Christopher Hitchens died on December 15 2011, at the age of 62. It was a little over a year since he was diagnosed with cancer.
A journalist by trade, Hitchens was an eloquent and provocative writer. Though a political socialist, he was unconventional in many ways — writing in support of both the Falklands war and the war in Iraq.
Doughty nemesis
Hitchens became better known to most Christians through his predictable support of the rising new atheism. Richard Dawkins, recording the last interview with him shortly before his death, described Hitchens as his hero, a ‘doughty nemesis of popes and faiths’. In 2007 he published the best-selling God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. The book was passionate and patchy in its denunciation of religion. Written in a similar style to Dawkins’s The God Delusion, it was full of sound and fury, but signified little. There are no new ideas or insights offered in the book, but a muddy mix of sharp satire and crude ridicule. Hitchens was willing to debate anyone and along the way he engaged with John Lennox, William Lane Craig (a contrast to Richard Dawkins, who ducked the possibility of an encounter with Craig last year) and former Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
