AMERICAN FOOTBALL/TIM TEBOW:TIM TEBOW may be the most popular Christian in sports. He is a cross-cultural phenomenon, a preacher in a football player's body. Whether religion is at the core of his popularity is debatable. But between the caricatures on one end and the deification on the other end, those with an opinion of Tebow may not have an understanding of his religious beliefs beyond the broad label of evangelical Christian.
As he demonstrates in interviews and throughout his book, Through My Eyes, in his frequent appearances at churches and prisons, and even at his nationally televised introductory news conference for the New York Jets on Monday, Tebow is far from a firebrand evangelical. With unflappable optimism and politeness, using his gift for artfully preaching without sounding preachy, Tebow mostly discusses his life story – a child of Southern Baptist missionaries in the Philippines who prayed for a son to become a preacher, named for Timothy in the Bible. Football, Tebow says, is his platform for greater good.
He talks about the charitable works of his family and his foundation. He invokes Jesus Christ’s name and the good that comes from committing to a life lived by his creed. He has more followers than most preachers, and evokes more passion than most politicians. “Tebow is part of a movement of ‘cosmopolitan Christians’,” said D Michael Lindsay, the president of Gordon College and the author of Faith in the Halls of Power, a book about US evangelicals. “They’re more media savvy than their forebears . . . They speak more about what they’re for than what they’re against.” That appears to be Tebow’s approach. “My belief is that his goal is to indeed be inclusive and not divisive,” Nathan Whitaker, who was a co-author of Tebow’s book, wrote in an email.
On Monday, five days after being traded from the Denver Broncos, and nearly being traded to his hometown Jacksonville Jaguars, Tebow spent most of his news conference at Jets headquarters in Florham Park, NJ, discussing his perceived role on the team. The subject of faith – and any mention of Jesus – did not arise until the 16th question. It seemed strange, given the debate over Tebow’s methods of on-field proselytising – from biblical verses on his cheeks; to his kneeling in prayer after touchdowns (since christened as a verb: Tebowing); to his habit of open post-game news conferences by thanking “first and foremost, my Lord and saviour, Jesus Christ”.
Asked to articulate his religious beliefs, he demurred, slightly. “We’re at a press conference for a football team, so it’s not exactly the platform to get up here and share everything you believe,” said Tebow. “But I have no problem, ever, sharing what I believe. I’m a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, and that is first and foremost the most important thing in my life”
In his book, Tebow wrote that he was six when “I knew I was ready to accept Jesus into my heart.” That afternoon, he wrote, the family celebrated the event by going to EPCOT at Disney World. Despite his age, Tebow has specific memories of the awakening: of being in bed, scared he would go to hell if something happened the next day. “So I got down on my knees and I prayed with my mom,” he told a Georgia church congregation in 2010. “And I asked Jesus to come into my heart. And right there in that instant, I knew I had just went from darkness to light.”
“God has a special plan for each person,” Tebow told a congregation two years ago. “God has a poem written out for you and written out for me. And it’s our job, and it should be our goal, to follow that poem, and follow God’s plan for our life, because regardless of whether you think it or not, that’s the best way to live.”
He speaks often of the “dash” on a tombstone, between the year of birth and death, and making that dash mean something significant. He tells of a woman who approached him and said he must consider his life a success, given all his football feats. Tebow said yes, but it had nothing to do with winning national championships, the Heisman Trophy or being famous. It has everything to do with his relationship with Jesus, he says.
On Monday, he used a question about his charity work to promote his Tim Tebow Foundation, which is aimed at everything from orphanages to “Timmy’s playrooms” at hospitals. “Because ultimately I know that’s more important than anything I do on the field, is the ability to brighten a kid’s day or the ability to make someone smile,” Tebow said.
Early in his junior season at Florida in 2008, already wildly famous as a Heisman Trophy winner, Tebow applied the black patches under his eyes that reduce glare. Using a Sharpie, he wrote on the patches “Phil 4:13”. The Bible verse from Philippians reads, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Tebow wore that message throughout the season. About three days before the national championship game, however, “God really put it on my heart to change it,” he has said. He joked that coach Urban Meyer and his team-mates were afraid he would jinx the team, but Tebow was unbowed. For the game, his eye black read “John 3:16”. Florida won. And, according to Tebow, 94 million people used Google to find out that the verse reads, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
“It was just something little I put under my eyes,” Tebow said in 2010. “I was just trying to be obedient to God and listen to him, and whatever he put on my heart, trying to do.” The success, as he measured it, spurred him to change verses under his eyes each game as a senior – after which the NCAA disallowed the practice.
It is that aw-shucks persona that bolsters Tebow’s popularity – part everyman, part saint. In 2009, before his senior season, Tebow was asked at a football media event whether he was “saving” himself for marriage. He answered yes, and joked that the reporters seemed more embarrassed than he did. But he seemed pleased the subject was raised. “I realised young women and men heard my answer . . .”he wrote in his book. “As a result, there was the chance they might find encouragement in my words and lifestyle to do the same and to wait until they were married to engage in sexual activity.”
The furthest he has delved into politics came during the 2010 Super Bowl, when he and his mother, Pam, starred in a commercial paid for by Focus on the Family. The ad featured Pam making allusions to the story of her difficult pregnancy with “Timmy” while she and her husband, Bob, worked in the Philippines. Doctors recommended an abortion, she said. Instead, she gave birth to Tim. The ad stirred debate about the appropriateness of political messages during the Super Bowl. Again, Tebow saw something bigger at play. “They did a survey about three weeks after that commercial aired,” he said in 2010. “And that survey said 5½ million people, because of that, changed their stance on pro-life.”
Such messages seem to come on his terms. When he was asked about same-sex marriage by a reporter during his book tour last year, a publicist said it was off-topic. And while Tebow’s name has been invoked often in the race for the Republican presidential nomination he has resisted temptation to show support for a specific candidate.
He is, after all, just a football player. Isn’t he?
New York Times
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