“You run the risk of making it sound perfunctory,’’ he said; though by all indications, McDonough said, Tebow appears to be living the life he espouses.
And there are people, he said, who take pleasure in witnessing the fall of those who set such a high bar of righteousness for themselves.
When scandals broke involving prominent evangelical preachers like Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker, McDonough said, “People would say to me ‘Hey, I see another one of your boys has gone down today.’ ’’
Because of the association of many evangelical Christian groups with the political right - and because of his participation in an antiabortion advertisement in 2010 - Tebow is part of the political wars.
Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann have associated their campaigns in the Republican presidential primary with Tebow’s penchant for comeback victories. It has not helped: Bachmann suspended her campaign and Perry is far behind the leaders.
Tebow, on the other hand, is winning, despite his wobbly spiral and widespread disapproval of his passing skills among football cognoscenti.
“People are responding to his joy,’’ said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author of “Between Heaven and Mirth, a book on spirituality. “If he were praying and losing I don’t think people would care. When the losing quarterback kneels in the end zone, no one sees it.’’
Or they disapprove of it. Red Sox fans will recall that star slugger Adrian Gonzalez, summarizing the team’s historical late-season collapse, said that “God didn’t have it in the cards for us’’ to advance to the playoffs.
Some questioned why he would ascribe the team’s failure to a heavenly plan rather than, say, a trio of starting pitchers who consumed beer and chicken in the clubhouse during games.
So the Tebow talk proliferates in popular culture, drawing the attention of the country - at least for a few days - away from more pressing debates. And in that lies perhaps the most attractive aspect of Tebowmania.
“It’s easier to think about this than it is to comment on the plight of the urban poor or climate change or war,’’ Taylor said. “The world weighs upon us. It’s complicated and it’s scary and it’s sad and it’s tragic. I recognize that we need lesser things to distract us.’’