Can You Handle the Truth?

February 8, 2010

I read with great interest and mild amusement some of the frantic and fearful comments and commentaries on Tim Tebow’s appearance in a Super Bowl ad.  One would think that Tebow was about to announce his candidacy for president on a platform of prohibition and state-sponsored religion.

Tim Tebow’s outspoken faith is such a threat to some, and their dire warnings are really quite comical.  He wants to use the opportunities his athleticism has afforded him to tell others that Jesus saves and folks like the sports writer who wrote that “I want Tim Tebow to fail” call him “dangerous”.  He willingly agrees to appear with his mother in a pro-life commercial sponsored by Focus on the Family, a Christian organization demonized by some in the mainstream media, and women’s groups scurry to mobilize other fear mongers to pressure CBS to drop the “divisive” ad.

Just what is the threat?  Let’s break this down.  Timmy, as his mother calls him, wants you to trust in Jesus as the way to heaven because he believes that if you reject Him you’ll go to hell…a very traditional interpretation of what the Bible teaches.  First off, it would be much easier for Timmy to just tell you to go to hell rather than care about whether you do or not.  Secondly, he knows very well he can’t force you to believe anything, so…you’re off the hook.  No threat there.

This Super Bowl ad was expected to have Tebow’s mother relating the story of how her doctor had advised her to abort Tim because of medications she had to take while pregnant that he feared had harmed him.  The ad never actually mentioned abortion but its sponsorship by Focus on the Family which has for years spoken out strongly against abortion was enough to draw all sorts of “rights” groups and defenders up to the battlefront to guard the “reproductive rights” of women.  Threat?  To the “right” of a woman to kill her child?  One can only hope, but it’s not likely.

What is likely is that women choosing life for their children in difficult pregnancies is like a light that cuts through a darkened room being burglarized.  It can’t be allowed to shine or else the thief’s dishonest deeds will be exposed.  Abortion kills a child and abortion defenders know it, and they know that choosing abortion is the self-centered, “easy” way out of an inconvenient situation, in most cases.  But they cloak their argument in the language of women’s rights and do everything they can to hide the ugly truth and snuff out any intruding beam of its light.

It’s also likely that in this relativistic and narcissistic age, any person or group who holds up an absolute and universal standard that shows us all wanting, will be denigrated and attacked by those who fear its judgment and do not want to be measured by it.

Focus on the Family and Tim Tebow are not a threat.  The truth, however…may be.