I had made myself a promise that I wasn’t going to write a column about Tim Tebow. Mainly because everyone with the possible exception of my German Shorthair has written something about Tim Tebow. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a Bengals fan.
All hope for me ended last Saturday.
On a similar note, my wife, who was born in Pittsburgh, is a die hard Steelers fan, owns a Terrible Towel and her own jersey. She may have been the only person in the intermountain west who was not rooting for the Broncos on Sunday.
Well, that’s not entirely true.
One of newspapers I read today carried a column ripping Tebow for his public display of faith and making snide remarks about whether or not God favors Tebow or the Broncos.
So I was giving this some thought on the way home: Why does the left wing and its media hate Tim Tebow so much?
Now before you lefties start in on me about being an old stodgy, white Christian Conservative, let me explain to you that I am 45 years old. For 42 of those years I was I committed left-wing Democrat. Yes, I used to be one of you.
A little exposition: As a liberal living in what is arguably one of the most conservative area of the most conservative state in the Union, I normally kept my socio-political beliefs to myself.
But I was most keenly aware of the difference between myself and my neighbors when matters of the military and patriotism surfaced.
As a liberal I had been raised to believe that the military was an evil entity; and that the Pledge of Allegiance, the Star Spangled Banner and the virtue of love of country was something reserved for people less intellectually advanced than I and people like me.
I was too erudite and too educated, and too cultured to honor the men and women serving the nefarious Republican Agenda overseas; too globally aware to put my hand over my heart, too smart to even bother to read the Constitution, let alone advocate for it.
The problem was I envied those people who did not consider themselves so bright and so wonderful that love of country was beneath them. And so when people would wear their American Flag lapel pins, and do things to support the troops, I found myself slouching in the corner, trying to convince myself that I was of a higher order of intelligence than those dupes wrapping themselves in the flag.
I wanted to feel that love of country that they felt, instead of the hollow, empty feeling I got when I sat at home listening to NPR reminding myself that I was higher on the political and intellectual evolutionary scale than those folks with yellow ribbons on their homes and “Support Our Troops“ bumper stickers.
I was wrong of course.
The only thing I possessed that they did not was a smug self righteous attitude, seasoned with a few smart aleck remarks about the low IQ’s of conservatives. The problem with that is that smart aleck remarks don’t get you very far in this world.
The Tebow bashers would never admit it, but what really bothers them is not that God is on Tebow’s side, but that Tebow is on God’s side.
And it makes them cringe that he is successful.
Tebow credits the Lord with his success but does not believe that the Lord blesses his every play on the field. In fact,
Tebow’s success comes from a faith that has instilled respect, a good work ethic, and a desire to do his best for his God in every endeavor.
And it comes from acknowledging that there is a God that is greater than the State, The Collective or even Man, or Overman as Nietzsche would say; and that we owe that God our obedience and our best.
In a day and age in which everything is driven by ego, Tebow’s success may be an uncomfortable reminder to the naysayers that they are not as brilliant as they think they are.
If the Broncos lose today, the Tebow-bashers will have a field day shredding him and his faith.
I’ll wager that won’t matter to Tim Tebow one whit.
Nor to Tebow’s God.
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