Since I’m a regular reader of Atlantic Monthly magazine, I’ve been familiar with writer Christopher Hitchens for some time now. I find his literature review articles to be difficult reading. He doesn’t have any sense of humor that I can detect, and he doesn’t explicate his points for those readers like me who don’t share his literary interests. He may well be brilliant, but he is a bit niggardly with it. His writing is a tad too convoluted and presumptive, for my taste.

I also know that he is an atheist, as he recently published a book (God is Not Great) and gives lectures spreading the good news of his faith in the salvific powers of human rationality. I’m not in any hurry to read this book, given my displeasure with Mr. Hitchens’ writing style, and my overall disregard for “the New Atheism“. I myself would not assert the certain existence of a caring God; I don’t think that we, as humans, can ever know for sure, one way or another. The best I can do is to view the question of God as “the ultimate koan“. And not just view it as such … but also, embrace it, celebrate it, even worship it. Be grateful for our freedom to appreciate an ultimate paradox.

But back to Mr. Hitchens. Given that I don’t read British newspapers or publications, I was unaware that Christopher Hitchens has a younger brother Peter, who is quite a writer and commentator in his own right. But a recent ad for the younger Mr. Hitchens’ new book, The Rage Against God, finally put him on my radar.

As it turns out, Peter Hitchens is a believer in the Christian faith. I haven’t purchased his book, but I did manage to read some recent reviews (here and here) and an article by Mr. Hitchens himself about that book, and about his standing dispute with his older brother regarding God. Oh, and also the worldly political implications stemming from faith and believe in that God.

It turns out that Christopher Hitchens himself was an atheist as a younger man, a believer in the power of human rationality to find secular salvation and justice in the here and now. However, as years went by, he lost that faith, and turned back to Christianity (and to conservative politics, in opposition to his brother’s continuing progressive viewpoints). He attributes his return to faith largely to his experience of political socialism, which he witnessed as a reporter in Eastern Europe and Moscow. He now feels that that faith is a safeguard against the collapse of civilization due to the moral chaos caused by the delusion of earthly perfection. Most interesting, given that his brother Christopher argues that faith and religion cause war, which threatens the collapse of civilization.

So, Peter Hitchens has a rather interesting rationale for faith. Unlike past justifications based on historical revelation or philosophical reasoning or the “leap of faith” in response to “the small voice within”, Peter Hitchens espouses a political faith (just as his brother preaches a politically-driven atheism). In effect, he reasons that the world would be a better place if we all believed in God. (Not to say that this is the ULTIMATE grounding of his faith, but it certainly is what he talks about the most). Actually, he may not be the first modern pundit to put forth that rationale; Robert Wright made a generally similar argument in his recent book The Evolution of God. And then there’s also the famous blogger Andrew Sullivan, with his semi-conservative apologia for God.

So there it is; faith through politics. I don’t doubt the sincerity of the younger Mr. Hitchens, and I certainly wish him well. I very much sympathize more with him than his older brother (and his articles are much clearer than Christophers’; I generally find conservative writers to be more readable and clear-headed, even when I disagree with them).

But to be honest, I don’t believe that politics is the right altar from which to consecrate our theological beliefs (or anti-beliefs). Politics too often represents humankind at its worst. Even at best, it is a dialectical process, given mostly to what Karl Marx thought was most important. A political god is a god painted in the image of humankind, and not vice versa. I think that I’ll stick with my agnostic koans.