Form over Function & Promotion over Devotion: The Tebow Buffoonery

“Oh look! Little Timmy is praying again. He has assumed the position. He is so devout!”

“Tim threw for three hundred and sixteen yards against the Steelers - 316 - as in John 3:16, it’s a miracle, it’s God speaking though him!”

Tweets fill the airways exhorting Tim Tebow’s divinely driven drives. Pundits hail him as the missing link of the Trinity (the “Quad-rinity?”). Surely he is in Gawd’s good graces, for how else could a mediocre quarterback with an 8-8 record find himself in the play offs, facing the 13- 3 Patriots (other than due to the remarkably contrived NFL method of selecting play off finalists based entirely on maximizing the league’s post regular season financial revenues)?

I don’t care much about football. I’ll watch a few games a year and the Super Bowl, but otherwise who wins a sporting event is largely unimportant to me. What I do care about is having mindless, raging, ranting, religious idiocy thrust upon me on the radio, TV, internet, and newspapers every weekend, and through the week, day and night for the entire football season. The coup de gras was this display of mass "Tebowing" by the insipid CBS sports casters after the game. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/08/tim-tebow-cbs-crew-tebowing-broncos-steelers_n_1192995.html

I’m disgusted. Oh, not just the kneeling head on hand pose hype and its millions of imitators who by now should be considered as cool as a high five, although that’s annoying enough. It’s not just the speculation by talking heads and religious fanatics about how god favor’s the Bronco’s, and how it is guiding Tebow’s plays and destiny. Nope. I’m used to religious hysteria and fads adopted by the mentally deficient.

What really gets my goat is that no one seems to speak out on the one thing that should be obvious to any student of the bible, and certainly could not be lost on the Xtian clergy. It remains unspoken by the sports talking heads because they are ignorant, or afraid to brooch it. And the clergy won’t address it because they indirectly are beneficiaries of the whole silly fiasco.

What I’m talking about is this- Matthew 6:5-6, Jebus’ own words:
"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

Tebow is the quintessential example of precisely the hypocrisy Jebus spoke of. Hell, how less private can you be than taking every opportunity to pray before millions of people to demonstrate your devout holiness? Tebow puts the hip in hypocrisy.

So, where are the admonishments against this obvious ignoring of their man-god’s directive? Where is the outrage from the bible banging fundies or from the clergy who should be chastising him for what is tantamount to un-Christian behavior and denial of the savior’s word? I’ll tell you where it is.

For the bible banging Christian fanatics it’s lost among the other things they cherry pick to accept or ignore. You know, like how they ignore the admonishments of Jebus to observe the 613 laws of the Hebrew Bible until his second coming and “all is accomplished”. They prefer Paul’s edict that those laws are no longer necessary... it’s easier. It’s ignored like they ignore the kosher laws Jebus said should be kept while they happily eat pig and shrimp; yet feverently cling hard and fast to the homophobic laws of the Old Testament. No surprise there, it's institutionalized Xtian hypocrisy.

Tebow is seen by his flock as a general in the army of this nation’s Xtian soldiers. The defender of the 76% Xtian population leading the good fight against the minority 12% - 16% godless heathens who have been “persecuting” them aided by "Obama's war on religion” Rick Perry touts.

As for the Clergy - they know the public prayer thing is not right. But much like the Islamic clerics who remain silent in the face of fanatic Islamic terrorist actions, the pastors and preachers see no benefit in standing up for scripture and against popular appeal. Afterall, what’s in it for them? Fact is, they love the advertising, the promotion of Xtianity that Tebow’s hypocrisy generates. It’s their business and they aren’t paying a dime for the national exposure. They are the Pharisees who epitomize hypocrisy by turning a blind eye to this trespass, while professing their love and respect for scripture... “God’s own word.” They will remain silent and laugh up their sleeves.

Tebow will go on with his pious showmanship born of his parents having steeped his brain in religious foolishness, that’s for sure. But how much longer will we have to endure the mimicry of his mindless followers; his being hailed as Jebus’ representative in the NFL; the invoking of the divine for every pass completion or first down by sports pundits; and his elevation to demigod by religionists whose entire familiarity with scripture is limited to whatever chapter and verse gets painted onto Tebow’s eye black?

That answer will be determined primarily by whether or not the Bronco’s get into and win the Super Bowl, and secondarily by whether my prayers to Moloch to have both his ACLs severed works out.