Monday, August 20, 2012

Tim Tebow is Courageous!

I love ESPN Radio. I listen to Mike and Mike in the Morning, The Herd, and The Scott van Pelt Show on a pretty religious basis. However, I get annoyed frequently by the fact that there are certain teams which could be considered 'favorites' based on the amount of time they spend talking about them. I tweeted this annoyance a while back with regards to the Boston Red Sox. Now that it is football season, my annoyance has moved to the New York Jets.

The fact that they spend an inordinate amount of time talking about the Jets means that they also spend an inordinate amount of time talking about back-up quarterback Tim Tebow. Note: I wrote 'back-up.' He's not even the starter, and yet he gets more air time than arguably ANY of the starters in the NFL. Now don't get me wrong, I like Tim Tebow. And that's difficult for me to admit, considering I am an Ohio State fan (see the 2007 BCS National Championship). He's a great guy and seems to be a strong Christian, which I think garners him the amount of press that he receives, but by most accounts, he is a below-average QB. And yet, he gets way more attention than just about everybody else in the NFL.

I think it's similar to 'Christian' movies. Several movies have been produced by Christians in recent years and have been released in mainstream movie theaters. They tend to garner a lot of press and conversation in the circles I find myself in because they are 'Christian' and promote good values. I remember someone talking about one such movie, Courageous, calling it amazing! So I watched it with high expectations. And while I valued what the movie promoted, it was NOT a good movie (if you think I'm being harsh, it currently has a 32% rating on RottenTomatoes.com, which qualifies it is a rotten tomato). It simply promoted good values, but as a work of art, it was subpar.

I think in many ways, Tim Tebow is Courageous. We like to talk about him because there is a large group of people who like what he stands up for. As a result, they are unable to see the fact that he can't throw an out pattern to save his life. I'm all for putting forth good role models, but let's not talk about them like they are relevant or outstanding in a particular field when it is clear that they are not. I'm all for promoting good morals, but do we have to use bad art to do it? Let's discuss things in their proper context. Let's not call a movie 'amazing' because it has good morals, and let's not discuss endlessly on sports talk radio a back-up (at best) QB because he is a nice guy.

What do you think? Does Tim Tebow get too much press? What is your take on 'Christian' movies?

2 comments:

Mark said...

While I'm not as passionate about sports as you are, I am as passionate about Jesus. And the problem with the lifting up of Tim Tebow is the possible letdown if he screws up. He'll get hate mail for being human, and people who want to call out Christians as hypocrites will have another example of how we're not perfect.

I agree with you about Christian movies...as a movie fan (who feels about movies the way you feel about sports), I can appreciate and respect what many of these Christian film makers are going for, and I applaud their efforts. But what if instead of trying to make Christian entertainment they just strove to entertain and created something family friendly that didn't try to do convert?

And as believers we need to be cautious about thinking that these films can create change in the lives of non believers, simply because we WANT them do. No matter how much I WANT my nephew to love Star Wars like I do, it probably won't happen. And no matter how much we WANT Courageous to be respected like The Godfather it's not going to happen. By all means let's support Christian entertainment, but let's not expect too much out of it. It's JUST entertainment. If we want our neighbor to come to know Christ it's not going to be as easy as saying 'watch this dvd!'. There's no substitute for relationship building and personally sharing YOUR faith.

Unknown said...

Nice one!
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