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Posted on Tuesday 5 January 2010


Brit Hume stands by his Tiger Woods Christian crusade
Raw Story
By David Edwards and Daniel Tencer
January 5th, 2010 — 1:49 pm

Fox News pundit Brit Hume is facing a backlash over his comments this past weekend that golfer Tiger Woods should convert from Buddhism to Christianity because Buddhism can’t "offer the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith."

Since making the comment on Fox News Sunday, Hume has been accused of proselytizing for the Christian faith and denigrating Buddhism’s estimated 350 million followers. But Hume insists that he never meant to insult Buddhism, and stands behind his call for Woods to become a Christian. Perhaps most tellingly, he has not — as some commentators, including the Washington Post‘s Tom Shales, have suggested — apologized for the remark.

"I was really meaning to say in those comments yesterday more about Christianity than I was about anything else," Hume told Fox’s Bill O’Reilly Monday night. "I mentioned the Buddhism only because his mother is a Buddhist and he has apparently said that he is a Buddhist. I’m not sure how seriously he practices that." Hume went on to insist, as he did in the Fox News Sunday segment, that converting to Christianity would solve Woods’ marital and personal problems.

And, in a statement that used the language of true, old-fashioned proselytization, Hume explained his argument that Woods’ conversion would be a boon to Christianity. "What I’m saying is if Tiger Woods were to make a true conversion, we would know it," Hume said. "And — and it would shine because he is so prominent. It would be — it would be a shining light, and I think it would be a — it would be a magnificent thing to witness"…
Brit Hume is lost in a loop that he may understand in some personal context, but leaves the rest of us cold. He seems to be missing the reason that the Tiger Woods story stays on the front burner. It’s similar to the Mel Gibson drunk driving story. We weren’t shocked that Mel Gibson was driving drunk. He’s a known alcoholic who has had a number of relapses. We were stunned by his anti-semetic rant at the arresting officer. With Tiger, it was a shock to find that a "clean" celebrity like him was a serial sex addict, maybe a drug user, maybe a steroid user, and not much of a family guy. What he does in the future won’t change the sense of disillusionment we have with this story. And if it turns out that Tiger has used steroids, the entire gestalt of professional golf will be turned upside down – conversion or not.

Some super-rich professional athlete having a girl in every port is no big story. But Tiger Woods had created an image of being something else. And he turned out to be a phoney. How is converting to Christianity going to change that? At best, he would be building a different image, reformed sinner. Who cares? He can never be what he was again. And as for Brit Hume, he can’t either. There was a time when he was a respected newsman. Since his son’s suicide ten years ago, he’s become a Christian and a newsman on the Fox News Network – a Religious Right Republican Hack. Whatever he’s gotten himself into with this Tiger Woods business just seems sad to me. He’d do well to slip into obscurity for a while until he sorts himself out…
  1.  
    Carl
    January 5, 2010 | 10:10 PM
     

    Is it not “better” to be a phony Christian as opposed to being a phony Buddhist? (I think I’ll have to get back to Kierkegaard on this one.) I’m still not recovered from the realization that Mr. Woods didn’t really rather have a Buick this year. Does that make him a phony capitalist too? It’s all so confusing. And can the Hanes underwear company be subrogated given Mr. Abadabdullab’s use of his briefs as a putative WMD? Should Mr. Hume care more about dangerous jockeys than golfers who’ve strayed from Jesus?

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