The other day I went online and listened to an interview from last Friday on the CBC radio program called Q. Host Jihan Ghomeshi had a conversation with a man with the last name Hitchens. You might think this was Christopher Hitchens, perhaps the world's most famous atheist at the moment. This Hitchens is very bright and incredibly scornful of any and all religion and his book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything has been a massive best-seller. Hitchens critics point out that he seems to assume that every religion and every believer has a fundamentalist, anti-rational foundation and can be dismissed out of hand.
Ghomeshi has interviewed Christopher Hitchens but it was his brother, Peter Hitchens, with whom he spoke last week. Peter is an award-winning journalist and former atheist who has become a Christian. He has also written a book challenging those who are called the New Atheists, including his brother. They were not on speaking terms for a time, but have reconciled and actually debated each other, although they have decided against further events. His book The Rage Against God: Why Faith is the Foundation of Civilization (different title in Britain) is not a work of Christian apologetics but his "take" on the aggressive atheism which seems to be the spirit of the day. He lives in Britain where it seems to be "open season" on Christians.
In terms of his own faith, Peter is quick to say that he had no "road to Damascus" experience but concluded that faith and in his case Christianity, is a positive force in the world. He sounds fairly orthodox in his views about Jesus as the Christ.
Take a listen to Peter and Christopher if you like, since both interviews are available at the Q website. I found him to be interesting and open. http://www.cbc.ca/q/blog/2010/07/09/hitchens-vs-hitchens-on-q/
What are your thoughts about all of this, including Peter's choice to become a Christian?
Ghomeshi has interviewed Christopher Hitchens but it was his brother, Peter Hitchens, with whom he spoke last week. Peter is an award-winning journalist and former atheist who has become a Christian. He has also written a book challenging those who are called the New Atheists, including his brother. They were not on speaking terms for a time, but have reconciled and actually debated each other, although they have decided against further events. His book The Rage Against God: Why Faith is the Foundation of Civilization (different title in Britain) is not a work of Christian apologetics but his "take" on the aggressive atheism which seems to be the spirit of the day. He lives in Britain where it seems to be "open season" on Christians.
In terms of his own faith, Peter is quick to say that he had no "road to Damascus" experience but concluded that faith and in his case Christianity, is a positive force in the world. He sounds fairly orthodox in his views about Jesus as the Christ.
Take a listen to Peter and Christopher if you like, since both interviews are available at the Q website. I found him to be interesting and open. http://www.cbc.ca/q/blog/2010/07/09/hitchens-vs-hitchens-on-q/
What are your thoughts about all of this, including Peter's choice to become a Christian?
1 comment:
It was Christopher Hitchens' approach — which seems to presuppose that all Christians are irrational, literalistic, fundamentalists — that finally pushed me to launch my own website, one that tries to make people like him aware that "thinking Christian" is not an oxymoron.
I was encouraged to hear his brother acknowledge this defect in Christopher's approach.
Instead of continuing to rant about the apparent ignorance of the C. Hitchenses in the world, I decided I needed to put my website where my rant was.
Maybe so many think as C. Hitchens does because those of us who aren't literalists have not been vocal enough to counteract the much more outspoken and visible literalist/fundamentalists. Maybe it's time more of us had the courage to speak up and dispel the mistaken impression that thinking Christians don't exist.
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