This is a man I've really come to admire a great deal. I never knew about his son's suicide.
The transcript is good, but it's not complete, and I think seeing the video gives a greater sense of Hume's character as he describes his faith and relationship to Christ. Very honest and revealing - speaking as a student, not a teacher...
‘I thought I was seeing the face of God.’ (video)In an interview with David Brody, Brit Hume talks about life after his son died:
I considered myself a Christian. If someone had asked me if you’re a Christian, I would have said, ‘Of course I’m a Christian.’ But I think I was what you would call a nominal Christian. I went through my adult life with little thought day by day of God or Christ or any of the rest of it. I just didn’t think about it very much. When my son died in 1998, you know, when something shattering like that happens, I think it’s likely to be moment or can well be a moment where you find out what you really believe, and as horrible as that was, and it was bad, and it was heartbreaking and it was unexpected and it was very painful, I had the feeling through it all, that God was there, that He would rescue me from grief and pain, and that, I would get through it, and I knew I believed, and I knew it with enormous force. And things happened during that period that I looked to Him as the only reasonable explanation.
He goes on to explain the outpouring of support he received:
The outpouring of sentiment for me, of sympathy and condolence that I got was absolutely astonishing. My home address isn’t well-known, and yet somehow, in the weeks that followed that incident of his death, we had to send out ‘thank you’ notes to nearly a thousand people who had written to me. They were in my mailbox when I came home at night, stuffed to capacity, and people sent prayer cards and they told me about trees that had been planted in his name and so on. I don’t know how, I mean I know it made news around the country that he died, that he committed suicide, but I can’t image, I was astonished at that response. I thought I was seeing the face of God. And I felt enormously lifted by it, I felt grateful for it, and I said to myself, ‘Well, Hume, turns out you’re a Christian. Now, what are you going to do about it?’ And I’ve been trying to answer that question ever since, and I’m constantly … it’s difficult to lead the Christian life, it’s not easy. And you know, you always ask yourself the famous question, ‘If somebody accused you of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?’ And I hope, day by day, that some evidence to that effect is accumulating. I’m trying. Not easy.”
