I think most Christians who are aware of who Christopher Hitchens is assumes that he doesn’t really understand the message of the Christian faith, that he really just needs to understand what it’s really all about and then he’d surely come along.
And then you read about his conversation with a Unitarian minister:
Maryiln Sewell:
The religion you cite in your book is generally the 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 and [sic] distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?
Christopher 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.
What do you do with that?
This is where Christians – ministers, missionaries and all who take Christ’s command to tell the whole earth seriously – can get burned out. We can get convinced that “if only they really knew” then people would certainly decide to follow Christ. But, that’s not reality, and that’s not what Jesus or the rest of the New Testament tells us.
After Jesus says his famous quote about it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for the rich to be saved…
When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Matthew 19:25-26
The rest of the New Testament goes on in a similar manner. Paul says to the Corinthians:
…my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
1 Corinthians 2:4-5
A chapter earlier he had said:
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
… the Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
1 Corinthians 1:17-18, 22-25
The Gospel is almost too easy to accept, and it also seems like foolishness to those who understand it. In the Hitchens conversation both parties are rejecting the Gospel, but I would venture to say that Hitchens is far more honest in his rejection than the Unitarian minister. He recognizes it for what it is and declares it “foolishness” while the minister plays semantic and word games and twists the scriptures to mean whatever she wants.
This should be a reminder that someone’s receptivity to the Gospel is not based on the witness or the presentation given. Someone’s response to the Gospel is a result of their own wrestling with God (the Holy Spirit), we should be clear about our message, but it’s the Gospel and the Holy Spirit that do all the convincing and all the convicting and all the converting – not us.
I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Romans 1:16
[Thanks to Melinda at the Stand to Reason blog for the quote.]
