Famous atheist’s brother embraces personal faith Print
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Monday, 05 April 2010 08:41 AM America/New_York

RageAgainstGodPeter Hitchens, brother of prominent atheist and author Christopher Hitchens (God is Not Great), explains his own spiritual journey in The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me To Faith ($22.99, 978-0-310-32031-9, Zondervan), releasing this month.

In the book, Hitchens, who burned his Bible in prep school but later came to faith in Christ, says he wanted to offer something for atheists and Christians.

“I want to explain how I became convinced, by reason and experience, of the necessity and rightness of a form of Christianity that is modest, accommodating, and thoughtful—but ultimately uncompromising about its vital truth,” he writes. “I hope very much by doing so, I can at least cause those who consider themselves to be atheists to hesitate over their choice. I also hope to provide Christians with insights they can use, the better to understand their unbelieving friends and so perhaps to sow some small seeds of doubt.”

Hitchens presents the circumstances that influenced him toward atheism, which he said were similar to those his brother encountered.

“We are separate people who have lived different lives,” he writes in the book’s introduction. “But since it is obvious that this book arises out of my attempt to debate religion with him, it would be absurd to pretend that much of what I say here is not intended to counter or undermine arguments he has presented in his own book on this subject.”

Hitchens writes about a public debate he had with his brothers in Grand Rapids, Mich., in 2008 and a “softening” of blows between them. In the book’s epilogue, Hitchens shares candidly about their decades-long sibling, and now intellectual, feud, which he gratefully proclaims is over.