Britt Hume was Right

Last week on Fox News Sunday, news anchor Britt Hume rocked the secular media when he made the observation, when asked his opinion, that Tiger Woods should seek redemption and forgiveness in Christianity.  This was his exact quote:

“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 for him. I think he’s lost his family, it’s not clear to me if he’ll be able to have a relationship with his children, 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."

The resulting guffaws from the secular press were predictable.   Media critic Tom Shales called him a "sanctimonious busybody".  Andrew Sullivan accused him of destroying the distinction between religious and secular discourse.  MSNBC anchor David Shuster declard his comment as "truly embarrising" and fellow anchor Keith Olbermann compared Hume's advice for Tiger to Islamic terrorism!

So what was it that Hume did that was so over the top?  How did he cross the line?  The answer is that he expressed his actual belief- and the belief of every true Christian- that the only answer to the problem of sin is the one who has paid the price for that sin.  Here's a news flash for Olbermann, Shuster et al:  True Christians believe what they say they believe.

True Christianity is not apathetic or ambivalent.  As C.S. Lewis has said "One thing Christianity cannot be is moderately important."  If Christianity is true and Jesus really did die for our sin then that is a truth that must be expressed.  N.T. Wright put it this way:


"How can you live with the terrifying thought that the hurricane has become human? That the fire has become flesh? That Life itself has walked into our midst? Christianity either means that, or it means nothing. It is the most devastating disclosure of the deepest reality in the world, or its a sham, a total nonsense. Most people, unable to cope with saying either of those two things are condemned to live in the shallow world in between."

Hume was correct in his assesment of both Buddhism and Christianity.  There is no redemption or forgiveness in Buddhism because there is no concept of sin.

There is only one belief system that truly gets to the heart of the issue of the human soul- and that is the belief in Christianity that if we follow the sin of the human heart to it's natural conclusion we will meet with utter destruction and the only solution to that problem is the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross.  It is only in our acceptance of Him as our savior that we find true redemption and forgiveness because it was His work on the cross that utterly satisfied God's sense of perfect justice.  That is the truth that sets us free.  No matter how many times we may have failed.  There is no other religious belief system that teaches anything like this.  As Christians we look at Tiger Woods and say "There except for the grace of God go I!"

In an interview with Laura Ingram on Thursday Hume made the observation that he believes  the disdain for his opinion was centered mostly in his Christianity.  I think this is probably true.  If he had said, "My advice to Tiger is to turn to Atheism",  I doubt there would be much of a ripple. 

But I think the true irony of criticism of Hume is that the intoleration of his expression of belief comes from a secular world view that looks down on intoleration.   It is almost as if the secularism we find in popular culture says something like "We are so much better than people who think they are so much better!"

Michael Gerson of the Washington Post put it very succinctly:

Hume's critics hold a strange view of pluralism. For religion to be tolerated, it must be privatized -- not, apparently, just in governmental settings but also on television networks. We must have not only a secular state but also a secular public discourse. And so tolerance, conveniently, is defined as shutting up people with whom secularists disagree. Many commentators have been offering Woods advice in his travails. But religious advice, apparently and uniquely, should be forbidden. In a discussion of sex, morality and betrayed vows, wouldn't religious issues naturally arise? How is our public discourse improved by narrowing it -- removing references to the most essential element in countless lives? True tolerance consists in engaging deep disagreements respectfully -through persuasion -not in banning certain categories of argument and belief from public debate.

Shuster and Olbermann and a host of others in the popular media have strong beliefs that they express regularly that flow from a secular humanist world view.  No one can blame them for their steadfast belief.   But they should not be so intellectually dishonest as to think that they are the only ones who have the right to express them.