Today’s Brit Hume Report
by Danny Fisher
Again, with regards to Brit Hume, you know the drill by now.
Now the updates…
First, the mighty Stephen Prothero sounded off with an excellent piece in the pages of USA Today this morning. In it, he focuses on one of the issues that has also bothered me the most about this whole flap:
My complaint about Hume is not that he is plumping for born-again Christianity. I have no problem with proselytizing, and watching a news anchor morph into a televangelist isn’t really all that different from watching a news anchor morph into an ideologue — something we’ve been witnessing for years. My complaint instead is that Hume is trashing a religion — “the Buddhism,” as he awkwardly calls it — about which he knows next to nothing.
Hume is doubtless speaking out of personal experience — the end of his first marriage, the suicide of his son — and you can tell by his voice that he comes not to bury Woods but to resurrect him. Nonetheless, news organizations do not tolerate financial reporters who don’t know the difference between a stock and a bond, or movie critics who have never heard of Steven Spielberg. Why should they tolerate a journalist mouthing off about a religion about which he knows next to nothing? Why should we? Religion is a prime mover in our world, and we need more discussion of it on television, not less. But unless that discussion is informed, it is, as the Bible says, “vanity of vanities.”
Get Religion discusses Hume, the reaction to his comments, and the “sacrament of the sneer.”
In her inaugural post for The Huffington Post, Susan Piver also shared her thoughts on the whole thing.
Ann Coulter also had some “thoughts” that probably aren’t worth discussing, but, over at The Reformed Buddhist, Kyle Lovett takes a whack at it anyway. Among other things, he draws a provocative comparison between Coulter and South Vietnam’s Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu.
Ross Douthat also has an opinion piece today in the New York Times about the situation, in which he writes:
…What Hume said wasn’t bigoted: Indeed, his claim about the difference between Buddhism and Christianity was perfectly defensible. Christians believe in a personal God who forgives sins. Buddhists, as a rule, do not.
Fair enough, but what certainly strikes me as offensive in Hume’s comments is the second part of what he said: that Tiger Woods needs to convert to Christianity “if he wants to make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.” What Hume seems to be saying implicitly is that total recovery and serving as an example to the world is not possible for Woods as a Buddhist. How is that not a bigoted thing to say?
Lastly, on a more amusing note, Red State Update has something to add (thanks to John Pappas at elephantjournal.com for the pointer):
Rev. Danny,
I am certainly no Buddhist scholar as are you and no doubt many of your readers, but I vaguely remember an interesting article reporting that despite the prevalent Western view a predominant number of Buddhists – especially in Japan as Pure Land Buddhists – do believe in a Buddha figure Maitreya (?) – that can be called on at any time and especially near death to assist them in going to “the Pure Land”. I point this out to underscore your point that those ill-informed or misinformed about Buddhism do a travesty not only to Buddhism but their own religion by speaking recklessly. I would not even have conceded the point to Mr. Douthat about what Buddhists, as a rule, believe. Buddhism is found in a gigantic part of the world in so many different and fascinating variants and I think a more sincere thinker would have resisted succumbing to such lazy and unsubstantiated generalizations. Thank you for the informative blog post
Actually this is Amida Buddha, whose Vow “forgives” the ordinary person of “evil karma” and brings them to be born in the Pure Land and awaken to Buddhahood. It’s not very well-known in the West, although America probably has quite a big share of Pure Land practitioners! Of course no one has asked for our comments on the brouhaha
[...] Religion Dispatches, Tiger Woods trackback After several days of Brit Hume-related news items, I think this whole flap is starting to die down a [...]