70° SUNNY, Tebow at heart of opinions on religion and sports
Last Modified: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 12:49 p.m.
After Tim Tebow wrote "John 3:16" in his eye black for the last national championship game, Google experienced 94 million searches for the verse.
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The Gator quarterback has switched up the verses this season, inspiring Web sites to list the latest each week. Tebow's proud advertisement of his Christianity, along with his mission trips and preaching at area prisons, has added to already fawning media praise.
It also has spawned a minor backlash, as shown by recent columns about the place of religion in sports.
USA Today contributor Tom Krattenmaker penned a column criticizing athletes who credit Jesus for successes on the field or use the media spotlight to promote Christianity.
He took particular issue with Tebow, or more specifically his missionary work in the Philippines for his father Bob Tebow's Evangelistic Association.
He cited the fact that the association's literature estimates 75 percent of the Philippines' inhabitants "have never once heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ," even though more than 80 percent of the country's citizens identify themselves as Roman Catholic.
"In making and acting on rigid claims about who is or isn't in good standing with God, the Bob Tebow organization is working at cross purposes with the majority of Americans — indeed, the majority of American Christians — and their more generous conception of salvation," Krattenmaker wrote.
Fort Myers News-Press columnist Sam Cook followed with a piece making the case for a separation of church and sports. He suggested that Tebow and other athletes should drop the religious rhetoric on the field.
"Religion — except for the 'Hail Mary' pass — has no place in sports," he wrote. "In Tebow's case, he should play football and forget about us sinners for 3 1/2 hours every Saturday."
In an e-mail to me, Cook said the paper received more than 300 responses to the column. Just 26 supported his position.
"After the barrage, I felt a lot like Charleston Southern in Florida's season-opener," he wrote.
I stepped into the controversy last week with a blog post on the columns. The response was similar, with the vast majority of the more than 160 comments defending Tebow or attacking the columnists.
"It's amazing how reporters/contributors will expound continually on the bad things that happen in sports such as players gambling, drinking, using drugs and so on. Yet when a public figure professes his faith, they are offended," wrote Glen Parker in a point echoed by others.
Other readers defended Tebow's right to express his beliefs. Some wrote that Tebow should be commended for the people he's helped. Several took swipes at the columnists, or myself, for raising the issue.
If the response proves anything, it's that the only thing Gator fans take more seriously than their team is their religion.
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Comments
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October 28, 2009 11:32:31 am
RE: Link
I Love the Spirit of Tim Tebow but somehow I wish that great characters like Tim would not advertise personal beliefs in a sports forum. For one thing, Christianity takes a minority stake in the world population and, really, what will it all mean anyway when life-forms are discovered on Mars?
October 28, 2009 11:36:17 am
RE: Link
What a lot of people are forgetting in this discussion is that student athletes are people, individuals with different interests and beliefs. As long as they abide by the rules of the sport they are competing in then their religion and personal beliefs are beyond the purview of officials and fans. It would be just as inappropriate to ask an athlete to have a tattoo removed, as it would be to change what's written in Tebow's eye black.
The public backlash on the criticism of Tebow's high religious profile has a lot to do with the legal assault on religion and government. While some people may see the finer points of separating government and religion, forcing a college athlete not to show any indication of their faith and belief is clearly going too far.
October 28, 2009 11:37:10 am
You just advertised a personal belief in a sports forum.
October 28, 2009 11:39:08 am
October 28, 2009 11:41:34 am
Lets prop this boulder on the hill and see if it crushes anyone on the way down.
October 28, 2009 11:43:22 am
We have had two QBs at UF in my lifetime that were very spiritual and professed their christianity and we have 3 NC trophies to show for it and numerous SEC titles. There was a teenager gang raped in Ca. for 2 hours and you can bet that had one of those witnesses had the convictions of Tim Tebow it would have been much different. If the young man that stabbed the player at Uconn. had the same convictions as Tim that kid would be alive today. Please find something worthy of concern....this isnt it!
October 28, 2009 11:53:57 am
it is tim's right as an american to display his belief. You are not forced to look up the verse if you have no interest. For those interested it is very refreshing to find a person with strong personal beliefs that is secure enough to show them. Tim is a good person.
October 28, 2009 12:10:39 pm
Mods, can we move this to the "Things Your Mother Told you not to Discuss in Polite Company" forum?
October 28, 2009 12:12:41 pm
I am Agnostic so I don't share Tim's belief system but I think Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion are two things that should never be tampered with. I admire Tim's character, demeanor and work ethic regardless of who he prays to and not solely because I am a Gator fan.
October 28, 2009 12:21:57 pm
And God spoke directly to Charles Manson
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