cently named a starter in the NFL for the first time, he led the Denver Broncos to a humiliating defeat. The Detroit Lions absolutely dismantled his squad in front of a jam packed Mile High Stadium in Denver.
The final score was 45-10, the game wasn’t even that close, and Tebow’s performance could only be described as abysmal. It was a stunning, though fairly predictable (I had money on Detroit, giving 3 at -$140) fall from grace that has occasioned an outpouring of serious schadenfreude.
One reason for all the vitriol flowing from many fans, and even other players, is a sense of vindication they felt with the debunking of a popular myth: that Tebow is a great quarterback. Anyone who understands the game realizes that while he was a great college quarterback, pro football is a very different game, and in the NFL he’s actually a god-awful quarterback.
Of course “god-awful” also gets to the crux of the other reason why many people hate Tebow. He is not just an earnest, fundamentalist evangelical Christian, but he’s quite in-your-face about it. He wears New Testament citations on his cheeks, speaks out against abortion, opposes pre-marital sex, fishes for converts at his father’s religious mission in the Philippines, and serves as a spokesman for the far right wing, anti-gay organization Focus on the Family.
But it’s not Tim Tebow’s religious faith and activity in and of itself that rile many people up. It’s his blatant religiosity. Unlike many players, who are content to point a finger up to the sky, end a game with a prayer circle, or begin a victorious post-game interview by thanking god, Tebow pu
blicly expresses his faith frequently and somewhat disjointedly. He is wont to crouch down into spontaneous prayer sessions at the drop of a hat, and with seeming disregard to whatever else might be going on around him.
So ubiquitous are his prayers, the image of Tebow on bended knee with fist to forehead has now become a source of giddy and widespread parody. What that says about Tebow himself is pretty inconsequential. Far more interesting, and perhaps telling, is what it might say about American attitudes regarding public displays of religiosity.
Public resentment recently crystalized around a Tebow-inspired spoof of planking, when a new website invented the art of Tebowing: spontaneously assuming the tell-tale prayer crouch in some odd place and at an incongruent moment. The website went viral among sports fans last week.
But Tebowing isn’t just about making fun of Tim Tebow. It’s also specifically a way to mock his religiosity, his frequent displays of Christian faith and devotion. And as such, it may very well mark a sea change in what the public deems acceptable when it comes to detached religiosity.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think the president is going to stop ending speeches with the phrase “God bless America” anytime soon. But a quick look at just how widespread the mockery of Tebow has become may shed some light on what many Americans really think about public religiosity.
Any clever website can go viral (well, maybe not this one), so it’s easy to dismiss Tebwoing as the fad of the week, which it certainly is. And it’s one thing for The Nation or T
he Onion to criticize and mock Tebow’s right wing politics and melodramatic religiosity. But commonplace resentment has gone way beyond that. He is now being openly ridiculed by his peers and even the NFL itself.
After Detroit linebacker Stephen Tulloch sacked Tebow during the 1st quarter of Sunday’s game, he dropped down to one knee and “Tebowed” over the crumpled Denver quarterback while he was still splayed across the field.
Rather than feigning indignity while watching a man’s religiosity be so mercilessly satirized in front of millions, the FOX television announcers actually had a good laugh about it. “You knew that was coming,” one of them chuckled.
When Detroit tight end Tony Scheffler “Tebowed” after catching a touchdown pass during the 2nd quarter, the announcers didn’t even bother commenting on it.
Perhaps most tellingly, even the notoriously right-wing NFL jumped on board. They showed both Tulloch’s and Scheffler’s plays on their website, asking viewers which version they preferred.
Christopher Hitchens, Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins and other celebrity atheists can be as snarky and snide as they like, but it doesn’t really matter because for the most part they’re just preaching to the choir. However, when a substantial portion of the nation gleefully bares its teeth while making fun of a celebrity’s religiosity, it says something about public discourse in America.
This isn’t just a smattering of bitter non-believers. There can be no doubt that many or most of the people who have had a good laugh at the expense of Tim Tebow’s religiosity actually believe in god themselves, and are most likely Christian. And that may very well portend a shift in cultural attitudes.
Perhaps the mainstream culture, while still largely respecting and even embracing religion, is beginning to openly critique the lunacy of whack job religiosity. Maybe many Americans are d
rawing a line between their own sense of faith and the actions of a home schooled extremist like Tim Tebow, who thinks gays and lesbian can be “cured,” and who runs around the world circumcising young boys.
Then again, Tebowing might just be a blip, 2011’s pet rock, a brief, shooting star cultural moment, unconnected to any larger trends. I could be wrong about all of it.
But hey. Ya gotta have faith.