Oh dear.!! I cannot imagine the calls and letters he got on that!!
I was watching Florida play Arkansas today where Florida barely pulled it out. For the record I was rooting for Florida because LSU needs all the SEC West teams to get as many losses as possible.
I have touched on Tebows faith before and my whole viewpoint at Tim Tebow Converting All those Catholics
Get Religon looks at this rather controversial article at Journalism, Jesus & Tebow.
As you can tell from my prior posts I pretty much disagree with the Columnist. In fact I pretty much disagree with the whole tone and point he is trying to make. Thought he does raises a interesting point when he says "Would it fly with the NCAA or TV networks if a player exhibited “God is dead” on his face? Freedom of expression would be wiped away as quickly as the greasepaint".
Still his rant on a separation of Church and sports is pretty silly. Sports and in particular college football is very God soaked. Ain't happening and it should not. Sports says a lot of about our culture and I see no reason to demand that the "religious aspect of it" gets purged from it.
As to Tebow I do admit it does seem that the Media sort of goes overboard in giving a lot of free exposure to the Tebows faith and his family's "Missionary" organization. This is not exactly a new story but more importantly Tebow is not the only Christian out there. For instance quarterbacks Colt McCoy of Texas and Sam Bradford of OKlahoma are pretty big Christians that are open about their faith. But thye don't get the publicity as Tebow does. Needless to say Catholic players that are devout don't get the attention either.
Still I find some the latest volley of articles against Tebow and what they call "conservative Christianity" sort of frightening. See another one here. Catholics will be next.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Florida Columnist Goes After Catholic Converting Tim Tebow
Posted by James H at 10/18/2009 01:01:00 AM
Labels: Catholic, college football, Florida, media, Protestant, SEC
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4 comments:
I've been watching sports for many years and often see the players do a sign of the cross or point to the sky when they get a home-run or a touchdown. I see nothing wrong with that. But I also think it's a legitimate concern if a coach is forcing Christianity on team members who are not Christian. Just as I would be upset if a Christian player was forced to stop making a sign of the cross because his coach was an atheist.
IMO,there's nothing wrong with wearing your faith on your sleeve. But it's wrong to stick your "sleeve" in everybody's face and expect them to like it.
Evangelism is a sticky subject...you have to stay within the acceptable barriers or it stops being evangelism and turns to judgmental bullying.
Great post, JH. Thanks for the links to the stories. :-)
James,
Another player who is open about his faith is USC QB Matt Barkley.
Barkley, who is not Catholic, attended Mater Dei High School, a Diocesan school in Santa Ana. Yesterday, he beat the Catholics(?) of Notre Dame.
It would be nice to see some of those Catholic kids be as open about their faith as the Evangelical Protestants are.
Also, I agree with wanting Florida to win. I was really hoping that South Carolina could have had an answer for Alabama. Alas! it was not to be.
But, at least Auburn lost to Kentucky.
The way things look, LSU will be 7-1 when they travel to Tuscaloosa on Nov. 7.
Hopefully next Saturday, Tennessee can catch the Tide looking forward to a bye-week and the Tigers.
Thaks Mary Ellen.
I think players laregly like Tebow stay in those bounbdaries. I just think there are folks that hate seeing Christanity or parriculaor parts of it
Nicholas thanks the link. I saw q big espn STORY on that HIgh School and I did realize he was from there. I am going to add it. I think as to Catholics I wish they were too.
What is strange is for a long time I regarded overt religiosity in sports with a smidgen of suspicion. Jesus wants us to knock the opposing player on his rear? Glory to God for catching a ball behind one's head while falling backwards? Hunh?!?
Throw in what Orthodoxy - and Christian writer Donald Miller - has to say about "distraction" and why the heck do we have pro sports anyways? What purpose does it serve - really?
But in light of the whole Limbaugh thingie...
I have not listened to Rush since 1994. Not a fan nor a critic. But the way he got treated by sports writers and the NFL was a real eye opener. Had little idea that leftist politics had so polluted something as non-political as (pro) sports.
And then this.
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