The Super Bowl is just around the corner.  Many in Winona are probably lamenting the fact that the Minnesota Vikings and/or Brett Favre are not going to be playing, but something else related to the Super Bowl caught my attention this week. 

There has been a controversy stirring over an upcoming advertisement featuring former Heisman Trophy quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother Pam. You can read the story here, but to sum it up: The Tebows are doing an advertisement sponsored by Focus on the Family that will share a pro-life (or anti-abortion depending on who is describing it) message, and it has some groups upset and pushing for CBS not to air the commercial citing it as decisive. 

(The commercial’s plot is as follows: Mother Tebow is on mission trip and pregnant. Mom gets sick and, against the doctor’s advice to have an abortion, she has the child. That child is Tim who goes on to great athletic prominence and fame. The message is understood: If abortion happens we would have missed out on Tim Tebow, etc.)

Now, I have my own disagreements with Focus on the Family and some of their social stances because of the way I understand the Christian faith differently, but that does not mean that I think their message should be “censored” and kept from public dialogue.

I mean for one, I don’t think the message/argument is that compelling. Their main point is that if Pam Tebow had listened to doctors, then the world would not have been blessed with Tim Tebow, but that same argument could hypothetically be made for the opposite. What if we played out the same scene but inserted whatever genocidal leader you decided into the same scenario? I bet many wouldn’t find the argument very compelling...but I digress.

I truly believe that as a society we benefit from hearing what other members of society believe and how they see the world even if we disagree with the message. This means I even believe that, as erroneous as they may be on things, Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps should be heard. I do not believe things they have said, nor do I endorse them, but hearing them helps me understand who they are as part of a society and that in turn helps me understand how to relate and interact with them.

So why am I writing all this? To be honest it is just a long-winded way for me to say that I think “Faith” has an important role within the fabric of a community/society. Theist/Atheist/Agnostic/etc., each one of these perspectives are a way someone understands the world around them and that belief helps them determine how to interact with others in their community/society/world. It is this understanding that leads me to want to share the stories, opinions, perspectives of people of faith. Each week will be different (sometimes it will be more opinion like in this article, other times it will be a story about something someone has done, other times I will share what someone or a group believes within our community, etc.), but my hope is that you will read and understand even if you disagree. In fact, I encourage healthy dialogue within the comments section, I just ask that we be civil in our discourse.