Christopher Hitchens, the famous atheist and author of “God is Not Great,” abruptly cut short a book tour this week to begin chemotherapy treatments, and news outlets reported that he has cancer.
It seems against common sense to say this, but might I suggest that this turn of events shows that God is kind even to those who spend their lives fighting against him.
How does that make sense? And how does my suggestion show any compassion? I’ll explain in a moment. But first, Hitchens’ announcement:
“I have been advised by my physician that I must undergo a course of chemotherapy on my esophagus,” Hitchens, 61, said. “This advice seems persuasive to me. I regret having had to cancel so many engagements at such short notice.”
In response, I would like to extend my heartfelt empathy to Hitchens. Whatever his (or your) thoughts on the afterlife (or lack thereof), chemotherapy is no fun, and he’s facing a rough road ahead. Almost no one is exempt from troubles in this life.
Christopher Hitchens would probably hate me for saying this (or merely pity me for being a deluded rube), but I’d like to ask believers to pray for him.
Interestingly, Hitchens’ brother, Peter Hitchens, two months ago published a rebuttal to Christopher Hitchens’ long-held denial of God. A former atheist and recently converted Christian, Peter Hitchens has released “The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith.”
Wouldn’t you like to listen in on those family discussions?
But to our question: how can cancer be an example of God’s grace to this suddenly stricken intellectual, who has made a career of arguing the case for atheism? A cancer which God didn’t “give,” but certainly permitted.
The short answer is this: if God really wanted to “get” Hitchens, God would just ignore the man, and let him go his blissful way, unchallenged, to a peaceful death.
At which point Hitchens would stand, face-to-face and unreconciled, with that very God.
Of course, Hitchens doesn’t believe a word of that scenario I just outlined. He might explain that he is, after all, a heavy smoker. And in his 2008 book, “god is not Great,” Hitchens goes to exceptional lengths to explain why he rejects theistic belief.
Now, Hitchens, who also writes on other topics, is a smart guy. In addition to writing books, he is a contributing editor for Atlantic magazine and a columnist for Vanity Fair.
Unfortunately, a lot of Hitchens’ non-belief has a whiff of the village atheist about it. First off, there’s the title of his best-known anti-God book: “god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.” Why the little “g” for God? It’s his name, after all, and we capitalize proper names. The little “g” feels like the gratuitous disrespect rebellious small children are fond of.
And does religion really poison … everything? For example, I’m not really fond of rock music, but even that is not all bad.
As with many atheists, Hitchens’ non-belief got its start in childhood, when he heard a religious person say something that, even to a child, came across as dumb. With Hitchens’s mentor, it was something about the color of the sky and human eyeballs.
For me, there’s something inane about an adult beginning to base their adult worldview on something wacko recalled from childhood.
But now, let’s talk, one grownup to another.
To illustrate why Hitchens’ getting cancer is an example of God’s grace, let me point to an example from the movies, a mafia movie. The example is fiction, but well-known, and similar circumstances are played out in real life every day.
The aged Don Corleone, the godfather, is playing in the garden with his grandchild. After a life at the head of a criminal enterprise, he is a survivor, basking in the sun with family at the end of a long and happy life. Suddenly, he keels over, and the frolicking toddler is unaware that the grandfather has just died.
I’ll wager that the director was making a comment that this man’s life, wicked by some estimates, ended well. After all, the Don didn’t really “pay” for his alleged sins.
But from a biblical perspective, that quiet death is the very worst thing that could happen to the Don. He has slipped into eternity unreconciled to God.
It is a cliché that there are no atheists in foxholes -- or in cancer wards. It is a cliché because, human nature being what it is, there is a lot of truth to it. People do tend to wait until they are in big trouble (foxholes) or until the last minute (cancer wards) before they get serious about spiritual, end-of-life, matters.
But better to suffer for a season now, as a prod to get serious, than to go the way of Don Corleone.
Atheism is a fun game (and profitable, too) when you’re healthy, because there are no really serious consequences. No so when you might be terminally ill, because then you’re about to make an eternal bet.
Hitchens is a talented and creative writer. But I suspect that it is precisely his talent and creativity – and his awareness of his talent – that may make it especially difficult for him to fess up: maybe there is a God. (Of course, I don’t know that he will “fess up.”)
After all, how cliché would it be for Hitchens, a lifelong atheist, to undergo a “deathbed” conversion. Please! That’s a late-night television movie plot.
It would be a huge blow to Hitchens’ ego (as it is to any ego) to admit that he’s been wrong these many years. But Hitchens’ rebellion against God has been so public that God may require a very public humbling.
But maybe God is doing it this way because he desires that Hitchens give up his “god,” that is, Hitchens’ pride in being different from the run-of-the-mill mortal. Maybe God is doing it this way so that Hitchens can encounter the God he has been denying for so long, before eternity sets in.
