{"id":940,"date":"2010-07-16T09:02:46","date_gmt":"2010-07-16T09:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/roddreher\/2010\/07\/the-graceful-christopher-hitchens.html"},"modified":"2010-07-16T09:02:46","modified_gmt":"2010-07-16T09:02:46","slug":"the-graceful-christopher-hitchens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/07\/the-graceful-christopher-hitchens.html","title":{"rendered":"The graceful Christopher Hitchens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Via <a href=\"http:\/\/douthat.blogs.nytimes.com\/2010\/07\/15\/prayers-for-christopher-hitchens\/\">Ross Douthat,<\/a> I found <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hughhewitt.com\/blog\/g\/3979a77d-720a-4853-8890-1fc4f22c23cb\">this long, wonderful Hugh Hewitt interview with Christopher Hitchens<\/a>, who has this to say about people who have been praying for him:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>CH: Well look, I mean, I think that prayer and holy water, and things like that are all fine. They don&#8217;t do any good, but they don&#8217;t necessarily do any harm. It&#8217;s touching to be thought of in that way. It makes up for those who tell me that I&#8217;ve got my just desserts. It&#8217;s, I&#8217;m afraid to say it&#8217;s almost as well-founded an idea. I mean, I don&#8217;t, they don&#8217;t know whether prayer will work, and they don&#8217;t know whether I&#8217;ve come by this because I&#8217;m a sinner.<br \/>\nHH: Oh, I&#8230;has anyone actually said that to you?<br \/>\nCH: Yeah, oh yes.<br \/>\nHH: Oh, my gosh. Forgive them. Well&#8230;<br \/>\nCH: Well, I mean, I don&#8217;t mind. It doesn&#8217;t hurt me. But for the same reason, I wish it was more consoling. But I have to say there&#8217;s some extremely nice people, including people known to you, have said that I&#8217;m in their prayers, and I can only say that I&#8217;m touched by the thought. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hughhewitt.com\/blog\/g\/3979a77d-720a-4853-8890-1fc4f22c23cb\">Read the whole thing.<\/a> Really, do. It makes me sad to think that we could lose Hitchens to this cancer. If you pray, please remember to pray for him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Via Ross Douthat, I found this long, wonderful Hugh Hewitt interview with Christopher Hitchens, who has this to say about people who have been praying for him: CH: Well look, I mean, I think that prayer and holy water, and things like that are all fine. They don&#8217;t do any good, but they don&#8217;t necessarily&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The graceful Christopher Hitchens - Rod Dreher<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/07\/the-graceful-christopher-hitchens.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The graceful Christopher Hitchens - Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Via Ross Douthat, I found this long, wonderful Hugh Hewitt interview with Christopher Hitchens, who has this to say about people who have been praying for him: CH: Well look, I mean, I think that prayer and holy water, and things like that are all fine. They don&#8217;t do any good, but they don&#8217;t necessarily&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/07\/the-graceful-christopher-hitchens.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-07-16T09:02:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The graceful Christopher Hitchens - Rod Dreher","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/07\/the-graceful-christopher-hitchens.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The graceful Christopher Hitchens - Rod Dreher","og_description":"Via Ross Douthat, I found this long, wonderful Hugh Hewitt interview with Christopher Hitchens, who has this to say about people who have been praying for him: CH: Well look, I mean, I think that prayer and holy water, and things like that are all fine. 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