A Word for 2012: New Leadership, New Boldness and New Provision - J. Lee Grady

As I have prayed about the coming year, I’ve sensed three clear directives.


Some people are terrified of 2012. They worry because the Mayans of ancient Mexico mysteriously ended their 5,126-year-old calendar on Dec. 21, 2012—as if they expected the world to end that day. This silly hypothesis became the basis for several New Age books and a goofy disaster movie, 2012, in which actor John Cusack avoids meteors and earthquakes just in time to get his family aboard the modern version of Noah’s ark (built in China!) before the rest of the world is destroyed by a tsunami.
I’m not afraid of 12/21/12 because (1) Ancient Mayans never actually said the world would end in 2012—and even if they did, they didn’t have an inside track to God; (2) Doomsday predictions have never been accurate; and (3) Jesus holds the future in his hands. As long as I’m in relationship with Him, it doesn’t matter what happens on earth. I’m secure.


Despite strange weather patterns, global terrorism and the specter of an economic crash, I’m actually optimistic about where we’re headed in 2012. And as I have prayed about the coming year, I’ve sensed these three clear directives:


1. Expect major transitions in kingdom leadership. The world is focused on leadership in the political arena, but God has been working behind the scenes preparing men and women for kingdom assignments. Our focus should not be on Democrats, Republicans, Obama or Romney. 2012 is not about a presidential contest. Just as David was prepared for the throne during years of testing in the wilderness, a new battalion of Christian leaders has been trained in obscurity. They will be commissioned and appointed in the new year. And their influence—not that of a political figure—will shift the nation.


Jesus said He would call the humble from the back row and seat them at the head table. He openly rewards those who pray, fast, give and serve in secret. God will exalt those who have walked with Him in faithfulness and crucified selfish ambition. As in the days of Elijah, He has reserved thousands of prophets who have not bowed their knee to Baal. They have been in isolated caves of preparation for years, and some have been on the verge of quitting. A wind of new strength will cause them to stand and assume their positions.


2. The sound of evangelism must be amplified. The prophet Isaiah said: “Get yourself up on a high mountain, O Zion, bearer of good news, lift up your voice mightily, O Jerusalem, bearer of good news; Lift it up, do not fear. Say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’” (Isa. 40:9). Just as the early disciples prayed for boldness in the midst of persecution, and the Lord answered with a supernatural earthquake (see Acts 4:29-31), the Lord wants to turn up the volume of our message and empower us with a spirit of might. We must put aside our timidity. We cannot hide our light under a basket.
Many churches in the United States have not made outreach a priority. We’ve catered to the saved and preached to the choir. The Holy Spirit wants to remodel and revamp weak churches and make them into powerhouses of spiritual impact. He can take a church with a four-cylinder engine and outfit it with eight; He can turn up the volume and cause a quiet congregation to shake a city. In 2012, expect small churches to be revitalized. God specializes in using small armies, like Gideon’s group of 300, to catch the enemy by surprise.


3. Supernatural provision will be released. The great recession has brought heartache and difficulty to families, companies and churches, but it has a silver lining: God has used it to purify motives, refine faith and refocus priorities. The Holy Spirit has exposed our materialism, and His fire has also consumed unhealthy prosperity doctrines that tainted the church with scandal and greed.


Today, a new passion is arising in the church to fight injustice, feed the poor, show compassion to the broken and share Jesus’ love with unreached nations. We’re tired of giving money to support charlatans who demand private jets and luxury treatment; we want to serve the orphan and the widow in the spirit of Christ. And we are asking God for His supply, knowing that if God can feed a multitude with one lunch, or provide for a family with one jar of oil, He can open sources of provision we never knew existed.


Missionary Hudson Taylor said: “God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.” I pray you will experience this truth in 2012.


Isaiah 66:9 says: “Shall I bring to the point of birth and not give delivery? … Or shall I who gives delivery shut the womb?” Don’t fear the future. Receive new strength from the Lord as you step into this new year. No matter what disappointments or delays you have encountered during the past season, don’t give up. God brought you to this point, and He will not fail you now.


J. Lee Grady is the former editor of Charisma and the director of The Mordecai Project(themordecaiproject.org). You can follow him on Twitter at leegrady.


via: Charisma

Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodotus, by C.S. Lewis

And beyond this there lies in the ocean, turned towards the west and north, the island of Niatirb which Hecataeus indeed declares to be the same size and shape as Sicily, but it is larger, though in calling it triangular a man would not miss the mark. It is densely inhabited by men who wear clothes not very different from the other barbarians who occupy the north western parts of Europe though they do not agree with them in language. These islanders, surpassing all the men of whom we know in patience and endurance, use the following customs.

In the middle of winter when fogs and rains most abound they have a great festival which they call Exmas and for fifty days they prepare for it in the fashion I shall describe. First of all, every citizen is obliged to send to each of his friends and relations a square piece of hard paper stamped with a picture, which in their speech is called an Exmas-card. But the pictures represent birds sitting on branches, or trees with a dark green prickly leaf, or else men in such garments as the Niatirbians believe that their ancestors wore two hundred years ago riding in coaches such as their ancestors used, or houses with snow on their roofs. And the Niatirbians are unwilling to say what these pictures have to do with the festival; guarding (as I suppose) some sacred mystery. And because all men must send these cards the marketplace is filled with the crowd of those buying them, so that there is great labour and weariness.

But having bought as many as they suppose to be sufficient, they return to their houses and find there the like cards which others have sent to them. And when they find cards from any to whom they also have sent cards, they throw them away and give thanks to the gods that this labour at least is over for another year. But when they find cards from any to whom they have not sent, then they beat their breasts and wail and utter curses against the sender; and, having sufficiently lamented their misfortune, they put on their boots again and go out into the fog and rain and buy a card for him also. And let this account suffice about Exmas-cards.

They also send gifts to one another, suffering the same things about the gifts as about the cards, or even worse. For every citizen has to guess the value of the gift which every friend will send to him so that he may send one of equal value, whether he can afford it or not. And they buy as gifts for one another such things as no man ever bought for himself. For the sellers, understanding the custom, put forth all kinds of trumpery, and whatever, being useless and ridiculous, they have been unable to sell throughout the year they now sell as an Exmas gift. And though the Niatirbians profess themselves to lack sufficient necessary things, such as metal, leather, wood and paper, yet an incredible quantity of these things is wasted every year, being made into the gifts.

But during these fifty days the oldest, poorest, and most miserable of the citizens put on false beards and red robes and walk about the market-place; being disguised (in my opinion) as Cronos. And the sellers of gifts no less than the purchaser’s become pale and weary, because of the crowds and the fog, so that any man who came into a Niatirbian city at this season would think some great public calamity had fallen on Niatirb. This fifty days of preparation is called in their barbarian speech the Exmas Rush.

But when the day of the festival comes, then most of the citizens, being exhausted with the Rush, lie in bed till noon. But in the evening they eat five times as much supper as on other days and, crowning themselves with crowns of paper, they become intoxicated. And on the day after Exmas they are very grave, being internally disordered by the supper and the drinking and reckoning how much they have spent on gifts and on the wine. For wine is so dear among the Niatirbians that a man must swallow the worth of a talent before he is well intoxicated.

Such, then, are their customs about the Exmas. But the few among the Niatirbians have also a festival, separate and to themselves, called Crissmas, which is on the same day as Exmas. And those who keep Crissmas, doing the opposite to the majority of the Niatirbians, rise early on that day with shining faces and go before sunrise to certain temples where they partake of a sacred feast. And in most of the temples they set out images of a fair woman with a new-born Child on her knees and certain animals and shepherds adoring the Child. (The reason of these images is given in a certain sacred story which I know but do not repeat.)

But I myself conversed with a priest in one of these temples and asked him why they kept Crissmas on the same day as Exmas; for it appeared to me inconvenient. But the priest replied, “It is not lawful, O stranger, for us to change the date of Chrissmas, but would that Zeus would put it into the minds of the Niatirbians to keep Exmas at some other time or not to keep it at all. For Exmas and the Rush distract the minds even of the few from sacred things. And we indeed are glad that men should make merry at Crissmas; but in Exmas there is no merriment left.” And when I asked him why they endured the Rush, he replied, “It is, O Stranger, a racket”; using (as I suppose) the words of some oracle and speaking unintelligibly to me (for a racket is an instrument which the barbarians use in a game called tennis).

But what Hecataeus says, that Exmas and Crissmas are the same, is not credible. For first, the pictures which are stamped on the Exmas-cards have nothing to do with the sacred story which the priests tell about Crissmas. And secondly, the most part of the Niatirbians, not believing the religion of the few, nevertheless send the gifts and cards and participate in the Rush and drink, wearing paper caps. But it is not likely that men, even being barbarians, should suffer so many and great things in honour of a god they do not believe in. And now, enough about Niatirb.

The Man and the Birds - by Paul Harvey

I can’t think of a better Christmas blessing than this story. It reminds me of what this whole thing is about. God Bless, and Merry Christmas! - Cliff




The Man and the Birds by Paul Harvey


The man to whom I'm going to introduce you was not a scrooge, he was a kind decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn't believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas Time. It just didn't make sense and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn't swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man. 


"I'm truly sorry to distress you," he told his wife, "but I'm not going with you to church this Christmas Eve." He said he'd feel like a hypocrite. That he'd much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed and they went to the midnight service. 


Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound...Then another, and then another. Sort of a thump or a thud...At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They'd been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window. 


Well, he couldn't let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it. Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them...He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms...Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn. 


And then, he realized that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me...That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him. 


"If only I could be a bird," he thought to himself, "and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to safe, warm...to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear and understand." At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells – Adeste Fideles(O Come, All Ye Faithful)- listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. And he sank to his knees in the snow.

What is God like? #11 - The Justice of God

The Justice of God


    I don't know about you, but I grew up with a high sense of justice. I was always concerned with things being fair. My poor mother, God bless her, had to endure many frustrating moments of refereeing to make sure that my brother and I had exactly the same amount of cake. I laugh about it now, but we were serious about things being fair, especially when it came to chocolate cake. Sad to say, I grew up with a great level of bitterness in my heart over the lot I had been handed in life. The effects of rejection, divorce and the constant shame of poverty led me to conclude that life is just not fair. So in college I decided that this pointed to a universe with no God in it. Just like the people in Ezekiel's day, I was crying out "the way of the Lord is not fair." In the midst of this spiritual turmoil I read a passage of the Bible that I really liked at the time. All of the rest of the Thee's and Thou's didn't make much sense to me at the time, but I really liked it when Jesus told the rich young ruler that  "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God(Matt. 19:24).” It was the early morning hours after a late night , but I yelled out, "Yes!, That's the way to tell 'em, Jesus! Yes!" Of course, this was spoken out of the most bitter gall imaginable, but somehow I got something out of it. It was the beginning of the idea for me that God actually does see all of the junk that goes on on this seemingly God-forsaken dirt ball, and that He is not fooled one minute by whatever fake righteousness people put up to one another, and that the evil that goes on that people don't see, or just ignore, will eventually be dealt with. 


    Maybe you've felt like that, too. Maybe you've wondered, either secretly, or out loud, that the inmates are running the prison, that those who ought to be in jail are running it. That would pretty much make you...normal. Yep, just plain old normal. I think that to be a real honest person you have to deal with this issue somehow or go crazy. Of course, God has a great answer for those who are genuinely looking for an understanding of this dilemma.

    In the book of Isaiah, God asks the nation of Israel a question:
Is. 40:27      Why do you say, O Jacob,
     And speak, O Israel:
     “My way is hidden from the LORD,
     And my just claim is passed over by my God”?
Is. 40:28      Have you not known?
     Have you not heard?
     The everlasting God, the LORD,
     The Creator of the ends of the earth,
     Neither faints nor is weary.
     His understanding is unsearchable.
Is. 40:29      He gives power to the weak,
     And to those who have no might He increases strength.
Is. 40:30      Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
     And the young men shall utterly fall,
Is. 40:31      But those who wait on the LORD
     Shall renew their strength;
     They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
     They shall run and not be weary,
     They shall walk and not faint. 


    So here is God saying what is on all of our minds and hearts, namely, "What the heck is goin' on around here? Is anybody listening? Does anybody care what's goin' on here?" Incidentally, the answer is a resounding," I know what's goin' on here. I am listening, and yes, I absolutely care what's going on." Of course, there are plenty of clear answers to the question, "Can I trust God to be just, and to deal with things in a satisfactory manner?" 


    The great covenant document called the book of Deuteronomy says of God, "He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he(Deut. 32:4)." And later in the prophetic book of Zephaniah, it says, " The LORD within her is righteous; he does no wrong. Morning by morning he dispenses his justice, and every new day he does not fail,(Zeph. 3:5). In the tiny prophetic book of Nahum it says "The LORD is slow to anger and great in power; the LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet(Nah. 1:3)."  Paul was convinced of God's justice when he said, " For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead(Acts 17:31).”


    So let's think this through. Could anyone rightfully call a God that either could not or would not judge a real God? While many have a problem with the exact way that He may judge, could it be that if God were not a righteous judge, He would not be able to be merciful, gracious and loving either? A good God that would not judge would be the equivalent of a great lion with no teeth or claws, impressive from a distance, but powerless to do anything. No, if you're going to worship a God that is real, then He's got to be able to deal with evil doers, ne'er-do-well's and crooks of all kinds. You need a Lion with real teeth and claws. For if you choose Santa Claus as your god, you will feel good until it's time to really deal with the real issues of life. 


    So when I am calling upon God to help me in my distress, as many have done throughout history, I am calling upon God as Judge, fully able to set things right by the unlimited power He holds and that perfect moral purity, wisdom and strength that He possesses. For only if He has made a clear judgement is He then able to be merciful, kind and loving.   

Merry War on Christmas! - Mark Steyn

I can’t wait to see what those courageous atheists come up with for Ramadan.

Christmas in America is a season of time-honored traditions — the sacred performance of the annual ACLU lawsuit over the presence of an insufficiently secular “holiday” tree; the ritual provocations of the atheist displays licensed by pitifully appeasing municipalities to sit between the menorah and the giant Frosty the Snowman; the familiar strains of every hack columnist’s “war on Christmas” column rolling off the keyboard as easily as Richard Clayderman playing “Winter Wonderland” . . .

This year has been a choice year. A crucified skeleton Santa Claus (see above) was erected as part of the “holiday” display outside the Loudoun County courthouse in Virginia — because, let’s face it, nothing cheers the hearts of moppets in the Old Dominion like telling them, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus — and he’s hanging lifeless in the town square.” Alas, a week ago, some local burghers failed to get into the ecumenical spirit and decapitated him. Who are these killjoys? Christians intolerant of the First Amendment (as some have suggested)? Or perhaps a passing Saudi? Our friends in Riyadh only the other day beheaded Amina bin Salem (so to speak) Nasser for “sorcery,” and it would surely be grossly discriminatory not to have some Wahhabist holiday traditions on display in Loudoun County. (The Islamic Saudi Academy, after all, is one of the most prestigious educational institutions of neighboring Fairfax County.) Across the fruitcaked plain in California, the city of Santa Monica allocated permits for “holiday” displays at Palisades Park by means of lottery. Eighteen of the 21 slots went to atheists — for example, the slogan “37 million Americans know a myth when they see one” over portraits of Jesus, Santa, and Satan.(see below)

I don’t believe I’ve mentioned the city of Santa Monica in this space since my Christmas offering of 1998, when President Clinton was in the midst of difficulties arising from his mentoring of a certain intern. My column that year began:

“Operator, I’d like to call Santa Monica.”

“Why? Just ’cause he’s a little overweight?”



Crickets chirping? Ah, how soon they forget. Perhaps Santa Monica should adopt a less theocratic moniker and change its name to Satan Monica, as its interpretation of the separation of church and state seems to have evolved into expressions of public contempt for large numbers of the citizenry augmented by the traumatizing of their children. Boy, I can’t wait to see what those courageous atheists come up with for Ramadan. Or does that set their hearts aflutter quite as much?

One sympathizes, up to a point. As America degenerates from a land of laws to a land of legalisms, much of life is devoted to forestalling litigation. What’s less understandable is the faintheartedness of explicitly Christian institutions. Last year I chanced to see the e-mail exchanges between college administrators over the choice of that season’s Christmas card. I will spare their blushes, and identify the academy only as a Catholic college in New England. The thread began by asking the distribution list for “thoughts” on the proposed design. No baby, no manger, no star over Bethlehem, but a line drawing of a dove with a sprig of olive in its beak. Underneath the image was the following:

What is Christmas?
It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future.
It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal,
and that every path may lead to peace.
Agnes M. Pharo

The Agnes M. Pharo? A writer of such eminence that even the otherwise open-to-all-comers Wikipedia has no entry for her. Still, as a purveyor of vacuous pap to America’s credentialed class for all-purpose cultural cringe, she’s hard to beat. One unfortunate soul on the distribution list wandered deplorably off message and enquired whether the text “is problematic because the answer to the question ‘What is Christmas?’ from a Catholic perspective is that it is the celebration of the birth of Christ.” Her colleague patiently responded that, not to worry, all this religious-type meaning was covered by the word “blessings.” No need to use any insufficiently inclusive language about births of Saviors and whatnot; we all get the cut of Agnes’s jib from the artfully amorphous “blessings.”

When an explicitly Catholic institution thinks that the meaning of Christmas is “tenderness for the past, vapid generalities for the present, evasive abstractions for the future,” it’s pretty much over. Suffering no such urge to self-abasement, Muslim students at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., recently filed a complaint over the lack of Islamic prayer rooms on the campus. They find it offensive to have to pray surrounded by Christian symbols such as crucifixes and paintings of distinguished theologians. True, this thought might have occurred to them before they applied to an institution called “Catholic University.” On the other hand, it’s surely not unreasonable for them to have expected Catholic University to muster no more than the nominal rump Christianity of that Catholic college in New England. Why wouldn’t you demand Muslim prayer rooms? As much as belligerent atheists, belligerent Muslims reckon that a decade or so hence “Catholic colleges” will be Catholic mainly in the sense that Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia is still a cathedral: That’s to say, it’s a museum, a heritage site for where once was a believing church. And who could object to the embalming of our inheritance? Christmas is all about “tenderness for the past,” right? When Christian college administrators are sending out cards saying “We believe in nothing,” why wouldn’t you take them at their word?

Which brings us back in this season of joy to the Republican presidential debates, the European debt crisis, and all the other fun stuff. The crisis afflicting the West is not primarily one of unsustainable debt and spending. These are mere symptoms of a deeper identity crisis. It is not necessary to be a believing Christian to be unnerved by the ease and speed with which we have cast off our inheritance and trampled it into the dust. When American municipalities are proudly displaying the execution of skeleton Santas and giant Satans on public property, it may just be a heartening exercise of the First Amendment, it may be a trivial example of the narcissism of moral frivolity. Or it could be a sign that eventually societies become too stupid to survive. The fellows building the post-Western world figure they know which it is.

— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is the author of After America: Get Ready for Armageddon. © 2011 Mark Steyn

Kingdom Quotes - World Peace -Charles H. Spurgeon

World Concord

“And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more”

—Isaiah 2:4

Oh, that these happy times were come! At present the nations are heavily armed and are inventing weapons more and more terrible, as if the chief end of man could only be answered by destroying myriads of his fellows. Yet peace will prevail one day; yes, and so prevail that the instruments of destruction shall be beaten into other shapes and used for better purposes.


How will this come about? By trade? By civilization? By arbitration? We do not believe it. Past experience forbids our trusting to means so feeble. Peace will be established only by the reign of the Prince of Peace. He must teach the people by His Spirit, renew their hearts by His grace, and reign over them by His supreme power, and then will they cease to wound and kill. Man is a monster when once his blood is up, and only the LORD Jesus can turn this lion into a lamb. By changing man’s heart, his bloodthirsty passions are removed. Let every reader of this book of promises offer special prayer today to the LORD and Giver of Peace that He would speedily put an end to war and establish concord over the whole world.

What is God like? #10 - God is Immutable

God is Immutable

    One of the great frustrations of daily life is the experience of having to deal with a person that is unstable, always going from one extreme to another, moody and inconsistent. I have always struggled with such persons, especially when they looked back at me in the mirror! We have, many of us, suffered at the hands of those who were our parents, friends, and spouses who just could not summon the moral strength or courage to stand with us or be there for us in our times of need. Claiming to be impartial or "not giving preferential treatment, " they become the relational equivalent of Switzerland in matters of the heart, family, or business. How many of us have had a boss or manager who would not give clear leadership and instruction, but then criticize when things were not done a certain, unspoken way? We have wandered, visionless and passionless behind people who are afraid to show enthusiasm or point in a clear direction. But these are mere mortals, aren't they? Made of the same dust as we are. They can't be perfect, even if they tried. And yet we still long for this consistency and moral strength. Where can we get it? From God, of course.
    God is not subject to the same foibles and weaknesses as we are. He is absolutely consistent in His character and strength of conviction. In short, He does not change. He is immutable, never changing. James, the Apostle and brother of Jesus, puts it this way, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." Another version uses the phrase, "in Him there is no shadow of turning." Numbers 23:19 says, "God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind." "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever(Heb. 13:8)."
    The real strength of the unchanging nature of God is that we can now begin to see how the various attributes of God play off of one another. So God is unchangingly loving, immutably merciful, and never lacking in faithfulness or power. We can therefore count on God to lift us up when we fall, and restore us to our right place in His plan for our lives because of the absolutely unchanging nature of His goodness, mercy and love. Romans 11:29 states as much, "for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable."

Tim Tebow and the American War on Religion - Trifecta(PJTV)

The Guys at Trifecta discuss Tim Tebow and faith in America

There is an excellent and provocative discussion about Tim Tebow and religious faith in our day. Well. go check it out: right here --->  http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=105&load=6360! 

And it's GOOD! Tebow Cartoon

Tebow’s Religion, and Ours

His authenticity irks our secular, selfish culture.

When the Detroit Lions’ Stephen Tulloch sacked Tim Tebow in the first quarter of their week eight matchup, the linebacker immediately kneeled next to the prone Denver quarterback, in a mockery of Tebow’s habit of praying on-field, most recently seen after his miraculous fourth-quarter comeback against the Dolphins the week before.

The insult coincided with and reinforced the explosion of “Tebowing” as an Internet meme, complete with a Twitter account and web-site. There you can see an act of communion with one’s creator rendered as a bit of pop-cultural ephemera, and you can scroll through pictures of folks striking the pose everywhere from Oxford to Istanbul, with that muddle of irony and enthusiasm that has become my generation’s trademark.

But there isn’t an ironic bone in Tim Tebow’s body. That’s what makes him conspicuous. That’s what makes the fact that he’s managed to stay squeaky clean, in a sport that notoriously is not, conspicuous. And it’s why the power of Tebow’s evangelical-Christian faith, and the earnestness with which he professes it, seems to annoy so many people.

Indeed, even other religious quarterbacks have, in a friendly way, advised Tebow to tone down his religiosity to avoid turning fans off. Said former Super Bowl champion Kurt Warner, himself known to have led on-field prayers: “I’d tell him, ‘Put down the boldness in regards to the words, and keep living the way you’re living. Let your teammates do the talking for you. Let them cheer on your testimony.’” Likewise, when Packers QB Aaron Rodgers was asked about Tebow in the context of his own, more subdued avowals of his faith, he quoted Saint Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.”

It’s easy to understand why Tulloch, a mediocre middle-linebacker who was a fourth-round pick out of NC State, would want to take Tebow down a peg. For good and for ill, head games and intimidation are as much a part of football as tackling is (not to mention that Tebow has four inches and a pound on Tulloch, and is a talented enough athlete that he’d probably make a better defensive back).

But there is also something a bit nastier in Tulloch’s mockery, in the phenomenon of “Tebowing” as a whole, and in the criticisms by former players like ex–Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer, who said of Tebow, “when he accepts the fact that we know that he loves Jesus Christ, then I think I’ll like him a little better.”

So what is it that so many around football — players, pundits, fans — are so peeved about? Why has Tebow’s faith generated so much controversy and criticism in a sports-entertainment complex that is so filled with clichéd Jesus praise that, to quote Homer Simpson, you’d think God only helped professional athletes and Grammy winners?

I have a theory. Part of it is redirected anger at Tebow’s success, after the whole of the football smart-set had come to the seemingly bizarre conclusion that though he was clearly one of the ten or so best ever to play the position in the NCAA, Tebow had no shot in the NFL. Football doesn’t like to be wrong; they’re mad enough when surefire prospects turn into busts, but when surefire busts succeed, they’re livid. They don’t like to see a guy who winds up to throw passes like he’s pitching for the Yankees — and only occasionally sees them land anywhere near their intended target — marching down the field in the fourth quarter.

But the greater part of it has to do with the curious double standard that seems to be in place when it comes to an athlete’s religiosity. With very few exceptions — Mariano Rivera comes to mind, as well as Curt Schilling, and post-“Prime Time” Deion Sanders — athletes’ professions of faith strike most believers, nonbelievers, and agnostics alike as empty ritual, an extended solipsism in which big men with bigger egos congratulate themselves for having God on their side. How could it be otherwise? We see that in fact so many of them are supremely arrogant — materialists, abusers, and lechers. We’ve become cynical and secular enough as a society that this dissonance doesn’t bother most people. The hypocrisy is actually sort of comforting, a confirmation that that old hokum in the Bible has no bearing on the world as it actually is. It’s the same sort of glee you see from some when Christian politicians and ministers are felled by all-too-human moral — especially sexual — foibles.

By contrast, Tebow is the last Boy Scout. A leader on the field and off who spent his college years not indulging in any of the worldly pleasures afforded to Heisman Trophy winners, but doing missionary work in Thailand; helping overworked doctors perform circumcisions in the Philippines (you read that right); and preaching at schools, churches, and even prisons. This is a young man with such a strong work ethic that, according to teammates, he can’t even be coaxed into hitting the town on a night after a Broncos win, because he is too busy preparing for the next week’s game. This is a young man who even turned the other cheek at Stephen Tulloch’s Tebowing, saying, “He was probably just having fun and was excited he made a good play and had a sack. And good for him.”

That’s way too much earnestness for the ironic. It’s way too much idealism for the cynical. And it’s way too much selflessness for the self-absorbed. In short, people aren’t upset at Tebow’s God talk. They’re upset that he might actually believe it.

— Daniel Foster is news editor of National Review Online.
via NRO