Tebowmania

There's been a lot of chatter recently about Tim Tebow, the quarterback of some NFL team that I don't care about. He's put together an impressive string of comeback victories, confounding those who doubted his football ability. Of course, we'll know he's actually good when he doesn't have to keep coming back in order to win, but that's another story.

Talk about Tebow is only partially about football, though; it invariably transitions into the place of religion in sports. He's referred to as being the most devout Christian athlete and such. He's certainly the most vocal about his faith, and that's the point of the controversy, I think.Although Tebow may be as devoted as any pro athlete, I don't really believe that he's the most devout. Since there's no scale of measurement for devoutness, nor is there even any consensus as to how to measure such a thing, that's an impossible statement to make.

What Tebow does that makes him controversial, at least in my eyes, is that he uses his position as a public figure to advertise his devoutness. When he put legible-on-TV bible chapter and verse numbers on the black gook those guys where under their eyes, that was the last straw for me. Anyone that desperate to shout "Look at me!" for any reason, perhaps faith most of all, is not any kind of role model for anything good.

The funny thing is, the fact that he's not really prosthelytizing is what makes his behavior so annoying. Those verses in the black gook? It's gibberish to a decent portion of the population and an "Oh, I've got to look this up" moment for many more.

If Tebow's point is that he's a person of faith who is proud of that fact, it's prideful but maybe acceptable. If he is in any way implying that he is more successful than others because of his faith, well that's arrogant and downright insulting to almost everyone else, whatever their beliefs. So people who dislike Tebow aren't anti-religion, they're anti-braggart.