Doing the Tebow
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Tebow's personal story is mythic. His mother was advised to seek an abortion early in her pregnancy with Tim. It has become part of Tebow lore that when he was safely delivered, despite a barely attached placenta, doctors called it a miracle. Like his four siblings, Tebow was homeschooled. No TV until they had memorized Scripture; no discussing their many sports victories unless someone asked about them. Through high school and college, he divided his time between football and ministry. He was so hotly recruited in high school, he was the subject of an ESPN documentary called "The Chosen One." At the University of Florida, he led fellow students in weekly Bible studies; preached in prisons, schools and hospitals; ushered the team to a national championship; and won the Heisman Trophy.
With the Broncos this year, he led the team to a series of dazzling fourth-quarter victories before ending the regular season with three consecutive losses. The run of last-minute triumphs catapulted Tebow to even broader fame beyond the world of sports. At the 2010 National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, Tebow offered the closing prayer: "Thank you for bringing together so many people that have a platform to influence people for you." Platform is a big word with Tebow: it comes up again and again in his public remarks and in his memoir Through My Eyes. Tebow is onto something. The preaching of the Gospel--the living of the Gospel--is moving from pulpit to platform, from church to culture. The next Billy Graham, if there could be such a thing, may come not from the ranks of traditional preachers or ministers but from sports or entertainment. If the measure of evangelistic activity is the number of eyes and ears one reaches, then Tebow is possibly a much more influential Christian messenger than any active Protestant cleric. When Tebow put JOHN 3: 16 in his eye black during a University of Florida game, he set off 92 million Google searches for the Scripture reference. His Twitter feed--full of Bible verses and his signature symbol, GB2 (God Bless + Go Broncos = GB[superscript 2])--spreads an Evangelical message to some 800,000 followers, as his Facebook page does to 1.3 million subscribers.
And no matter what happens in the playoffs, he is now a verb. To Tebow is to get down on one knee and start praying even if everyone else around you is doing something completely different. People have Tebowed at weddings and on Afghan mountaintops. In December four Long Island high school students were suspended after 40 other students joined them in Tebowing on campus. (Administration officials deemed it a safety hazard.)
There is also the inevitable backlash. The like-minded (or like-cultured) adore him. Bill Maher and Saturday Night Live don't. Maher tweeted "Wow, Jesus just f---ed #TimTebow bad! And on Xmas Eve!" after the Broncos lost to Buffalo last month. SNL put on a sketch featuring Jesus pleading with the Broncos to "meet me halfway out there." Within moments, the Fox News Channel and the usual conservative suspects fired back, and so on and so on, world without end. A self-described virgin, Tebow inspired an Orlando radio station to launch a "Get Tebow Laid" campaign. Between the "I Hate Tim Tebow" Facebook pages and Tebowhaters.com the hostility toward Tebow's overt religiosity is viral.