Three Ugly Truths Exposed by the Tebow Assault

December 27, 2011
By Timothy Gordon

The ongoing imbroglio with Denver Bronco quarterback Tim Tebow has made plain three really unflattering facts about the secular-progressive ("sec-prog") movement in this country. Tebow's straightforward and unapologetic Christianity has been received by NFL mensae magnae (contradiction in terms?) as a type of threat. These folks have responded by building upon the previously gathered strength of the anti-Christian movement in this nation. Such a movement, by the way, is far more prevalent than it formerly appeared.

First truth: the sec-progs have meatier game in sight than we used to think. That is, when sec-progs start out declaring that they aim merely to set a plain whereupon all religions can fairly "coexist," they really contemplate an end-game where religions fade permanently out of view. Have a look at the emergent history of the jurisprudence: "No federal religion" became "no state religions"; this became "no government entanglement with religion"; this became "no governmental support for religion"; this became "no governmental mention of religion"; this led to the phase that the Tebow debacle currently evinces: "no popular mention of religion in any public sphere, including private affairs which get viewed on TV." One can easily imagine the last few steps in this phenomenology of disappearance.

Coming back to Tebow, let's remember that his comparatively subtle iconographic decorum has managed to stir up the hornets' nest to a startling degree: recent betrayals by active (Lions players Stephen Tulloch and Tony Scheffler) and especially retired (Merrill Hodge and Jake Plummer) players lack all response-to-stimulus proportionality and sound more like personal defensive responses to some governmental actor threatening the players' own religious liberty. That is, all such ugliness over Tebow taking to his own knee in thanks, or occasionally mentioning the J-word after a game, exposes a fetid, rotten sort of secularism at the heart of what most popular accounts -- derivative largely of the accounts by complete outsiders to the sports world, the sacerdotal order of pale, effeminate, urban-dwelling media-poseurs -- name "America's game." the rest