I’ve always disliked the athletes who wear their religion on their sleeves.
Don’t get me wrong — they have every right to be religious, and every right to speak out about their religion. But I’ve always thought it trivialized the role of a God who could make a universe as infinite and complex as ours to suggest that He is deeply concerned about a football game. And frankly, as an agnostic Unitarian, I’ve always been a little put-off by those who suggest that an athlete who is an unwavering and vocal Christian is ipso facto a good person. There are many good people who are Christian, of course, but plenty of bad Christians, too, including all too many of the vocal type. And of course, the same rough percentages apply to Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists, Scientologists, and any other religious group you care to name. Being religious does not make one good; being good makes one good.
The guy who has been drawing the most ire from me of late is Floriday Gators quarterback Tim Tebow. Tebow is into putting Bible verses on his eye-black, and spends his offseasons circumcising Fillipinos in the name of Jesus. Now, Tebow seems like a decent guy, I guess, but he’s reached such a level of adulation that it’s gotten, well, a bit idolatrous. Especially since so much of the wonder of Tebow is tied up in his religion.
So it was with some relief that I read the latest column from CBSSports.com columnist Gregg Doyel, who expresses the same unease:
This one is really going to hurt, because I’m going to attack two institutions that have impressed me greatly over the years: Christianity … and Urban Meyer. My thoughts on Meyer were made clear a few paragraphs ago (perhaps the greatest coach, etc.). And as for Christianity? Not to get too deep into things, but church has been a huge part of my life over the years. Done the baptism (twice). Done the tithing. Done the small groups and the volunteering and so forth.
But there’s a quote from Meyer celebrating Tebow’s return to college for his senior season that turns my stomach. Here it comes:
“There’s the functional football player part of it, but we all know it’s much deeper than that,” he said. “He is so good for college football. He is unbelievable. When my daughter texts me in the morning the Bible verse he has under his eyes it’s good for college football, it’s good for young people, it’s good for everything.”
Sorry. Wrong. If Tebow were a Muslim or a Mormon, and Meyer’s daughter texted him with Tebow’s chosen verse from the Koran or from the Book of Mormon, would that be “good for college football, good for young people, good for everything?”
Of course not.
Tebow’s religion is seen as good because it is the religion of the majority. But it’s not the religion of everybody. It’s exclusionary, and just because you share Tebow’s faith, that doesn’t mean you’re right. I don’t expect you, or Meyer, or Tebow, or your pastor, to agree with me.
But you’re still dead wrong.
Yup. The simple fact is that for non-believers, Tebow’s overt Christianity — and the swooning reaction to it — is salt in the wound, further evidence that we are outsiders in this country. The simple fact is that by saying Tebow’s religion is good for everyone, we’re saying that those who don’t believe aren’t good.
Tim Tebow is a good quarterback, and what I’ve heard of him suggests that he’s not a bad guy. But his religion is not evidence for either of those propositions. It is simply his faith, and while he’s entitled to his faith, I’m entitled to mine, too.
(Via Jonathan Chait)
That’s an assumption about anyone who’s a Christian (complete with the unspoken assumption that anyone who isn’t a Christian is automatically a bad person, especially if they’re an atheist), and it’s got to be stopped…
Wow, I’m impressed with Gregg for writing something like that. And saddened that I’m impressed with that… it should be the norm, not an exception.
Christ was a circumcised Jew, but Tebow should know the NT has a lot to say suggesting circumcision is simply not part of Christianity: Romans 2:29, Romans 3:30, Acts 15:10, I Corinthians 7:18, I Corinthians 12:18, Galatians 5:6, Galatians 5:2, Galatians 6:15, Philippians 3:2, Colossians 2:12, Matthew 9:12
I’d say that taking healthy normal body parts without asking is stealing. Thou Shall Not Steal is unequivocal.
HIS body HIS decision.
I’m not even religious, but to me asking God to help you beat those other guys in a sporting event has always been offensive to me on so many levels.
But I’ve always thought it trivialized the role of a God who could make a universe as infinite and complex as ours to suggest that He is deeply concerned about a football game.
Hear, hear. If God helped you make that touchdown run, do you think that He tripped up the offensive guard who was supposed to tackle you? Who the f**k are you that He’d do that?
The simple fact is that by saying Tebow’s religion is good for everyone, we’re saying that those who don’t believe aren’t good.
I don’t accept this as an equivalence. To say that Christianity/Judaism/Islam/Buddhism is good for everyone is NOT equivalent to saying that if you are not a Christian/Jew/Moslem/Buddhist you are not good.
Ron Low’s right on circumcision. It was a big debate in early Christianity between the Apostles (read the Acts of the Apostles) as to whether you had to follow the Jewish purity laws and be circumcised in order to be a Christian. The answer finally came down as “No”. People should not be circumcised in the name of Jesus, and it is not necessary to do so to be a Christian.
I forget who said it, but there was supposedly some military leader who said that both sides in (most) wars pray to the same G-d that they will get to kill the other soldiers.
Nothing brought that home to me more than watching a Military Channel show on the Christmas during WWI when the two sides stopped fighting for several days and celebrated Christmas together.
And then they went back to killing each other.
http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/christmastruce.htm
They even played games of soccer together. Seriously. So damned depressing.
IIRC that’s because the officers broke it up.
During the 2003 ALCS between the Red Sox and the Yankees my DH came downstairs after the game was over (I was hiding from the TV, as I can never watch the close games without chewing my nails right down to the knuckles) and told me, “We’ve learned something tonight: the Lord Jesus Christ can’t hit lefties.”
“Really,” I said, “and how do we know this?”
Whereupon he explained that Trot Nixon, who had made the walk-off hit and/or a great fielding play (I forget), had said in a post-game interview, “That wasn’t me out there tonight, that was the Lord Jesus Christ.”
A Christian is supposed to practice their vocation as best they can to the glory of God, and from that perspective I can understand a Christian athlete’s point of view. I don’t imagine that they think of it as God’s tripping the other guy, but as their giving God the credit for their accomplishments, and I have no problem with that. In the movie Chariots of Fire there’s a scene where the very Christian Eric Liddell is trying to explain to his equally Christian girlfriend/fiancee why he runs instead of doing missionary work, and he says, “God made me fast, and when I run I can feel His pleasure.” (God made me extremely slow, but I’ve had a similar feeling about other accomplishments, “this is what I was made to do,” even though I’m not sure I believe in God.)
But all the very public celebration of it, the pointing to the sky and so on, sticks in my craw (Mt. 6:6). Remember when Mike Huckabee was way ahead in the GOP primary polls and he said something to the effect that the polls proved that God was on his side? I commented at the time that this was a dangerous thing to do, because at some point his poll numbers would slide, and what would that prove? A similar question comes to mind when Trot Nixon drops a routine fly ball.
And I think there is an implication that non-Christian athletes as well as non-Christians in general are not as good, not as worthy. In particular, the nonreligious among us are made to feel abnormal in some way.
He spends his holidays doing unqualified and unnecessary surgery???
On the Christmas truce, the reason the officers broke it up (according to my history teachers) was because they would have to go back to killing each other. You can’t go humanising the people you have to kill, and if you did, the soldiers in the trenches couldn’t stop the war because of it.
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