There is much ado about Tim Tebow lately. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the Denver Bronco’s Quarterback is a lightning rod for social commentary. He is at once the recipient of Evangelical adulation as well as one who bears the brunt of often not-so-veiled annoyance or disgust. Cable outlets like ESPN have cashed in on the controversy by devoting a sizable amount of airtime to lengthy discussions of the relationship between religion and football. Religion has been unleashed on the public sphere as the First Church of Tebow is rapidly gaining members. But, like any religious movement, not everyone is on board.
For the faithful, it is clear that Tebow’s religious conviction is directly impacting the outcome of football games. His string of 4th Quarter come-back victories is so remarkable that divine interventions seems the only plausible explanation. The language of “blessedness” and “God’s favor” proliferates. Tebow’s Colorado pastor has reportedly put forward such a view, and even some of his defensive opponents have intimated that Tebow emanates divine favor while leading a touchdown drive.
But not everyone is a Tebow fan. Some of his critics resort to scorn and mockery; others just wish he’d tone it down a bit. Cardinals Quarterback Jake Plummer expressed a popular sentiment in saying, “I think that when he accepts the fact that we know that he loves Jesus Christ, then I think I’ll like him a little better. I don’t hate him because of that, I just would rather not have to hear that every single time he takes a good snap or makes a good handoff.”
For more disinterested observers, Tebow-mania is a point of theological bafflement. God cares about such trivialities as who wins a sporting event? Really? Instead of intervening miraculously to stop starvation or genocide, God’s countenance shines brightly on a group of spandex-clad man-children?
As a student of theology, maybe the only thing I can say about God with absolute dogmatic certainty is that God does not care about football. This is not to say, however, that football cannot be theologically important. All of the talk surrounding Tebow is theologically important, just not in a “Jesus made me miss that fieldgoal” sort of way.
The story starts with more of the phony Evangelical persecution that the Fox News and talk radio crowds love to fabricate. It’s the same sense of false victimization that births endless ranting about the War on Christmas every December. (This year, it is “Obama’s War on Christmas,” which makes it all the more sinister.) Tebow’s critics can’t stand him because he’s a Christian, or so the thinking goes. “They are anti-Christian bigots,” says a certain Nashville talk radio host.
I don’t think that’s the case. What seems more likely to me is that a lot of people are anti-incessant-promotion-of-a-non-football-agenda more so than anti-Christian. I’d imagine that a football player who mentioned their preferred political party every time a microphone was put before them would be greeted with similarly annoyed critics.
No matter, phony persecution will do just as well. The attitude is, as Don Imus put it, “if you hate Tebow you’re hating on Jesus.”
And in any cosmology, triumph and redemption must eventually follow persecution. This is where football, or any sport for that matter, is particularly helpful. Sports provide raw material that can be shaped into an ideologically-motivated narrative. So while it may be the case in actuality that Tebow’s string of comebacks were a matter of happenstance, they must be incorporated into a larger story. We need to discern patterns even if they’re not there.
Take the notion of “streakiness.” We hear it a lot in basketball. If a player has made 3 shots in a row, then they’re “on fire.” You need to get them the ball because they’re more likely to make the next shot too. Problem is, statistical analysis has repeatedly debunked that notion. Players are essentially randomized shooting machines. There is no “streakiness,” only statistics.
Football is probably the same way. There is no underlying, driving force that shapes the outcome of a game, but Tebow’s prolonged “streak” requires some sort of explanation. And divine intervention is as good as any, what with his very public faith and all. So Tebow is not a football player subject to probability and circumstance. He is blessed. In his success, he has proved the worth of a persecuted community and their faith. The Christian God is real because God has been made manifest in football victory.
All of that stuff about God directly intervening in football is a bit much, though. God must be bigger than football. Plus, Tebow himself doesn’t believe that God acts in such a way, as Bob Costas reported in his piece on Sunday evening. It is more so that his faith is the source of a contagious confidence and optimism on the field. “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength,” and the like. But what sort of Christ are we talking about?
The theological narrative that has been formed around Tebow’s success relies on a particular notion of Christ, and, as Yaroslav Pelikan pointed out in Jesus Through the Centuries, ideas about who Jesus is often reflect the social context and aspirations of those who form them. Here we have Christ the Charismatic Leader. To be “Christ-filled” is to be filled with the ability to succeed in an important leadership capacity. We are speaking of Christ the CEO, Christ the President, Christ the War Hero, and Christ the Star Quarterback.
So while God’s hand may not be in the outcome of a Denver Bronco’s game, it is certainly the case that God-ideas are crucial to the discussion surrounding Tebow’s success. The trouble is that the God whose presence propels quarterbacks to victory doesn’t much resemble the Christian understanding of God.
Some Bronco’s fans have taken to custom ordering #15 jerseys with “Jesus” in place of Tebow’s name. But if Christians take Mathew 25: 34-36 seriously, such an understanding of Christ’s presence will not do.
Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
Christ is not revealed through grossly compensated star quarterbacks. In fact, that might be the last place one ought to look.
This photo was accessed via Wikimedia Commons. It is the work of Jeffrey Beall and is reproduced here in accordance with its Creative Commons license.
I’m no fan of the simplistic theology that sees divine intervention in football victories either — I’m glad to learn Tebow himself doesn’t subscribe to this — but I don’t think you’re really doing justice to the theological challenges even such a simplistic theology raises.
You don’t have to work very hard to find in Christian history Christians who attributed victories large and small to God’s activity. This Tebow-theology does at least “resemble” one “Christian understanding of God,” namely a God of Providence. No doubt the theology of Providence is complicated and raises all kinds of questions about e.g. evil — but it would be helpful to address it head on. Instead, you seem to accept the fact that if something is statistically random, ipso facto God is not active in it. This disjunction between God and chance veers rather close to a disconcerting deism — and surely it’s another face of the ‘God of the gaps’ thinking that generates the theology that God directly intervenes in football games! Is there a theology of Providence that overcomes this whole dichotomy?
Similarly, you’re quite confident that God is not concerned about football. But how can this be, if everything created by God is good? (Perhaps what you mean is that God does not care who wins? Even so, why are you so sure?) This kind of talk is dangerous, since if God is not concerned about football, presumably he is not concerned about cooking, about houses, about songs, about dancing, about all the other bits of culture that are probably vanity and also occupy most of our lives. You make it about football, but surely by the same logic God is not interested in most of human life. This is quite a theology of divine otherness, then, and ought to be explicitly identified as such. My question again is, why the dichotomy between God and culture? Is there a theology of creation that affirms the goodness of football without the abuses of Tebowism?
Finally, Matthew 25 certainly teaches that Christ is revealed in the hungry, the sick, the stranger, the prisoner: amen! But surely we can learn from other places that Christ is also revealed in those who love them. So Christ MAY be revealed even in grossly compensated star quarterbacks, if they are Christlike in their love of others. I have no idea whether or not this is the case with Tebow, and your essay certainly does not ask about his lifestyle one way or another. So again, why are you so sure that Tebow is “the last place one ought to look” to find Christ?
Please take this comment in the spirit in which it is given: my desire is for a deep and robust theological response to what we both see as abuses. Peace be with you.
Mark
Hey Mark,
Thanks for reading and replying.
Those are valid critiques but I feel like some of them were mostly outside of the purview of what I was trying to do here. Admittedly, I tend to make flippant or unqualified statements. Plus, 1,000 words doesn’t lend itself to in depth theological exposition.
In any case, some clarifications:
My main point in talking about sports, theology and statistical randomness is that we tend to impose our God-concepts on our perception of the world. The providential God who influences the outcome of football games is brought into a theological narrative created by a number of Evangelicals. I don’t know in what sense one should talk about God’s relationship to statistically random events, nor was that part of my post really about what I believe God to be or not be.
For me, the talk of a God of Providence suggests that God exists in relationship to the world as I exist in relationship to a game of Sim City. That won’t do. Currently, one of my favorite ways of imagining God is that God is to earth-stuff as consciousness is to body.
When I said that God doesn’t care about football my line of thinking was essentially this: If God cares about things like wholeness, love, salvation, reconciliation, etc. (I feel like that’s a fairly uncontroversial statement from a Christian perspective) anyway, if that’s the case, then I don’t think its a huge stretch to say that God doesn’t care about football. Or maybe its better to say that God doesn’t care about football per se. You could make an argument that football can be an agent of redemptive community, but probably I won’t buy it. That’s not to say that frivolity has no place in God’s redemptive activity–certainly it does. But when it comes to professional sports I think we do ourselves a disservice by calling large scale, wasteful frivolity something good. To put it another way, I might be tempted to say that God doesn’t care about horrendously terrible pop music. Its not that music is bad or that something of God can’t be expressed through music, its just that, in that particular case, music serves as a pointless, mindnumbing distraction. Likewise with the way most people experience the NFL, I think.
Finally, I don’t mean to say at all that Tim Tebow or any other professional athlete is incapable of producing the fruits of the Spirit simply by virtue of being a pro athlete. What I mean is that Jesus in a #15 jersey (as I alluded to before asserting that one shouldn’t look to quarterbacks) is not where one should look to see Christ revealed. In other words, if Tebow is showing the spirit of Christ, then it has nothing to do with him winning football games. Similarly, one shouldn’t seek out Christ the CEO, Christ the War Hero, or Christ the President. Not because those people are incapable of showing something of Christ, but because in that particular capacity they aren’t functioning as such.
Hopefully that helped,
Jared
Jared — Thanks, this is helpful. I particularly see what you mean about the #15 jersies, and I clearly misrepresented your view in my comments. My apologies there.
I take your point that 1000 words is too short for deep theological exposition; but I hope that doesn’t mean that the brief comments of theologians can’t withstand deeper theological scrutiny. And the standard of theological depth is particularly high, it seems to me, when the theologian would judge others. I guess for me, your occasional flippant and unqualified statements undermine your generally quite interesting and evenhanded take on Tebowism.
As for football, I’m not sure that professional football is a necessary part of wholeness, love, salvation, or reconciliation, but surely it may be included in those things? Of course football is vanity, and so professional football is large scale vanity, but Ecclesiastes says ALL is vanity. In the unrelenting light of death, no vanity may be distinguished from another. But if we take that teaching to heart, how can we seriously argue that one frivolity is more frivolous than another? You don’t explicitly contrast football and pop music with your own cultural pursuits, but unless you are an extreme Puritan or ascetic, you inevitably have your own games that you play, your own tv that you watch, and your own music that you listen to. Can one really distinguish between the various vanities, with NFL football and pop music on the side of irredeemable frivolity and yours on the side of potentially God-manifesting goods?
Perhaps I just mean: let us as theologians be charitable and generous to those we disagree with, all the more when they differ from us culturally, and yet more when they are unlikely to join the conversation and defend themselves. The plank in our own eyes makes public discourse precarious business.
I look forward to reading your next post.
blessings,
Mark
That’s a good point about all being vanity.
My take on sports in general and especially professional or large-scale college athletics is a bit harsher than saying that they are frivolous or cultural blank slates. This is all, by the way, said with a heavy dose of hypocrisy since I’ve spent a great deal of time playing competitive athletics and I watch just as much sports on TV as your average guy. The best (overly sociological) explanation I can offer for how sports functions is that sports are, as we say in the lacrosse world, “the little brother of war.” That is, sports are a socially acceptable, less violent manifestation of the sort of tribalism and group-think at play in shows of sectarian violence. Sports are, historically, what we tell young men to do to either prepare them for war or keep them from killing each other. A ticker-tape parade and pep rally seem to me to be part of the same psychology. Of course, football involves fewer fatalities than war.
Coming from that sort of premise (which you are more than free to reject), I feel alright in being more skeptical of sports than other forms of culture. The sort of group psychology that I’m describing does not have to lead to violence, but it always involves an antagonist. Someone has to lose, which is not the case with, say, a symphony.
To put it in a much more positive light, though, I’ll take school-rivalry induced bar fights and soccer hoodlums over military conflict any day. So if sports aren’t life-giving, then at least they dull the human impulse towards tribalism and death.
Interesting view that you’ve shared, I appreciated your discussion on Tebow because this is worth addressing for the sheer fact that the media is obsessed with Tebow–it’s as if the media wants to be able to attribute his success to something of a higher power. ESPN covered the Patriots/Bronco game like the Super Bowl because, like him or not, Tebow has brought something to the game that really strikes a nerve. However, where I see Christ in what is happening isn’t in the amazing comebacks. I have become a big fan of Tebow because he has debunked many of the negative stereotypes I had of him before this year. I worried that he was bringing a “bad” name on Christianity and that he was another crazy kid who had a messianic complex that I’d have to defend against. That isn’t true. Listening to his post-game interviews, you can hear his humility and graciousness. He has sportmanship and is constantly lifting up his teammates. This is something that the sports world has sorely lacked.
He has done amazing things with Make-a-wish that also bring attention to Christ’s call in a good way–if you talk about Matthew 25, he is not what we typically expect from an NFL player–many are prima donnas only serving themselves. What I see from Tebow is a strong desire to live out his faith, and vocationally speaking, he’s doing that for good in his career as a quarterback–for those of us leaders in the Christian church, isn’t this what we’d want from other Christians? The theology question is one that has been scrutinized by the media–if you listen to Tebow, as you point out, he’s not putting wins and losses in God’s hands. Your article does a nice job of articulating Tebow in a way that shows theological depth instead of a blanket statement of God doesn’t care about football so why does this Tebow-mania matter. It does matter because there is a lot of good that is coming out of this debate and I thank you for bringing it up.
John,
Thanks for reading!
It definitely seems to be the case that Tebow is both earnest and humble, for which I’m very thankful. The last thing American culture needs are more egotistical professional athletes. Additionally, he seems to give of his time and financial resources to causes that he believes in, so that’s good too.
While outside observers may be botching their theology and propagating flawed notions of Christian witness, its certainly possible for Tebow himself to be an exceptional public witness. I’ve heard some people talk about how maybe God doesn’t care about the outcome of football games but its wonderful that Tebow’s success gives him such a large platform to spread the Gospel. That’s something I’m on board with, albeit in a slightly different way.
For example, I’m not a huge fan of the brand of Christian witness that starts every interview with “first of all I want to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” The American public doesn’t have any shortage of exposure to Evangelical fervor. What we do lack are strong examples of people living out the implications of their faith. Part of that, I believe, is rejecting culturally embedded ideologies, rejecting principalities of darkness and resolving to live according to life and love. In that sense, Tebow’s platform is a bit of a paradox. Our culture of consumerism and deification of wealth and athletic prowess is the very thing that allows Tebow his platform. Tebow’s real opportunity to serve as witness, I believe, is to reject those notions and all of the trappings of his success. Imagine if someone of Tebow’s public standing were to give of his wealth in such a way that was sacrificial instead of merely philanthropic. THAT would get people talking about Christianity.
Take care and I’m glad to hear your feedback,
Jared
well said, couldn’t agree with you more about the way that the message is getting delivered–yep, Tebow, we know you’re a Christian. I think many of us that don’t prescribe to this Evangelical fervor that you speak of find ourselves trying to dispell stereotypes. This is what I was most skeptical about with Tebow and continue to watch for–I almost feel like he’s not as vocal as he was in college and is letting the media do the evangelizing for him, if that makes any sense. Tebow mania won’t be around forever, hopefully next season the focus won’t be the same circus as it has this year.