Reviewing “The Faith of Christopher Hitchens”

I’m pleased to publish this guest post by Samuel D. James. You can learn more about him in his bio at the end of this post.

Larry Taunton, The Faith of Christopher Hitchens: The Restless Soul of the World’s Most Notorious Atheist. Thomas Nelson, 2016. 201 pp. $24.99.

“If Christopher Hitchens didn’t exist, we wouldn’t be able to invent him.” That blurb of praise from the novelist Ian McEwan may have helped to sell published collections of essays, but it turns out to be more true than its source perhaps intended. The late journalist and New Atheist kingpin was not entirely what he appeared to be, and that is the story that Christian apologist Larry Taunton sets out to tell in The Faith of Christopher Hitchens.

Taunton’s remarkable book is neither a salacious tell-all nor a craven attempt to plant a religious flag on “Hitch’s” legacy; both secularists looking for hagiography and believers seeking vindication will be disappointed. On the other hand, readers who want a remarkable account of the intellectual and—yes—spiritual journey of one of religion’s fiercest and ablest critics will be delighted. McEwan was prescient; only God could have invented someone like Christopher Hitchens.