HEAVEN – In a press release issued earlier this month, God declared that professional athletes in any sport who point or gesture in any way in His direction while on the field of play will be subject to the normal penalties for committing a sin.

The policy seems to have been in the works for some time, as the release cites recent audits conducted by heavenly officials of post touchdown and homerun related adulation, which found relatively low levels of sincerity among professional baseball and football players in particular.

James Worthington, president of the Religious Studies Institute – a Chicago-based inter-faith think tank, is convinced that the timing of this new policy being released during the height of the NFL season is no coincidence.

“This is the time of year when you really see the celebrations ramping up, football players pointing with one or both hands and looking heavenward,” Worthington said. “We’ve seen the NFL crack down on celebrations significantly over the years, disallowing props and things like that. I see this as God’s way of saying that he’s not about to put up with being anybody’s prop either.”

The press release itself was relatively short – a mere 777 characters outlining the basics of the new policy, but a heavenly official speaking on the condition of anonymity told The Holy Observer that there were a couple of key factors in addition to the alleged lack of sincerity that prompted The Almighty to make the declaration.

“First of all, I think we can all agree that pointing is rude,” the official said. “Secondly, it’s more or less an open secret up here that God outsourced His sovereignty over sporting events at all levels to a startup firm in Mumbai about five years ago, so I really think he was starting to feel a little funny about taking credit for everything.”

It’s unclear at this point how the new policy will affect on field celebrations, as many well established sin-related policies seem to have had little to no bearing on the behavior of professional athletes historically. However, Worthington expects the new policy to at least have a temporary chilling effect.

“When you have God singling out your behavior directly like this, it tends to get your attention,” he said. “This isn’t like some dusty commandment telling you not to covet your neighbor’s Escalade. This is a fresh fax from cloud nine telling you to knock it off. I expect people to listen – at least until the playoffs.”

Christ was seen Monday rolling his eyes at new arrivals who filtered in after Hope Chapel’s bus crashed on its way to a Michael W. Smith concert in Temecula, Calif. “He just sort of looked exasperated when He sighed and waved them over, a la some dock worker helping a trucker back in his rig.” one angel said.

Martin Jones—who got saved at 21 and spent most of his life making millions of dollars while attending Hope’s truncated early service—was stunned. “I was a little embarrassed,” said Jones, 58. “He put His hands on His hips, shook His head, looked me square in the eyes and said: ‘Well, that was real half-assed.’”