Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Harris on Hume on Woods

Have you seen this clip where Brit Hume advises Tiger Woods to convert from Buddhism to Christianity?



Plenty of people with whom I usually agree are defending Hume. But I agree with Althouse, this is weird.

Seems to me Brit is doing one of two things: he's either evangelizing (come to Christ for forgiveness of sins) or he's offering some sort of PR advice (Come to Christ for forgiveness of fans).

I'm fine with evangelizing in the proper venue but Hume is paid to give political analysis. What's good for Wood's soul is a personal digression and not really relevant. It's an imposition. (Maybe all evangelizing is an imposition.) It's also weird. I wouldn't go to court and offer legal analysis based on the Book of Mormon, even if I thought it had some bearing on certain policies. Why is Hume offering political analysis based upon his religious beliefs?

If what Hume's suggesting, however, is Woods should convert to Buddhism to save his career, then that is truly crass. People should adhere to religion because they believe in it's teachings and principles, not for PR.

Hume apparently had a evangelical conversion after his son committed suicide, so I'm guessing this is evangelizing, which is less strange, but still out of place.

2 comments:

Danny said...

I think Hume is suggesting both things, covert to the Christian faith for forgiveness of sins and Americans eat conversions up. Baseball players like Josh Hamilton do it all the time. I am not saying that the athletes are not sincere b/c I can't see into their hearts, but from a strictly PR standpoint, conversion to the evangelical faith is popular and a good move. Call it crass, call it anything you want, I would call it "works great".

Anonymous said...

That's an interesting thought. So, while evangelizing is weirdly out of place, and PR advice is crass, both together make the statement palatable. The the sincere evangelizing takes the edge off the inappropriate PR advice. The PR advice makes the evangelizing relevant to political-type analysis. Two wrongs make a right.