No more black

Tim Tebow's eye-black contained scripture verses which would be googled or searched for by thousands of fans following his football games last year. One announcer even read the scripture referenced by his eye-black.

This will not happen this year in college football (and probably not in the NFL because they have uniform nazi's). Not because Tebow's graduating and will soon be drafted by some fortunate NFL team. It will happen because the NCAA is now banning eye-black with any messages, logos, or scripture references.

No real reason is given for the ban in this article. The eye-black rule comes into play along with changes on kick-off coverages and taunting. Perhaps the NCAA didn't want any sponsors getting free advertising? That's understandable. Or they didn't want players promoting things the NCAA didn't want promoted? That's understandable. Or they didn't want Jesus to get any pub? That's understandable from a non-Christian worldview, but it seems the ultimate motive might be to attempt to privatize religious expression.

Nevertheless ministry is much more than wearing Christian T-shirts, fish emblems on cars, or eye-black. It's messy, life-on-life, self-sacrificial, loving, other-centered. As a result, we need not ever fear or even get overly frustrated with NCAA or government trying to curtail religious expression. Neither have the power to destroy ministry opportunities. They just may create new ones.