Christopher Hitchens on the Atonement
Christopher Hitchens was in Portland recently for a speaking engagement. Unitarian minister Marilyn Sewell interviewed him for a local publication, Portland Monthly. The interview was pretty much what one would expect, but I did find the following a fascinating observation from Hitchens:
Sewell: The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make and distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?
Hitchens: I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.
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Tags: Atonement, Christian, Christopher Hitchens, Portland Monthly
February 2nd, 2010 at 12:18 am
Good to have you back blogging again - you have been missed.
February 2nd, 2010 at 1:19 am
Ah, but one could still be meaningfully religious, in which case Hitchens still dodged the bias accusation.
February 2nd, 2010 at 12:39 pm
[...] Atheist Christopher Hitchens on what a real Christian believes, as posted on Rick Meigs' blog. [...]
February 4th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by AHawk7: Atheist Hitchens …. http://bit.ly/awT1TN well it is kinda funny….
February 5th, 2010 at 5:14 am
[...] Finally the most interesting post of the week has to be Christopher Hitchens getting the atonement right. [...]
February 5th, 2010 at 5:50 am
[...] Christopher Hitchens and I agree on believing in the resurrection … sort of … (via Noel, he gave me some link love, I should probably return the favor, right?) Christopher Hitchens on the Atonement | The Blind Beggar [...]