Larry Taunton, a Christian author in Birmingham, has recently made TV appearances on the right-leaning Fox News and on the left-leaning MSNBC.
Taunton’s new book on famous atheist Christopher Hitchens, who died in 2011, has gotten rave reviews from prominent atheists, and prominent Christians.
I hadn’t even heard of this book, and I doubt it will go on my reading list. I don’t care for books that are going to make me want to toss them out a window.
Their friendship became so close they went on two long road trips together, with Hitchens reading aloud from the Gospel of John on one of them.
As Hitchens suffered and died from esophageal cancer, Taunton believes he was giving Christianity a kind of final review. Hitchens, who was baptized as a child in the Church of England but declared himself an atheist and burned his Bible at 15, never recanted his atheism.
But Taunton believes Hitchens gained a new appreciation for evangelical Christians who actually believe the Bible. “For the first time in his life, he was engaging evangelical Christians,” Taunton said. “He found them to be different from the veneer of Christianity in Britain. When he began debating these evangelicals, he began to like them.”
That’s news to me, but I didn’t exactly follow what Hitchens’ was or wasn’t doing. I don’t think it’s terribly surprising that you can end up liking people you also disagree with on some issues. That happens to most people, doesn’t it?
I don’t know if I can write anything ever again that gets universal praise from both the left and the right. This book is getting quite a reaction. The reception has been so kind, no nice. The atheist Michael Schermer loved the book.”
Yeah, okay, the book is a definite skip for me.
“I discovered Christopher is not defined by his atheism,” Taunton said. “Atheism is a negative and you can’t build a philosophy around a negative. Christopher was searching for a unifying system of thought. They’re accusing me of saying he converted. I make no such claim. It’s not my claim that Christopher converted, it’s that Christopher was contemplating conversion. I think I substantiate it in the book.”
[…]
In the end, Hitchens had created too big a reputation on his atheism to convert to Christianity, Taunton said.
“Christopher was in a difficult place,” Taunton said. “He’s a dying man. He asked me why I thought he didn’t convert. I said, ‘You’ve created a global reputation as an atheist, your fortune, your reputation is based on it. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to admit you were wrong. You created a prison for yourself.'”
I’m not saying he converted! Wait, I am too saying he converted! No, just that he wanted to convert! I’d think more of this “good Christian” if he wasn’t picking the bones of the dead to make a profit. Full Article Here.
This is Shermer’s brief review:
If you really want to get to know someone intimately, go on a multi-day cross-country road trip, share fine food and expensive spirits, and have open and honest conversations about the most important issues in life. And then engage them in public debate before thousands of people on those very topics. In this engrossing narrative about his friendship with the atheist activist Christopher Hitchens, the evangelical Christian Larry Taunton shows us a side of the man very few of us knew. Apparent contradictions dissolve before Taunton’s penetrating insight into the psychology of man fiercely loyal to his friends and passionately devoted to leading a life of integrity. This book should be read by every atheist and theist passionate about the truth, and by anyone who really wants to understand Hitch, one of the greatest minds and literary geniuses of our time.
What is it with evangelicals and their blatant, outright lying?
I don’t know that Taunton is lying, but I think it’s telling that he writes this book well after Hitchens’ death. It’s a slimy, creepy thing to do.
The religious dig conversion stories. As long as the conversion is to their own religion, of course.
rietpluim:
Going by the article, a fair number of atheists dig conversion stories, too. The whole thing stinks to high…, well, you know.
Anything for a buck, of course. It’s comfort food for evangelicals.
Ok, I encountered someone post about this in the public Atheism tag on tumblr.
I vented my suspicions and she replied “You haven’t read it. It is made clear that this is NOT about a death bed conversion” then I predicted:
And indeed I later checked her blog, and it’s a blog that is constantly involved in ideological disputes (my own atheism blog usually is too). She was in an argument with an atheist about morality (she thinks atheism causes Stalin etc.) and in her last response she tells the atheist to go read this HItchens book. So ya it looks like it basically functions the same.
It’s conspicuous that so many cowardly little religious people have come out to gnaw on Hitchens’ bones, now that he’s not around to growl back.
It sounds like the liars for jesus are already trying to set up a deathbed conversion story.
-- Carol Blue
*Oh ya and I cited the “Darwin converted on this deathbed” meme in my first response. Here’s a link for anyone who wants to see all of what was said, and all of my relevant citations:
http://idreamofgiygas.tumblr.com/post/143019497297/rssemfam-idreamofgiygas-rssemfam-this-is
Yup, she replied again, here’s the new meme:
And then she says this (though I don’t know if she is directly drawing from the book this time or not, doesn’t really matter, it writes itself):
Isn’t that a perfectly evolved meme? Now even a lack of vocal deathbed conversion has a narrative that is emotional and is an opportunity to reach out and preach.
Well, I’m not sure if it really is a new meme though, I hazily recall other similar things being said before maybe…
Michael Shermer says:
If you really want to get to know someone intimately, go on a multi-day cross-country road trip, share fine food and expensive spirits
Just make sure you’re pouring.
PS -- what a pseud. Only pseuds choose their drink based on the price tag. People who aren’t annoying phoneys choose based on what’s good and what pairs well with the food.
Marcus @ 7:
Yep. If Taunton was telling the truth, then he should have had the spine to write the book before Hitchens died, so there would at least be a full story, rather than half. Failing a whole book, why not an article? Or a column? Anything prior to Hitchens dying. Oh no, instead it’s wait for years after Hitchens’ death to declare the ‘not factual but really for realz deathbed conversion’. It’s disgusting.
I expect Taunton would go with a line of “protecting Hitchens’ reputation, that was so important to him”, but not important enough to stop getting rich on a conversion story.
Shermer is branching out.
He has sunk just about as low as possible and has nowhere left to go but sideways.
Betcha it will take less than five years after whenever Richard Dawkins dies that Twue Believers start telling stories of how he “began to reconsider” following his recently reported “mild stroke” this year.
FTFY
Pierce @ 13:
Why scare quotes around mild stroke?
Caine @ # 15: Why scare quotes around mild stroke?
Just because it was reported in those words -- in context, definitely a punctuation fail on my part.