The Faith of Christopher Hitchens

New Book Explores Intriguing Spiritual Life of Christianity’s Most Vocal Opponent

By Dan Wooding, Founder of ASSIST News Service

BIRMINGHAM, ALA. (ANS – March 19, 2016) -- For many people, UK-born Christopher Hitchens stands as a symbol of unbelief, and one of the past century’s most antagonistic voices to organized religion. For author and Christian apologist Larry Alex Taunton, however, Hitchens was more than a worthy debate opponent or enemy — he was a friend.

According to a news release, in The Faith of Christopher Hitchens: The Restless Soul of the World’s Most Notorious Atheist (to be published by Thomas Nelson on April 12, 2016), Taunton offers a personal perspective on one of Western culture’s most interesting and misunderstood public figures.

In an uncompromising but compassionate narrative, readers are given a unique view of Hitchens as he really was. We travel along with these two on their road trips, we see their debates, and we even listen in as they study the Bible together during Hitchens’s last days.

Speaking of The Faith of Christopher Hitchens, author and speaker Ravi Zacharias says, “Christopher Hitchens was a force to be reckoned with, whether one was a theist or an atheist. While I never met him, I know firsthand through friendships with those of other worldviews that ultimate issues can be discussed without compromise, yet without animosity, with gentleness and with respect.”

Zacharias went on to say, “Larry Alex Taunton traveled this road with Hitchens and reveals a man few knew: brash and confident in public, in quieter moments he wrestled with deep questions about ultimate truth that would not go away. In the end, Larry demonstrates that while arguments and debate have their place in winning the mind and heart, it is love that is the most powerful apologetic for the truth and beauty of the gospel. This book will surprise and challenge you — and I hope, open fruitful conversation among atheists and theists alike.”

Ultimately, The Faith of Christopher Hitchens provides readers with a candid glimpse into the inner life of an intriguing and unexpectedly vulnerable man, and offers a useful reflection on the dangers of pride and the promise of faith.

On the eve of what would be Hitchens’s 67th birthday, The Faith of Christopher Hitchens traces the personal, spiritual and intellectual development of Taunton’s friend and adversary with piercing insight and unparalleled fidelity to the convictions of both men.

The book is already receiving high praise from prominent figures in both secular and Christian communities, including Michael Shermer, atheist and publisher of Skeptic Magazine, who writes, “In this engrossing narrative about his friendship with the atheist activist Christopher Hitchens, the evangelical Christian Larry Alex Taunton shows us a side of the man very few of us knew… This book should be read by every atheist and theist passionate about the truth, and by anyone who really wants to understand Hitch, one of the greatest minds and literary geniuses of our time.”

Eric Metaxas, best-selling author of Bonhoeffer and syndicated radio host recently praised the book as a “triple rarity, an astonishing tour-de-force of heart and mind both, and a bona fide page-turner… a clear-eyed window into the soul of the great Hitch [that] may break your heart with love for its subject.”

Paul Reid, best-selling author of The Last Lion, Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm 1940-1965, stated, “Every fan of Christopher Hitchens must read this elegant, honest, and beautiful tale of an improbable friendship between an American Christian and an English atheist. If you thought you knew ‘Hitch,’ you did not. Now, you will.”

Dan DeWitt, dean of Boyce College and the author of Christ or Chaos (Crossway, 2016), said, “A riveting read that's sure to spark the sort of controversy that was common to its central figure ‘the Contrarian. Likely to expose many modern Free Thinkers as anything but as it demonstrates that their patron saint of secularism was more open minded than they care to admit.”

About the Author:

Larry Alex Taunton is an author, columnist, and the executive director of the Fixed Point Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to the public defense of the Christian faith. In that role, Taunton has engaged and debated some of the world’s most prominent intellectuals, from Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins to Peter Singer and Daniel Dennett. His book, The Grace Effect (Thomas Nelson, 2011), chronicles some of these experiences and offers a glimpse into what the world would look like without Christian influence. His articles have been featured in USA Today, The Atlantic, Fox News, and CNN.com. He lives in Birmingham, Ala.

About Christopher Hitchens (from Wikipedia):

Christopher Eric Hitchens (April 13, 1949 – December 15, 2011) was an author, essayist, orator, religious and literary critic, and journalist. Hitchens was born in the United Kingdom but spent much of his career in the United States, becoming a US citizen in 2007. Hitchens was the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of over 30 books, including five collections of essays, on a range of subjects, including politics, literature, and religion. A staple of talk shows and lecture circuits, his confrontational style of debate made him both a lauded and controversial figure. Known for his contrarian stance on a number of issues, Hitchens criticized such public and generally popular figures as Mother Teresa; Bill Clinton; Henry Kissinger; Princess Diana; and Pope Benedict XVI. He was the elder brother of the conservative journalist and author Peter Hitchens. Having long described himself as a socialist and a Marxist, Hitchens began his break from the established political left after what he called the “tepid reaction” of the Western left to the controversy over The Satanic Verses, followed by the left's embrace of Bill Clinton, and the antiwar movement's opposition to intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina. A noted critic of religion and an antitheist, Hitchens once said that a person “could be an atheist and wish that belief in God were correct,” but that “an antitheist, a term I'm trying to get into circulation, is someone who is relieved that there's no evidence for such an assertion.” Hitchens authored God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, which was a New York Times bestseller. Hitchens died on December 15, 2011 from complications arising from esophageal cancer, a disease that he acknowledged was more than likely to have been due to his lifelong predilection for heavy smoking and drinking.

Media contact: PerryAnne Coffey, (703) 994-4943, coffey@pinkstongroup.com

Photo captions: 1) Book cover. 2) Christopher Hitchens. 3) Larry Alex Taunton. 4) Christopher Hitchens during one of his last interviews with the BBC. 5) Dan Wooding with many of his 45 books (OC Register).

About the writer: Dan Wooding, 75, is an award-winning winning author, broadcaster and journalist who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, and is now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for more than 52 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. Dan is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS), and is also the author of some 45 books and host of Front Page Radio, and two TV shows, Windows on the World (with Mark Ellis), and Inside Hollywood with Dan Wooding, produced by Tim Hathaway.

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