{"id":2341,"date":"2012-02-21T22:14:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T22:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/02\/does-god-want-jeremy-lin-to-win.html"},"modified":"2012-02-21T22:14:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-21T22:14:00","slug":"does-god-want-jeremy-lin-to-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/02\/does-god-want-jeremy-lin-to-win.html","title":{"rendered":"Does God Want Jeremy Lin to Win?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

By JAY MICHAELSON
Religion Dispatches<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve unplugged your computer and TV for the last week, you may not have heard of Jeremy Lin, the sudden basketball phenomenon, Asian-American hero, and, like Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow before him, out-of-nowhere success story who wears his faith on his sleeve.
Lin, like Tebow, is a deeply religious evangelical Christian. And while his own religious utterances have been both humble and thoughtful (Lin went to Harvard, after all), the press swirling around him has led to a spate of bad theology\u2014which is a shame, because sports stories have the ability to capture the public imagination and have the potential to inspire us to reflect on truly important religious values, instead of truly awful ones.<\/p>\n

The awful values, of course, have to do with theodicy: that God picks sides, and roots for one sports team over another. In the case of athletics, this belief is both ridiculous and widespread. Student athletes, and those old enough to know better, routinely pray to God to help them score the winning touchdown, vanquish their nasty opponents, or win the big trophy. During Tebow\u2019s stunning ascent, and now during Lin\u2019s, dozens of commentators have joined the fray. Their careers, at least the beginnings of them, have indeed been miraculous, so doesn\u2019t this show the hand of God at work in American sports?
Read the rest here<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By JAY MICHAELSONReligion Dispatches If you\u2019ve unplugged your computer and TV for the last week, you may not have heard of Jeremy Lin, the sudden basketball phenomenon, Asian-American hero, and, like Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow before him, out-of-nowhere success story who wears his faith on his sleeve.Lin, like Tebow, is a deeply religious evangelical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDoes God Want Jeremy Lin to Win?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"By JAY MICHAELSONReligion DispatchesIf you\u2019ve unplugged your computer and TV for the last week, you may not have heard of Jeremy Lin, the sudden\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/02\/does-god-want-jeremy-lin-to-win.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Does God Want Jeremy Lin to Win?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By JAY MICHAELSONReligion DispatchesIf you\u2019ve unplugged your computer and TV for the last week, you may not have heard of Jeremy Lin, the sudden\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/02\/does-god-want-jeremy-lin-to-win.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rhetoric Race and Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-02-21T22:14:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andre E. 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