If you haven't heard the name "Tim Tebow" already today, you're not keeping your ear to at least two different grounds: 1. sports: he is the quarterback who, in the last month, turned the Denver Broncos 180 degrees around in the American Football Conference; and 2. religion: he is the born-again Christian who began the now-worldwide craze of "tebowing"-genuflecting, à la Rodin's Thinker (except with fisted hand to forehead, not chin). Every time Tim Tebow, the quarterback, rescues the Broncos from yet another certain defeat (as he did last weekend-again!), Tim Tebow, the Christian, himself tebows, fist bent to forehead on bended knee, and thanks God for the ability to do what he did. Or something.
He makes a major American newscast every day, with people pillorying or praising him for his open show of faith. On Tuesday, he was one of the topics discussed in the Professionals segment of NBC's Today show, but google "Tim Tebow" right this moment and you're likely to find media hits only hours or minutes old. Google "tebowing," click on "Images," and you'll find pictures of people around the world imitating his posture in odd places; tebowing is this week's planking.But the discussion of Tebow (and of lower-case-t tebowing) is likely to last longer than the usual ten-day wonder and spread beyond American football and North America, and to get far more heated; because the individual, Tebow, is a media dream: a sports figure at the apex of a moneymaking structure who can attract paying customers from both sides of the political divide; he's like OJ Simpson without the blood-stains.
But, even though I'm aware that Tebow (and tebowing) will take up attention all over, I can't get with the programme myself. If I did get into the argument, I'd probably agree with whoever suggested religion is a private matter and ought to be separated from state and stadiums alike; it's the least you'd expect from a man who once infamously contemplated urinating upon Muslims praying at the Oval.But that's not what intrigues me about tebowing. (Tebow himself is interesting to me as a Broncos supporter, but only mildly; I haven't followed the team, or the sport, since John Elway finally won his Super Bowl.)No, what makes me wonder-and not for the first time-is how tebowing is supposed to work: what is it, exactly, that Tebow is tebowing about?Put another way, what the fire-truck is God doing in American football? Not Tebow-we know he is scoring touchdowns and te-bowing. What is God doing on the old gridiron? Even if He doesn't have a particularly busy Monday night, does God have nothing better to do on any given Sunday? Like, maybe, go to church and be worshipped and sung to and cure people with incurable diseases and make them speak in tongues and so on? Is God so idle that He can find his way to Mile High Stadium every other week, just to oversee Tebow's forward passes? (Which passes, in any case, I am told seem to be more devilish.)
If this wretched, optimistic thing we call "prayer" doesn't work for really important things, like preventing hurricanes, earthquakes and floods, how is it supposed to work to change the outcome of a sporting event? Does God have Mafia ties? (Actually, it would seem God and gambling are not entirely disconnected: Pakistan, one of two openly "religious" teams in world cricket-the other is Bangladesh, the other Muslim ear on the face of the Indian subcontinent-has had national players "underperforming" at the direction of bookmakers.) If God doesn't lift a finger to save believers from dying-and we know He doesn't, for His own churches collapse and crush His praying faithful inside to death-why should He find time to save the Broncos from going oh-and-six?Even if you could stretch God's plan for the universe to include a last-minute adjustment in Denver that forces an opposing player to stumble out of bounds and stop the clock, why should God do it for Tebow? What is it about Te-bow that makes God so pleased that he rewards him and not, say, the Nortre Dame quarterback praying just as fervently, but perhaps not quite so publicly? What does Tebow as an individual have that the Pakistani cricket team as a group could not muster in the last Lords Test in August, when England, um, crucified them by an innings and 225 runs?
Even if people are foolish enough to believe that Jesus is a stronger god than Allah or vice versa, or that the Rastas are wrong and the Hindus, right-and, sadly, they are-how does divine support work between two teams of the same faith? Why should Allah favour Pakistan over Bangladesh, or Jesus France v Spain at the World Cup?Perhaps sports teams should give some thought to having live animal mascots at each game, and sacrificing them in blood rituals at half-time; who knows, it might have a more positive effect than, say, a Joe Paterno pep talk.Though there are some-the very most stupid and desperate of us-who are still fighting the Crusades, most people are sensible enough to have let go of the concept that anyone could have God on his side, George Dubya Bush and Iraq notwithstanding. What is it about us, or about sport, that makes us think, even for the purposes of idle discussion, that a Tebow or a tebow can really make a firetruck of a difference to God?
BC Pires is prayingfor a T-bone steak
