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Why Tebow bothers me...
Dec. 15th, 2011 03:05 pm...and it isn't just the whole "Thanking God When We Win" (as if God really cares who wins a football game).
This is not true Christianity. This is wearing the label of Christianity on as a badge of honor, praised upon by others in a show of pure, raw tribalism.
This is what God truly commanded us NOT to do when we were ordered (by those very Commandments these people want to put up in every American courthouse, in spite of the dubious Constitutionality of them) to "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.". That is what he and others are doing, they are wearing God's name as a vanity (the true meaning of this term), and as such he is in my opinion setting a bad, very UN-Jesus-like example to his fans.
And yeah, I have a problem with that. People like him are the reason I have overtly declared (in spite of my faith, such as it is), that I am not a 'Christian' anymore. I refuse to wear the same label as they choose to own and control and wield as a tool to control others. They can have it.
When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. When you pray, don't babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. (Matthew 6:5-6:9)The problem isn't that he is a Christian. The problem is that he is going out of his way to make a display of the fact that he is a Christian, and then he is reaped praises by the evangelicals for his display of faith. Yet these same Evangelicals would condemn a player in the harshest of terms if he happened to be Muslim and decided that in the middle of a game he was going to make a display of praying towards Mecca.
This is not true Christianity. This is wearing the label of Christianity on as a badge of honor, praised upon by others in a show of pure, raw tribalism.
This is what God truly commanded us NOT to do when we were ordered (by those very Commandments these people want to put up in every American courthouse, in spite of the dubious Constitutionality of them) to "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.". That is what he and others are doing, they are wearing God's name as a vanity (the true meaning of this term), and as such he is in my opinion setting a bad, very UN-Jesus-like example to his fans.
And yeah, I have a problem with that. People like him are the reason I have overtly declared (in spite of my faith, such as it is), that I am not a 'Christian' anymore. I refuse to wear the same label as they choose to own and control and wield as a tool to control others. They can have it.
