I was pointed to an interesting article by a friend on an internet board this evening (HT: Michael Turner). It is an interview of the “famous” atheist Christopher Hitchens by a Unitarian Universalist “minister.” The article, entitled “Questions of Faith” is a wonderful example of how a vapid, vague spirituality that masks as Christianity not only has no hope, but it has no answers.
Here is a particularly interesting exchange:
Sewell: The religion you cite in your book is a generally fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make any distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?
Hitchens: I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.
This obviously makes Sewell uncomfortable, so she responds with a classical liberal dodge:
Sewell: Let me go someplace else. When I was in seminary, I was particularly drawn to the work of theologian Paul Tillich. He shocked people by describing the traditional God—as you might, as a matter of fact—as “an invincible tyrant.” For Tillich, God is “the ground of being.” It’s his response to, say, Freud’s belief that religion is mere wish fulfillment and comes from humans’ fear of death. What do you think of Tillich’s concept of God?
Essentially, she knows that Hitchens (atheist that he is) knows more about Christianity than she does, and while he is an unbeliever, at least he is a thinking and forthright unbeliever. So she mouths some platitudes about the vagaries of “religion.” Hitchens will have none of that either:
Hitchens: I would classify that under the heading of Statements That Have No Meaning—At All. Christianity, remember, was really founded by Saint Paul, not by Jesus. Paul says, very clearly, that if it is not true that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, then we the Christians are of all people the most unhappy. If none of that’s true, and you seem to say it isn’t, I have no quarrel with you. You’re not going to come to my door trying to convince me. Nor are you trying to get a tax break from the government. Nor are you trying to have it taught to my children in school. If all Christians were like you, I wouldn’t have to write the book.
Ouch! He strikes right at the heart of the meaninglessness of pseudo-Christianity, and tells her that such “belief” is a waste of time, and no threat to unbelief. Still try to squirm around in the intellectual dishonesty of Unitarianism, Sewell offers up that she “agree[s] with almost everything you [Hitchens] say. But I still consider myself a Christian and a person of faith.” Hitchens could be an excellent example of a Christian apologist here, when he hits her with another zinger: “Faith in what? Faith in the Resurrection?”
There is more, so I will let you read the article for yourself. But I was struck by the fact that at the end of the article, I would rather have a conversation with Hitchens than with Sewell, even though Hitchens is supposed to be the greater “enemy.” I can respect that he is direct in his views, and I think to some extent (as far as is possible for one who does not believe in Christ) understands the consequences of his beliefs. As Richard Weaver wrote, “Ideas Have Consequences.” Hitchens appears to understand this, even if I (along with the Bible) disagree with him on what the consequences are. But Sewell is a throwback to an early 20th century liberal mush. There is nothing in what she says, but as Bildad says in the book of Job, “How long will you say these things, and the words of your mouth be a great wind?” (Job 8:2).
