JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Christian porn star known for wearing his religion on his sleeve is defending the prayer pose he strikes after ejaculating. He said the act is “a loving and humble gesture of sincere thanks to God, not a means of bringing attention to myself.”

“When I kneel at the side of the bed or end of the couch or on top of the kitchen counter and bow my head in prayer, it’s not a celebration or expression of victory as some of my critics have described it,” said performer Ted Tebone, a two-time XJIZZ Award nominee for Best Performance in a Christian Gangbang. “It’s just my way of giving thanks to the Lord for blessing me with the opportunity and ability to spill my seed onto and/or into some of his loveliest human creations.”

Tebone, who recently took a break from performing in porn to take another shot at playing professional table tennis, followed by an attempt to break into pro badminton, all of which followed a stint on the popular reality TV competition show Dancing with the Relatively Well-Known, said he thinks the only reason his religiosity is so heavily criticized is a “strong and very sad anti-Christian bias” present in the modern porn industry.

“If I just gave the old ‘thumbs-up’ after cumming on a girl’s butt, or leaned into view of the camera right after delivering one of my trademark Hail Mary facial blasts to say ‘Hi Mom,’ nobody would complain,” Tebone said. “Heck, I’ve seen guys spike a bottle of lube and dance in the corner of the room for like 30 seconds, but I don’t hear anybody calling them hypocrites or telling them to quit their job and enter seminary school. I’m being singled out because I’m Christian, not because people really think my post-sex pose is somehow over-the-top or an attention-getting device.”

Some of Tebone’s co-stars have come to his defense, including the popular Methodist MILF Youngpenny Nance, who was on the receiving end of Tebone’s Christian Adult Video Quarterly (CAVQ) Award-nominated turn in the 2011 release Seven Inches in Utopia.

“All I know is in my experience, Ted has always been a lovely, compassionate, caring man with outstanding abs who absolutely earned his nomination for Best Performance in the Missionary Position,” Nance said. “It’s also true his faith in the Lord is so strong, he never needs assistance from pills or injections to get the job done on camera. Honestly, at the risk of sounding sacrilegious, I’d say you could literally crucify a man upon the wood Ted brings to the set.”

Other performers are less glowing in their praise of Tebone, however, including his Left Behind in the Behind co-star, Prick Cage.

“While it pains me to deeply question the faith of one of my fellow evangelical eroticists, I’ve heard Ted say some things and watched him do some things that made me wonder if his expressions of faith are really just a means of furthering his own success,” Cage said. “For example, the script for Jerusalem Cumshot Countdown didn’t call for anybody to draw the sign of the cross on our female co-star’s body in their own sperm. Ted said it was a spontaneous act he was compelled to perform by God moving him to do it in that moment, but I know I’m not the only one who saw him smirking and laughing to himself right before he did it.”

Director Phallix Kendrick, who has worked with Tebone several times, most notably including the 2013 erotic police drama Coozerageous, said he’s not concerned about the actor’s post-cumshot antics, because “love him or hate him, Teddy always shows up.”

“Sure, he doesn’t have the world’s biggest cock and sometimes he kinda dribbles when what we’re looking for is a sperm-geyser, but one thing you can count on with Teddy is he’s always there,” Kendrick said. “And I don’t just mean where porn is concerned. If your baseball team is having tryouts, he’s going to show up there, too. Got a radio show on which you talk about sports or God or God in the context of sports? Don’t be surprised if Teddy calls in to chip in his two cents there, as well.”

To Kendrick, the reason for Tebone’s relentless, almost ubiquitous presence is no mystery.

“He’s just a guy who really wants people to know how much he loves God,” Kendrick said. “But it’s not about publicity or money or fame like people think. It’s all about giving glory to God. That pose he does that everybody is so upset about? I’ve seen him do it after completing the act of depositing a check at the freaking bank — and the only cameras in there were closed-circuit.”