That Controversial Commercial

6 February 2010 No Comment

The commercial has not been seen yet, but it is so controversial

The Thirty second clip, scheduled to air during Super Bowl XLIV, has already started controversy concerning whether the ad should air or not. To this, I say let the ad air in the name of free speech.

The ad is rumored to be the story of how Tim Tebow’s mom, Pam, was told by doctors (during a 1987 missionary trip to the Phillipines) after getting very sick to abort the child she was carrying. Pam Tebow went against those doctor’s recommendations to abort her fifth child and eventually gave birth to Tim, the now famous college football player.

Even though I am pro-life, I do not believe nor do I place faith in the fact that that the tide of stopping abortions will overturn overnight.

tim tebow

But the real underlying issue here is not Tebow, or abortion. It is whether the ad is supposed to be a Christianity based message or a covert political message from a ‘Christian organization’ trying to circumvent laws (through loopholes defined as ‘wanting to do what is defined as unlawful, illegial, or unethical but attempting to justify it as being right) applying to registered nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations. In fact, one can now question if the Tebow family are really being “used” not to proclaim the pro-life message, but instead to further establish the “Christian organization one day, political action committee the next day” mindset of Focus on the Family as a political think-tank disguised as ‘ministry’ and a ‘force to be reckoned with’ in light of the Obama administration.

If the ad is making a Christian statement. Fine. If a political statement is being covertly stated, then let the 501(c)(3) status investigations into violations of 501(c)(3) laws come forth .

Even though the ad has been approved by CBS, the actual content of the ad itself has been a well kept secret along with at what actual point in the game will the ad air (in many churches tomorrow morning, you may get to see the ad in full during the service). It has been speculated that the ad will air either before or after the halftime show starring the famous band The Who. I am wondering if both the content of the ad and also the time the ad airs is being kept secret to where no one would attempt to ’sabotage’ the showing of the commercial or to prevent people from flipping the channel in advance to avoid viewing the commercial.

However, this is not the first anti-abortion ad in the national spotlight? I remember the Arthur S. DeMoss foundation running some of those famous, but very tasteful “Life, What a Beautiful Choice” ads in prime time media during the Clinton years. Were these ads ran during the Super Bowl? I can not remember.

However, the most ironic point of all of this controversy is that if you attend one of these ‘official Christian Big Game’ parties at a local church, you probably wouldn’t see the commercial to start with because almost all of these parties usually “block out” the commercials in the name of preventing obscenities from being seen and try to do ‘quickie testimony filler’. If the ad does happen to be aired at halftime, it definitely would not been seen at most of these ‘official Christian Big Game’ parties because of the fact that most of those parties at halftime love to turn the game off and the pastor preaches a “sermonette” or show some NFL player’s testimony DVD with an altar call to follow.

I will bet you that this year at private Super Bowl parties, there will be one person assigned to be the ‘guarder of the remote’ at your Super Bowl party that will monitor the commercials and immediately change the channel when the Tebow commercial does air. It will be very interesting to see if the Nielsen ratings monitor the commercial viewing patterns and see how many people do turn the channel when the commercial airs to see the total effect of really how many people do actually see the commercial.

If the Tebow ad is not controversial enough for you, how about the Tim Tebow Mask (credit pjmiller) that you can wear while watching the big game.