Christopher Hitchens, the author, essayist and polemicist who waged verbal and occasional physical battle on behalf of causes on the left and right and wrote the provocative best-seller "God is Not Great," died Thursday night after a long battle with cancer. He was 62.Read the rest here.
Hitchens' death was announced in a statement from Conde Nast, publisher of Vanity Fair magazine. The statement says he died Thursday night at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston of pneumonia, a complication of his esophageal cancer.
"There will never be another like Christopher. A man of ferocious intellect, who was as vibrant on the page as he was atthe bar," said Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. "Those who read him felt they knew him, and those who knew him were profoundly fortunate souls."
A most-engaged, prolific and public intellectual who enjoyed his drink (enough to "to kill or stun the average mule") and cigarettes, he announced in June 2010 that he was being treated for cancer of the esophagus and canceled a tour for his memoir "Hitch-22."
Hitchens, a frequent television commentator and a contributor to Vanity Fair, Slate and other publications, had become a popular author in 2007 thanks to "God is Not Great," a manifesto for atheists that defied a recent trend of religious works. Cancer humbled, but did not mellow him. Even after his diagnosis, his columns appeared weekly, savaging the royal family or reveling in the death of Osama bin Laden.
"I love the imagery of struggle," he wrote about his illness in an August 2010 essay in Vanity Fair. "I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient."
Eloquent and intemperate, bawdy and urbane, he was an acknowledged contrarian and contradiction -- half-Christian, half-Jewish and fully non-believing; a native of England who settled in America; a former Trotskyite who backed the Iraq war and supported George W. Bush. But his passions remained constant and enemies of his youth, from Henry Kissinger to Mother Teresa, remained hated.
A Correct Way to Correct
22 hours ago
9 comments:
This man was NO role model for Christian adults or children. Lets teach our children the Truth about this atheist blasphemer. This man wasted his Salvation and will be forever separated from God and Goodness and Light.
FROM THE CREED:
And He will come again with glory to judge the living and dead.
FROM THE OCA:
For those whose “all” is themselves and this world (atheists), the “all” of God will be their torture, their punishment and their death. And theirs will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 8:21, et al.)
The Son of Man will send His angels and they will gather out of His kingdom all causes of sin and all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth. ..(Matthew 8:21, et al.)
FROM THE BIBLE:
Rev. 20:10, "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever."
Rev. 20:14-15, "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."
Rev. 21:8, "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death."
Hell and Eternal Retribution
Those who die physically in their sins, without accepting Jesus Christ are hopelessly and eternally lost, separated from God, and will burn in the lake of fire. (Hebrews 9:27, Revelation 19:20)
May Christ be merciful in His judgement!
Nikolaus
May Christ be merciful in His judgement of me and of us all.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
O God be gracious unto me a sinner, and have mercy on me.
The obit in the Guardian gives a little more information not provided in this story:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/16/christopher-hitchens-obituary?intcmp=122
And, a lesser known exchange Hitchens had in '02:
http://www.revisionisthistory.org/hitchens.html
I think I would take a deep breath before pronouncing the eternal fate of any man. The last time I checked, that was the sole province of God. Conceding that Mr. Hitchens was no Christian I would pray for him as we are commanded to in charity.
Hello,
The clear teachings of the OCA Heirarchy and Holy Scripture define the exact punishment outlined above.
This notorious drunkard atheist is the quintessential "unbeliever", see Rev. 21:8.
Are we so pc we cannot teach our children the true Faith and Scripture?
Do we believe our Heirarchy? see above. Do we believe Holy Scripture? see above.
We pray for Jesus to have mercy on believers. We pray for unbelievers that they can someday accept the New Testament, believe in Jesus for their own salvation. Jesus states that unbelievers are lost. HE is not kidding.
The passing of this man is being glorified around the world. He was a puppet of Satan.
It is time we stand up for the True Faith and explain the fate of willful unbelievers.
Do we truly understand what Salvation is?
Anonymous,
Your triumphalism is quite remarkable. Apparently now that you are Orthodox you are in a position to pronounce definitively on the eternal fate of all those who have died outside the Church. It might surprise you to learn that the Church, including the OCA, has never taught the specific damnation of anyone with the possible exception of Judas Iscariot. What the Church, the Fathers, and the Holy Saints have consistently taught us is to be charitable and avoid judging others. That even though all will not be saved, that we should nonetheless pray for all. The fate of the departed is a mystery except for those glorified as saints. God judges the souls of men. It is neither my place, nor yours, to usurp His prerogative.
You might want to try reading the lives of the Saints in between casting men into Hell.
Under the mercy,
John (First among sinners)
Those who busy themselves with the sins of others have not yet begun to see their own.
-St. Maximos the Confessor "On Love"
I was a contemporary of Christopher Hitchens at Oxford. I disagreed strongly with his leftist political views.
But from time to time I did read his articles and I believe that his public atheism was a very understandable reaction to Muslim fundamentalism and the stupidity of many Protestant "evangelicals". You must also remember that in the United Kingdom between 1968 and 2005 well over 3,000 people died as a result of terrorism inspired by religious conflicts in Northern Ireland.
Before you start passing judgement, please consider these things, and remember that it is God who judges what is truly in a man's heart, not you.
John and Anonymous #2. Many thanks for your replies here. May the Lord have mercy on Christopher. Yes, He alone can judge the true state of Christopher's heart.
Let us also remember Christopher's brother in our prayers, who is a Christian.
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