{"id":586,"date":"2012-01-13T08:01:38","date_gmt":"2012-01-13T16:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/godslovewins.com\/blog\/?p=586"},"modified":"2012-09-28T22:43:38","modified_gmt":"2012-09-29T05:43:38","slug":"rip-christopher-hitchens-1949-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/godslovewins.com\/blog\/rip-christopher-hitchens-1949-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"RIP Christopher Hitchens? 1949-2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

Doug Wilson wrote his memoir and eulogy of ‘former’ atheist Christopher Hitchens in Christianity Today<\/em>. He had the opportunity to know Christopher through a series of debates sharing meals and conversation where he noted Hitchens\u00a0to be “an affable and pleasant dinner companion, and fully capable of being the perfect gentleman.” Wilson apparently was privileged to see a gentler, more human side of the “infant terrible.”\u00a0<\/em>He confessed to one audience that if they were not careful “they were in danger of becoming friends.”<\/p>\n

As death approached, Christopher became more and more vocal in preempting a deathbed conversion by dismissing it ahead of time as likely to be from the chemo or weakness in body and mind.Doug Wilson made the point that the notion was made while he was in his right<\/em> mind anticipating that he might<\/em> actually succumb to an eleventh hour conversion. Probing into why Hitchens took care to warn his fans ahead of time Wilson wrote the following:<\/p>\n

“But Christopher actually prepared us by saying that if he said anything like this [ie., called upon the name of Jesus], then he did not know what he was saying.<\/p>\n

“This is interesting, not so much because of what it says about what he did or did not do as death approached him, and as he at the same time approached death. It is interesting because, when he gave these interviews, he was manifestly in his right mind, and the thought had clearly occurred to him that he might not feel in just a few months the way he did at present. The subject came up repeatedly, and was plainly a concern to him. Christopher Hitchens was baptized in his infancy, and his name means “Christ-bearer.” This created an enormous burden that he tried to shake off his entire life. No creature can ever succeed in doing this. But sometimes, in the kindness of God, such failures can have a gracious twist at the end. We therefore commend Christopher to the Judge of the whole earth, who will certainly do right. Christopher Eric Hitchens (1949-2011). R.I.P.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is hope offered to even Christopher Hitchens! But a perceptive reader picked up on the temporary irrationality of Christians in the wake of death in which they offer hope not allowed by their subscribed theology:<\/p>\n

“Thank you for a very informative and interesting article. Your prayer at the end (R.I.P.) is especially touching. However, this prayer would seem to be completely conditional on your belief that: “… in this life (only), the door of repentance is always open.” For later you say: “We have no indication that Christopher ever called on the Lord before he died, and if he did not, then Scripture plainly teaches that he is lost forever.” Thus your prayer “may he rest in peace” is almost being offered without any hope at all. This illustrates precisely the point where we create a contradiction in our Christian teaching. The Bible does not teach that God’s mercy stops at the moment of human death. It is appointed for us all to die “and then comes the judgment.” The word in the text is “judgment”, and indeed we shall all be judged. The mistake is that we read the word “judgment” but think the word “damnation” — eisegesis of a very serious kind.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But Wilson simply made the move we all do when facing the conundrum of death, we stake our claim on the “last word” of life. We break from a traditional theology in favor of hope.<\/p>\n

We believe Christopher’s days have indeed been numbered but not just his appointed day unto death and judgment but also for that appointed day when his knee will bow with every other and his tongue joins every other in praise to the glory of God the Father. \u00a0(Phil 2)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Read full article:\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/ct\/2011\/decemberweb-only\/christopher-hitchens-obituary.html?<\/a>start=1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doug Wilson wrote his memoir and eulogy of ‘former’ atheist Christopher Hitchens in Christianity Today. He had the opportunity to know Christopher through a series of debates sharing meals and…<\/p>\n

Read MoreRIP Christopher Hitchens? 1949-2011<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,106],"tags":[26,27,28,25],"class_list":["post-586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelical-universalism","category-ur-is-intuitive-to-the-church","tag-atheism","tag-christopher-hitchens","tag-deathbed-conversion","tag-doug-wilson","excerpt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/godslovewins.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/godslovewins.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/godslovewins.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godslovewins.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godslovewins.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/godslovewins.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":589,"href":"https:\/\/godslovewins.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions\/589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/godslovewins.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godslovewins.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godslovewins.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}