After the debates, as the combatants often do, Christopher and his opponent go out to eat and discuss the night's events as well as the various issues over which they've argued. Over just such a dinner, Hitchens asks Larry Taunton, his opponent of the earlier debate that night, "Why do you think I don't believe?"
That's quite a question, isn't it?
THE DILEMMA
Taunton is faced with a dilemma. "Should I tell him the truth? Should I flatter him? Should I tell him that I don't know? Or, should I tell him the truth?" Taunton chose to tell him the truth: First, he asks Hitchens, "Do you really want to know?" Hitchens says, "Yes, I do." Taunton then says, "[It's because] the cost of your conversion is one you're unwilling to pay as a world-famous atheist."
Hitchens' conversion, were it to occur, would be international news. He would lose the applause of the world, that's for sure. His friendships with the literati and the glitterati would evaporate; he'd be scorned, a pariah in the eyes of the elite who celebrate him. It's hard for us to admit, "I've been wrong all my life." The Apostle Paul had to do that after his Damascus road meeting with the risen Christ.
CARING MORE
Those would be hard words to say to Christopher, so harsh that Hitchens might just stand up and stalk away. But Christopher Hitchens didn't because he knew one thing about Larry Taunton: Taunton cared about him. He was a Christian different from most of those Christopher had met on the debate circuit or anywhere else: Larry Taunton cared more about winning Christopher than he did about winning any debate.
Such a quality is rare in the theological world because there's no more heady wine in that world than being right. At all costs, being right is the Holy Grail. It's all about winning the argument, carrying the day on the field of the verbal battle. It's about shutting down the other person, getting him flustered, angry, and mute. In that world, it's all about the paraphrased Dutch proverb, "Winning isn't everything, but it's way ahead of whatever is in second place."
But when is making someone angry, the goal of evangelism? Paul said the goal was to be clear and to persuade. That eliminates the goal of making someone angry. Shutting someone down isn't to be an end in itself because the goal is to bring Christ to them, but if, along the way, they become offended, so be it, but their offended state isn't our final goal.
There's a text which comes into play in the Hitchens/Taunton relationship, one we've ignored. It's from Proverbs: "When a man’s ways are pleasing to the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him." (16:7) Hitchens didn't stalk away because he respected Taunton.
Hitchens, the Englishman, said of Taunton, "If everyone in the United States had the same qualities of loyalty and care and concern for others that Larry Taunton had, we’d be living in a much better society than we do.” That's an example of Prov. 16:7.
What can we learn from the atheist Hitchens? Do that which impressed him, that which caused him to listen to the gospel: speak the truth with courage, from a background of love. That sounds like Eph. 4:15.
After all the debates and after dinner conversations with Christians, after hearing his brother talk about Christ and Him crucified, did Christopher Hitchens become, like his brother Peter, an atheist turned Christian?
TO BE CONTINUED
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