Just Saying, Is All... | Tim Tebow's God Problem

(Photo by Marc Serota/Getty Images)

Only a fool doubts the obvious.

Tim Tebow is a publicly zealous Christian. He’s also, by all accounts, a pretty happy camper. On the eve of Florida’s 2009 season, the God-loving Gator stands as a living testament to the merits of faith—which would be better news if he weren’t testifying in a country full of mindless skeptics.

Conviction is the blessing of those who choose to walk with the Father.

Contempt, on the other hand, is the burden of those who opt to go it alone.

I won’t pretend to be wholly enamored of Tebow’s holy-rolling. Piety is an art best practiced in private, and no casual press conference watcher likes having the Holy Spirit shoved down his throat. But let he who’s heard a more fulfilling sound bite cast the first stone. In a media culture so fraught with empty rhetoric, it’s hard to fault a celebrity for wanting to spread the one Good Word.

A city on a hill can’t be hidden.

A light in a heart can’t be dimmed.

If Tebow encourages others to follow him, it’s only because he’s sure he’s found his own personal Way.

Sports nuts are supposed to worship success. Touchdowns, trophies, national titles—they’re markers of virtue, proof that whoever’s running the show must be doing something right. The irony, then, is that so many fans mock Tebow for his beliefs. Atheists will argue that it’s silly to seek favors from an invisible man who lives in the sky. I’d counter that Tim seems to have received everything he ever asked for.

Naiveté is bad.

Nihilism is worse.

Tebow may be wrong about the Pearly Gates, but his critics are the ones shut out of heaven on earth.

Pity the people that forgets the value of values. To obey tradition is the essence of ancient wisdom; to ridicule obedience is the epitome of modern hubris. Tim Tebow’s God problem is merely that his contemporaries refuse to recognize real salvation, no matter how brightly it lights up the scoreboard. For two thousand years mankind has found hope and refuge in the commandments of Jesus Christ. Whether there’s literal truth beyond the spiritual fact is a riddle hair-splitters and hell-raisers will have to solve on their own.

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St. Paul never had to test his chastity on a campus full of man-hungry coeds, but he did know a thing or two about discipline under duress:

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient; all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.

Which is sage advice in this age of agnostic promiscuity.

Because everyone loses when anything goes, and anyone who damns Tebow for winning by his creed is either praying to Bobby Bowden or only just saying, is all...

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