What started Peter to rethinking atheism were many things, but one thing was his brother's rage and anger, sometimes a characteristic of atheists. The relationship between the two brothers makes for an interesting story, one throbbing with pathos. But that's another story, one that's the subject of a book written by Peter.
ANOTHER STORY
What is the story here is what we Christians can learn from Christopher, learn, from him instead of dismissing him because God certainly didn't dismiss him, but drew him, like all men, to Himself. But that drawing doesn't guarantee salvation--Christopher, like all of us, was given a free will. He could reject God's drawing.
What Christopher did with his life was to spend it writing, lecturing, and debating his adopted cause. He often debated his brother in public forums, but he debated others as well, and one of those was a professor named John Lennox.
In the debate world, the two debaters will square off in the public arena, and have at each other, engaging in verbal pugilism for an hour or so. Forget our presidential debates, they aren't really debates, but press conferences during which each candidate tries to come up with a one-liner (a zinger) that will win the day.
After the debate, the two combatants will often have dinner together and discuss various issues regarding their differences. They don't usually engage in a heated diatribe, but discuss things man-to-man over whatever food they've ordered.
THE DINNER
Anyway, Christopher Hitchens and John Lennox were doing just that, along with another man, Larry Taunton, who often debated Hitchens. They were having a conversation after midnight at a restaurant and from that dinner we can learn something valuable.
During the earlier debate, Hitchens had done what he always did, express his rage against Roman Catholicism and the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches. He inveighed against them as oppressive political machines, interested only in power, and responsible for many evils throughout the ages.
Earlier that evening, Lennox and Hitchens had debated one another in front of an audience of college students. Now, appropriately, the debate continued offstage.
“Christopher, do you really think that you're undermining our position with references to stuff like that?” Lennox asked.
He went on to tell Hitchens that he agreed with him and that he could add stories to those Hitchens had told about the dark history of the three entities. He said, "I don’t doubt that the stories are true. I could add more stories of my own to the ones you have told. But they are not the actions of genuine Christians.” Hitchens asked, incredulously, “You don’t consider the Orthodox Church Christian?” Hitchens seemed confident in the response he would get.
Taunton then entered the conversation: “Well, it’s not about this or that denomination or what we consider Christian or not Christian,” he said. “It’s really a question of ‘What does the Bible say?'"
SHOCK
Taunton explains what happened next:
"At this, Hitchens sat up, totally astonished. Apparently, this was not the answer he expected. He turned to Lennox and gestured at me. “Do you agree with that, Professor?” “I do,” Lennox declared. “Christ forbade the very actions you are calling ‘Christian’! Christ was even more resolute in His opposition to hypocrisy, exploitation, and the use of violence to promote His message than you are, Christopher.”
Lennox reached for his water glass, but it was empty. “Perhaps you should be one of his followers?” he added, putting the glass down."
So, there's one thing we can learn: Never assume what a person knows or doesn't know. In all of Hitchens' debates and travels, he'd never heard and understood that Roman Catholicism, the Russian and Greek Orthodox have used tactics and held doctrines that Christ Himself condemned.
Never assume that a person knows what grace means. Never assume that a person knows what repent means. Never assume that a person knows what the finished work of Christ means. Never assume that a person knows what faith means. Never assume a person knows what John 3:16 means. (One man I talked to thought the words said, "John Three Colon One Six." He had no idea that they had reference to a text in the Bible in the third chapter of the Gospel of John.
This fact was brought home to me when a lady who had listened faithfully to my exposition of the book of Galatians and my hundreds of references to the Mosaic Law was talking with me after our last study of the book. On the last night, after our Bible study, she thanked me for the study. I thanked her and mentioned something about how we were free from the Law of Moses. It was then that she got a quizzical look on her face and said, "You mean Moses, Moses?" I answered, "Yes, of course."
She told me that whenever I referred to the Mosaic Law in our study, that I was talking about a mosaic of laws from all over the ancient world, laws having nothing to do with the Moses who led Israel out of Egypt. So much for my pedagogical skills. My problem was assuming that everybody knew what the two words, "Mosaic Law" meant. She had sat there in the auditorium for thee months not really understanding much of what I was talking about. Not her fault, but mine.
Anyway, what makes this account of that dinner conversation more poignant is that at the time, Christopher Hitchens was dying of cancer.
Did he trust Christ as Savior?
TO BE CONTINUED
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