Journalist Brit Hume said: “If you’re trying to find the two most explosive words in the English language, those two words are ‘Jesus Christ.’

WASHINGTON – (AP) Fox News analyst Brit Hume says he doesn’t regret urging Tiger Woods to become a Christian so the golfer can find forgiveness for marital infidelity.

Hume told CBN News that “Christianity is a religion for sinners — and I think that Tiger Woods has an opportunity here, and my prayer would be that he would take it.” Hume has been denounced for saying that he doesn’t think the famous golfer’s belief in Buddhism “offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith.”

The longtime journalist said he wasn’t surprised that the remark aroused controversy. “If you’re trying to find the two most explosive words in the English language, those two words are ‘Jesus Christ,'” he stated.

He recognizes that openly expressing faith in Jesus Christ offends a lot of people. “People rage about this,” he said. “It’s very offensive to those who don’t share the faith, [and] it’s offensive to some people who claim they do share the faith. This is to be expected, and it has been happening to people who proclaim their faith in Christ for as long as anybody can remember — this is part of the deal.”

Hume described how he became a Christian. “Eleven years ago, my son committed suicide,” he shared. “And as you can imagine, it was absolutely devastating. And yet throughout that whole horrible time, I had this sense that God was there for me, that he would rescue me, that he would save me — and he did.”

The news analyst said he was deeply moved by the hundreds of letters of condolence he received after that tragedy. “I felt that I was seeing in them the face of God,” he recalled, “and I felt that it was time for me now to face up to the Christian faith which I purported to belong to, and try to face up to the implications of what I purported to believe — and I’ve been trying ever since.”