What if a Buddhist Said It?

Steve Benen from Washington Monthly with an excellent retort.

I've been trying to think of a way to frame this in a way Hume's far-right defenders would understand. How about this -- imagine if, after David Vitter's (R-La.), John Ensign's (R-Nev.), and Mark Sanford's (R-S.C.) humiliating sex scandals, a Buddhist media personality appeared on national television and said Christianity is clearly inadequate, and that the right-wing Republicans' lives could get back on track if they'd give up their faith and embraced Buddhism. The Buddhist said this during a news program, and later insisted his/her comments did not constitute "proselytizing."

Is there any doubt that Christians would expect that media figure to be promptly fired? Would conservatives defend the Buddhist's remarks?

Your serve, Brit. He just smoked an ace past you. Somehow I don't think you'd have the reaction that the Buddha has pictured above.

Bottom like...Brit is trying to put the "Boo" in Buddhism. It's a "scary religion" that causes people to crash their cars and cheat on their wives. Pul-lease.

Brit Hume says Buddhism is Inadequate

Fox News' Brit Hume threw a religious gauntlet towards Tiger Woods yesterday claiming that his buddhist faith is inadequate for his lifestyle. He urged him to become a Christian:

"The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith," said Hume. "He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of redemption and forgiveness offered by the Christian faith. My message to Tiger is, 'Tiger turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world."

Now I'm not one to argue that Catholicism indeed offers redemption to others very intentionally through the sacrament of reconciliation--and that this indeed is a good thing. But frankly, Mr. Hume's comment gives me the willies and strikes me as being religiously intolerant and perhaps even bigoted.

Would Hume have uttered the same comment if Tiger Woods was Jewish? Secondly, does he even know if Tiger practices Buddhism faithfully? I doubt that Woods practices his religion in a manner that could be equated with say, the Dali Lama or even Richard Gere for that matter. To lump an entire religion into the same boat with the immoral practices of an individual who claims to profess that particular faith and then to denigrate the religion for their tenets based on ignorance of how much redemption the religion offers is simply stupid.

I wonder what Buddhism's response to the comments might be? Most likely their response will be a non-response which I would say is the best one at this juncture. After all, stupidity needs no response.

However, journalist Barbara Hoetsu O'Brien wrote smartly,

“Buddhism doesn't offer redemption and forgiveness in the same way Christianity does. Buddhism has no concept of sin; therefore, redemption and forgiveness in the Christian sense is meaningless in Buddhism. Forgiveness is important, but it is approached differently in Buddhism.”

Hume backpedaled today:

“Look, Tiger Woods is somebody I’ve always rooted for, as a golfer and as a man… and I’ve always said to people that it was the content of his character that made him beyond his extraordinary golf skills so admirable. Now we know that the content of his character was not what we thought it was. He is paying a frightful price for these revelations. My sense is that he has basically lost his family… and my sense about Tiger is that he needs something that Christianity especially provides and gives and offers and that is redemption and forgiveness. And I was really meaning to say in those comments yesterday more about Christianity than I was about anything else. I mentioned the Buddhism only because his mother is a Buddhist and he has apparently said that he is a Buddhist. I’m not sure how seriously he practices that. But I think that Jesus Christ offers Tiger Woods something that Tiger Woods badly needs.”

Yeah, because that's so much better stated.

Getting Something For Nothing: The Just Do It Mentality

Today's proverb is a doozy:

Proverbs 10:2
"Ill-gotten treasures profit nothing,
but virtue saves from death."

I've been following the Tiger Woods fiasco and it never fails to amaze me how some people expect to get away with just doing whatever they feel like doing when they feel like doing it. There's no retribution for their actions that enters into possibility for them. The rules don't apply to them. They have nothing to limit their consumption be it greed, sex, food, drugs or whatever.

Nike's moniker for years was "Just Do It" and Tiger Woods seems to have taken that literally. His alleged affair is just one more note on the kind of stars that believe that the world is simply their own personal playground and they are the ones who have all the toys and don't have to share with others.

The virtues of temperance and fidelity are often checkpoints for us. Is my desire based on an unhealthy addiction that I feed all too easily. Do I keep in mind my present commitments and responsibilities? Or do I cast all of that to the wind? The latter seems to be all to easily dispensed with in a country where the divorce rate is close to 50%. Do half of the people who get married really understand the notion of commitment? Do both parties in a marriage understand that they will sacrifice for each other and that "no matter what" they need to be bound to one another working on the issues that face them?

Will both parties always have each other's back?

Or will one violate their sexual commitment and the other take a golf club and start swinging?

It seems to me that Tiger's empty virtues lead him to gain these ill-gotten treasures and if he only had a bit more humility he may not be in the headlines today.

But who am I to talk?

Often I forget my own commitments to my wife. I choose other things over spending time with her and some of those things are actually good things...like my ministry or even writing this blog. But they need to come secondarily to my marriage. And I need to remember that.

So I am off tonight to spend the weekend with my bride! In New York City for a day and then on to our family Christmas party (her side of the family). About 100 family members gather together to simply recommit ourselves to one another as family and to celebrate God's re-commitment to us at Christmas, where God embeds His commitment in human flesh, in human experience. God becomes one of us, as Joan Osbourne once wrote so we might "make our way home."

It is in that anticipation of this human God who loved us not only enough to take on our own flesh but also our own death, that we rejoice. It is not an ill-gotten treasure to be sure. But it is one that should indeed call us into virtue.