Real Clear Politics linked an essay over at the Daily Caller by Mark Judge speculating that atheist Christopher Hitchens may be moving toward Christianity. Not only is there very little–none really–evidence for that, but I don’t think it is right to speculate about such matters when the subject is terminally ill and a non believer. Indeed, I think it is a disservice.
I express my views in some detail over at Secondhand Smoke. Here’s a sample:
It would be condescending to not praise or criticize Hitchens’ work just because he is seriously ill (and Judge does some of that, which is fine). But to claim that he may be close to becoming Christian not only shines a light on one’s own faith when discussing another, but moreover–and here I am sure Judge did not mean for it to be–I think it disrespects and even dehumanizes the ill person by talking about him as if he were not there–something that drove my hospice friend Bob to utter despair–and believe me, public people know what is written about them.
Am I saying that Christians should not care about Hitchens’ lack of faith? Of course not. But there are correct and incorrect ways of addressing the matter.
December 9th, 2011 | 12:02 pm
Hitch said in an interview a short time ago something to the effect, “If you hear about my conversion while I’m sick don’t believe it. Just atribute it to the ill effects of medication.”
I think that if he were to convert to Christianity, it would be through healing, not dieing.
December 9th, 2011 | 1:05 pm
If nothing else it is very un-seemly to speculate publicly about the state of a dying person’s soul or state of belief. It almost sounds like one is gloating.
December 9th, 2011 | 1:15 pm
For the average curmudgeon and contrarian, nothing would prevent our conversion more certainly than somone publicly speculating on it, in effecy placing bets. Nothing would give Hitchens more satsfaction than telling such people “You lose.”
December 9th, 2011 | 1:30 pm
“If you heard a marketer brag that he targets people who’ve been diagnosed with terminal illnesses because they’re easier targets, or a guy say he likes to cruise funerals because grieving women are easier to pick up, you’d think that person had no morals at all. But targeting people in moments of weakness to sell them religion is regarded as a normal and even virtuous strategy for proselytizing.” – Amanda Marcotte
December 9th, 2011 | 3:18 pm
Leave the poor guy alone.
December 9th, 2011 | 3:19 pm
“If you heard a marketer brag that he targets people who’ve been diagnosed with terminal illnesses because they’re easier targets, or a guy say he likes to cruise funerals because grieving women are easier to pick up, you’d think that person had no morals at all. But targeting people in moments of weakness to sell them religion is regarded as a normal and even virtuous strategy for proselytizing.” – Amanda Marcotte
Bit dishonest to pretend that there’s no difference between selling a product for profit vs. doing something because you genuinely believe it’s helpful and beneficial to the person receiving it.
Christians do not get commissions.
December 9th, 2011 | 3:47 pm
Even without the gloating angle, assuming it is being done in the most positive and charitable way imaginable, it just seems wrong on every level to publicly speculate about the condition of another person’s soul, as opposed to discussing his words or actions. If anything, this conversation should be had *with* Hitchens (as in an interview or something) not *about* him as though he’s a lab rat.
Besides what Raymond said. I don’t think we should be motivated by “whether this would cause a bad reaction in Hitchens” very much, if our motives are otherwise good and our actions wise, but more as a Golden Rule thing — who among us would want to be the subject of a conversation like this????
December 9th, 2011 | 4:35 pm
Hitch did predict that these kinds of stories would come around. If you want to get his state of mind straight from him, read his article from just this week:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/01/hitchens-201201
December 9th, 2011 | 5:00 pm
If Luther converted on his deathbed, why not Christopher Hitchens? Or did my grade school nuns get something wrong?
December 9th, 2011 | 7:40 pm
“If Luther converted on his deathbed, why not Christopher Hitchens? Or did my grade school nuns get something wrong?”
I never heard this one. What did your grade school nuns tell you?
December 10th, 2011 | 12:02 am
Too many American Christians have always done much public talking about famous figures and Christian faith whether gloating or bemoaning or wondering. Tongues waging are no Christian tesimony.
December 10th, 2011 | 1:29 am
I find it difficult to believe that Mark Judge read Hitchens’ essay at all. In it, Hitchens quite clearly states he has never been a wholehearted fan of Nietzsche, especially in his contempt for democracy and “the masses.” Hitchens’ atheism owes more to Karl Marx and maybe Bertrand Russell than to Nietzsche.
The fact that Hitchens is able to write an essay dispensing with one of Nietzsche’s more famous aphorisms (and one that was possibly intended ironically by Nietzsche himself) doesn’t seem to carry any wider significance about a change in worldview.
I wouldn’t say Judge’s essay is in poor taste — it’s just ignorant.
December 10th, 2011 | 2:36 pm
I never heard this one. What did your grade school nuns tell you?
Pastor Spomer,
I don’t want to make it sound like it is—or ever was (I went to grade school in the 1950s)—a part of a Catholic education that Luther reconciled with the Catholic Church on his deathbed, but I think there was a belief among certain Catholic circles—which may have been passed on in comments by certain Catholic teachers in the “old days”—that Luther regretted his actions, and some even attribute to the dying Luther this quote: “”It is easier to live as a Protestant, but better to die as a Catholic.” Some further speculate (or claim) that he repented on his deathbed.
I can’t endorse this web site, because I stumbled upon it today and have read only part of this page, but it seems to explain rather well how some Catholics made the case that Luther regretted his actions (which I take to be false).
It’s good to remember that grade school nuns of the 1950s were from another era. I remember my sixth-grade teacher, Sister Giulietta, whom some of my classmates claim had taught their parents and was old even then, insisted that no one who wore boots to school on a rainy day could leave them on in class because, you see, it was bad for your eyes. I believe the theory, clearly an old wives’ tale, was that boots would cause your feet to sweat and draw moisture away from your eyes.
I remember my sister telling about one of her teachers in high school, a very elderly nun, who would get angry because none of her students could name all of the Twelve Commandments.
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