The American Spectator : The Long Journey Home

Text Size

The Long Journey Home

By John R. Coyne, Jr. from the December 2010 - January 2011 issue

How atheism led Peter Hitchens to faith.

The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith
By Peter Hitchens
(Zondervan, 224 pages, $22.99)

Peter Hitchens is the younger and lesser known of the Hitchens brothers, at times referred to as Cain and Abel, both of whom have brought out personal histories this year. Christopher Hitchens’s book, taken together with his earlier screed against God, has charmed the literati, especially the American literati, among whom, as Kingsley Amis discerned, a perceived tendency toward dissipation combined with an English accent — and throw in a commitment to atheism — will get you just about anywhere you want to go. However, in Christopher Hitchens’s case, it’s not banality masquerading as genius. Nor is he an apologist for the soft-headed left, as witness his independent stands against militant Islam and the intellectuals who increasingly pander to it, much as an earlier generation of leftist intellectuals pandered to Stalin, and his support of our intervention in the Middle East.

Extrapolating from Islamic terrorism, carried out in the name of a militant faith, it’s possible to understand the rationale for an aggressive atheism, even though his rage against a God he says doesn’t exist seems, at least on the face of it, logically to negate his premises. But suffice it to say here that whatever his position on faith or his standing in the world of trendy people, Christopher Hitchens ranks among the best of our few surviving men of letters, and his appreciations of authors and literature, done for the Atlantic, are among the finest critical essays being written today.

The Hitchens brothers both write strong, clean prose. As Peter Hitchens puts it, “On this my brother and I agree: that independence of mind is immensely precious, and that we should try to tell the truth in clear English, even if we are disliked for doing so.”

Christopher Hitchens, when telling his version of the truth, can seem angry, at times enraged as he argues his brief against God, much as a Trotskyist might rage against Stalin. Peter Hitchens, in presenting the case for faith, is calmer — not soft, in any way, and his criticisms of collectivists are hard and sharp, but writing from a strong sense of self, his prose informed by an inner perspective, a peace, that at times gives it something very like a 19th-century glow.

Here, for instance, in a highly evocative passage, is his description of coming home from school by train for the Christmas holidays — “a long journey in that strange, exciting light that floods the skies of England when the sun is low in the sky, ending with the unmixed delight of homecoming after dark, the extraordinary pleasures of a soft bed, privacy, and adults who were not teachers. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, a few days later, were always an anti-climax after this. To this day I prefer the anticipation of Advent to Christmas itself, and the season is strangely incomplete without a long train journey through a cold landscape.”

THE RAGE AGAINST GOD is Hitchens’s story of his long journey through a cold landscape, from boyhood through the loss of faith and the acceptance of socialism as a secular substitute, from disillusion with socialism and atheism to a return to faith — a journey with stops as a foreign correspondent in North Korea, Burma, the Congo, China, Eastern Europe, and during the collapse of the Soviet Union, three years in Moscow, “the show city of the Evil Empire,” where “they knew they dwelt in the suburbs of hell,” and where the reality of the bankruptcy of socialism became inescapable.

In a chapter titled “The Generation Who Were Too Clever to Believe,” he tells us of the first leg of his journey: “I set fire to my Bible on the playing fields of my Cambridge boarding school one bright, windy spring afternoon in 1967. I was fifteen years old.” (It may or may not be, as Shaw claimed, that English public schools “are the nurseries of all vice and immorality.” But during the last century, they did often seem to be the hatcheries of atheists, drunks, degenerates, and effete Soviet spies, who no doubt dreamed of Ivan’s boots, and in several cases probably felt them.)

The young Hitchens’s state of mind and attitude toward religion, he believes, was and is common among “the intelligent and educated,” summed up several generations ago by the high priestess of the Bloomsbury Group, Virginia Woolf, who wrote to her sister about T. S. Eliot’s conversion to Christianity, “in terms that perfectly epitomize the enlightened English person’s scorn for faith and those who hold it.”

“I have had a most shameful and distressing interview with poor dear Tom Eliot,” wrote Woolf, “who may be called dead to us all from this day forward. He has become an Anglo-Catholic, believes in God and immortality, and goes to church. I was really shocked. A corpse would seem to me more credible than he is. I mean, there’s something obscene in a living person sitting by the fire and believing in God.”

It was this attitude, he believes, passed down through generations educated in England’s best public schools, that undermined his once great nation and nurtured a belief in socialism that brought it to near ruin. It was helped along by academics like Sidney and Beatrice Webb, highly respected and much honored historians and Fabian socialists who in fact unconsciously functioned as Soviet propagandists, telling us in their multi-volume work, Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation, that “it is exactly the explicit denial of the intervention of any God, or indeed of any will other than the human will [Hitchens’s italics] that has attracted to Soviet Communism, the sympathies of many intellectuals and especially of scientists in civilized countries.”

Intellectuals, Hitchens writes, like to mock “the naïve faith of the peasant” in miracles and the symbols of religiosity. But that belief “is as nothing to the materialist intellectual’s gullible open-mouthed willingness to believe anything. The biggest fake miracle in human history is the claim that the Soviet Union was a new civilization of equality, peace, love, truth, science, and progress.”

However, as he discovered when he lived there, “it was a prison, a slum, a return to primitive barbarism, a kingdom of lies where scientists and doctors feared offending the secret police.… Yet it was the clever people, those who prided themselves on being unencumbered with superstition, those who viewed religion as a feature of the childhood of humanity, who fell for this swindle in the tens of thousands.”

Hitchens calls the descendants of these dupes “Homeless Utopians,” still searching for certitude in all the wrong places — Cuba, for instance, “and the strange continuing cult of Fidel Castro…, in defiance of all facts, gives us a faint hint of what the Soviet delusion must have been like when it ruled the minds of so many. The reverence for the tyrant (invariably referred to as ‘Fidel,’ as if a personal friend) and the misrepresentation of his impoverished prison island as a paragon of medical and social achievement are examples of the power of self-deception.”

But through what he has seen and reported on, and through “a sudden, strong sense of religion being a thing of the present day,” brought on in part by a variety of observations, experiences, and flashes of recognition — a passage from John Buchan; a detail of architecture or craftsmanship from centuries past; the faces, distorted by agony and fear, indistinguishable from our own, caught in a 15th-century artist’s rendering of the Last Judgment — through these and other milestones on his journey, Hitchens believes he knows precisely where that certitude lies:

Page: 1 2 >

About the Author

John R. Coyne, Jr. a former White House speech-writer, is co-author with Linda Bridges of Strictly Right: William F. Buckley Jr. and the American Conservative Movement (Wiley).

Letter to the Editor View all comments (65) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

Stephanie| 12.16.10 @ 6:51AM

I suppose struggling with cancer can bring you to Christ. I am happy for him and will buy his book.
Get better Mr. Hitchens and Merry CHRISTmas.

Stromzeye| 12.16.10 @ 7:38AM

Stephanie, did you actually read the article? Christopher Hitchens, while dying of cancer, remains a dyed-in-the-wool atheist. His brother Peter Hitchens, the author of the book being reviewed, seems to be healthy and a committed Christian. BTW, it's a book a look forward to reading.

stephanie| 12.16.10 @ 7:59AM

Had just woken up. Guess I missed the whole thing. Ooops. And I guess I saw what I wanted to see. I am sorry for him.

Paul D| 12.16.10 @ 9:07AM

Good on ya, Stephanie for admitting your error.

BTW, for those who do convert and are despised for it:

From Matthew 5:

"10 Blessed [are] they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 Blessed are ye, when [men] shall revile you, and persecute [you], and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great [is] your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you

Merry Christmas

Margie| 12.16.10 @ 12:27PM

Amen, Paul D. Merry Christmas Paul D., stephanie and Stormzeye.

And may God continue to bless America, and keep and protect all of our fighting men and women in our Armed Forces across the world. I love you, your country loves you, and most of all~ your God loves you.

And to Peter Hitchens I say Welcome Home to the fellowship of the Lord Jesus Christ. Stay faithful, and may God grant repentance to your brother.

Kelly Staples| 12.16.10 @ 7:24AM

Christopher Hitchens is a fighter. He battles a dread disease AND the tragedy of superstition. Peace in the days ahead.

Stormzeye| 12.16.10 @ 7:48AM

The "dread disease" Christopher Hitchens battles is not cancer so much as it is his unwillingness or inability to believe in the eternal creative force we call God, that led us all from the darkness of materialism into the light of unconditional love through the grace of the holy spirit. None of it has anything to do with superstition.

BG| 12.16.10 @ 10:08AM

I agree Stormzeye... Christopher Hitchens battles against his own mind; which on the one hand crusades for the truth in many issues, but then on the other, openly contradicts himself by denying the "Truth" Himself, even God Almighty, the Truth of All. In that sense, he reminds me of the Apostle Paul before his conversion.... so confused and willful in his persecution of the saints.

His own self-absorption and and unresolved frustration complexes remain an unsolved labyrinth that stands in his way. Think of the internal cognitive tensions that have arrisen in his life, like a vortex that swirl him inevitabley into the abyss of his own contradictions.... those dynamics can cause more than a simple headache... but, it is my belief, cancer as well....

Whatever got in the way of Christopher Hitchens' intellect that divided God from Goodness in his own mind and heart, is still raging in anger deep within his soul.... and for that resolution I pray for, hoping that he will finally return, as did his brother, to the place where he began "for the first time." There still remains hope for him... there is still a kindness about him that he has yet to extinguish, a kindness that is still from God without his knowing.

Of such a one as this, and to some degree for us all, "The Hound of Heaven" was written for, by Francis Thompson (1859–1907), which if allowed, I submit to all gathered here these wonderful words of what's it like to run from God, and to be chased by the Lord's Hounds of Heaven, until finally convinced of God being "inescapable" and the journey that it entails:

I FLED Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter. 5
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase, 10
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat—and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet—
‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’ 15

I pleaded, outlaw-wise,
By many a hearted casement, curtained red,
Trellised with intertwining charities;
(For, though I knew His love Who followèd,
Yet was I sore adread 20
Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside).
But, if one little casement parted wide,
The gust of His approach would clash it to.
Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.
Across the margent of the world I fled, 25
And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars;
Fretted to dulcet jars
And silvern chatter the pale ports o’ the moon.
I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon; 30
With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over
From this tremendous Lover—
Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!
I tempted all His servitors, but to find
My own betrayal in their constancy, 35
In faith to Him their fickleness to me,
Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.
To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;
Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.
But whether they swept, smoothly fleet, 40
The long savannahs of the blue;
Or whether, Thunder-driven,
They clanged his chariot ’thwart a heaven,
Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o’ their feet:—
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue. 45
Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat— 50
‘Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.’

I sought no more that after which I strayed
In face of man or maid;
But still within the little children’s eyes
Seems something, something that replies, 55
They at least are for me, surely for me!
I turned me to them very wistfully;
But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair
With dawning answers there,
Their angel plucked them from me by the hair. 60
‘Come then, ye other children, Nature’s—share
With me’ (said I) ‘your delicate fellowship;
Let me greet you lip to lip,
Let me twine with you caresses,
Wantoning 65
With our Lady-Mother’s vagrant tresses,
Banqueting
With her in her wind-walled palace,
Underneath her azured daïs,
Quaffing, as your taintless way is, 70
From a chalice
Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring.’
So it was done:
I in their delicate fellowship was one—
Drew the bolt of Nature’s secrecies. 75
I knew all the swift importings
On the wilful face of skies;
I knew how the clouds arise
Spumèd of the wild sea-snortings;
All that’s born or dies 80
Rose and drooped with; made them shapers
Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine;
With them joyed and was bereaven.
I was heavy with the even,
When she lit her glimmering tapers 85
Round the day’s dead sanctities.
I laughed in the morning’s eyes.
I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,
Heaven and I wept together,
And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine; 90
Against the red throb of its sunset-heart
I laid my own to beat,
And share commingling heat;
But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.
In vain my tears were wet on Heaven’s grey cheek. 95
For ah! we know not what each other says,
These things and I; in sound I speak—
Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.
Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;
Let her, if she would owe me, 100
Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me
The breasts o’ her tenderness:
Never did any milk of hers once bless
My thirsting mouth.
Nigh and nigh draws the chase, 105
With unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;
And past those noisèd Feet
A voice comes yet more fleet—
‘Lo! naught contents thee, who content’st not Me!’ 110
Naked I wait Thy love’s uplifted stroke!
My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,
And smitten me to my knee;
I am defenceless utterly.
I slept, methinks, and woke, 115
And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.
In the rash lustihead of my young powers,
I shook the pillaring hours
And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,
I stand amid the dust o’ the mounded years— 120
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.
My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,
Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.
Yea, faileth now even dream
The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist; 125
Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist
I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,
Are yielding; cords of all too weak account
For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.
Ah! is Thy love indeed 130
A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,
Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?
Ah! must—
Designer infinite!—
Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it? 135
My freshness spent its wavering shower i’ the dust;
And now my heart is as a broken fount,
Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever
From the dank thoughts that shiver
Upon the sighful branches of my mind. 140
Such is; what is to be?
The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?
I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds;
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity; 145
Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then
Round the half-glimpsèd turrets slowly wash again.
But not ere him who summoneth
I first have seen, enwound
With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned; 150
His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.
Whether man’s heart or life it be which yields
Thee harvest, must Thy harvest-fields
Be dunged with rotten death?

Now of that long pursuit 155
Comes on at hand the bruit;
That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:
‘And is thy earth so marred,
Shattered in shard on shard?
Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me! 160
Strange, piteous, futile thing!
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught’ (He said),
‘And human love needs human meriting:
How hast thou merited— 165
Of all man’s clotted clay the dingiest clot?
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me? 170
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child’s mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home: 175
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!’
Halts by me that footfall:
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
‘Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, 180
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.’

Mike McLaren| 12.16.10 @ 12:02PM

BG, you reminded me of what Fr George Rutler said to Christopher Hitchens during a public debate. Hitchens would either convert to Catholicisim or die a mad man.

Margie| 12.16.10 @ 12:44PM

It is to Christ we must convert. For as it is written:

"Jesus said to him, "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father, but by Me."

"To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.." 1 Cor. 1:2.

",,because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." Rom. 10:9.

"For, "every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved." Rom. 10:13.

"For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.." 1 Tim. 2:5.

May God grant Christopher Hitchens repentance from the dead works of unbelief to belief in the real and living Christ Jesus, the One and only One who suffered and died for his sins on the cross and was raised on the third day by the power of God, and is coming a second time to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him.

"Consequently He is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them." Heb. 7:25.

Tim the Enchanter| 12.16.10 @ 12:58PM

Jesus often referred to His Church as His Bride. Can't get much closer to Him than that.

Margie| 12.16.10 @ 1:35PM

"..because we are members of His body." Eph. 5:30.

His church is the body of believers the world over, and it isn't a matter of Religion. See above Scriptures. We aren't saved by Religion.

We are saved by the Grace of God, through faith in Jesus. For as it is written:

"For by Grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God--not because of works, lest any man should boast." Eph. 2: 8 & 9.

BG| 12.17.10 @ 9:35AM

Hear! Hear!

John II| 12.16.10 @ 1:17PM

Francis Thompson. Whoa. You beat me to it. I was getting all worked up to draw the same parallel.

Thanks. Now I have more time to watch more movies this afternoon.

Butterfly| 12.16.10 @ 8:05AM

Tragedy of superstition? What will you say when you meet your maker?

Ryan| 12.16.10 @ 8:23AM

What right is there to declare something "dread" or "Tragedy?" What standard do you use? What does it matter?

A.M. Mallett | 12.16.10 @ 8:56AM

Unfortunately, Mr. Hitchens has made himself a worse enemy of Christ than ever before and unless he repents and to turns to Christ, his eternity is far less than peaceful. Christians pray for his redemption rather than his recalcitrant animosity toward a God he feigns disbelief in.

Margie| 12.16.10 @ 2:07PM

"Feigns disbelief in."
Yes, that is it.
Perhaps Christopher will pray the Atheists Prayer before he dies. I have heard that it goes like this:
"God, if you exist, please show me."
Being that he wrote a book in which he addressed the non-existent God by His name, I would think that he might be able to consider it.

ferengi| 12.16.10 @ 4:16PM

No, the only superstition is atheism. The only tragedgy is belief in falsehoods - atheism.

Cincinnatius| 12.16.10 @ 9:20PM

Kelly, please take a few hours and read C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. Perhaps its message and lessons will help you to better understand evil and superstition. It's a short book. There can be no "peace" without goodness and all good comes from God, NOT man.

simon templar| 12.18.10 @ 2:57PM

The tragedy of superstition? Christopher Hitchens is not an atheist..he is a emotionally disturbed individual and an intellectual hack. If he were truly a non-believer and such an intellectual giant, he would see the enormous benefit that a free society gains from religious freedom and practice by its citizenry. He would be fighting on the side of the free exercise of religious belief and non-belief. God would not be an issue and he would not feel the need to prove that he does not exist. He would respect genuine people of faith, would not feel threatened by them, nor would he have this rage and anger towards a god that does not exist. I watched him in a debate at a prominent university and could not believe the lame, old, and tired arguments that he tried to depoly and can not to this day understand why this guy is held up to be so intelligent. I could have done a better job arguing his position without using all the name calling, defensive attacks, and circular arguments that he seems to fall back on continually. As far a your insult to religious belief as being superstition and a tragedy...I think you need to take a good clear HONEST look at what a society looks like when it has ridden itself of such superstition as you call it. You do not want to beleive in a God or a religion then so be it but do not force your atheism on the rest of the population nor disrespect others for having a faith. I suggest you go live in one of these atheistic utopias where superstition as you call it is not tolerated.

mzk1| 12.18.10 @ 6:43PM

I never had any interest in the book, as the sub-title, "how religion spoils everything", seems to be self-refuting. Here we are, following a century in which atheism murdered about 150 million people, and we are worried about RELIGION?

Doctor Right| 12.16.10 @ 8:26AM

I have great respect for Christopher Hitchens as a writer, but his view of God is remarkably juvenille and unexplored. It's a shame that too many people share his view.

The cliche' idea that one can't believe in a God who allows such misery to be spread in the world underscores a complete ignorance of God, His plan for mankind, and eternal salvation.

God does not cause the misery in the world; man does. God tells us in scripture that life on earth will be difficult because of man's inherent sinful nature. He knows that we are all sinners; that's why He sent His son to intercede for us.

God wants people to come to him voluntarily, not through force or coercion. To that end, were he to interfere with each and every earthly dilemma, his presence would be known through sight, not faith. And sight does not produce a true, enduring, REAL faith...It only reinforces the obvious in a simple way.

It's nice to know that Peter Hitchens realized the error of atheism. I hope his brother will, too, before it's too late.

Ryan| 12.16.10 @ 1:05PM

How can I seek Christ without Him drawing me first? What is in me that seeks after Him?

Margie| 12.16.10 @ 1:20PM

"What is in me that seeks after Him?"

Answer: It's what He put there.

"We know that in everything God works for good with those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. And those whom He predestined He also called; and those whom He called He also justified; and those whom He justified He also glorified." Rom. 8:28-30.

"No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last Day." Jn. 6:44.

There is to be no confusion, Ryan. Remember what God says, "I am not a God of confusion." 1 Cor. 14:33.

Ryan| 12.16.10 @ 3:03PM

Sorry, it's just the "not through force or coercion" part that bugs me. There's nothing in scripture that points toward me being able to come to Christ except that he pulls me to Himself - not because I voluntarily walk toward Him.

Too Many Tims| 12.16.10 @ 3:13PM

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
C.S. Lewis

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis

Margie| 12.16.10 @ 3:45PM

Ryan,

It's called participation.

SF_Exile| 12.16.10 @ 2:09PM

Simple - our hearts remain restless and unfulfilled. We instinctively know there's something missing, something more. That something is, in the model of Our Lady, our submission to His will.
(Easier said than done.)

Ryan| 12.16.10 @ 3:04PM

"There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who seek God..."

We may be restless, but that's not necessarily what pulls us to Christ.

Taxpayer| 12.17.10 @ 7:43PM

I've heard a lot of testimony from people who've converted to Christianity, either from another religion or from atheism. I seem to recall all of them saying the feeling of restlessness is EXACTLY what spurred them to seek Christ.

Margie| 12.18.10 @ 1:07PM

So very true. It was that for me. And it all comes from Him. He puts the restlessness there, inside of us, it's all His doing.

"The LORD preserves the simple; when I was brought low, He saved me." Ps. 116:6.

The thing is, I've also known a lot of Christians who just had Christian parents and so didn't have to go through much in their lives before realizing the need for Jesus in their lives. It's amazing.. how God is in control and He knows what every single one of us needs, and causes it to happen! And thus:

"We love, because He first loved us." 1 Jn. 4:19.

Hey Ryan,

What do you think about that? Doesn't it make sense? He does it all!

John II| 12.16.10 @ 1:13PM

Good words, Doc. Which, by the way, are reflective of why I am just this side of smug in my expectation that you yourself shall return to the bosom of Holy Mother Church, so to speak.

The universe, as Wordsworth reckons, is loaded with "intimations of immortality," and one reliable sign of a certain stripe of atheism is rage. The really hardcore atheist is characteristically icy about it all. Show me an angry atheist, and I'll show you a pending Christian.

Not only that, but a pending Catholic Christian to boot. Been there, seen that.

And now back to "The Jeweller's Shop" (1989), in which Burt Lancaster delivers one of his last performances--arguably his best--before his untimely death at the tender age of 80. The screenplay by Jeff Andrus is based closely on the play by that great, great Polish actor and playwright Karol Wojtyla, a lifelong fan of Jack Benny's and, for the last 27 years of his life, by the grace of God, successor to St. Peter as Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II.

Ryan| 12.16.10 @ 3:07PM

This is where I get uncomfortable with Catholicism.

"return to the bosom of the Holy Mother Church."

Nothing about the love and grace of Christ in your post. Nothing about the Gospel or falling in love with God. It's about the Bride, not the Groom.

John II| 12.16.10 @ 4:02PM

Well, you won't get an argument from me on that one, Ryan. I've always been uncomfortable with the Church, and I damn near break out in hives when I hear the term "Catholicism," as if it's all nothing more than an ideology cooked up by the vagrant humans who serve her so clumsily and sometimes so scandalously, century after century.

I like the word "bosom," though. And I LOVE to needle folks like Doc with that kind of language. To borrow the signature line, characteristically Catholic, of that great, great Catholic comic Lou Costello, "I'm a baaaaaadd boy."

Taxpayer| 12.17.10 @ 7:47PM

Um, the love and grace of Christ IS the Church. IOW, it's a given.

Margie| 12.18.10 @ 12:58PM

No, it isn't. Jesus is God's Grace, and He gives us same. We receive it inwardly.
Just as His church is not a physical building, but are the body of believers the world over.

Read:

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of Grace and Truth; we have beheld His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. And from His fulness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ." Jn. 1:14-17.

John S.| 12.20.10 @ 8:35AM

The problem here, as is so often the case, is that the participants in this discussion do not speak the same language.

As a convert to Roman Catholicism, the first hurdle I had to jump was learning to "speak Catholic". Allow me to try to translate here . . .

In this case, when a Catholic says: "Holy Mother Church", s/he is referring to God's church. Owned, operated, controlled and totally, absolutely dedicated to serving him.

To "return to home" to a Catholic is catholic-speak for returning to God, but in a more complete, fulfilling and ultimately satisfying way. Understanding that may help you avoid talking past each other.

Ken (Old Texican)| 12.16.10 @ 9:19AM

Christopher bought Lucifer's "big lie"

Peter repented of his petulance, and accepted grace and reality.

Evidently Christopher chooses to live eternity in darkness away from God.

Evidently, Peter looks forward to living in the light of God.

David McAvoy| 12.16.10 @ 10:05AM

When one looks at any society who forsakes the God of creation, Jesus, The blessings dissapate while flagrant immorality grows. Fifty years ago in public school we said the Our Father along with A Pledge of Alegiance "...one nation under God..." and we have been blessed. Now as Homosexuality seeks to justify its perverse depavity on a plane of civil right, we see our country with no industry and no jobs and no direction and instead of gum-chewing and talking being the biggest problem in class, it is STD's, drugs and guns. A little Judeo-Christian value is what our founding Father's sought to establish. We should stand up for the right to teach the Bible in our class rooms and give a true sense of proportion to our lives again. Thanks and Merry Christmas!

Ryan| 12.16.10 @ 1:07PM

Ummm...you DO know that "under God" was added in 1954?

John II| 12.16.10 @ 1:35PM

That's true. It took that long for the Pledge to catch up with the motto "In God We Trust." As in the official motto of the United States of America (Florida too, as I recall.)

The latter even got inscribed on the coinage in the 1860s because of the spiritual concentration that comes with events like the Civil War or, in the case of the former (the Pledge), the early years of a very lengthy Cold War with the commies.

Existential threats have a way of refining the collective spiritual sensibility of America, apparently. And, also apparently, periods of soft materialistic indulgence have a way of abrading that sensibility.

And smugness about it all is a mark of being a witless child of one's own time.

A. C. Santore| 12.16.10 @ 10:17AM

Putting religion, God, and faith aside, Christopher Hitchens is a literate clown.

Christopher| 12.16.10 @ 11:00AM

I read Christopher Hitchens' book "God is not Great." Most of is silly compaints about Mother Theresa, the Catholic Church, the ususal suspects for liberal atheists. Conservatives praised Hitchens when he supported the war on terror, but his support is based upon his criticizism for religion in general, and the Muslim religion in particular, and he saw the Muslim terrorists' conduct as motivated by their religio us beliefs.
Peter Hitchens wrote a very good book titled "Abolition of Britain" decribing the cultural wars in Britain.

Christopher| 12.16.10 @ 11:01AM

Ooops, criticism not criticizim

John II| 12.16.10 @ 1:49PM

". . . he saw the Muslim terrorists' conduct as motivated by their religious beliefs."

Well--yes. And he's right about that. In other words, his independence of mind is sufficiently genuine to include an independence from the fatuous Western secularist-atheist notion that Islam itself is somehow distinct from the behavior of the Islamists. In fact, the terrorists are the ones who take Islam seriously. Read the Qur'an.

Christopher| 12.16.10 @ 1:59PM

I agree. I meant only that his support for the war was based on that view, I did not mean to imply that I disagreed with Hitchens' opinion on the terrorrists' motives influenced by their religion.

John II| 12.16.10 @ 2:20PM

Oh. Okay--sorry. I seem to have a trigger typing-finger this afternoon. Actually, I'm just killing time, putting off wrapping presents.

The kids used to handle most of that tedious chore--but they're either married or in college now, and my wife is still preoccupied with her own teaching work until next week.

Oh the burdens that come with the empty nest! All the cozy excuses for procrastination run dry so quickly. I pass on.

Michael Gantt | 12.16.10 @ 11:49AM

The Hitchens brothers are a fascinating pair. I think Christopher could be brought closer to faith in God were it to be properly distinguished from faith in organized religion. Nevertheless, I believe we will see both brothers in heaven, and said as much in this open letter to Christopher:
http://wp.me/p1eZz8-N

Roger McKinney| 12.16.10 @ 12:51PM

Thanks for the review. How sad for Peter to know his brother remains stubborn against the truth while facing eternity.

Tim the Enchanter| 12.16.10 @ 12:57PM

The only thing I'm reminded of regarding the Hitchens is when reading one of P.J. O'Rourke's books, he mentioned that there was an article that he was going to call, "The Dog is Dead but the Tail Still Wags." Some other title was given to the article, but he still liked the original. He then said he was going to save it for a review of Christopher Hitchens' next book.

Margie| 12.16.10 @ 1:08PM

I couldn't help as I was reading Peter Hitchens' words above substituting a few things:

"it was a prison, a slum, a return to primitive barbarism, a kingdom of lies where scientists and doctors feared offending the secret police (the Obama Czars).… Yet it was the clever people, ( the intellectualoid Leftists) those who prided themselves on being unencumbered with superstition, those who viewed religion as a feature of the childhood of humanity, who fell for this swindle in the tens of thousands."

Soon under "Obama-Care" our Doctors will have to do same and fear that they are not following the rules.

"Homeless Utopians," indeed these dupes will be if the Socialism that Obama espouses comes to its fruition. They will not be immune from its trap, much to their surprise.

And again when Peter says this I couldn't help but substitute a few things here and there:

"and the strange continuing cult of Fidel Castro (Obama)…, in defiance of all facts, gives us a faint hint of what the Soviet delusion must have been like when it ruled the minds of so many. The reverence for the tyrant (invariably referred to as 'Fidel,' (Obama)as if a personal friend) and the misrepresentation of his impoverished prison island (It's what Socialism does to your country, folks), as a paragon of medical ("Obama-Care") and social achievement are examples of the power of self-deception."

May conservatives keep fighting the good fight to the boot of Socialism off our necks.. otherwise we have our examples before us.

Too Many Tims| 12.16.10 @ 3:36PM

"Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had. "

Brian| 12.16.10 @ 6:40PM

If one rejects the truth, all that's left to believe is a lie

Tony| 12.16.10 @ 11:30PM

Everyone's beliefs are determined by their presuppositons. Hitchens does not believe because he is predisposed not to believe and he will continue in this state unless as Paul says "He made you alive together with Him". Salvation is of the Lord and indeed as was stated earlier - God must draw him. God does not draw everyone and thus people remain in their sins. If Christians believe it is because of a sovereign work outside of themselves so that as Paul also says "that no man may boast before God"

IzeHavitt| 12.17.10 @ 1:17AM

Tony, Yeah, presuppositions......or, in some circles, it's also called "sources of reference." One can't blame Christopher Hitchens much if his views were primarily shaped by the England he grew up in. It was either the Church of England or the Catholics. It can be said that these two denominations epitomize mainstream Christianity's problem as a counterfeit, their respective righteous remnants notwithstanding. So if these were his primary sources of reference, well, we can't blame him much for that. But Mr. Hitchens needs to know that, if he would continue his search for truth, he should start with Jesus the Christ, and continue by learning the Word of God accurately. That's the real key. As it is written: "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. The "eyes of his understanding" aren't yet enlightened, but they will be, if he will cease his stubborness. As it is also written: " Only by pride comes contention."

led panel | 12.17.10 @ 3:07AM

how say that....

it was a prison, a slum, a return to primitive barbarism, a kingdom of lies where scientists and doctors feared offending the secret police (the Obama Czars).… Yet it was the clever people, ( the intellectualoid Leftists) those who prided themselves on being unencumbered with superstition, those who viewed religion as a feature of the childhood of humanity, who fell for this swindle in the tens of thousands."

Tony| 12.17.10 @ 11:52PM

IzeHavitt, I appreciate those comments, however I would say that Hitchens is accountable for his stubbornness but he is powerless to change it. He will be judged for his unbelief but if God does not regenerate him and effectually call him he cannot cease his stubborness. He may have been conditioned by these and other sources of reference that you mentioned but he was not a tabula rasa when he entered this world. He was conceived in sin and came forth from the womb speaking lies as David says. This is all of our natural state. Unless God takes out our bad heart and gives us a new heart we cannot be saved. We cannot save ourselves. This is why the scripture calls us the elect - "that not of ourselves - it is the gift of God".

Dblade| 12.18.10 @ 1:51PM

There's a danger with Peter's reply that the Spectator audience might heed. Turning to Christianity as an antidote to leftist thinking may subtly ensnare it into a pawn of the right. Utopianism is not something limited to a single political party, and must be resisted on both sides: an unrestrained market-based ideology can be just as corrosive as a socialist leftist one.

Christianity is just as against conservatism as leftism. It warns us against building bigger barns and reminds us of the lilies that toil or gather not-against making the economic life our priority. Conservatism is currently friendlier to Christianity, but never forget it seeks also to use it to achieve its aims just as much as Liberalism.

simon templar| 12.18.10 @ 3:12PM

Dblade writes, "It warns us against building bigger barns and reminds us of the lilies that toil or gather not-against making the economic life our priority. Conservatism is currently friendlier to Christianity, but never forget it seeks also to use it to achieve its aims just as much as Liberalism."

What?!? Judeo-Christain belief, values, and faith are the historical foundation of this nation and its Republican form of government. Christianity is not against conservatism..where do you get this crap? Barns, lillies, toil...are you on medication?

Jocon307| 12.19.10 @ 9:40PM

This was a very good article. It makes me want to buy and read this book. Communism=atheism=stupidity, I've known that for a long time, but it's always nice to have an affirmation.

Merry Christmas all!

Christian Louboutin | 6.23.11 @ 6:19AM

Extrapolating from Islamic terrorism, carried out in the name of a militant faith, it's possible to understand the rationale for an aggressive atheism,

dresses | 11.14.11 @ 10:33PM

Think of the internal cognitive tensions that have arrisen in his life, like a vortex that swirl him inevitabley into the abyss of his own contradictions....

Latest Headlines

Not Ready for Primetime Players

Daniel J. Flynn|95 comments

Assessing a Week of Scandal

Matt Purple|117 comments

Oops, Maybe Government is Tyrannical

Marta H. Mossburg|58 comments

Soros Funds Anti-‘Torture’ Report

Mark Tooley|104 comments

Treasure State Treasury

Bill Croke|3 comments

My Generation’s Disease

Benjamin Brophy|60 comments

The View From the Other Side

George H. Wittman|16 comments

USPS: Radical Surgery Needed

Peter Hannaford|19 comments

The Spectacle Blog

Elijah Harper, R.I.P.

Aaron Goldstein | 5.18.13

If Only the Tsar Knew!

F.H. Buckley | 5.18.13

Low-Level IRS Staffer: No, We Didn’t Mastermind This Entire Thing

Matt Purple | 5.17.13

UPDATED: IRS Acting Chief Apologizes, But Defends His Actions

Kaylin Bugos | 5.17.13

Voter Fraud Affected Election Results in Missouri