The loss of Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens passed away last night. He was one of the "new" atheists that went on the offensive when it came to his conviction that Christianity was not only wrong but harmful to the world. Yet because of my studies over the past 5 years I have not followed Christian Apologetics very closely. Which means that I was only aware of Hitchens' atheist apologetics work through a few Christian responses to him. I did hear anecdotally that while he could be very harsh towards his opponents during a debate, he was also very sharp and very thoughtful.

I was just reminded that he was dying of cancer a couple of days ago in a thoughtful article by Justin Taylor. And I was greatly saddened by the news of his passing that greeted me this morning.

Doug Wilson, one of Hitchens debate partners, wrote an excellent article in response to Hitchens' death. It is both thoughtful and respectful piece that should be a model for all Christians whenever we are dealing with the death of someone that was so obviously an enemy of Christianity. We as Christians should never rejoice in the death of anyone, especially someone that we suspect has died apart from Christ. (Wilson details Hitchens concerns of false rumors of a deathbed conversion being spread.) 

The Bible makes it clear that dying without the forgiveness for our sins that only Jesus can provide is not a pleasant experience. I don't wish that on anyone. I would greatly prefer that even the worst people in the world would turn away from the evil that they do and towards God. It doesn't matter what they have done. I would rather that they repent and find forgiveness. 

I also do not find any great joy or pleasure that such a great opponent to Christianity is gone. There is no singing "Ding, dong the witch is dead."

What may sound a bit counter intuitive at first, I think that smart and worthy challenges to Christianity are a good thing. In the past I have enjoyed listening to how Christianity stacks up in the arena of ideas. As Christians we are supposed to have good reasons for what we believe and not a subjective or blind faith. To that end, I dislike bad arguments for Christianity just as much as I dislike bad arguments against it. If we as Christians really believe that Christianity is the truth then we should never be afraid of any challenges to it. If Christianity is the truth it will be borne out to be the true. This doesn't mean that we will not hear challenges that will initially cause us to pause. Some of these challenges will take some very careful thinking to get through. There will also be those challenges that may cause us to modify certain ancillary beliefs. But ultimately the core of Christianity will hold fast.

It just saddens me that Christopher Hitchens will no longer be a part of that discussion.

Photo from Vanity Fair.

Real Repentance

I came across a story of true repentance yesterday. True repentence requires a complete change in attitude. Far too often in today's society we get what is best described as faux repentence or maybe even show repentence. The person doing the repenting isn't really sorry but they are saying sorry in order to assuage the offended party's feelings as well as save public face. This form of non-apology apology has become so common that it even has it's own Wikipedia entry.

The story that I came across happened many thousands of years ago and is recorded in the book of Genesis. Joseph was the younger brother that could really get under the skin of his siblings. He was obviously dad's favorite, he didn't have to do the same hard work that his brothers did and he was even a tattle-tale. So the brothers conspired to kill Joseph. But the oldest brother, Ruben, stepped in and prevented them from killing Joseph. So they threw him into a pit.
But when Ruben left the brother that I am guessing was the ringleader spoke up:

Then Judah said to his brothers, "What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh." And his brothers listened to him.

Between his role here and how he treated his daughter-in-law, it sounds like Judah wasn't a real honorable guy. I don't know for sure but I would suspect that he was one of the main voices in the whole plot against Joseph. So Joseph eventually is sold as a slave in Egypt and through a series of events works his way up to being second in command of all of Egypt. When there is a famine in the land Joseph's brothers have to come and buy grain from him. They have no idea that the man they are talking to is Joseph.

Then the brothers run into some serious trouble in their second encounter with Joseph. Benjamin, now the youngest brother, is accused of stealing from Joseph. When Joseph demands that Benjamin become his slave Judah now steps in:

"For I your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father, saying, 'If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life.' Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father."

Judah is willing to substitute his own life to save Benjamin's life. That is a complete 180º turn from how Judah treated Joseph. His attitude changed. He didn't just say, "Well I'm sorry that Benjamin being in possession of your silver cup offended you."

It was this attitude change that overwhelmed Joseph and he could no longer hide his identity from his brothers. Joseph completely forgave them. And that is the key to forgiveness. When we seek true forgiveness we need to show true repentance and not this non-apology apology style of repentance. Yes, Judah and the brothers still had to face their father and explain to him how Joseph ended up in Egypt. But I am sure that it was much easier to do having received full and complete forgiveness from Joseph.