Stephen Prothero Writes about “A Buddhist Moment in America” for USA Today
by Danny Fisher
At USA Today today, Boston University prof and Religious Literacy author Stephen Prothero reflects on Tiger Woods’ media statement this week as “a Buddhist moment in America.” He writes:
From President Grover Cleveland, who likely fathered a child out of wedlock, to Ted Haggard, who resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals after allegations that he had sex with a male prostitute, our politicians and preachers have bowed and scraped in Christian idioms. Jimmy Carter spoke of “adultery in my heart.” Jimmy Swaggart spoke of “my sin” and “my Savior.” In any case, the model derives from evangelical Christianity — the revival and the altar call. You confess you are a sinner. You repent of your sins. You turn to Christ to make yourself new.
Woods was caught in a multimistress sex scandal after Thanksgiving. In January Brit Hume, channeling his inner evangelist on Fox News Sunday, urged Woods to “turn to the Christian faith.” “He’s said to be a Buddhist,” Hume said. “I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith.” Woods in effect told Hume Friday thanks but no thanks.
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There are all sorts of lessons, moral and otherwise, to learn from the Tiger Woods affair. One important one is that American citizens take all sorts of paths to ruin and redemption. Christianity has no monopoly over either hypocrisy or saintliness.
In calling Woods to Christ in January, Brit Hume imagined that there was only one way to fall, and only one way to be redeemed. In his statement on Friday, Woods intimated that he fell not because he wandered away from Christ but because he wandered away from the Buddha. Equally important, he suggested that the way forward, at least for him, is through the teachings of a man who, two-and-a-half millennia ago, sat down beneath a Bodhi tree in north India and saw through the illusions of endlessly craving after the next new thing. You don’t need to be a Buddhist to say “Amen” (or “Om”) to that.
Read the whole thing here.
Wow, finally one of these reporters did some actual research into what Buddhism is. During the whole Brit Hume flap, I never heard anything about seeing through the illusions of endless craving.
Whehter he meant a word of it or not, Tiger expressed, with that short statement, what so many of us wanted to say. I hope he and his family find a way to heal and grow and I wish them all well.
Amen to that Tont!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
Om to That. Whether Stephen Prothero’s ecumenism arises from his dedication to scholarship or an uncertainty about his personal faith (or both), readers are fortunate beneficiaries of his evenhanded commentary on the ever-morphing forms of religious belief.