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Faith, Football, and an Advertisement

February 3rd, 2010 by Administrator

I am a football fan. Undoubtably, Superbowl is celebrated as a major holiday in my family, and the traditions of having big parties, devising an enormous technical contraption for a big screen TV and making the trip to CostCo for those big bags of chips will remain for a while.

Superbowl advertisements is another huge tradition within the superbowl culture, and a lot of controversies arise from them. And this year, like other years, there’s a controversy on an advertisement that is to air in a few days.

Tim Tebow, perhaps the most famous college football player in the last few years and a vocal believer, is making a stance against abortion. Tebow’s mother was very ill during her pregnancy and the doctors advised her to abort the baby. She refused. A few months later, Tim was born.

Putting our political views aside, we must take a deep look at Tim’s approach to football and his career. He faces an uncertain future in the NFL (many pundits say that he won’t be playing in the NFL) yet he has so many ways he could make easy money with his fame. Despite that, he used his time and his platform to stand for something he believed in. He took a stance on his view on abortion, and he put his future, his popularity, and his platform in jeopardy.

Then we see how we approach our jobs and careers. Often we “sell out” on our faith in Christ to gain ground in our careers and money. If we are honest with ourselves, we often keep our faith and our profession as far away from each other as possible so that our faith doesn’t ruin our career. In fact, we are so worried about our faith ruining our professional standing that we pre-emptively shoot down any sign of our faith. Think about the last time someone cursed God in your office. Think about your last time at the pub. Don’t we protect our career from our faith?

Most of us laugh at the “John 3:16” verses in the sporting events. Heck, I don’t even like Tim Tebow showing a verse on his eye black! But, at least they aren’t afraid of letting the world know about their devotion to Christ.

To read more about Tim Tebow’s commercial and one sportswriter’s view on it, please click here.