The brilliant journalist Tom Junod tackles the question of why so many Americans are transfixed with quarterback and one-man-spokesperson-for-Christianity Tim Tebow and writes that, without the Christian storyline, Tebow would hardly be the athlete people are making him out to be:
… [Tebow is] strong, so he can shot-put and corkscrew the ball all over the field, but he often looks like he’s throwing the ball away when he’s not, and he avoids interceptions by coming nowhere near his intended receiver. It would be tempting to say that none of this matters to the legions he has inspired, but of course it’s all that matters: Because Tim Tebow is a religious figure rather than an athletic one, the limitations of his talent wind up testifying to the potency of his faith. The fact that he’ll be almost comically inept for three quarters and then catch an updraft of mastery in the fourth serves to demonstrate not that he’s a winner but that Jesus is — and, above all, that Christianity works.
…
“A lot of questions about Tim Tebow have been answered here today,” intoned one of the announcers at the end of Sunday’s game. But that’s not true; and as long as the central questions of Tim Tebow’s career are also questions about Tim Tebow’s faith, his games will be national events. But one day they will be answered, and my guess is that they will be answered by the law of averages more than they will be by laws suspended in answer to Tim Tebow’s prayers.
My guess is that that Tim Tebow’s success rate in the NFL will always be erratic.
Christianity’s, too.
Tebow had four interceptions in a Buffalo Bills blowout this past weekend.
The aura is fading.
…
By the way, none of that is “proof” that god doesn’t exist. It’s proof that Tebow is human and just another quarterback who had a brief “hot streak” this season.
Unless you’re FOX News and you want to spin it that way…
