Brit Hume is a very well known and credible journalist. Read his bio at FOX news here.
Hume also has a publicly professed Christian faith, a faith which deepened greatly after the death of his son, Sandy.
Participating in a panel discussion on Tiger Wood’s situation Hume had this to say: “Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person, I think is a very open question,” Hume said on the show Fox News Sunday. “The Tiger Woods that emerges, once the news value dies out of this scandal, the extent to which he can recover, seems to me, depends 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.”
Here’s a YouTube:
A variety of commentators reacted strongly.
A number of Christian bloggers have been tracking the controversy.
Justin Taylor had a post on ‘Brit Hume, Tiger Woods, and Jesus Christ’ that includes a later interview that Bill O’Reilly conducted with Hume.
The Vitamin Z blog observes ‘You Can Disagree With Brit Hume If You Like, But Just Don’t Do It Like This’ and points out the self-contradictory lines of reasoning that were being invoked to condemn Hume’s words.
The Gospel Coalition blog has a post by Trevin Wax entitled ‘In Defense of Proselytism: Talking Points for Brit Hume’.
Hume himself is interviewed by Christianity Today.
If you want to know more, just google or follow the links on the articles above.
So, the massive reaction seems to have come from a Christian observing a deficiency in a different faith and commending Christ. This reaction is usually missing when people who claim to have no faith position whatsoever point out the deficiencies they note in all faiths and call on people to abandon faith.
Note the condemnation of Islamic extremists which calls upon them to embrace what is portrayed as the right idea of Islam, not to abandon Islam altogether.
The same position is often taken with Christians as well.
Hume may think of a better time and place to advise the world’s most famous athlete about his faith, but the advice he gave is perfectly valid.
Take it or leave it.
Why condemn him for giving it?
It was advice given freely and well intended.
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