In Portland, Oregon, noted atheist Christopher Hitchens laid down some seriously good theology. Most people recognize Hitchens as the author of the bestselling book \u201cGod Is Not Great: Why Religion Poisons Everything.\u201d In Portland he was interviewed by Unitarian minister Marilyn Sewell. The following exchange took place near the start of the interview:<\/p>\n
Sewell: The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I\u2019m a liberal Christian, and I don\u2019t take the stories from the Scripture literally. I don\u2019t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make any distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?<\/p>\n
Hitchens: I would say that if you don\u2019t 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\u2019re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.<\/p>\n
Sewell wanted no part of that discussion so her next words are, \u201cLet me go someplace else.\u201d<\/p>\n
This little snippet demonstrates an important point about religious \u201cGod-talk.\u201d You can call yourself anything you like, but if you don\u2019t believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died on the cross for our sins and then rose from the dead, you are not \u201cin any meaningful sense\u201d a Christian. In one of the delicious ironies of our time, an outspoken atheist grasps the central tenet of Christianity better than many Christians do. What you believe about Jesus Christ really does make a difference.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
[Original illustration at this number was added to HolwickID #15885]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Portland, Oregon, noted atheist Christopher Hitchens laid down some seriously good theology. Most people recognize Hitchens as the author of the bestselling book \u201cGod Is Not Great: Why Religion Poisons Everything.\u201d In Portland he was interviewed by Unitarian minister Marilyn Sewell. The following exchange took place near the start of the interview: Sewell: The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58,244,600,598,597,599],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7829"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7829\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}