Tebow's pre-Wonderlic prayer request falls flat

[damajuki]

Originally Posted by Inspecta

A lot of people point to the numerous denominations of the Christian faith as proof that it can't be true because we can't agree on anything, however I think quite the opposite is true. The church didn't become one standard institution which everybody must conform to in order to be a part of it. No, it evolved and changed and moved like water throughout time adjusting to the times and problems that existed.

Others equate God/religion/faith with sturdy structure. They need the structure, they crave the structure. That's where the Catholic church comes in.

Now I have A LOT of issues with the Catholic church, forget about the priest sex scandal, I had issues with their theology long before that came to light, but at the same time I understand their purpose in the world. Had it not been for the Catholic church we might very well be Muslim right now. It's late so I can't remember the year, but at one point the Muslims were marching through Turkey on their way to conquer Europe. It was the Catholics that mobilized, and kept them out. God uses everybody at some point.

Spec, I don't mean to insult you but when I read things like this about the Catholic Church, I have to correct the record.

First, to your statement (bolded, above), the Church was -- and still is --exactly what you described. The Church is one -- one institution -- founded by Christ himself. And it operated just fine that way for 1500 years. Let me say that again: 1500 years.

Second, the Church wasn't "used" by God to simply keep Muslims out of Europe or anything else, the Church was created by Christ himself!

What we call "Christianity" is entirely due to the followers of Christ who became the Roman Catholic Church. That is a historical fact.

The Bible, so often brought up in discussions like this, was written and specific books later chosen by...the Catholic Church. The first council of Nicaea brought the different Christian sects together in the 300s but there was always only ONE Church.

So, yes, the Church has evolved but it's still the One Church. All the sects that split off from the Church are just that: sects. They are not Churches, they are churches.

As for the theology, well, again, the Church has a Theology evolved from 2000 years of practice and custom, not a theology based on an individual's opinion of the Bible.

This is not to say people can't like one person's opinion on the Bible over the Church's but let's be clear about what we're talking about when we compare the two: Jesus taught and lived in community and that community grew to become the Church.

That is the history of Christianity: a community of believers.

[Sez.EJ]

The issue I have (and many other Christians) today is that many denominations/Churches are teaching too many traditions of men and teachings that are not of the Bible. I'm not going to go into which ones ( not going to resort to denomination bashing..cuz no denomination is perfect) .. but some are GRIEVOUS in teaching things that are not of the Bible and spreading a lot of false teachings to millions of Christians. ..

That is why I always say.. don't take someones word for what's in the bible..I dont' care if he is a minister, priest, or laymen,.. don't believe me.. Check the Bible for yourself.. Test everything... if it's not in the Bible.. you gott get rid of it.. As the great Martin Luther would say "The Bible, the Bible and only the Bible" .. very important words that can keep us from following many false teachings that are being taught out in the world..

[Inspecta]

Originally Posted by damajuki

Spec, I don't mean to insult you but when I read things like this about the Catholic Church, I have to correct the record.

Well I take it from this post that you're catholic. So we're only going to be able to go so far in this discussion.

First, to your statement (bolded, above), the Church was -- and still is --exactly what you described. The Church is one -- one institution -- founded by Christ himself. And it operated just fine that way for 1500 years. Let me say that again: 1500 years.

And what happened around 1500 AD? That's right, the printing press was invented. Once people were able to read scripture on their own without a priest dictating to them what it said the catholic church lost a lot of it's power.....almost overnight

Second, the Church wasn't "used" by God to simply keep Muslims out of Europe or anything else, the Church was created by Christ himself!

I'm sorry if I came off as believing the sole purpose of the Catholic church was to keep Muslims out of Europe. However God uses His saints every minute of every day. You sound almost indignant as if God would never dare "use" the church for His purposes.

What we call "Christianity" is entirely due to the followers of Christ who became the Roman Catholic Church. That is a historical fact.

The above bolded is the key point. Before there was the catholic church there were just "Christians". Which is what many non denominational protestants are attempting to do. Just be Christians. It's what the restoration movement was all about. Returning Christianity to it's 1st century AD state.

The Bible, so often brought up in discussions like this, was written and specific books later chosen by...the Catholic Church. The first council of Nicaea brought the different Christian sects together in the 300s but there was always only ONE Church.

Well there is a ton of evidence to suggest otherwise.

The council did not create the doctrine of the deity of Christ as is sometimes claimed. This idea had long existed in various parts of the Roman empire. It had also long been widely endorsed by the Christian community of the otherwise pagan city of Rome.[5] Instead, the council affirmed and defined what it had found to be the teachings of the Apostles regarding who Christ is: that Christ is the one true God in deity with the Father. Contrary to the view popularised by Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code, there is no evidence to suggest that the Biblical canon, the list of books decided to be authorative as scripture, was even discussed at the Council of Nicaea, let alone established or edited.

So, yes, the Church has evolved but it's still the One Church. All the sects that split off from the Church are just that: sects. They are not Churches, they are churches.

If your saying what I think you're saying then all protestant denominations aren't really Christians.....that line of thinking is disturbing to say the least.

As for the theology, well, again, the Church has a Theology evolved from 2000 years of practice and custom, not a theology based on an individual's opinion of the Bible.

As opposed to? Again are you saying that protestants theology is just based on the opinions of men?

This is not to say people can't like one person's opinion on the Bible over the Church's but let's be clear about what we're talking about when we compare the two: Jesus taught and lived in community and that community grew to become the Church.
.

This is not entirely accurate. Jesus was vehemently rejected by his community, they DID NOT go on to become the first Christians (other than the 11 apostles). In fact it was only because the Jews rejected Jesus that salvation was offered to the gentiles. Paul talks about this at great length.

I know we won't see eye to eye on a lot of theological issues because I come from the school of thought Sola Scriptura, and as a Catholic you honor church tradition with equal weight as the bible. However I hope you do come to realize that protestants are just as much Christian as catholics

[Sez.EJ]

Originally Posted by Inspecta

This is not entirely accurate. Jesus was vehemently rejected by his community, they DID NOT go on to become the first Christians (other than the 11 apostles). In fact it was only because the Jews rejected Jesus that salvation was offered to the gentiles. Paul talks about this at great length.

I am not sure this is correct. It it my understanding that it was not because the Jews rejected Christ that salvation was offered to the Gentiles.. The jews were supposed to teach the Gentiles about God the entire time.. They rejected that notion and wanted to keep God to themselves and that was never Gods intention since he is the God of ALL peoples..

The disciples were intially focused on sharing the resurrection of Christ and salvation through Christ with the Jews.God wanted all the world to be saved so they were sent to the Gentiles... See Acts Chapter 10 where Peter has his vision. (many people mistakenly think this dream is about food) But further investigation shows what this really is.. going out to the Gentiles.

Paul's teaching in the Bible clearly show there were divisions within the church..Many of his letters were trying to correct this and bring chuches together under united concepts.. So you are correct in saying that there was NOT just one church which became the Catholic church..Divisions within the church started right away... You are again correct regarding the reformation and the printing press spreading the Gospel to many and causing a serious power shortage in the Catholic church.

As for the teachings of men vs what's in the Bible.. and adding the Catholic church to that concept... .. Let's just say there are issues.. but I'm not going there.. I refuse to get into any direct bashing of any denominations teachings....That is an ugliness that should not be entered into in this venue.

[Sez.EJ]

FOUND THIS ON YAHOO TODAY ABOUT TEBOW AND HIS FAITH AND HOW IT EFFECTS HIS DRAFT STATUS ETC...


By all accounts Tim Tebow is a good man. A selfless man. A man whose life is filled with stories of a goodness so rare and pure in an athlete it is hard to imagine that he could be for real. And therefore a sense lingers that something sinister must lurk behind the frayed football mechanics. That his purity and his professions of virginity and the care with which he greets each fan is actually a ruse. That football is merely a means to spread his gospel. The word of Jesus.
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And this is where the lines get drawn. Backs arch. Muscles tighten.
Quarterback Tim Tebow of Florida runs the 40 yard dash during the NFL Scouting Combine.
(Scott Boehm/Getty Images)

Nothing will divide quite like religion. And while football often embraces Christianity and legions of the NFL’s top players have carried the cross with various levels of openness, there has never been a player like Tebow who so boldly, so proudly and so gracefully expressed devotion that the player known for his goodness has actually drawn a more visceral reaction than those players who are at their core, truly bad.
“I don’t want any part of him or the circus,” one AFC front office executive told Yahoo! Sports’ Michael Silver recently. “At some point as a team, don’t you have to be concerned with what comes with him? The guy has never met a microphone he didn’t like and he’s obviously got a message. I think he needs to go away and hide for awhile.”
The first round of the NFL draft comes Thursday evening and the most compelling prospect might not be selected until the second night. Still a debate rages about Tebow never for any player before: about his game, about his life and about his religion. Last month a SI.com writer authored a personal blog post entitled “I Want Tim Tebow to Fail” and none of the story was about Tebow’s sidearm delivery or his still-developing footwork but rather his evangelical Christianity and the mission of his father Bob Tebow’s evangelistic ministry in the Philippines which boasts fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible.
It is hardly the only such opinion floating around about the quarterback. In fact, most thoughts on him tend to the extreme.
“The way his fans talk about him is almost idolatry,” says Tom Krattenmaker, the author of Onward Christian Athletes, a study of players’ self expressions of religion. “I’ve never seen so much intensity, pro and con, of any Christian athlete ever. There is a tendency for those who admire players who are devoted to their faith to place them on a pedestal but this [adulation] is on steroids. It’s been super-hyped to a higher degree.”
Religion is a tricky thing in sports. And Tebow’s views are hardly out of the mainstream in the NFL where a significant number of players consider themselves to be strong Christians. Just none of them are as audacious about it, scrawling scripture on eye black patches and speaking as loudly and eloquently about their faith. Very few of them have made national television commercials the way Tebow did for Focus on the Family during the Super Bowl. And while the ad itself was tame and intentionally steered away from anything controversial, it is his association with a group that takes strong political stands despite its mission to avoid doing so, that can trouble NFL teams.
Because while owners generally love their players to support local charities and dedicate hours to youth and social programs with religious affiliations, they tend to bristle when the religion slides into politics. This is when the words get divisive, things are said and people are offended. And by doing a television commercial – no matter how innocent its intent (explaining his mother’s decision not to abort him) – Tebow has stepped into both the best and worst elements of Christianity. Living on one hand what appears to be an exemplary life in which he has undoubtedly improved the welfare of many people in the Philippines, yet wading into the shouting, finger-pointing world of political TV.
Tebow displays his Christian beliefs on his eye black patches.
(Dave Martin/AP Photo)

It is this kind of precarious high-profile balance that led Eric Brown, the minister of the Campus Church of Christ in Tebow’s college town of Gainesville, Fla.. to tell the Miami Herald last fall: “I’m going to pray that [Tebow] stays true to his faith because if he fails and gets caught up in some kind of scandal it would be bad for Christianity.”
And yet, on the eve of the draft, should any of this matter?
Shouldn’t this be about football? About whether Tebow has the arm strength to throw a crisp 30-yard spiral while running to his left?
In many cases it seems that it is. Several executives, coaches and league analysts say Tebow’s religion has not been a primary topic in meetings about him. If anything, it has been seen as a positive that he is probably not a player who will find himself arrested in a drunken bar brawl at 4 a.m. or dodging sexual assault charges. Which, given what the Pittsburgh Steelers are facing with Ben Roethlisberger(notes), is never trivial enough to overlook when drafting a quarterback.
They scoff at any notion that Tebow somehow only wants to use football as a means to spread a Christian message as many outside the game have suggested. He is too competitive for that.
“I think Tim Tebow is going to be all-in on football wherever he is going to be able to play,” said one offensive coach, himself a Christian, who did not want to be identified speaking about a player who has yet to be drafted. “He is going to be committed. … I don’t think, on the football field, between plays he is going to be saying ‘Do you accept Jesus Christ as your savior?’ ”


For nearly a decade former NFL player personnel director Ken Herock has run clinics designed to help draft prospects prepare for the intense grilling they will face from coaches and general managers at the NFL combine. The sessions can be intense, with Herock taking each player into a private room and running through every troubling thing from their past – whether it be drugs, or conflicts with coaches – and schooling them in the proper way to discuss it when they meet team officials. He can almost predict the players who will have problems in the NFL based on those five hours he spends with them.
This winter, he met with Tebow at one of his workouts in Nashville, Tenn. and was charmed by the quarterback in a way that he had never been before, calling Tebow “dynamic” and saying he “has the wisdom of a 40- or 50-year-old in a 20-year-old-kid.”
Herock said he had “heard about” Tebow’s strong religious views and went into his meeting with the quarterback with a line of questioning on the subject.
“But when I’m with him he doesn’t push it,” Herock says. “He’s not going to push religion or God on you.”
Tebow himself has been less vocal about his religion in the weeks leading up to the draft, to the point where his public comments about it are almost nonexistent. And a call to Bob Tebow’s ministry this week went unreturned.
Still even as Tebow’s draft stock rises to that of a potential first-round pick, he is in all likelihood a project, a player who will have to sit for two or three years and learn the position as it is played in the NFL before he gets his chance. Can a team afford to have its seldom-used backup quarterback be its most polarizing player?
This week, a couple of current and former team executives, speaking on background, wondered about that point. For all the good that Tebow offers and all the good he has done, the television commercial bothers them. “Exclusive,” is the word one used. As in divisive.
The NFL does not like exclusive or divisive.
Both words scare advertisers.
“If you push [religion] far enough you get into some of these hot-button issues,” Krattenmaker says. “It starts getting into political matters and you have a problem. If I’m management I’m more willing to go with this if he is going to have a transformative effect on a franchise. Tebow is either being enormously principled or gutsy given the fact of his standing in the draft.”
In the end someone will take him and take him high – higher perhaps than his ability dictates. And it won’t be because of religion but because a team will fear that someday he’s going to be good enough to make them look bad for not taking him.
Funny how that often happens in the draft.
Fear, and not faith, makes the ultimate decision.


** INTERESTING READ.. I think whoever drafts him will likely need a christian coach and/or GM..and they set some ground rules with him regarding the work place and evangelism.. Certainly they will not shut him down..that would be stupid and counterproductive..but they will establish some boundaries so it it not disruptive to the team.

[damajuki]

Originally Posted by Inspecta

Well I take it from this post that you're catholic. So we're only going to be able to go so far in this discussion.

The above bolded is the key point. Before there was the catholic church there were just "Christians". Which is what many non denominational protestants are attempting to do. Just be Christians. It's what the restoration movement was all about. Returning Christianity to it's 1st century AD state.

If your saying what I think you're saying then all protestant denominations aren't really Christians.....that line of thinking is disturbing to say the least.

As opposed to? Again are you saying that protestants theology is just based on the opinions of men?

Hey Spec, thanks for the reply. Wasn't ignoring it, just didn't get back to this thread since then, believe it or not. Short replies, in order from above:

1. Why would you say that we can only get so far? I'm willing to hear you out if you can supply the other side of the debate. But are you equally willing to listen to my side? Who is going to limit the debate? Not me, I promise you.

2. Here's the Protestant dilemma in a nutshell: going back to 1st century Christianity isn't possible because the religion grew and spread from a regional movement to a world-wide movement. There is no "going back", there's only going forward.

3. I said nothing about Protestants not being Christian. I said sects are churches, not Churches. Christ himself said there was One Church. All I'm asking you is if there's One Church founded by Christ, how do these various sects justify not being a part of it?

4. Arguably, all theology is the "opinions of men" so yes, that's what I'm saying, to some degree. What I'm really trying to emphasize, however, is that (I'm admittedly over-simplifying and lumping together here for expediency) a primary component of "Protestant theology" seems to value individual interpretation of the Bible over a community interpretation.

And that emphasis on the individual over the communal is clearly not a Christian ideal. As I stated before, Jesus grew up in a tradition of community. He formed and lived in a community, which grew and then dispersed to other communities. Paul wrote to entire communities giving guidance and support and even cajoling or chastising the early Christians. He didn't say "eh, just figure it out for yourselves and you'll do fine", did he? Of course not.

Anyway, to connect #1 and #4, you can't say you want to return to a "1st century state" and mean that to say "every man for himself". It just isn't true.

And that's where the Catholic idea of tradition that Protestantism often rejects comes into play. It simply says that we learn and build and grow together. It values the community over the individual.

In fact, I'd argue that the Protestant focus on the individual is less an actual Christian ideal than a political/cultural ideal popularized by the dominant British/American culture of the last 400 years.

After all, let's remember why England left the Church, resulting (eventually) in the founding of the U.S.: King Henry wanted to get a divorce and couldn't. It was that simple.

Pure individual desire over everything else...

So, ball's in your court. Hope you come back to this!

[damajuki]

Hey Spec and Sez,

Check out Pope Benedict's remarks on the nature of the One Church today, on this, the feast of Pentecost.

Today is the PERFECT day to discuss this topic. Truly, on this day, ALL followers of Christ were infused with the Holy Spirit and were baptised in Christ's name.

Into what were they baptised if not Christ's Church?

Which comes back to our question here:

Into what church are people baptised now, if each congregation or tradition has its own way, its own rules, its own interpretations of even the very meaning of baptism?

Seriously, try to strip away the names or sides for a second and just consider this essential question, honestly and objectively.

Can there be Unity in disorganization and disagreement?

I personally don't think there can be, which is an important reason that I am happily and staunchly Catholic. Say what you want about the Church, but it is a world-wide force for Unity in Christ's name.

Hard to argue with that, for me.

Hope you guys had a blessed Pentecost.

Best,

Juki