As far as I was concerned, Tim Tebow put together one of the most painful moments in Pittsburgh Steelers history.
I take you back to the 2011 AFC Wild Card game. Tim Tebow was quarterback of the Denver Broncos at the time – a backup QB, no less – and the Steelers were about to march back to the Super Bowl after a long and tumultuous season.
The Wild Card game went into overtime. And on the first play in overtime – this happened.
Yeah. That. One play, one walk-off touchdown.
Even watching that TD today makes me want to vomit.
But what happened afterward made it worse. People saw coincidences in the game and took those coincidences as fact of a higher power’s divine intervention. Tim Tebow passed for 316 yards in that game. The Nielsen rating for the game was 31:6. And Tebow used to write “John 3:16” on his eyeblack as a profession of his faith.
Why, that certainly should mean that Tebow’s throw was controlled by the divine hand of God, right? That if you prayed more than your opponent, then Jesus would guide you with prosperity over your opponents – am I right?
Oh, trust me. He just threw a touchdown pass, it wasn’t as if he walked on water or turned Gatorade into wine. And Tebow leaned into it with all his might.
Again … I do not want to portray this column as a denigration of faith. We all pray to a higher power in our own way and in our own manner, whether we pray to God, Yahweh, Allah, Buddha, any spiritual guide that brings salvation to our soul.
But here’s where I get angry.
Follow me on this.
After his playing career ended, Tebow became a motivational speaker. And he aligned himself with an organization called Life Surge, Life Surge sells classes in financial investment and wealth-building, and Tebow participated in a series of seminars where attendees could hear him speak for the low, low price of $97 – sometimes as low as $20 – with the idea that these seminars would be a conduit to future classes and wealth-building events that would charge anywhere from $10,000 to $40,000 per class.
In other words, Tebow was using his faith and celebrity to encourage investors to participate in these classes with Life Surge, only to have these classes turn into account-draining financial whirlpools.
But I’m not a person who can compress this down into a blog post. I would encourage you to read the original investigative article in Mother Jones (link is here), and also view this video from Pablo Torre where it’s explained in more detail.
This is frightening. And again, there are millions of people who use their faith for good measures. There are thousands of legitimate charities and organizations that will help those in need.
But to use one’s faith – and to convince others of faith to invest in organizations to the point where a person goes into financial ruin based on the testimony of some guy who threw ONE MEANINGFUL TOUCHDOWN IN HIS LIFE – again … this is frightening.
If Tim Tebow did not know that his actions and speeches were used as a scam, then let him step forward and say so. Let him explain the seminars and the high-pressure campaigns to invest in spurious wealth-building.
I’ll wait.
But I have a feeling I’ll be waiting for a very long time.
More broadly, as a Christian, I’ve long thought that, that “the Lord Jesus Christ” isn’t busy sitting up in a cloud deciding who was more faith in Him so that they can win a sporting event .
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