well-taken — he would have done well to take my advice from a year and a half ago to put a stopper in it. Religious showboats don’t play well in secular sports entertainment.