Christian Football??

    We are selective about living up to our principles.  All of us.
    We don't judge books by their covers -- but we notice that  the man down the street wears terribly cheap clothes. His carelessness of appearance must say something about him.  Mustn't it?
    We believe that people's marital relationships are personal and private -- but we're aware that a colleague's daughter is including the word "obey" in her upcoming marriage vows. In this day and time? Really?
    We admire a willingness to question tradition and try new ways -- but the couple on the next block are so militantly avante garde in their parenting that we wonder (along with others, we learn in neighborhood chitchat) if their children are getting anything like proper guidance.
    We are selective about living up to our principles.  All of us.
     So we should be cautious of casting stones at Tim Tebow for being selective about his. Tebow is a professional football quarterback. He is also an assertively self-proclaimed Christian who plays a violent game on the Christian Sabbath for sums of money surpassing a widow's mite by tens of millions.
    When public figures make a point of calling themselves Christians, we infer purpose beyond a mere declaration of personal belief. We anticipate -- and are meant to -- evangelistic behavior and conservative views on such litmus-test social issues as abortion.
    Tebow fills this bill. He is such a vivid example that, in some circles, his name is more than one kind of household word. His posture in kneeling for prayer on the football field has been widely called "Tebowing." He finally trademarked the term. Just wanted to be sure it's "used in the right way," he said.
   Of course Tebow is not alone in dragging religion into secular venues. Nowadays we have Christian celebrities and celebrity Christians and even (may we say "heaven help us" at this juncture?) Christian politicians.
    And there's the local parson who offers up a prayer before the big high school game.  Or the mom and pop enterprise down the street that calls itself a Christian business. (My town has a Christian furniture store.)
    Want Christian sex toys?  The Internet offers dozens of sources.   How about Christian professional wrestling?  Two full-blown circuits are grappling for God.
    People who strike religious poses to sell dildos can simply be considered beneath comment.
    On other points: Appearances suggest that Tebow may be utterly and terribly sincere -- a naive young man who sees no presumption in claiming to be a brand name for prayer.  Benefit of the doubt also can be given to that local parson. He is a man of the cloth, after all, even if he sees no irony in inviting divine attention to a contest that is the antithesis of turning the other cheek.
    Perhaps that Christian merchant means only to say that he won't cheat or gouge. And no offense is meant, surely, by people who pray aloud in restaurants.  Or by cashiers who say "God bless you" to customers whose religious sensibilities they cannot know.
    By the bigshots who use celebrity to push their chosen form of religion, and by the ordinary folks who plaster muddy, tattered "Jesus saves" bumper stickers on their cars, we are reminded that even good intentions can produce bad results. A religion-on-every-corner ethic adulterates values. Casual displays of religiosity, like other rote declarations of affection, trivialize their object.
    People of faith should regret this. And others would be mistaken to consider it only an intramural matter.  When religion is trivialized, a bar is lowered. Over it step people who are willing to put a religious veneer on secular agendas. Yes, alas, a few of our politicians do seem actually to believe that God is on their side.  The rest, we may reasonably suspect, see advantage in claiming a divine mandate for their opionions. It marvelously short-circuits any obligation to deal forthrightly with differing points of view. I'm right, you're wrong, end of discussion.
    We are all diminished when the adulteration of values becomes a value in itself. And the country is sadly polarized when people -- innocently or otherwise -- confuse their personal outlook with revealed truth.