Top 5 Surprising Mashups of Religion and Sports

Religion has been invoked, evoked, and provoked this year in the vertiginous swirl that is Tebowmania.  Whether you can’t get enough of the Protestant Patron Saint of Comebacks, or if you can’t stomach one more second of this wedding of church and football, you might be tempted to think that Tebow was the first one to flex his faith in the sports arena. 

He isn’t the first and he won’t be the last. 

It is clear, though, that his stance at the intersection of religion and sports is not only unique but unprecedented.  No one has received such rapturous and repulsive attention for mentioning Jesus and football in the same breath.  Hence Tebow's place at No. 1 on this list. 

That's right, I'm not going to use stealth to draw you in. I want to be forthright with my faithful reader.

But if Tebow gets the top spot, which of the many manifestations of Tebow devotion will get first billing?

And who occupies the other four non-Tebow sacred places on this list?

After all, Tebow only sets the stage in our first slide because he has followed in the much bigger footsteps of a clown. Take a look.

No. 5: Rollen Stewart, A.k.a John 3:16

Lay inert black and white paint before Tim Tebow, and he will bring it to life in a vibrant display of Evangelical faith.  In the 2009 BCS college football title game, Tim Tebow decided to use his eye black to write out the numerical abbreviation for a passage from the New Testament gospel of John: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him will not die but have everlasting life.”  With cameras following every Tebow eye-twitch, Google ballooned with curious searches of “John 3:16.”

It took a clown, though, to lay the groundwork for Tebow’s mix of athletic and religious prominence. 

For those anti-theists, like the late Christopher Hitchens, who believe that the supposedly irrational roots of religion make it a potentially poisonous force, Rollen Stewart could be a quintessential case study.

As a social outcast seeking acclaim and acceptance, Stewart found a way to get attention for both himself and Christianity. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, "Rainbowman" showed up anywhere there were sports fans and a camera, bedazzled in a bright clown fro and frantically waving a neon sign with John 3:16 etched across the front.

His quest to make religious attention-grabbing an extreme sport fell short after a series of run-ins with the law, which finally culminated in lifetime imprisonment for kidnapping.

This religious criminal is worlds apart from Tim Tebow and his faith-based philanthropy; both, though have had their blend of sports and faith lampooned in SNL skits.

No. 4: Mike, Not in the Mosque, Not in the Ring, Not Anywhere

Our No. 4 pick is a reminder that Christianity does not have a monopoly on bizarre blends of religion and sports. 

If Rainbowman didn’t have an entirely stable grasp of the faith he was promoting, Muslim convert Mike Tyson was even more deluded about how his newfound religion, Islam, should be mixed with his old sport of boxing. 

Converts in their immature zeal can sometimes inadvertently paint their religion in a bad light, but there really should be a “Mike Tyson rule” for extreme cases.  Indeed, all religious neophytes should receive the following note upon their conversion: don’t invoke your religion until you have overcome cannibalism. In other words, don’t cap your boxing victories by proclaiming on television, “I want to eat his children. Praise be to Allah!”  

In hindsight, Tyson sees the glaring error of his ways. He would do well to take some cues from another boxing convert to Islam, Muhammad Ali, who stresses some of the same emphases of peace and justice that were central to the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad.

However the change has come about, Mike Tyson is now a much nicer guy (on Twitter, at the very least).   

No. 3: Charlie Ward Learns a Lesson on Religious Diversity...the Hard Way

In April 2001, New York Times writer Eric Konigsberg set out to write a story about a pocket of ebullient spirituality among the New York Knicks. Some of the Christians on the team were meeting for Bible studies and they welcomed Konigsberg in on their devotional reading. 

Soon Konigsberg found himself on the sinister side of participant-observation. 

A few players seemed zealous in their insistence that Jews had killed Jesus and claimed that Jewish refusal to recognize him as Messiah was a product of ongoing obstinacy, a charge that Knick guard, Charlie Ward not-so-subtly seemed to lay at the feet of the Jewish reporter in their midst. 

When the report came out, Knicks' fans expressed outrage against the perceived bigots on their beloved squad—dropping boo birds in a playoff game, no less.  League commissioner, and Jew, David Stern also rebuked the prejudice. 

Ward later apologized explaining, "I'm very grateful that this incident happened because the Lord orchestrated it to where I needed to find out more about different people. I wanted to, but I just didn't know how to."

No. 2: Amar'e Stoudemire's Hybrid Faith

Fast-break forward 10 years to a towering and chiseled New York Knick with both “Black Jesus” and the Star of David tattooed on his muscular frame, and Hebrew words emerging from his lips. 

Amare Stoudemire is mixing high flying athletic prowess with burgeoning Jewish religious and cultural features, an uncommon combination in the NBA.  Stoudemire believes his mother may have some Jewish ancestry and he took a trip to Israel to dig for roots. He is, though, more than just intrigued with Jewish culture. 

Sesame Street aired a clip of Stoudemire teaching young people the various meanings of the Hebrew word “tov”—it’s all good, as Stoudemire explains. This is no passing fancy: Stoudemire wants to open schools in New York to teach Hebrew language and Jewish history.  And Stoudemire is not just speaking Hebrew; he also keeps kosher with the help of a private chef. 

Still, Stoudemire tweets New Testaments passages as well, so he apparently combines elements of Judaism and Christianity. 

Stoudemire is a tattooed, Hebrew-speaking reminder that religion is much too slippery to be contained in tight fixtures. 

So as a Phoenix Suns fan still a little bitter about his departure to New York, I think it is fitting that Stoudemire reveals how permeable religious and cultural borders can be; indeed, they can be as porous as Stoudemire’s defense.  Ouch! 

We still love you, Amar’e.  Mazel tov!!

No. 1: Tim Tebow, Can You Say That on Television?

Ready, everyone jump on the Tebow pile because there is a lot to sort through.

The rejected candidates for our No. 1 position get first mention.

How about "Tebowing"?   

Tim Tebow might drop to his knees as a testimony to a particular salvation experience through Jesus, but that didn’t stop Jewish Broncos fan Jared Kleinstein from taking the gesture in a more inclusive direction.  After he joined his friends in flattering homage to Tebow’s prayer pose during post-victory exhilaration outside a bar, Kleinstein subsequently made that pose an internet craze for the general populace. Could he have known that the term would translate from neologism to officially recognized verb? 

If so, Jared, what about “Tebros”: that’s what we should call anyone whose friendship has been enhanced through Tebow devotion.  Show me how to trademark that and I will help you get your little website off the ground. 

Tebowing is fun, but I’m not sure it has the cultural legs (remember “planking”?) to go the distance as our number one most surprising appearance of Tebow religion and sports.

We move then from Tebow fun to Tebow fear.

Recently, a Jewish Rabbi did a reverse-Charlie Ward and warned that a Broncos Super Bowl win under the helm of their evangelical quarterback could lead to a religious celebration that would leave a devastation of Muslims, gays and immigrants in its zealous wake.  Huh? 

The Rabbi has backtracked, reflected, and now wants to provide a more careful commentary on the subject so let’s not leave him balancing at the top of a controversial heap.

We were on the right track with that one, though, because the number one most surprising appearance of religion and sports, via Tim Tebow, did have to do with the Super Bowl, and gather around, because this one is a family affair.

When word spread that Tim and his mother Pam had shot a Super Bowl commercial with the conservative Christian and anti-abortion group (or pro-life depending on your loaded language of preference), Focus on the Family, flickers of discomfort with Tebow's bold faith proclamations burst into a cultural conflagration of concern.

Depending on your perspective on this contentious issues, the commercial ended up being either a touching tribute to Tebow family principles in general and the courage of Pam Tebow in particular to continue a dangerous pregnancy that ultimately gave the world Tim Tebow, or a surreptitious link to a sinister organization bent on denying women their reproductive rights.

Indeed, Tim Tebow and his outspoken faith on the field represent a much broader gulf of division within American society, which is not likely to be bridged by prayerful touchdowns or any other manifestation of religion and sports.