The NYT podcast accompanying the review:
Reviewing CH's review, we do grant that it does have some merits. Hitch aptly mentions that curiously candid line from C.S. Lewis about how Jesus was probably a madman if he wasn't divine. There's the obligatory shout-out to Jefferson and his redacted version of the Gospels. And we get to enjoy once again Hitchens' dubious distinction between Protestant Atheism and Catholic Atheism. But alas, there are some serious flaws.
For one, Hitchens does think it's a fool's errand to try to salvage Christ from Christianity, but apart from that he has given an almost entirely free pass to what looks like, based on the excerpts and reviews I've read of it at least, a God-awful and ridiculous book. Based on the excerpts that have come out, on purely aesthetic grounds alone this work is egregiously gimmicky, contrived, and quite frankly simply unreadable. Hitchens claims that the book "is an attempt by an experienced storyteller to show how even the best-plotted stories can get too far out of hand." A comment which well applies to Pullman's silly little composition itself. As a veteran reviewer of literature, Hitchens knows that you shouldn't fail to point out a book is bad just because you might agree with its politics, or its political effect.
 Nevertheless, I'd argue that Pullman's miserable life should be spared even after publishing such contemptible piffle. While he appears to have been careful to not be too overtly offensive to Christians (to the point of garnering praise from some in the clerical establishment as Hitchens points out) the whole expedition here is ultimately a blasphemous one, mocking the personage and story of Jesus of Nazareth. Which we do applaud.
This kind of disrespect towards Christ has long been overdue, especially considering how even these big, bad New Atheists have been pulling their punches when it comes to the Messiah. Chris may claim that he takes umbrage with the moral teachings of Christ, but then why did he use in his secularist compendium Richard Dawkins' excruciatingly terrible "Atheists For Jesus" essay, maybe one of the worst things Dawkins has ever written? Contra to Dawkins, with Hitch's nod of approval, Jesus' doctrine was not one of "niceness." Rather Jesus was a hate-filled, protototalitarian sociopath and mountebank who spent his time self-righteously denouncing everyone, spreading wickedness and fanaticism everywhere, while sadistically fantasizing about how those who dare to refuse to become his slaves shall be murdered and tortured for all eternity. Doesn't sound like "niceness" to your humble scrivener here. Not only may Hitch be an Atheist For Jesus by including it in his reader, but it's queer how he never actually challenges Jefferson's claim to have made the Gospels "the most sublime and benevolent code of morals ever" by merely cleaving (only some of) the superstition and sorcery off. It doesn't fundamentally make much of difference to the alleged moral value of Jesus' rantings by trimming a little of the top, yet Hitchens seems to have no objection to TJ's conclusion, at least he's never said anything to the contrary on that.
While Hitch does have a chapter in GING claiming that the New Testament is even worse than the Old (that may or may not be true but which he fails to demonstrate), and he does quibble with Christ on a few points (most notably on hell), he seems to accept the widespread delusion that much of Christ's ethical pronouncements are valid, and his critique of Jesus himself is rather superficial in the potboiler, with Chris even claiming that only "perhaps" it is true that Jesus wouldn't be a moral figure if he was a fraud.
So I say: Woe unto you, scribes and popinjays, ye Hitchocrites! |
