My three reactions to SNL on Tim Tebow

In case you live in a cave (or happen to be reading this after Tim Tebow's career has sunset, either sooner or later), let me catch you up on one of the biggest recent stories in sports - Tim Tebow, former University of Florida quarterback and Heisman trophy winner who helped the Gators win two national championships, is a second year player in the NFL and plays for the Denver Broncos. Despite Tim's illustrious collegiate career, most people doubted that he would have any success at the next level. Well, midway through this season he got his chance and the doubters had to eat some crow. Tim mounted an unlikely string of fourth quarter comebacks and led his team to six consecutive wins, putting his record at 7-3 as a starter.

The most interesting thing about Mr. Tebow though is that he is very open about his Christian faith. Given his recent success, this side of Tim has received inordinate amounts of attention in the media. Which brings me to my primary focus for this post - a sketch done by SNL which casts someone playing Tebow and someone playing Jesus in the Denver locker room.

This video showed up on my Facebook Newsfeed numerous times this week, as posted by many of my fellow Mormon friends. The consensus from their posts was that they viewed this publicity as positive exposure because the character of Jesus openly and without hesitation endorses Mormonism. While I, too, view this as a net positive (now), I have a slightly different take.

My first reaction fell right in line with the consensus I saw on FB - Jesus says its true! Cool! But that only lasted for a few seconds.

I realized that since the rest of the sketch was so sarcastic that the endorsement was also highly sarcastic and was, in fact, a mockery of the faith I hold dear. Needless to say, I was slightly upset at SNL for taking a potshot at my faith and a little disappointed at my friends for seemingly being oblivious to it. Later the same day though, I took on a different perspective.

I remembered that I was also annoyed at the musical that was all over the press recently, The Book of Mormon - another satirical commentary on my beliefs. After a while I came to appreciate the publicity the play was generating and the conversations it was provoking. So, in like manner, I'm now glad that SNL saw fit to take a potshot at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - stirring up opinions certainly has a downside, but the upside of bringing these topics to the attention of those who will recognize the truth certainly makes for a favorable tradeoff.