Get That Deity Off the Field!

Nothing infuriates our aggressively secular, overwhelmingly left-liberal Main Stream Media like a devout Christian in a prominent position:

The Atlantic mocked the Jets--and Christianity--in an article entitled, “New York City Sports, Now with Even More Jesus."

On ESPN, Skip Bayless asked Tebow how he felt about being one of the most polarizing, divisive players in the NFL because of his faith.

And recently, on MSNBC, The Nation sports editor Dave Zirin remarked, “There are a lot of LGBT people that live in New York City who are also football fans and they might want to know why the new, possibly starting, quarterback for the New York Jets wants them to move backwards 30 or 40 years." Since when does an athlete’s position on a social issue disqualify him from playing a sport?

CBSChicago.com writer Dan Bernstein labeled Tebow as a “little more than an affable simpleton” and criticized Tebow’s fans, calling them “lunatic-fringe cultists.”

Prior to the Super Bowl, Rabbi Joshua Hammerman opined in The Jewish Week that “If Tebow wins the Super Bowl, against all odds, it will buoy his faithful, and emboldened faithful can do insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants.” The Jewish Week and Hammerman later apologized.

The attacks expanded to the absurd: MSNBC mocked Tebow’s reading ability when he read Green Eggs and Ham for Pizza Hut’s “BOOK IT!” children’s reading program.

In December 2011, Bill Press, who likes to lecture conservatives about civility, said on his radio show that Tim Tebow needs to “STFU” about Jesus, calling him a “disgrace” and an “embarrassment.” However, he was just getting started with those remarks. He continued: "By dragging God into every football game, Tebow makes a mockery of Chrisianity--and trivializes religion. The truth is, God doesn't care who wins an election, a bingo game, or a football game. Sorry, Tebow, Jesus is not a Broncos fan."

Mind you, if Tebow were a Muslim, our Punditocracy would be entirely silent about his creed, even if he wore a turban instead of a helmet and shouted Allahu Akhbar! after every completed pass. But perhaps we should stay on point.

Christianity is the least violent, most tolerant of all faiths. Christ Himself told us to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and to "Love your enemies and pray for them that persecute you." It asks nothing of anyone who declines to accept it, except that he leave those of us who do in peace.

More: Christianity literally improves a believer's life. It relieves him of all worry about the pointlessness of life, and therefore armors him against the temptations of venality and exploitative hedonism, by promising him an afterlife of eternal bliss if he'll merely cleave to a short list of requirements. Those requirements, all of which are founded upon the Two Great Commandments enunciated by Jesus Himself:

Now when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they assembled together. And one of them, an expert in religious law, asked him a question to test him: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the law and the prophets hang on these commandments.” [Matthew 22:34-40]

...articulate the inescapable requirements for peace and harmony in society.

So what's the left-liberal Main Stream Media's problem with Christianity?

The longer I think about it, the more I find myself forced to a particularly distasteful conclusion: The division of society into mutually hostile groups, each determined to have what it wants at the expense of the others, is integral to the Left's program for attaining and expanding its political powers. Were everyone in the nation a sincere Christian, that would be impossible; therefore, Christianity is a fatal obstacle to the Left's political aspirations, and must be derided, denigrated, and otherwise opposed wherever and whenever it appears.

Food for thought.