Famed religious scholar Mircea Eliade created the concept of hierophanies. According to Eliade, hierophanies were earthly manifestations of the sacred, which proved a certain religions relationship with God. I bring up this academic concept to add a sense of loftiness to the otherwise pugilistic discussion of the NFL and because I think it's a good paradigm to talk about Bronco's Quarterback Tim Tebow. Tebow, for those who don't know, is a former Florida Quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner who's well known for both his unorthodox style on the football field and his orthodox Christian beliefs. He's also led the Bronco's to a 7-1 record at Quarterback, many of those wins coming via a comeback. He's doing this despite the protestations of many NFL pundits who laughed him off because of his strange throwing motion.
Religion and sports are inextricably tied, athletes are constantly thanking God for their successes. But even though there are many overtly religious athletes, Tim Tebow has become a unique lightening rod. Partially this is because he takes his religion off the field, in 2009 he appeared in a Focus on the Family antiabortion ad that ran during the Superbowl. Because of his religiosity, Tebow has become a lightening rod. It seems that either you think that he's the only son of God sent down to save the Denver Bronco's playoff hopes and inspire the masses to once again have faith, or you see him as the embodiment of everything that's wrong with American hyperreligiosity.
What makes Tebow so interesting, at least to me, is how his form seems to mirror his function. If Tebow was simply a dominant athlete, shredding defenses ala Aaron Rodgers on the way to blowout victories, he would be blandly interesting. The punditry would talk about his skills as a Quarterback and little else. Instead he seems to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat every week in increasingly improbable ways. Returning back to the concept of hierophanies, these unlikely victories seem to reveal a special relationship with a higher power, the miraculous nature of his wins confirms that his religion is valid and that God is favoring him. Every week, as the inevitable Tebow comeback begins, people flock to twitter to snarkily tweet that if Tebow pulls off yet another comeback, they'll go to church on Sunday, and then when he actually does it they're left feeling uneasy, wondering what the heck just happened.
This is not to say that I believe that God is actually helping the Denver Broncos win football games, or even that Tim Tebow is a good quarterback. Many of Tebow's wins owe relatively little to his skills. The Denver Bronco's defense has been playing very well and they've played fairly weak teams. But each week it seems they get some lucky bounce, be it a 59 yard field goal, or an onside kick recovery, or a fluky fumble when it seems Marion Barber is gonna end the game with a walk off touchdown run. The three examples I just gave, all took place with Tebow on the sidelines, genuflecting. But isn't that how faith works to some degree, you put your fate in God's hands and let him handle the dirty work.
I'm uniquely qualified to write about Tim Tebow, because he's victimized me. It was week 11, my favorite team, the New York Jets was playing the Broncos. Denver's offense had been stagnant all night, with their only touchdown coming via an interception return. The Jet's punted with about 6 minutes left and downed it on about the 5 yard line, forcing Tebow to have to lead a 95 yard drive against the vaunted Jet's defense. As the Jets missed tackle after tackle, and Tebow completed one improbable pass after another, I got a sick feeling in my stomach. The Denver crowd was going bananas and the Jets were playing scared, I realized that Tebow's success was about faith. Not his faith in Jesus, but rather Denver's faith in him and the oppositions lack of faith in themselves. With Tebow a comeback is a fait accompli, both teams are waiting for the game to break in Denver's favor, and yesterday for the 7th time in 8 weeks, it did.
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