The Faith of Christopher Hitchens

April 4, 2016
Evangelical thinker Taunton (The Grace Effect), the executive director of the Christian advocacy non-profit Fixed Point Foundation, begins this book with a confession: for years Taunton resisted writing about the late, infamous atheist Christopher Hitchens (1949â2011), because he didn't want to betray their friendship. Taunton overcomes his discomfort by recalling words from Hitchens himself that seemed to pave the way for this project, and by sidestepping sheer biography, instead "giv some account for soul." What follows are some fascinating recollections of Taunton's conversations with Hitchens (a tidbit about Al Sharpton, lengthier debates about religion and God) that occurred during their unlikely and unusual friendship, punctuated by information gathered from Peter, Hitchens's brother. Taunton's smooth and accessible prose brings to life what seems to have been a dear and lively friendship between two thinkers at odds politically and religiously, but not intellectually. However, readers will be left with a lingering and uncomfortable feeling that Taunton has wrongly allowed readers to enter into an intimate and sacred space.

Starred review from April 1, 2016
A public-speaking organizer Hitchens met during his lucrative late years as a propagandist for atheism, Taunton, whose work is to propagandize as diligently for evangelical Christianity, thinks his famous friend was changing his mind when he knew him. He doesn't say Hitchens was a last-minute convert. But judging from what he learned about Hitchens and, more important, his interactions with Hitchens as he squired him to debates in which Hitchens was the star, if not always the victor, he sees Hitchens as a genuine seeker for truth. Hitchens recoiled from those, like Jerry Falwell and Al Sharpton, he saw as professing religion to feather their nests and feed their egosa temptation Hitchens, whose atheism earned him a living, knew of firsthand. On the other hand, Hitchens respected and liked sincere believers, such as he found many evangelicals to be. He was also a prodigious reader of classic Western literature, including the Biblemoreover, a conservative one, who staunchly preferred the KJV. In a couple of road trips toward the very end, he and Taunton conducted a two-man study of John's Gospel, and it was then, especially, that Taunton saw Hitchens eager to reconsider Christianity, in particular. Lively and loving, Taunton's memoir of his surprising friendship could hardly be more enjoyably engrossing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)