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Real Answers™
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Copyright: © 2010 Tom Flannery
810 words

PRAYERS FOR HITCH

By: Tom Flannery

Christopher Hitchens had logged his millionth mile on his most recent flight, entitling him to free airline upgrades for the rest of his life.  His newest book, the memoir Hitch-22, had just made it onto the best-seller list.  He had appearances lined up in sold-out venues and bookings on popular TV programs like The Daily Show to promote it.

And yet, awaking one morning in June, none of it mattered.  He was rushed to the hospital and eventually diagnosed with throat cancer, the disease which claimed the life of his father. 

In a poignant piece for Vanity Fair about the diagnosis, he wrote:  "In whatever kind of a 'race' life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist."

Hitchens is best known for being one of the New Atheists who have stormed the publishing world in recent years, in his case with a scathing attack upon theism entitled god Is Not Great.  The book’s subtitle is “How Religion Poisons Everything,” which — when combined with the lower-case “g” in God — helps explain why Hitchens is not known for subtlety.

In his Vanity Fair piece, Hitchens is realistic about the kind of extraordinarily long odds he is facing with esophageal cancer, but he points to two groups in particular that are pulling for him — his dedicated physicians and what he calls the “astounding number of prayer groups” which have arisen across the country to pray for him to be spiritually reconciled (to God) and physically healed (from cancer).  They are praying that God will have mercy upon Hitchens’ body and soul, and that Hitchens will accept His mercy.

So, yes, Christians are praying for Hitch.  But, no, Hitch hasn’t converted.  And although there are a great many others who are seeking God on his behalf, he says he won’t be offering up any prayers for himself.  As he told Anderson Cooper on CNN:  “I shall not be taking part in that.”

“I don’t think souls or bodies can be changed by incantation,” he explained.

Still, many atheists are up in arms that Christians would take it upon themselves to pray for Hitchens, especially when it comes to his spiritual condition.  After all, it wasn’t very long ago that Antony Flew — the world’s leading intellectual defender of atheism over the past half century — publicly renounced his unbelief.  And he wasn’t even sick.

Flew had written dozens of books in recent decades, promoting evolution and atheistic philosophy.  However, during this same period of time, scientific discoveries were being made which pointed, definitively and undeniably, to the existence of a Creator.  The evidence was so overwhelming that the leading intellectual defender of atheism could no longer ignore it and remain intellectually honest.

So, while most of the scientific community responded by doing everything it could to suppress this evidence and discredit all the scientists who affirmed it (see Ben Stein’s brilliant documentary Expelled), Flew lived up to his lifelong commitment of following the scientific evidence wherever it would lead.  And, much to his surprise, he found in the end that it led directly to belief in a deity.

Will Hitchens now make that same spiritual journey?  That’s probably the primary fear of all these atheists who are tearing up the Internet with denunciations of anyone who would dare pray for their terminally ill fellow traveler.  They seem far more concerned about what they perceive would be a “public relations disaster” along the lines of Flew’s recantation than they do about whether Hitchens dies in a state of hopelessness and anxiety and fear on the one hand or of hope and peace and even joy on the other. 

For Christians, though, the matter comes down entirely to the redemption of an eternal soul.  If there truly is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun, then the greatest imperative for each individual in this life is settling where he or she will spend the next one.  It’s really no more complex an issue than that.

We know Scripture tells us that God has “set eternity in the hearts of men” (Ecclesiastes 3:11), that we all have an awareness of God and of a life beyond this one.  It also tells us that creation itself testifies to the truth of a Creator, as so much of true science corroborates.  So whether we look inward or outward, the truth is continually staring us right in the face.  And it is up to each one of us to decide for ourselves what we will do with that truth, without knowing exactly how much time we have to choose (since none of us are guaranteed an additional nanosecond of life).

Whether he dies now or years from now, Christopher Hitchens has a decision to make that will have eternal ramifications for him.  Christians are simply praying that he will make the right one.

"Real Answers™" furnished courtesy of The Amy Foundation Internet Syndicate. To contact the author or The Amy Foundation, write or E-mail to: P. O. Box 16091, Lansing, MI 48901-6091; amyfoundtn@aol.com

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