WASHINGTON, D.C. — Veteran news commentator Brit Hume is under fire after suggesting on a Fox News Sunday segment that fallen golf superstar Tiger Woods should convert to Christianity as a way to seek “forgiveness and redemption.”

His comments came Jan. 3 after host Chris Wallace asked his guest panel to predict the biggest sports story of 2010.

Hume told Wallace and his audience that he believed Woods would eventually return to the pro circuit, but that he had concerns about his ability to “recover as a person.”

“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,” Hume said.

He then made reference to Woods’ Buddhist faith, which is said to come from his mother.

“I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith,” the commentator said. “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.’”

His comments evoked ridicule from liberal Web sites and blogs, prompting weeknight talk show host Bill O’Reilly to bring him on his program the following evening.

O’Reilly asked Hume if his comments were proselytizing. Hume responded by saying no and adding that Woods’ character had turned out to be “not what we thought it was.”

“He needs something that Christianity especially provides and gives and offers, and that is redemption and forgiveness,” Hume said. “I was really meaning to say in those comments yesterday more about Christianity than anything else ... I think that Jesus Christ offers Tiger Woods something that Tiger Woods badly needs.”

His comments on both Fox shows generated a slam by Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, a satirical news program that airs on Comedy Central.

In his bit, Stewart sits at the news desk with a photo illustration of Hume in an Indiana Jones costume and the words, “The Temple of the Hume.”

After he airs Hume’s comment, “I think that Jesus Christ offers Tiger Woods something that Tiger Woods badly needs,” Stewart responds with: “A time machine.”

Others suggested Hume’s title should be changed from commentator to televangelist. John Aloysius Farrell in a Jan. 6 blog for U.S. News & World Report, offered his opinion that “Hume has the right to yak. People get paid to say all sorts of provocative things these days.”

But in light of religious fundamentalism that led to terrorists acts, Farrell said, “That is what made Brit’s comments so creepy: the self-certainty that ‘my god is better than yours.’”

He ended his comments with, “But, jeez, what a stupid thing to think.”

Lisa Miller, whose coverage of Christianity for Newsweek magazine has brought criticism from evangelical circles, appeared to be among the more compassionate in offering opinions on the issue, calling his comments “distasteful,” but adding that the response has been “totally disproportionate to the statement itself.”

“The usual suspects—MSNBC and The Huffington Post—and indeed the whole liberal left blogosphere leapt all over Hume for his arrogance and conservatism,” her post read.

But Hume, she argued, was doing what evangelicals, by their very definition, do: share the gospel.

“They aren’t pretending to believe in salvation through Jesus Christ,” she wrote.” They actually do believe that it—and yours, and mine—comes through him.”

In a radio interview with WTOP News radio in Washington, D.C., Hume alluded to media bias against Christianity in helping to propel the story.

“You could argue that the two most controversial words in the English language are ‘Jesus Christ.’”