The Big Hollywood blogger and actor Adam Baldwin, recently of the television series Chuck and Firefly, has taken up his virtual pen to defend Britt Hume from those who have criticized him for suggesting that Tiger Woods should consider Christianity in his time of crisis. Hume made the statement on Fox News Sunday, thus prompting outrage from secularists who find such an offering offensive and irrelevant.
Baldwin scores several times in his blog piece. Here is the foundation:
As an avid golfer, Christian man, and therefore a witness to the historic fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Mr. Hume clearly offered his message in good faith with honest concern for both Tiger’s future and for that of his family, friends, fans and business associates.
Look carefully at what Baldwin has written. Britt Hume believes Christianity is true and is based on an actual historical event. He is not adverting to some mystery religion (reach for the seventh level, Tiger), but is instead giving advice every bit as practical, or perhaps more so, than urging Mr. Woods to seek marital counseling or to find a good attorney.
This is what secularists simply do not understand. They think Christianity is “inaccessible” to others. It is not. You can accept it or reject it, but there is no reason for confusion. The basis of the faith is quite clear. Either you accept the evidence that the resurrection of Christ actually occurred in time and space or you do not. In no case should you accuse the Christian of hitting you with a bunch of magical mysteriousness that you cannot possibly understand.
You should really consider reading the entire post. Baldwin completely exposes the inappropriateness and unfairness of the comparisons of sincere Christianity to Jihad and deftly analyzes the pretensions of secularism. I could try to summarize, but would just end up reproducing his essay.
January 6th, 2010 | 7:07 pm | #1
Dr. Hunter Baker (Lawyer),
Did you also notice that he tweeted a link to a review of your book, The End of Secularism?
♫♫♫ The hero of Canton, the man they call “Jayne” ♫♫♫
January 6th, 2010 | 11:15 pm | #2
I did. I did. But was trying not to mention it. :-)
January 7th, 2010 | 9:43 am | #3
Wow. Great essay.
In the original video of the comments, I sorta loved the way the panel was stunned by Hume’s forthright declaration of forgiveness.
I’d love to see the moral calculus which equates what Hume said to jihad.
“Forgiveness = Jihad”? I need to see all your work, son: I think your proof doesn’t work.
January 7th, 2010 | 10:18 am | #4
Dr. Hunter Baker (Lawyer), **
Fortunately, you have fanboys like me to geek out about it. :)
I actually didn’t notice that he cited you in the article itself. (I had only skimmed it.) He had tweeted the same link on Christmas afternoon. (He’s an interesting tweeter, too, BTW.)
** Yes, I’m going to address you in full in every comment.
January 7th, 2010 | 11:46 am | #5
Why is it so hard to believe that some people offer their advice as an act of love? Are we so skeptical that we think every statement must have dark motives behind it? Kudos to Mr. Hume for caring about Tiger and kudos to Mr. Baker for noticing his true intentions.
January 7th, 2010 | 12:14 pm | #6
Dr. Hunter Baker, Esq., (Did I get it right?)
I agree with you on Hume and Baldwin. It is refreshing to see Hume speak up as he did in such a cordial, loving way.
January 7th, 2010 | 1:12 pm | #7
Brit Hume was simply offering what he had to offer. If Tiger Woods had recommended Buddhism to Brit Hume, I doubt the media would have given it a second thought.
January 7th, 2010 | 4:34 pm | #8
Jeff, that is painfully true.
January 7th, 2010 | 6:01 pm | #9
[...] Secularism and Brit Hume, Hunter Baker @First Things’ Evangel links to Big Hollywood’s Adam Baldwin, who quotes [...]
January 9th, 2010 | 12:00 pm | #10
Just as the Apostle Paul said, his persecution has made Christian’s bolder to speak out concerning their faith and it is happening with the persecution of Britt Hume.
January 12th, 2010 | 12:18 pm | #11
quickie comments:
(1) An article referring to its primary subject as “Britt”, not “Brit”, doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in its author.
(2) Comparing the persecution of Christ to “the persecution of Britt Hume” (whose ratings have skyrocketed as a result of this kerfuffle – even the atheists are watching Fox News this week !) seems overwrought at best, blasphemous at worst.
(3) To many of us, the inexplicable lack of evidence that Hume ever made even a token attempt to speak personally to Woods (either before or after Hume’s Sunday epistle on the inefficacy of Woods’ adopted faith) to share with Tiger Woods Hume’s faith journey to Christ, dragged us to a conclusion that Hume’s comments were much more likely to have been motivated by a cheap form of ostentatious religiosity than by some genuinely deep personal compassion for Woods as an individual (and not just a provocative symbol for convenient placement in Hume’s prepared narrative).
Of course, I do agree that it is lots of fun to engage, as is done here, in spiritual jingoism and solipsistic triumphalism (and to take a break from the often arduous job of actually trying to walk in Jesus’ shoes) whenever the apostates, secularists, militant atheists, and jihad-apologists start slithering out of their hiding places to wail about the indignity of some public figure provocatively saying anything even mildly positive about Christianity.
But that sort of arrogant and mopic behavior by us goes a long way to confirm the suspicion of those religious troglodytes that we’re trying to reach that we Christians really are not much more than the unreasoning, hypocritical caricatures of us that are regularly offered in the media.
A guess it’s actually a blessing for the Church that none in those demographics targeted for our evangelism ever read this blog and are able to confirm what self-satisfied folks we are !
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