By now most people know Fox News’s Brit Hume recommended Tiger Woods consider what Jesus Christ has to offer him in his difficult situation.
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 needs the kind of forgiveness and redemption that only faith in God offers. So my message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to God and He will show you the way. You can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
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When I saw the replay of Hume’s comments, I was deeply moved by his sincerity and his courage. I wish more public figures would express their Christian faith with that kind of straight-forward simplicity and humility.
I didn’t realize Hume, an Episcopalian, had reaffirmed his faith after his son’s suicide in 1998. He knows how it feels to live through the “dark night of the soul.” (What could be more horrific than losing a child to suicide?)
Those who so quickly criticized Hume should be ashamed of themselves. Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, comments here on their “vitriol” and bias against Christianity. How many times have we heard celebrities, for example, at the Academy Awards, recommend everything from Buddha to Obama and Global Warming, with not a critical peep elicited in the press?
Those of us who care about Tiger Woods, and I count myself among them, have hoped and prayed he will find some kind of redemption for himself and his family. A Catholic should know there is no sin beyond forgiveness, except the rejection of Christ himself.
All Brit Hume did was express this wish publicly, with the obvious hope that Tiger would hear it.
The next time I feel an impulse to speak of my Episcopalian brethren as less ardent than myself, I will bite my tongue, hard.
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