Christopher Hitchens Dead at 62

Over the years this blog has devoted a bit of attention to Christopher Hitchens and the challenge he presented to Christianity.  He certainly knew the Gospel story.  One hopes that at that last his heart softened to Christ as he faced his death.

British-born journalist and atheist intellectual Christopher Hitchens, who made the United States his home and backed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, died on Thursday at the age of 62.

Hitchens died in Houston of pneumonia, a complication of cancer of the esophagus, Vanity Fair magazine said.

“Christopher Hitchens – the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant – died today at the age of 62,” Vanity Fair said.

A heavy smoker and drinker, Hitchens cut short a book tour for his memoir “Hitch 22″ last year to undergo chemotherapy after being diagnosed with cancer.

As a journalist, war correspondent and literary critic, Hitchens carved out a reputation for barbed repartee, scathing critiques of public figures and a fierce intelligence.

In his 2007 book “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,” Hitchens took on major religions with his trenchant atheism. He argued that religion was the source of all tyranny and that many of the world’s evils have been done in the name of religion.

The son of a British naval officer, Hitchens studied at Oxford University and worked as literary critic for the New Statesman magazine in London before moving to New York to work as a journalist in 1981. He settled in Washington the following year, initially as correspondent for the left-wing magazine The Nation. He retained his British citizenship when he became an American citizen in 2007.

Hitchens was not one to mince words. In his book on Bill Clinton “No one left to lie to”, he called the former U.S. president a “rapist” and a “con man.” He once referred to Mother Teresa of Calcutta as a “fanatical Albanian dwarf.”

The author of 25 books – including works on Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and George Orwell – and countless articles and columns, Hitchens never lost his biting humor.

Read the rest.

My favorite Treading Grain articles on Hitchens:

Hitchens on Gender Neutral Bibles.

Hitchens’ 10 Commandments

Will Heaven be Intolerable?

The Hitchens Transcript. 
This one is my favorite.  It recounts his interchange with the “accomplished and dynamic spiritual leader” Dr. Marilyn Sewell  (Sewell’s words about herself on her blog) exposing the utter and complete vapidity of liberal theological thought.  In it Hitchens also demonstrates his clear grasp of the Gospel – a better grasp, actually, than Sewell.