Why I Won’t Bash Brit Hume
January 12th, 2010So Brit Hume has been quite the darling of the angry liberal media lately, and by ‘darling’ I mean punching bag. And by ‘liberal media’ I mean liberal media, which is a phrase I rarely use or believe in. However, the typically mythological secular media machine has been having field day over his highly offensive statement regarding the Tiger Woods scandal and Tiger’s nominal Buddhist faith:
“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.’”
Yeah. That’s it. The correct assessment that most forms of Buddhism aren’t very helpful when you’ve demolitioned your life to pieces (that’s a boatload of bad karma Tiger just racked up) and maybe Christianity might be a better deal for people who are sitting in their own debris.
But no. Hume has been labeled all sorts of nasty things, from inflammatory to being a religious bigot. Even Charleston’s most involved atheist and left-wing activist (God bless him) argued that “embracing Brit Hume as a Christian Voice is no different than embracing Rudolph Hess”—that is, Hitler’s mentally-ill third-in-command. My favorite critique of him came from Washington Post columnist Tom Shales, who questioned, “is it really his job to run around trying to drum up new business? He doesn’t really have the authority, does he, unless one believes that every Christian by mandate must proselytize?”
Um, actually Tom, he does because there is. That whole Great Commission thing, y’know. Or how about 2 Timothy 2:4, where Paul implores every Christian to “Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not.”
Gosh darn it. Could it be that the liberal media elite failed to understand their conservative target’s faith before they started giving theological pointers? Shocker. I fully grant that pundits can debate the articulation of Hume’s statement (because I do think it was pretty awkward), but whether he had a right or an intrinsic faith-based imperative to make it should not be called into the media spotlight that it’s in. It’s pretty obvious that as a news commentator and Christian, he does have the right—and perhaps even the obligation—to comment on the news from the occasional Christian perspective.
And I still haven’t seen a single explanation on why Hume’s alleged bashing of Buddhism isn’t factually correct. Robert Thurman, a professor of Tibetan studies at Columbia University, remarked “I think it’s ridiculous to make those statements,” to Tamara Lush of the Associated Press. “It is insulting to Buddhism to indicate that Buddhism doesn’t take care of its own believers and followers. But I think he will discover that Buddhists are very forgiving about his stupid statements.” Again, we could debate the manner in which it was said, but I didn’t notice where Hume says, “Buddhism doesn’t take care of its own believers and followers”, did you? Hume very clearly says Buddhism doesn’t offer the kind of forgiveness or redemption offered by Christ. Actually, Hume is being too kind here, since the most classical forms of Buddhism don’t offer any forgiveness or redemption. Those are truly foreign concepts to Buddha’s teachings.
Ironically, Stephen Prothero, a Boston University professor on Buddhism, agrees with Hume even as he derides him and Christianity while being interviewed. “You have the law of karma, so no matter what Woods says or does, he is going to have to pay for whatever wrongs he’s done. There’s no accountant in the sky wiping sins off your balance sheet, like there is in Christianity.” So basically, Prothero is saying…Hume is completely correct—only that Christianity is stupid for offering forgiveness. Guess that’s why he’s Buddhist and Hume is not.
Now, back to you, Tiger.
