In his new book, â??The Faith of Christopher Hitchens: The Restless Soul of the Worldâ??s Most Notorious Atheist,â? the evangelical writer Larry Alex Taunton writes about his friendship with Mr. Hitchens, the witty and impious author of â??God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,â? who died of esophageal cancer in 2011. Mr. Taunton describes intimate talks that occurred during drives the two took together, which left him wondering if a dying Mr. Hitchens was edging toward belief in God. Unsurprisingly, evangelicals have celebrated the book, while some of Mr. Hitchensâ??s secular friends have winced.
Mr. Taunton runs the Fixed Point Foundation, which organizes debates between Christians and atheists. In September 2010, five months after Mr. Hitchensâ??s diagnosis of cancer, he and â??Hitchâ? drove the 13 hours from Mr. Hitchensâ??s home in Washington, D.C., to a Fixed Point debate in Birmingham, Ala. The next month, after an event in Billings, Mont., they took a seven-hour trip to, and around, Yellowstone National Park.
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