Tolerance is a virtue the Left loves to trumpet, except when the intolerable is set forward. In this instance, the intolerable is a gentle Christian evangelistic overture to a celebrity caught in sexual scandal.
Yesterday, Fox News analyst and professing Christian Brit Hume expressed his spiritual concern for Tiger Woods and urged the golf superstar to turn to Christianity for grace and forgiveness during a segment of the January 3 edition of "Fox News Sunday."
For that, Hume is being lambasted by some liberal bloggers, including Atlanta Jounal-Constitution's Jay Bookman who unleashed this venom in a brief three paragraph blog post yesterday afternoon:
Kinda makes you wonder why God allowed that darned Buddhist to win so many golf tournaments over good Christian men. Then again, He also allowed a Muslim to be elected president of HIS country, the United States of Christian America.
But seriously, I do not understand and can’t begin to comprehend the arrogance it takes to publicly anoint yourself someone’s spiritual adviser, and to then lecture them about their faith and its alleged inadequacies. This was a prepared, considered remark by Hume, not some off-the-cuff aside.
A person’s faith is a private matter between that person and God, and is not a matter to be judged by some pompous TV anchor.
But was Hume really pompous in his pronouncement? The video Bookman himself embedded suggests otherwise, as Hume hints that he has found grace and forgiveness in Christ and wishes the same personally for Tiger Woods, a man whose sexual sins have found him out.
While Bookman may be unaware of this, Hume's embrace of the Christian faith has been a great comfort to him in the 11 years since his son's death.
From an interview with The Hollywood Reporter (THR) prior to his retirement from "Special Report" in 2008:
THR: WHAT OTHER THINGS WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO IN RETIREMENT?
Hume: I certainly want to pursue my faith more ardently than I have done. I'm not claiming it's impossible to do when you work in this business. I was kind of a nominal Christian for the longest time. When my son died (by suicide in 1998), I came to Christ in a way that was very meaningful to me. If a person is a Christian and tries to face up to the implications of what you say you believe, it's a pretty big thing. If you do it part time, you're not really living it.
It seems clear to anyone without an ax to grind that Hume was aiming to not be a "part time" Christian but use his public profile to urge a fellow sinner to find grace and peace in Christ much the same as Hume has found himself.
Of course, it's probably no skin off Brit's back, who would probably rejoice at being slandered for the sake of Christ (Luke 6:22-23) and say a little prayer for Bookman:
“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.
