(Host) Commentator Bill Mares has been reflecting on religion in public life, in the post-Tebow age.
(Mares) Now that Tebow-mania has died
down, after a crushing Denver Broncos loss to the NE Patriots, rabid secularists can exhale. Tim Tebow, the Denver
star whom the New York Times called "a Quarterback, a Winner, a TV Draw, and a
Verb" became famous more for his PDR’s – Public Displays of Religion – than for
his razzle-dazzle play. His kneeling in prayer at game’s end was modeled and mocked
across the country. He wore Biblical verses on the blacking below his eyes.
John 3:16 and Phillipians 4:13 were among his favorites. But Tim Tebow’s expressions of
public faith seem harmless to me, when compared with the politicians and
religious leaders who stir a collective witch’s brew of fundamentalist beliefs
and political intolerance.
This is not limited to Christianity, of course. In my high school history classes I showed a
fascinating Frontline film called GOD FIGHTS BACK which compared the rise of
the religious right in American politics to the Ayatollah’s Shia’ revolution in
Iran – both during the 1970’s.
As a member of one Protestant
denomination, I’m offended that some fundamentalists have hijacked the very
word Christian to imply that they have some special relationship with God.
Candidates make pilgrimages to fundamentalist assemblies to pass their religious
litmus tests. So how refreshing it is to read what Catholic
candidate John F. Kennedy told Baptist ministers who worried he would be overly
beholden to the Pope. He said: "Whatever issue may come before me as president – on birth control, divorce,
censorship, gambling or any other subject – I will make my decision… in
accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and
without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or
threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise."
Andrew Bacevic, a professor at
Boston University, is critical of many fundamentalists for clothing our
national purpose with divine will, and for creating, as he puts it: "a new
chosen people serving as God’s instrument of salvation, leading humankind
onward to the promised land."
Even after four agonizing
years of civil war, Abraham Lincoln saw the peril and pretense of invoking the Almighty for our puny
human ends. In his second inaugural speech he said:
"Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid
against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just
God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces;
but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be
answered – that of neither has been answered fully."
And now a confession. Once, before running a marathon,
I wrote "2 Timothy 4:7" on my chest, thinking I would strip off my shirt at the
finish line to reveal my Biblical boost: I have fought a good fight, I have
finished my race, I have kept the faith." But when I crossed the line I was so
exhausted that I completely forgot. Thank the Lord!