A Great Example to the World

Former White House Correspondent for ABC News, Brit Hume, who now is a senior political analyst for Fox News, is catching all manner of flack because of his recent comments regarding golfer Tiger Woods. Woods, you may know, is being accused of numerous extra-marital affairs.

The flack began flying just after the Sports segment of an airing of Fox News, when Mr. Hume stated that he thought Tiger Woods would "recover as a golfer", but it was uncertain whether he would personally recover his familial relationships. Hume offered some personal spiritual advice to Woods during this same commentary that Woods should "turn to the Christian faith, and [he] can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world"

First, I applaud Brit Hume for not being ashamed to speak openly about Christianity. Obviously, Hume spoke from his heart, offering sound advice to Woods as if they were close friends. It was done in Christian love. One could argue that Fox News is not the forum for spiritual matters, but then isn't every opportunity a forum for such things? Isn't the idea of evangelism to bloom where you're planted, performing the Lord's work within your own sphere of influence? Sure it is.

Our Sunday School discussion this morning (Mathews Baptist Church) revolves around the Bible story of Ruth and Naomi, who, contrary to GLAAD, were not lesbians. Putting that aside, our discussion was about redemption, Jewish law, Levirate marriage, and how Boaz redeemed Ruth. It is one of many allegorical stories of salvation that point to the ultimate redemption of mankind through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The big question put to us today was "How do you explain redemption in the Christian sense to a non-believer?"

Several people in our class offered various explanations. They each had parts that were useful but no one succinctly stated an easy answer. I withheld my own S & H Greenstamps analogy for two reasons, first being that most people there wouldn't have known what I was talking about; and second, it was hardly succinct.

Okay, I'll try to be brief: With S & H, many different merchants would give out little stamps (like they do with coupons today) whenever you purchased goods. Usually you'd receive them when you bought gasoline or groceries. You'd then paste them in special S & H stamp books and when you'd amassed a certain number of filled books, you could come in to your local Sperry and Hutchinson (S & H) merchandise store and redeem your books for certain items, depending on how many books S & H required. E.g., if you needed Dining Room furniture, S & H might give you a table and chairs for 175 completed stamp books. A table radio might only require 25 books. I have no idea how many stamps it took to get anything--I just remember helping my mom glue them in and actually going to the merchandise store back when I was about four or five years old.

Anyway, I thought it out this way: our lives would be represented by the stamp books. All of our faults, failures and sinful nature would be glued into our own compilation of books. All of the features/rewards of Christianity like eternal life in Heaven, communion with God, peace of mind, forgiveness, the fruits of the Spirit, etc. would be the items found in the ultimate S & H store that I would call Christianity. God, the owner of the store, would send His manager, Jesus, to wait on you, giving you everything in the store by redeeming all of your stamp books.

It was the consensus that, unless there was divine intervention and/or a personal epiphany, it would be difficult to succeed in just one sitting. I'd like to go ahead and concede here that the S & H example would be, in fact, several painful sittings where the listener would convert to something simpler!

Brit Hume mentioned that he didn't "think that [Tiger Woods' Buddhist] faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith." His statement here could be a lead-in for Woods (who apprently doesn't have his moral life together, based upon "news" reports) to reflect on redemption. This could be the seed that needed to be planted.

Perhaps Mr. Hume's remarks will lead to Mr. Woods' salvation and he will be as successful on and off of the green. Even in the sad case that it doesn't save Tiger Woods, millions of viewers around the globe heard this story. St. Paul wrote in I Corinthians 9:22, "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some." It is impossible to quantify the results of Brit Hume's efforts, but, using his own words in this case, he is a great example to the world.