Well, Brit Hume has lit up the blogosphere and made headlines with (what seemed to be from the clip–just search You Tube) a genuine concern for Tiger’s well-being.
Now, from the huffington post, to fox news, to everywhere in between. People are talking about Brit Hume, Jesus, and Tiger. There are lots of things we could weigh in on (e.g., the validity and veracity of his claim? Should it be uttered on the news? If Islam or New Age were commended instead of Jesus, would there be the backlash? All interesting questions.
So….What did Brit Hume actually say?
“Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person, I think, is a very open question. And it’s a tragic situation. . . . But the Tiger Woods that emerges once the news value dies out of this scandal, the extent to which he can recover, seems to me to depend on his faith.
“He’s said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’ “
In our increasingly secular and pluralistic society the fact that this was greeted with outrage is unsurprising. But for all those hoping to vilify Brit Hume for sharing what he has found to be true, one should it a least understand some personal context (whether he should have said it or not on a News show, I’ll let you decide).
Brit lost a son to suicide in 1998. I can’t imagine the pain of that as a father. And in an interview in 2008 when he retired from as Washington Bureau Chief for Fox News, he said:
“I certainly want to pursue my faith more ardently than I have done. I’m not claiming it’s impossible to do when you work in this business. I was kind of a nominal Christian for the longest time. When my son died, I came to Christ in a way that was very meaningful to me. If a person is a Christian and tries to face up to the implications of what you say you believe, it’s a pretty big thing. If you do it part time, you’re not really living it.”
My point is this. Maybe in a moment of candor, Brit was being deeply honest with Tiger. Simply expressing what / who he has found that has changed his life?
….Here is an interesting article from Politics Daily
here is a post by Stand to Reason looking more at the specific claim.
Here is Brit talking later about what he said on Sunday: