How do you ignite a firestorm of conversation about God? These days the best spark is a controversial statement, such as the one delivered by news pundit Britt Hume about Tiger Woods.

Of course, it helps that Hume is fairly well-known as a former national news anchor who is in "retirement" but still does occasional news analysis for Fox News. If you or I had made a plea for Tiger to embrace Christianity as Hume did on Fox News Sunday this week, few would have noticed or cared. But Hume made his remarks on a national stage about an already famous person whose bizarre encounter with a tree and a golf club--and whose subsequent submersion into a strange kind of Howard Hughesian privacy--has everyone talking.

Because of Hume's remarks, everyone (including just about every media outlet) isn't just talking about Tiger Woods. They're talking about Tiger Woods and God. And because Hume framed the conversation to include forgiveness and redemption, two of the hallmark's of the Christian faith, it's a very productive conversation. I mean, compared to the unproductive blather that often dominates spiritual conversations, this one gets to the heart of why a relationship with God really matters. And it gets to the heart of why a relationship with God would really matter to Tiger Woods.

That's why I'm not offended by Britt Hume's remarks like most observers are, including many Christians I've heard from. Regardless of the level of their belief in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob--the God whose incarnation into the person of Jesus we just celebrated--most people are upset that Hume had the nerve to (1) suggest that Buddhism doesn't offer "the kind of forgiveness and redemption offered by the Christian faith," and (2) advise Tiger to turn to the Christian faith so he can make "a total recovery and be a great example to the world."

Now, let me qualify my statement that I'm not offended by Hume's remarks. The reason I'm not offended is because I have turned to the Christian faith. I have experienced forgiveness and redemption, not by anything I did, but by the grace of God.

If I were not a Christian, I probably would be offended, and not just because Hume had the audacity to suggest that Christianity offers something Buddhism does not (which is true, by the way...just ask any practicing Buddhist). I would be offended because that offering of forgiveness and redemption is inexpicably tied to a single and unique person: Jesus.

I would be offended because the implication of Hume's simple but eloquent statement is that Jesus alone offers a solution to the predicament facing Tiger Woods--and the entire human race, for that matter. We've all offended a holy God who has every right to dispose of us without explanation, but who has instead chosen out of the love and goodness in his heart to offer us a way out of our predicament through forgiveness and redemption made possible by the person and work of Jesus Christ alone.

To those who are the recipients of this divine forgiveness and redemption, this reality is, according to the apostle Paul, the "fragrance of life." But to those who are still stuck in the great human predicament, the message of the gospel of Christ is the "smell of death." In other words, it's highly offensive.

Whether or not Hume should have made his remarks on a national stage, and whether or not he should have made them without first being asked "to give a reason for the hope" that he has, is debatable. I won't take issue with anyone--Christian or not--who is offended by the way Hume delivered his message. But I would like to propose that those of us who believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and believe the incarnation really happened, should not be offended by the message. Nor should we be embarrassed by it. 

Unlike so many other half-baked ideas and crazy behaviors that are paraded in front of the world under the banner of Christianity and Jesus, Britt Hume's 45-second reflection was--like it or not--absolutely true because it goes to the heart of the greatest story ever told. For that reason alone, I believe what Britt Hume did was good, not bad.