Peter Hitchens's recent article in the Mail about how he "found God" and peace with Christopher contains some cute pictures. That's about it really, not much else we don't know. The brothers didn't get on, Pete was an atheist, then "found" religion around the time he got married (aged around 32) and Chris didn't. Pete says:
I have, however, the more modest hope that he might one day arrive at some sort of acceptance that belief in God is not necessarily a character fault, and that religion does not poison everything. Beyond that, I can only add that those who choose to argue in prose, even if it is very good prose, are unlikely to be receptive to a case which is most effectively couched in poetry.
Pete admits that before he found God, "there were also numberless acts of minor or major betrayal, ingratitude, disloyalty, dishonour, failure to keep promises and meet obligations, oath-breaking, cowardice, spite or pure selfishness. Nothing I could now do or say could possibly atone for them." No. And what strikes me about this article is the cleverly implied suggestion that he's changed fundamentally. He doesn't quite state it outright but leaves it up to the reader to make the assumption. He would. Peter's good with words.
I talk about my own life at more length than I would normally think right because I need to explain that I have passed through the same atheist revelation that most self-confident British members of my generation—I was born in 1951—have experienced.
Or it could be that he, like his brother, is a narcissist and likes talking about himself.
However, I liked this point:
Soviet Communism is organically linked to atheism, materialist rationalism and most of the other causes the new atheists support. It used the same language, treasured the same hopes and appealed to the same constituency as atheism does today.
When its crimes were still unknown, or concealed, it attracted the support of the liberal intelligentsia who were then, and are even more now, opposed to religion.
Another favourite argument of the irreligious is that conflicts fought in the name of religion are necessarily conflicts about religion. By saying this they hope to establish that religion is of itself a cause of conflict.
This is a crude factual misunderstanding. The only general lesson that can be drawn is that Man is inclined to make war on Man when he thinks it will gain him power, wealth or land.
Quite. Remind me one more time why Bush invaded those oil-rich countries? Was it because God told him too? I wonder why when there are so many despots.
Being an Anglican Christian isn't just about poetry and avoiding hellfire: you also have to live it. You have to walk the walk not just talk the talk. Peter's self-congratulatory confessionalism at having emerged from his mispent youth as a different and better person is disgraceful. In the Sunday service for example, you have to repeat (and mean it):
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we have sinned against you and against our neighbour in thought and word and deed, through negligence, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault. We are truly sorry and repent of all our sins.
Pete doesn't seem truly sorry and he doesn't attempt to repent. The enjoyment of poetry is all very well, but if, say, Mein Kampf was translated into verse by John Donne, I wonder if Pete would better appreciate its message? When it comes to God, the appreciation of poetry isn't enough for Christopher, and I think he has a point.
“The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant." • "If it is an offense to justice to hold people who may have been victims of mistaken identity or of vendettas by other factions, then it is also an offense to justice to release psychopathic killers who believe that they have divine permission to throw acid in the faces of girls who want to attend school." • "Don't be such a lesbian!
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