Christopher Hitchens fancies himself a qualified critic of faith. Oh well, when my boy was six years old, he thought a blue cape could make him fly.
While raising some questions that people of faith need to consider, Hitchens paints in such broad strokes as to discredit himself. Like the very fundamentalists and such that he disdains, his method is precisely the same: there are only two sides, "theirs" and his. Whether it be the fulminations of a Rod Parsley (I love that name), a D. James Kennedy (God rest his soul) or Osama Bin Laden, the method of angry people is much the same: anger narrows the field to "them" or "us," or "everyone else" and "me."
For further review of this silly book, please see the review in the September 18 Christian Century:
http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=3668
Read it for what it's worth ... not much ... but as a person of faith, I know that it's a good thing to know what someone like Hitchens believes and to honestly face faith's foibles and failings, for they are legion.
