Recently Brit Hume exhorted Tiger Woods to convert to Christianity to battle the recent problems the latter has encountered. Woods, who claims to be a Buddhist, was faulted by Humes for adopting this religion. Hume said: “I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith.” Further turning his bully pulpit into a mere pulpit, Hume offered: “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.”
It was one of those moments where the satire being manufactured by Saturday Night Live could easily be anticipated. See the full story here.
iggydonnelly
PrairiePopulistsAndProgressives.net 
As the link explains, Hume turned to Christianity to deal with the suicide death of his son. So, on the one hand, one has to feel for Hume and what led to his faith journey, but on the other hand, he did come off as kind of arrogant and insensitive…
When I was a child a neighbor was sitting at our kitchen table having coffee and conversation with my Mother. I heard the neighbor tell my Mother she should convert to Catholicism because she could go out tonight and do “whatever” because then she would only need to go to confession and all would be well and forgiven. She went on to give examples of what she planned to do that night and ask to be forgiven for tomorrow. My Mom didn’t know my little ears were near by or this conversation would have stopped before it got started.
Premeditated sin and forgiveness. Even as a child I understood this woman was planning in advance to do what she knew she shouldn’t and would need to confess and ask to be forgiven. Her faith or beliefs or religion offered her an out.
Brit Hume uses his microphone at Fox to tell someone what religion they should follow. He further states that Buddhism doesn’t offer, “the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith.”
And this is individual responsibility, being accountable for one’s actions? Notice Brit Hume didn’t say anything about Tiger Woods need to change his behaviors, or trying harder to live a life that is exemplary. Nope. All he needed was to practice a different and superior religion.
And here all this time I thought every religion taught that people are responsible for themselves and their actions. They should treat others as they expect to be treated, and concentrate on making their life the example instead of worrying about how another lives theirs.
Oh, and I almost forgot — Fox News doesn’t have an agenda outside delivering the news. They wouldn’t tell anyone which religion should be practiced! Riiiiight! Yes, I know it was one of their employees and they can’t be held accountable for what someone says… More of that responsible accountability in action!
fnord,
I learned Catholicism from the Baltimore Chatechism at a very young age. Premeditated sin is a whole different group of sin and what that woman was advocating is not what was taught by the nuns and priests at the church where I was indoctrinated. Ironically, my mother once told me that one of the reasons she did not trust some religions is because they taught that all you had to do to get to heaven was to believe that Jesus was the son of God and a savior sent to pay for our sins. She thought that would enable people to behave any way they pleased and still believe they were getting into heaven at the end.
Brit Hume is just another ass on tv. I am so tired of this Christian cheerleading. If Christians are so great, why do we see so many Christian men CHEATING on thier wives? If he thinks God will forgive a Christian any faster or more thoroughly than he will a Muslim, it is merely his arrogance that causes him to believe it is so.
What do humans know of God? Only what they choose to believe…
I didn’t mean to be critical of Catholicism, yet my words sure did what I didn’t intend. I’m sorry! No, I’m sure this woman’s premeditated sin wasn’t what was taught!
I once heard a man say religion is like your Mom’s home made soup — you need to blow it off to suit you. Humans have learned to do that really well, don’t ya think? The ones that bother me are the sanctimonious who believe they’re doing everything right and everyone else isn’t.
I don’t hate anyone’s religion but I hate what people do to other people in the name of their religion.
Does that makes sense?
To me, Brit Hume was way out of line to even approach this subject on national television.
As for being a great example of Christianity, how can Brit Hume be heavily connected to Fox News (his current wife is the VP there) and then profess to be such a good Christian?
I have seen more lies and downright hatred coming out of that Fox News group than I could shake a stick at – but yet Brit has the audacity to preach down to Tiger?
Well, you will probably not ever meet anyone more critical of Catholicism than I am, so you didn’t offend me at all. I just wanted to clarify that the Catholic Church does not teach that you can do whatever you want and have your sins washed away with a few Hail Mary’s on Saturday in confession. (Because you have to go to confession on Saturday in order to properly prepare yourself for Eucharist on Sunday at Mass). But it is an excellent example of how people will pervert the teachings of any religion to suit their own needs.
I am one of those heathens that believes that organized religion is always bad (if not downright evil) and therefore will never belong to any church of any kind. Conservatives always want to accuse me of being atheist or at least agnostic because I don’t believe that the Bible is the Word of God and I think organized religion is bad. But I would put my faith in God and Jesus up against the most devout Evangelical. I often find their faith severely lacking. Which is why, imho, they are so busy trying to make sure that everyone believes the way they do; less testing of their beliefs from the people around them.
Whether its Catholicism or any other Christian or non-Christian religion, people take what they want from of it a, to quote Simon & Garfunkel, “disregard the rest.”
fnord, I think the basic tenets of most religions are exactly what you mentioned. But the devil is in the details. 😉
Another thing many of us learned as children was a song, “This little light of mine…”
It has remained my opinion that this is the way it should be ‘told on the mountain.’ Whether the mountain be life in your neighborhood, at your work, on a news talk show…
When I read the article about this yesterday, I kept thinking the same thing. Brit Hume worded it as Tiger Woods can ‘recover’ from this scandal.
‘Recover’ as in keeping his shiny knight in armor personna of a good guy intact?
‘Recover’ as in keeping all his endorsement deals flowing to his bank account?
Not one time did I hear Brit Hume say that maybe Tiger Woods is just a jerk that got caught.
And if Brit Hume really cared about Tiger Woods as a person, he would have contacted Tiger personally and try to ‘help’ the guy. You don’t do it on national television.
But I think the appearance on the Bill O’Reilly show was a set up to promote their theory of Christians being persecuted (yet again).
Actually, Brit Hume was wrong when he said the Bible mentioned that if someone even says the word Jesus that ‘all Hell breaks loose’. That is NOT what the Bible says. What the Bible says is when a person is living the Christian life – then there will be persecution.
Living a Christian life is much different than some bozo on the Fox Channel O’Reilly’s show talking about Jesus and getting that free ‘Get Me Out of My Own Mess card’
Maybe Tiger should ask Britt if he’s studied Buddhism or even has a clue, except that Christians teach that all other religions are e-v-i-l.
It would be interesting to see what Tiger’s reaction will be to all this nonsense.
But, in reality, Tiger has bigger fish to fry than one pompous, arrogant, big-mouthed Christian.
But in Buddhism, as I understand it, the practice of forgiveness is really for the sake of your own mental well being and not for the sake of the person that wronged you.
And that make sense to me – the longer I hold on to hate and vengeful grudges, the more harm it causes to me. The person that wronged me simply goes on their way.
And, really, doesn’t it all come down to one thing – each person can choose whatever religion – or non religion – they want.
They don’t need some sanctimonius Chesire cat grinning fake news guy on television telling them what to do.