Tiger to Brit Hume: I’ll Stick with Buddhism, Thanks

In his apology today, Tiger Woods, never one to really talk about his faith or any other aspect of his private life, addressed his Buddhist upbringing.

After 3 months of silence, the world focused in to watch Tiger Woods give a brief statement. The statement was, in many ways, vintage Tiger, with the golfer pausing from his apology to scold media for invading his family's private life and explicitly stating that he does not intend to give details about affairs that he considers to be private. However Woods, never one to really talk about his faith or any other aspect of his private life, did include a reference to his Buddhist upbringing. Specifically, he said

I have a lot of work to do, and I intend to dedicate myself to doing it.  Part of following this path for me is Buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age.  People probably don't realize it, but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years.  Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security.  It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint.  Obviously I lost track of what I was taught.

This statement is interesting because he actually digresses to talk about his Buddhist faith and how, specifically, it will play a role in his recovery. In fact, Woods' one paragraph on the role of Buddhism in his life reads like a point for point rebuke of Fox News' Brit Hume, who took it upon himself to encourage Woods to convert to Christianity on national television. Specifically, Hume said

Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person I think is a very open question, and it's a tragic situation for him. I think he's lost his family, it's not clear to me if he'll be able to have a relationship with his children, but the Tiger Woods that emerges once the news value dies out of this scandal -- the extent to which he can recover -- seems to me to depend on his faith. He's said to be a Buddhist; I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.'

Tiger appears to have responded today. To sum it up in a word, Tiger said “No.”