The Spiritual Dynamics of Watching Tebow Play

Brian Phillips with another perspective on the Tebow phenomenon. He writes as a stanch "non-religious" person:

Whenever I catch one of Tebow's games, I tend to lose sight of the scoreboard and just focus on the metacompetition, the weird Joan of Arc drama that seems to go along with everything he does. I imagine a bar under a train station somewhere where the relevant ideas men gather to learn their fates. Did a receiver drop a pass? James Dobson just choked on a nacho. Did Tim throw an interception? Daniel Dennett just chest-bumped Richard Dawkins. Again, I realize that this is stupid, that it's beyond stupid, but compared to actually watching the Broncos? It'll do.

I find myself half-consciously rooting for Tebow to fail, even though I have nothing against him, have lots of religious friends, am not especially tribal by nature, and wouldn't want to be responsible for the nacho-related deaths of any prominent evangelical leaders, even if I detest their politics. Doesn't matter. The part of me that wants to eat pork and not stone people just switches on and cheers for the blitzing linebacker.

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