Brit Hume Goes Bonkers

Anytime is the right time to turn to Christ...even for Catholics.

Brit Hume spoke the truth, but maybe not in the right context and time. I don't think that anyone is going to evangelize to Woods in person, which we are called to do. Hume took on rightly the prerogative to invite Woods to the light... Any catholic paper should know that

Ah, really...?

Acts 9:3-19
"... Now get up, and go ... you will be told what you must do."

Conversions can be delicate -- or indelicate -- as the Spirit dictates ...

I thought it was rather insightful -- and caring -- to take the opportunity to speak the Gospel to someone in need ...

Don't you ?

Buddhism does not have a means of redemption.
If it did, there would not have been a need for Jesus and His Passion.

I thought Hume was pretty courageous to say what he did. Buddhism does not offer redemption in the same way as Christ does, i.e. now and forever to the repentant soul. In Buddhism your sins are not paid for by anyone but yourself - in your next incarnation - and you pay for the sins in that incarnation in the next one - and so the wheel keeps turning.

I don't see why Hume is "bonkers." Buddism doesn't offer forgiveness in the sense of the divine. Hume is right on track on that point.

Personally I think this points to the bias of the author against Fox News rather than Hume's sanity.

Arguments against Buddhism

Mr. Hume merely stated a fact. All need Christ if they are going to be saved. This shouldn't be controversial on a so called Catholic website.

He stated his opinion, something he has a right to do. The only one going "bonkers" is you, with your strange over the top reaction to it. Get a life.

Apparently, no one has told Michael Sean Winters that Catholics are Christians, too!! So what's the beef, Mike? Aren't you Catholic? Brit spoke the truth, a commodity which is sorely lacking in our society today. You should applaud Brit, he did not advise Tiger to turn to any specific religion within the Christian faith, he just recommended that he turn to Christianity, very sound advice for a man experiencing the most dramatic crisis in his life.

Buddhism also doesn't have original sin, so it doesn't NEED a path of redemption. There is, in Buddhist belief, nothing to be redeemed from.

The flaw in most of the comments above is that you assume that Buddhism has one half of the Christian equation and is therefore crippled for not having the other one. In fact it has neither.

I have been active in interfaith affairs for many years. One of the things I've learned is never to describe someone else's faith or religion if you don't know what you're talking about. I heard Brit Hume's comments; he even admitted he doesn't know much about Buddhism. He should have kept his comments to himself until he was qualified to speak knowlegebly about Buddhism.

Earlier Sean called the scholarly theology of the US Ambassador to the Vatican "not my cup of tea."

Now Sean writes:
"Buddhism is not my cup of tea – I love creation and its delicacies too much"

Which begs several urgent questions, not only, dear boy, just what IS your cup of tea?

Might you best recover it within a Zen Buddhist tea ceremony?

Does not the Buddhist deeply "love creation and its delicacies," particularly in the practice of vegetarianism? How do you find otherwise?

Perhaps the quality of Michael's tea is strained, unlike Portia . . .

This author shows the typical soft bigotry of a lukewarm Catholic who takes his faith for granted, and thinks that other faiths are just another fine "cup of tea." Your faith may be a lukewarm cup of tea, my friend, but it is you and not Christianity which is lukewarm. Try turning on your burner. You think the Catholic faith is key to your redemption, but as for others, well they have other "means to redemption and forgiveness". What exactly are those means in Buddhism? You may think you are being humble when you would not commend a person to belief in the Christian faith? Are you not aware that Catholics are supposed to ENCOURAGE people to believe in Christ? Ever heard of the line "No one comes to the Father except through me"? Might want to look that one up. It is true that persons outside of the Catholic faith can be saved, but it is not recommended by the Church, nor by its divine Founder. So stop recommending it. Stop writing for the National Catholic Reporter if you can't report like a Catholic.

Well, even if you agree with Hume, once he began to proselytize, he undermined his credibility as a senior political analyst. Maybe he could become a televangelist instead.

Brit Hume's suggestion, though undoubtedly sincere, was humorless, like an invitation to a funeral. There more to faith than a "get-out-of-hell" promise - which Catholic Christians are good at relying on at the last minute for sure, if you read famous novels (Waugh; Mauriac).) Television is getting more and more weird and Fox is happily leading the way.

"Buddhism is not my cup of tea – I love creation . . ."

---

Offensive and clueless to suggest that Buddhists do not love creation. Worse than poor Brit.

Catholic actually literally means "universal" or "broad-minded", it does NOT mean "to witness and convert".

The biggest objection to Hume's comment is that he did it on a political talk show, and as a political commentator, not a religious one. Tiger Wood's personal faith and possibility for divine redemption are a totally unrelated issue to the ones they were discussing, and not one that Hume is even minimally qualified to talk about, considering he does not personally know Woods, is not at all familiar with Woods' religious beliefs, is not a theological scholar, and has no related expertise. Plus it's terribly rude to criticize someone's religious beliefs, out of the blue, when you are talking about something completely unrelated, particularly in front of people who don't share your religious beliefs (which is also why I get annoyed when people take any excuse to take a swipe at the Catholic Church). It would be as if Hume made a prediction on what treatment Woods should get to avoid scarring on his injuries, without knowing anything about the specific injuries, Woods' general health, or any available medical treatments.

"If [Brit] Hume wants to do the satellite-age equivalent of going door-to-door and spreading what he considers the gospel, he should do it on his own time, not try to cross-pollinate religion and journalism and use Fox facilities to do it.”

-- Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales, reacting to Fox News analyst Brit Hume's suggestion on “Fox News Sunday” that golfer Tiger Woods should consider Christianity instead of Buddhism to overcome his recent scandal.

'nuf said.

My infamously severely limiting literary incapacities surely impede me on this one, but I still cannot for the life of me make any sense out of this phrase from Mr. Winter:

"Buddhism is not my cup of tea – I love creation and its delicacies too much –"

What part of creation do Buddhists NOT love, and in a fully nonviolent, unaggressive manner?

Meanwhile Sean loves the creation of a nice juicy burger . . .

As the famous Buddhist saying from Alan Watts's book reads:

Sitting quietly
Doing nothing
Spring comes
And the grass grows by itself.
(The Way of Zen, p. 134, 1999 edition)

I see no rape and pillage of Creation in that, as we do under several so-called "Christian" manifestation (or infestations).

And since when have we found Christianity to be so forgiving and redeeming anyway? As seen on these pages we cannot stand even one another, let alone forgive.

Meanwhile the Buddhist monks sit together, in perfect peace and quiet, loving all Creation infinitely and without restraint . . .

Once more, try as I may, I simply cannot understand Sean. Sorry . . .

I'm sorry, I thought I came to the National CATHOLIC Reporter, but I could swear I just read one it its promulgates chastise another news reporter for inviting a Buddhist to consider Christianity. Instead of criticizing Brit Hume for not knowing much about Buddhism, perhaps the National Catholic Reporter ought to bone up on Christianity and its attendant obligation to evangelize the lost before removing the plank from Mr. Hume's eye. Oh, and spare me the "context" and "forum" remarks. Jesus, as I've been taught, was so concerend about timing and context that he got Himself naled to a tree. It's almost surreal that a publication calling itself the National Catholic Reporter would publish "Buddhism is not my cup of tea – I love creation and its delicacies too much – but it certainly embodies a means towards achieving forgiveness and redemption." That's just great. "not my cup of tea" is the epitome of relativism which the Church, for 2000 years, has struggled to defeat. Dear Lord, please spare us from another 3 decades of this. . . .If they are saved, it is because of Christ!

Wow, am I picking up some interesting material here. I never heard before that the word Catholic means "broad-minded." Or that to evangelize someone is to "go bonkers." Or that it's judgmental to evangelize but it is not judgmental (apparently) to describe someone as having "gone bonkers." Or that using a political talk show to discuss faith is inappropriate (even though the "political talk show" in question was discussing something that was not political, but social). I had forgotten that NCR is not my cup of tea.

Why don't you just cut to the chase and call this site the "National Reporter". Why on Earth is a "Catholic" website talking about an attempt at evangelization as "going bonkers"? Even if it wasn't the most prudent thing, it sure is a lot more Christian than anything this website is doing. There is no excuse for this kind of website anymore. Either become Catholic or stop pretending to be.

My message to everyone else is: This website is not a faithful representation of the Catholic Faith and I apologize for the scandal and confusion it provides.

A perfectly Zen riddle Michael writes with: ""Buddhism is not my cup of tea – I love creation and its delicacies too much –"

It's not that it is factually untrue as when Michael ascribed Mexico to Central America, forgetting how those Manifest Destiny maniacs chopped off the northern half of the nation, and sending Thoreau to jail.

It's not even that it is rampant, unsupportable opinionating as we find from bloggers to these pages, analogous to proclaiming something like: "FLOWERS are so not my cup of tea, and fail to receive my complete approbation! They are all so indelicate, so rude, so very rustic. They all stink so badly, and fail absolutely to create new life!"

Rather does it approach the perfect Zen riddle the master asks the initiate struggling towards enlightenment, such as the sound of one hand clapping, to which the only response may be a perfect non sequitur such as "The sunlight strikes that stone." This riddle of Sean's goes far beyond nonsense and enters that perfect realm of No Sense upon the path of perfect joy.

Of course I might also be very wrong.

Ummm, so when, then?

If "a person in crisis should probably not be counseled to abandon his or her own faith traditions", when would you prefer that that person turn to the truth? Should he get his act together and then come to Jesus? Isn't that pretty much 100% antithetical to the Christian message (not to mention Hume's point and his experience)?

Blessed are you when people INSULT you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. (Matthew 5:11)
YOU GO BRIT!!!!!