Since Sunday is most football fans’ day of worship, it was fitting that newly acquired New York Jets QB Tim Tebow drew thousands of devotees over the holiday weekend. The New York Times reports that the football star/devout Christian/divine musical inspiration helped draw upwards of 20,000 people, many of whom traveled from far distances to an outdoor Easter Sunday church service in Georgetown, Texas. (Texas, football, and religion — together at long last!)
“My biggest prayer is to kind of make [being outspoken about Christianity] cool again, for a high school kid to get on a knee and pray and it’s not something that’s unique or different and that it’s okay to be outspoken about your faith,” Tebow told the crowd, some of whom were sporting his Jets jersey, and Celebration Church pastor Joe Champion during his 20-minute talk at the Sunday service. (Ah, if only he had some sort of prayer-on-bended-knee move that caught on with youths.)
According to the Associated Press, Champion told the crowd, “In Christianity, it’s the Pope and Tebow right now. We didn’t have enough room to handle the Pope.” While Tebow, who was wearing an Easter-apropos pink shirt, may not have arrived in the Popemobile, the wildly popular athlete still delivered his sermon on the hill, as he invoked cheers from fans with statements like “First and foremost is what this country was based on: one nation under God. The more that we can get back to that.”
Would you have attended Tim Tebow’s Easter church service? Or do you only want to see him on Sunday with a pigskin in hand? Does his outspoken nature about his religion bother you, or is your attitude about Tebow — to sort of paraphrase Skip Bayless here — “Let him pray!”?
[Photo credit: Brian To/WENN.com]
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