Tebow Is Just Alright With Me

Tebow Tebows

Sometimes you don’t know what you think about an issue until you’ve spent some time offering different opinions in a public sphere, engaged in dialogues, and become less comfortable with one position or another.

So here is the surprising place I am landing this morning. (For further reading, see a book called A Little Exercise for Young Theologians). I’m going to leave Tebow and his Tebowing alone. (Tom Meyer, you will be pleased, I think). Calling him an exhibitionist (on Facebook) was my last, I hope, cheap shot, at least at him. He’s just a young, simple guy who thinks it is important to make a show of his belief. His idea of God is that God expects such things, that not showing his faith publicly is, perhaps, hiding his light under a bushel basket. I don’t mind people being religious, or even showing it. These are, by and large, simple people, and their displays of their faith are like my bumperstickers or someone else wearing Hollister clothing. We all fly our flags in one way or another. Maybe it’s a tribe-forming strategy: let like-minded people know where we are, because we all take pleasure and comfort in being with those who think or believe or have the same assumptions we do. Showing your preference is always a bit evangelistic. It’s a way of saying this is what I have chosen, and recommend to you. I think I can tolerate that better than I have.

So I’m going to let Tebow continue Tebowing if he wants to. Maybe he will grow out of it, and maybe not. He’s a helluva quarterback, by most accounts, especially for a rookie, and I’m told he does good things besides playing ball. Good for him.

And look at the teaching moment, just in this article about whether Muslim players have been accorded the same respect for public display of their faith, he has provided. Such conversations are good. So I will defend his right to ostentatious display of his faith, and hope he would defend the same right of his fellow athletes who are Muslim. Or Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, or Pastafarian.

Now. Let us play. Together.