The Father, The Son, and the Holy QB, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #162
January 10, 2012 Arthur Tebbel 2 Comments
Dear Art,
Have you been watching the NFL playoffs? If you have you’ve no doubt noticed my boy, Tim Tebow playing exceptionally well. This weekend in an upset overtime win against the Pittsburgh Steelers he passed for 316 yards which is more than anyone has thrown on Pittsburgh all season. It’s really got me flummoxed, here I am showing my will in the physical world in the most direct obvious way I have in millennia and people are ignoring it. Why won’t people realize that the success of the Denver Broncos is proof of my existence and validation of one particular strain of Christianity as being correct over all other religions?
-God
God,
You sure do work in mysterious ways. I mean, sure, that was a hell of a performance yesterday. In fact, I read a piece of analysis that said it was perhaps the best possible performance from a quarterback that only completed 47% of his passes. I don’t mean for that to sound sarcastic. It was a great showing and was a huge factor in why the Broncos won that game. I’m just concerned that you might be spending too much time influencing football games. I know you’re omniscient and I don’t want to insult you but have you seen all the fucked up stuff happening in this world? I would much rather you prove your existence by healing the sick or feeding the hungry than by influencing football games. Hell, I’d even settle for some wrath. Pick a shitty dictator and plague the hell out of them. Something constructive.
The funny thing about this whole Tebow thing is that my parents hate him. A few weeks back I was visiting home and the Broncos were playing the Bears. My parents both knew who Tim Tebow was and that they didn’t like him, my mom even heckled him during his postgame interview. When pressed they revealed that they knew the names of zero other NFL players. My parents live in New York City; a town with two football teams. They also buy the Daily News every day. I would guess that Mark Sanchez or Eli Manning (the quarterbacks of the New York teams) are on the back page of that paper a minimum of 65 times per year. They know who Tim Tebow is and they know they don’t like him. If they had been watching yesterday’s game I guarantee they would have been rooting for the Steelers to win. The quarterback for the Steelers, Ben Roethlisberger, has been accused of sexual assault twice and was suspended for it once. They don’t that know but they know that Tim Tebow talks about God too much.
It’s quite strange that you picked this particular sect of Christianity. Baptist missionaries? Really? I don’t get it. Also weren’t you pretty against religion in the public square in your last book? I love the 316 passing yards bit. People have been noticing that John 3:16 shares all the same numbers with 316 today and it’s hilarious. I like that you went from working in mysterious ways to being really hit-you-over-the-head obvious. See you at the second coming.
MOTU
January 10, 2012 - 2:11 pm
Jesus.
Jenny
January 10, 2012 - 3:51 pm
Best response I’ve seen. Of course I try not to read them, and when I do they’re not very good, but this is definitely the best.
That sounds so much snarkier than the absolutely notsnarky way I meant it. It is absolutely correct on each point, but there’s no connection between them.
George Haberberger
January 10, 2012 - 4:15 pm
They don’t that know but they know that Tim Tebow talks about God too much.
Okay, I have to ask. What is the amount of talk about God that is acceptable?
Russ Maheras
January 10, 2012 - 4:49 pm
George — Aw, I think you already know the answer to that.
For certain folks, the “acceptable” amount seems to be zero.
Russ Maheras
January 10, 2012 - 4:51 pm
…And I’m a die-hard Bears fan!
Bill Mulligan
January 10, 2012 - 8:08 pm
I treat football the same way I do Giant Japanese Monster movies; I don;t particularly care which one wins, I just want some good action.
That said, this Tebow thing has got me flummoxed. He’s what, the 90000th sports guy to demonstrate some religious ritual upon doing something and people treat it like it’s something we’ve bever seen before. Then I hear from my sports friends that not only is he too religious he also is a sucky quarterback, maybe the worst in the league. Now they are in the playoffs and just beat the Steelers.
Pretty impressive for Sucky McSuck. It reminds me of the line in Casablanca where the Nazi calls Rick “another blundering American” and Louis tells him not to underestimate American blundering; “I was with them when they blundered into Berlin.”
I love sports fans. Even if the Broncos win the Superbowl some will still explain exactly how they are the worst team in football and Tebow, on paper, couldn’t lead them out of the bus.
Jonathan (the other one)
January 10, 2012 - 8:10 pm
“And when thou prayest, thou shall not be as the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.
“But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seest in secret shall reward thee openly.”
– The Gospel According to Matthew, 6:5-6
Looks like Tebow has an awfully big closet there…
Martha Thomases
January 11, 2012 - 7:53 am
@Jonathan: That closet has to be big enough for Rick Perry.
MOTU
January 11, 2012 - 2:53 pm
Mary.
MOTU
January 11, 2012 - 2:54 pm
Abraham.
MOTU
January 11, 2012 - 3:13 pm
…and Jesus.
Rene
January 11, 2012 - 8:40 pm
I am the most secularist, humanist guy you will ever find, but I fail to see what’s so offensive about Tebow. The guy wants to be an outspoken Christian, then let him. My only problem with outspoken Christians is when they use their religion to attack people and try to restrict the choices of people who may not be interested. To my knowledge, Tebow has not done that yet. So he is okay in my book.
Of course, I just have to point the hypocrisy of some of the Conservative defenders of Tebow’s freedom of expression. I bet a lot of them went crazy when Janet Jackson’s nipple appeared in a previous Superbowl, damaging their children’s mind forever with the sight of a perfectly normal part of a human body. Oh, the horror!
JosephW
January 11, 2012 - 9:44 pm
Rene, my biggest problem with Tebow is his blatant hypocrisy. He’s in complete violation of one of THE big commandments: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” Note, there aren’t any exceptions* to this Commandment, and certainly Tebow isn’t being paid to sit his ass on the sidelines and watch the game (which COULD let him get around the dictate). No, when he’s on the playing field, he’s WORKING. It wasn’t a problem when he was in college since most college games are played on Saturday but he made a decision to work in a profession that largely demands him to work on Sunday.
I’d also note that Tebow did make that commercial endorsement for Focus on the Family that aired during the Super Bowl. By giving tacit support to that awful group, well, I’d say that Tebow HAS used his religion to attack people.
I also wonder how many of the Tebow supporters would be as supportive of a devout Muslim player being as openly demonstrative of his faith?
*Okay, I’m guessing there’s an inherent exception for members of the clergy but I don’t see Timmy getting on the stadium speaker system and preaching to those in attendance. (Why do I get the feeling that if Tebow did actually do that the audience would quickly depart?)
Martha Thomases
January 12, 2012 - 7:13 am
My problem is less with Tim Tebow than the news media coverage of him. During the game we watched, the announcers must have said his name ever 15 seconds or so. Several weeks later, they did not invoke the name of Eli Manning as often.
Stupid liberal media.
Steve
January 12, 2012 - 2:29 pm
Clever spin on the Tebow story. Loved your “settling for some wrath.” Thanks for not disparaging him too much. People cant quite figure him out. Some like him because he is a good guy and they dont care that he is an average QB. Others dont like him because he is an average QB and gets too much media attention. And still others HATE him because he is all of the above – a good guy, an average QB and that he gets too much media attention. All of these are true, but how strange to hate someone for these reasons. And like you said, with all the f– up stuff happening in this world, is Tim Tebow really a problem for anyone? And really….a hypocrite? Come on Rene.
Rene
January 12, 2012 - 3:51 pm
When did I say Tebow was an hypocrite, Steve?
I’ve said many of his Conservative defenders are hypocrites, for running to support Tebow’s freedom of expression while going nuts if a female nipple appears on TV. I was not refering to Tebow himself.
Bill Mulligan
January 13, 2012 - 7:06 am
It shows you how far we have come as a society…the last time an athlete had this many people mad at him he had turned his ex-wife into a Pez dispenser. Now we are reduced to getting angry at guys who pray and help out orphans and kids with cancer. Clearly, we are in the midst of a genuine bad guy shortage, a golden age of do-goodery.
Steve
January 14, 2012 - 8:47 am
Rene, my apologies. My “wrath” was directed at Joseph W.
George Haberberger
January 14, 2012 - 12:58 pm
My greatest involvement with football is that I’m annoyed when 60 Minutes doesn’t start on time, so I was completely unaware of Tim Tebow’s actions and the controversy they have ignited. It seems unnatural and spurious for people like me, who apparently are not a football fans, to heckle Tebow during a post-game interview or even to be watching a post-game interview. To dislike him for his religious views is… well bigoted.
I have since learned a bit about Tebow. The hue and cry is that, (and this was Mr. Tebbel’s point also), is that God doesn’t care who wins football games and that Tebow’s actions imply that God has a hand in his team’s victories because Tebow is so openly religious.
Apparently Tebow isn’t praying to win; it is a gesture of thankfulness.
This is from writer Andrew Klavan, http://pjmedia.com/andrewklavan/:
“One of the most entertaining parts of the whole business for me was the way number 15?s simple and sincere faith in Jesus Christ reduced observing journalists to blithering idiocy. Retired QB great Fran Tarkenton’s rambling op-ed in this week’s Wall Street Journal was not the only venue where someone asked, “Does God Care Who Wins Football Games?” It seemed every time I turned on ESPN or opened the sports pages, someone was asking that question. But why? Tebow never said God cared about that—he expressly said God didn’t. Frankly I think journalists asked that question because they couldn’t bear to ask themselves the more obvious and more dangerous question: Does God care about Tebow’s decency, humility, charity and striving toward excellence? I don’t speak for God but I think deep down we all know the answer to that.”
And this from ESPN writer Rick Reilly, http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7455943/believing-tim-tebow:
“Every week, Tebow picks out someone who is suffering, or who is dying, or who is injured. He flies these people and their families to the Broncos game, rents them a car, puts them up in a nice hotel, buys them dinner (usually at a Dave & Buster’s), gets them and their families pregame passes, visits with them just before kickoff (!), gets them 30-yard-line tickets down low, visits with them after the game (sometimes for an hour), has them walk him to his car, and sends them off with a basket of gifts.
Home or road, win or lose, hero or goat.
Remember last week, when the world was pulling its hair out in the hour after Tebow had stunned the Pittsburgh Steelers with an 80-yard OT touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas in the playoffs? And Twitter was exploding with 9,420 tweets about Tebow per second? When an ESPN poll was naming him the most popular athlete in America?
Tebow was spending that hour talking to 16-year-old Bailey Knaub about her 73 surgeries so far and what TV shows she likes.
“Here he’d just played the game of his life,” recalls Bailey’s mother, Kathy, of Loveland, Colo., “and the first thing he does after his press conference is come find Bailey and ask, ‘Did you get anything to eat?’ He acted like what he’d just done wasn’t anything, like it was all about Bailey.”
A poster on Klavan’s site said this:
“I suspect that “Tebowing” is a humble man’s way of not getting too caught up in the emotion of the moment and keeping first things first. It’s roughly the equivalent of that slave who stood behind the conquering Caesar during his victory parade whispering into his ear “Sic transit gloria mundi” (lit. ‘Thus passes the glory of the world,” loosely translated as “all glory is fleeting.’)”
So this is a man to dislike and heckle when other football players participate in dog fighting and sexual assault? What must annoy people so much to do that? Is it Tebow or something more personal?
Martha Thomases
January 14, 2012 - 2:59 pm
Here’s what I dislike about Tebow: The coverage. I realize he can’t control that. Still, it’s infuriating: http://deadspin.com/5875622/espn-broke-its-own-record-by-making-160-tim-tebow-references-in-one-hour-of-sportscenter-here-are-all-of-them
George Haberberger
January 14, 2012 - 3:20 pm
Really? The media’s obsession with the latest bright shiny thing is infuriating? You’re going to be infuriated a lot. It’s an election year.
George Haberberger
January 14, 2012 - 3:48 pm
Not sure why my previous comment from around 1:00 PM today doesn’t appear on other computers. One the computer I posted from it says, ” Your comment is awaiting moderation.”
I;ve never seen that before, Well, at least not on this board. Is it because I included 2 URLs?
Rene
January 15, 2012 - 5:51 pm
Joseph,
I am disappointed to learn that Tebow has endorsed the creeps in FOTF. But lets criticize him for that, and not for being “too Christian” or “too public” with his faith.
As Liberals, we fight for the right of people to be themselves in public, right? That includes Evangelical Christians. I’m not American and I don’t watch American Football or its ads, and that is the first time I’ hear that Tebow has endorsed Focus on the Family. The criticism I’ve read on the Internet is all about how Tebow is annoying people by rubbing his Christian faith on their noses on TV.
Is that a lot different from Conservatives complaining when a gay celebrity is out and proud? Or an atheist is being vocal about his lack of religion? I’ve seen lots of Conservatives whining about gays “rubbing their sexuality on people’s noses” and other such bullshit.
It’s a disappointment to see Liberals doing the same.
Martha Thomases
January 16, 2012 - 6:53 am
Rene said, “Is that a lot different from Conservatives complaining when a gay celebrity is out and proud? ” Yes. Religion is a choice. Sexual orientation is not.
George Haberberger
January 16, 2012 - 8:15 am
“It’s a disappointment to see Liberals doing the same.”
Disappointing maybe, but not unexpected. When AMC Theaters screened the Sarah Palin documentary last summer, their website bulletin board was inundated with people vowing to boycott AMC unless they pulled the movie. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to see it, they didn’t want anyone else to see it either. As it turned out, they has little to worry about even though the documentary was very informative.
“Yes. Religion is a choice. Sexual orientation is not.”
But being vocal about either is a choice. Being heckled and disliked for choosing to be open about one’s faith is the same as being ridiculed for choosing to be open about one’s sexual orientation. It is intolerant.
And how long does a comment await moderation anyway?
Rene
January 16, 2012 - 6:25 pm
Martha, sexual orientation is determined by complex factors and not really a “choice”, but even if it were a choice, people should still be free to choose and be open about their choice of sleeping partners, again as long as everything is between consenting adults. Don’t you agree?
The same with religion.
Martha Thomses
January 17, 2012 - 2:03 pm
Never said Palin was not a person. Nor did I dis her for doing anything stereotypically female. I formed my opinion of her by watching her behavior on the public stage.
Reg
January 17, 2012 - 2:46 pm
“I would much rather you prove your existence by healing the sick or feeding the hungry than by influencing football games.”
Art, having been a witness to, participant of/in, both of these on multiple occasions, I’d definitely say…’He’s Good with That.’ With respect to Wrath? Hmmm, I’d opine that the caveat…’be careful what you ask for’ might be in order here. 😛
Dat’s all I got.
Now as far as TT is concerned, I totally agree with several posters…The media ran with what at all appearance was this young man’s personal (and as far as I’ve been able to glean, genuine) expression of thanks. No one laid on the ‘doity bird’, ‘superman pull’,machine gun’, arrow up, ground flop, displays, so why so much hype on this one? I have my suspicions, but suffice to say I think it has a lot to do with my opinion that this nation is nowhere near as ‘Christian’ as many secularists, atheists, and others seem to think that she is.