Christopher Hitchens has died and Christendom should mourn.

The dictionary defines a polemicist as 'someone engaged in argument or controversy'. Christopher Hitchens was a polemicist, fiercely putting over his beliefs and opinions, writing blistering critiques of policies and attitudes with which he could not agree.  As a journalist and writer, he didn't create much but made his name with a ferocious intellect, command of language and pithy wit.  


An outspoken atheist, he attacked religion, the church and the very notion of God with characteristic zeal and fury, and became the doyen of New Atheists.  Unlike Richard Dawkins, whose anti-God stance came from a scientific background, Hitchens detested the notion of the morality that religions espoused. He once lambasted Christians being good in order to keep God happy as living in "a celestial North Korea."  Mother Theresa was an usual target of his pen and he famously beat Tony Blair on a debate on the value of faith.  His anti-religious writing certainly gave agnostics arguments of the complete rejection of faith so why should Christendom mourn him?


Because Christendom needs to be brought to account. It needs voices from stage left which cannot be brought to heel and silenced through a ecclesiastical machine, who shake us to the foundations of what we believe so that we can ensure that we still have foundations on which we can stand.  The church should not fear this discomfort. A few centuries ago people like Hitchens would have suffered and died for these views, so I have little sympathy for those who feel that the New Atheists are aggressive.  Words can sometimes hurt us but not as much as being burned alive at the stake.


 We always like to think that the Holy Spirit would be enough to keep us on the narrow track. But in truth we occasionally need some threatening sounds from modern day Assyrians to get us back to focussing on God and clearing our thinking.  I never enjoyed what he had to say but I'm glad that he has helped me on my journey of faith.