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Collision

Today the film Collision: Is Christianity Good for the World? is released. Collision documents the public debates and private interactions between atheist Christopher Hitchens and evangelical theologian Douglas Wilson.

Dr. Jon Pratt, professor of New Testament at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Plymouth, Minn., offers his review here.

In an article for Slate, Christopher Hitchens explains what he learned from the experience. He writes:

Wilson isn’t one of those evasive Christians who mumble apologetically about how some of the Bible stories are really just “metaphors.” He is willing to maintain very staunchly that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and that his sacrifice redeems our state of sin, which in turn is the outcome of our rebellion against God. He doesn’t waffle when asked why God allows so much evil and suffering—of course he “allows” it since it is the inescapable state of rebellious sinners. I much prefer this sincerity to the vague and Python-esque witterings of the interfaith and ecumenical groups who barely respect their own traditions and who look upon faith as just another word for community organizing. (Incidentally, just when is President Barack Obama going to decide which church he attends?)

He also says:

Thanks to the foolishness of the “intelligent design” faction, which has tried with ignominious un-success to smuggle the teaching of creationism into our schools under a name that is plainly stupid rather than intelligent, and thanks to the ceaseless preaching of hatred and violence against our society by the fanatics of another faith, as well as other related behavior, such as the mad attempt by messianic Jews to steal the land of other people, the secular movement in the United States is acquiring a confidence that it has not known in years, while many of those who put their faith in revelation and prophecy and prayer are feeling the need to give an account of themselves. This is a wholly good development, and it is part of the pluralism and polycentrism that distinguish the sort of society that we have to defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

4 Comments

  • Chris says:

    Some clear-thinking atheists make a better case for the conservative Christian position than we do. Mumbled prefaces, disclaimers, apologies and excuses often pass as apologetic techniques today. We used to call them cowardly. I’m glad someone [anyone] still has the courage to go there.

  • I have to agree with points of Jon Pratt’s review even as I slap his hand a little for offering what was little more than silly and trite criticisms (seriously, of all the things he chose to criticize in an apologetics debate he chooses alcohol & postmillenialism? Can we in fundamentalist circles EVER talk about anything else?)

    Still, I found this to be a less than fascinating debate. The only thing that was remotely good was the camera work (overdone a bit…I’ll give Prat a nod of agreement on that issue). This is an example of how good camera work can take a rather uninformed deabte and make it entertaining.

    Hitchens is a hack–not really respected in intellectual circles but is rather a pop level apologist for atheism (he is to atheism what Tim LaHaye is to premillennialism…not really scholarly but very influential among the marginally educated). Note: I did not say he wasn’t intelligent. I just said he wasn’t scholarly.

    I have greater respect for Wilson, but I found myself frustrated with his approach.

    Far better, and unequaled, is the so-called “Great Debate” of Greg Bahnsen’s a few decades back. At least that was a true debate.

    In the end, I’m glad I watched it. It was informative, mildly entertaining, but lacking in the substance of some of the great debates of the past.

  • In my previous comment it seems I was not politically correct in my statements.

    Rather than accusing Hitchens of not being scholarly (which seems to make people think he is being accused of being an idiot), I’m told the preferred descriptor is “public intellectual” (e.g.which I assume means no respected university would ever make him a professor but somehow he still manages to sell books).

  • Greg Long says:

    Thanks for the clarification, Josh. I’m not sure “public intellectual” is the worst thing a person could be called, but I understand what is meant.

    God’s Word has another name for Christopher Hitchens, though…see Ps. 14:1.

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