By Frank Wessling
Tim Tebow is a young man who plays football very well. If you’re not a sports nut you may not know him, but he is famous as quarterback for the University of Florida team that won the college football championship twice. He is also noted for his vacation time mission work with his evangelical Protestant church.
Unless CBS has caved in to pressure and pulled the ad, you will see Tebow this Sunday during the telecast of the National Football League’s championship game, the Super Bowl. The 30-second commercial spot features Tim with his mother, Pam Tebow, and a quick story of how he became her fifth child because she ignored doctor recommendations for an abortion after she became sick during a mission trip to the Philippines.
It’s tame as Super Bowl ads go. No flash and dazzle, no funny stuff built around beer, no accidentally bared breasts, no blasts of rock music. Just a simple story of a woman’s courage and faith that the call of life at its most basic cannot be set aside for other considerations.
But it calls into question the “choice” imperative favored by some people. They want the TV network to reject the ad. They don’t think the life imperative should be made so attractive.
Good for Pam Tebow and her son and CBS — if the spot survived.
