Title: Letters to a Young Contrarian
By: Christopher Hitchens
2001
I am (obviously) late to the game on Christopher Hitchens. Although I was aware of his stature as an antitheist, such postures have never really interested me. I largely ignored him until a friend recommended his book Letters to a Young Contrarian. Not knowing what to expect, and admittedly perturbed by the cover image of a middle-aged man trying too hard to pose with a cigarette (the original inspiration of "Sparrow Face"?), I was happily surprised by what was inside when I finally cracked the pages and began to read.

Hitchens wields the English language like a duelist an épée, parrying and thrusting at the stagnant attitudes of modernity with such eloquence that it is easy to forget how difficult such mastery is. Until, that is, you find yourself scrambling for a dictionary to look up an obscure term or reference the author makes seemingly in passing. If some narcissism is necessarily present in a book of advice from one's self to an imaginary protege, at least Hitchens has the CV to back it up. More than a journalist, Christopher Hitchens was a public intellectual who rubbed shoulders with presidents, dissidents, revolutionaries, and academics alike, authoring 30 books before his death in 2011 at the age of 62.

Letters to a Young Contrarian poses as a collection of correspondence between Hitchens the sage and an aspiring reader who wants to make a change in the world. As a left-leaning humanist, he points out flaws in religion, society, politics, and , nationalism and calls readers to embrace the role of misfit in order to create a better tomorrow. The book is valuable  for its critiques, and Hitchens does a good job of calling awareness to cognitive dissonance that many readers likely experience subconsciously, but have not felt permission to address head on. 

That being said, when he addresses a topic I know something about (religion), I find his critiques are valid against poor, even mainstream, ideas, but do little to strike at the deeply rooted heritage of the traditions he opposes. For example, he rightly calls the popular Christian notion of heaven as a "state of endless praise and gratitude and adoration" a "vision of tedium and pointlessness and predictability" (25), but seems unaware that these beliefs are best categorized, shelved, and forgotten as pop theology and have little to do with the rich theological tradition which emphasizes the future state of humanity as a new creation—Earth renewed, with work, play, and relationships providing meaningful pursuits (see N.T. Wright for more on this). In another place, he critiques the religious for the arrogance of claiming to know what the Supreme Being desires, claiming that they assume the conclusion from the beginning, while begging the question himself regarding the impossibility of divine revelation (57). It seems fair to state that both believer and unbeliever stand on equal footing in this regard. When Hitchens states that divine revelation "degrades the whole concept of the free intelligence" of humanity, I find his argument utterly unconvincing by his own logic. As the book concludes, he writes that the next epoch of human history "is the fight to extend the concept of universal human rights, and to match the 'globalisation' of production by the globalisation of a common standard for justice and ethics." Theologians like Jurgen Moltmann agree, but characterize the impetus for change as the Divine drawing humanity towards the Divine Self. That is to say, Divine revelation for humanity is no more a degradation of free intelligence than the nurturing presence of a parent is to a child. Hitchens would do well to heed his own advice to avoid "the narcissism of the small difference" (59), and instead, work together with likeminded people of faith to advance "the immense discoveries about our own nature" that remain to be found (108).

Criticisms aside, Letters to a Young Contrarian is a refreshing, witty, thought-provoking book that should be on your reading list this summer. If you have questions or comments as you read, leave a comment below!

Buddhism, founded somewhere between 600 ad 400 CE by Siddhārtha Gautama, has intrigued Westerners ever since the Greeks first encountered Buddha's followers in the wake of Alexander the Great's conquest of Southeast Asia in 334 CE. Claiming 7% of the world's population, when Buddhism is categorized as a religion, it is the fourth largest in the world, behind only Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism, and its influence is felt in the growing popularity of apps like Calm, and in the mindfulness techniques used by psychologists and medical doctors to treat anxiety and stress.

But some Christians are leery of what they perceive as Buddhism's subtle intrusion into the West. They see the practices and techniques of mindfulness as the dangerous first step down a slippery slope. On the other hand, many would argue that Buddhism is a philosophy, not a religion, and is more similar to existentialism than it is to Hinduism or Christianity. 

So what is Buddhism in its own words? Is it a religion or a philosophy? According to Buddhist Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki, it is neither. In a talk titled, Experience, Not Philosophy, Suzuki describes the difference between Buddhism, religion and philosophy. The talk is transcribed in the book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind and it is replicated in full below. But before we get into the reading, you will want to be familiar with two important terms:

Zazen: Often mistranslated as "meditation," zazen refers to the practice of sitting, generally cross-legged, hands in the lap, with eyes half closed. 
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Zendo: The meditation hall where zazen is practiced.

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Although there are many people in this country who are interested in Buddhism, few of them are interested in its pure form. Most of them are interested in studying the teaching or the philosophy of Buddhism. Comparing it to other religions, they appreciate how satisfying Buddhism is intellectually. But whether Buddhism is philosophically deep or good or perfect is not the point. To keep our practice in its pure form is our purpose. Sometimes I feel there is something blasphemous in talking about how Buddhism is perfect as a philosophy or teaching without knowing what it actually is.

To practice zazen with a group is the most important thing for Buddhism—and for us—because this practice is the original way of life. Without knowing the origin of things we cannot appreciate the result of our life's effort. Our effort must have some meaning. To find the meaning of our effort is to find the original source of our effort. We should not be concerned about the result of our effort before we know its origin. If the origin is not clear and pure, our effort will not be pure, and its result will not satisfy us. When we resume our original nature and incessantly make our effort from this base, we will appreciate the result of our effort moment after moment, day after day, year after year. This is how we should appreciate our life. Those who are attached only to the result of their effort will not have any chance to appreciate it, because the result will never come. But if moment by moment your effort arises from its pure origin, all you do will be good, and you will be satisfied with whatever you do. 

So what is Buddhism? According to Suzuki, the answer is simple:

Zazen.

Sitting.

Breathing.

As Roshi, one of the greatest Zen teachers of the 20th century put it, "Just sit zazen, and that's the end of it." Buddhism is not a system of beliefs, a series of arguments, or a doctrinal statement. It is not about achieving enlightenment or making progress. Buddhism is simply  the practice of sitting and dwelling in the body, observing, letting the inner monologue become silent. As such, Buddhism's gift to us is the way it calls us to be fully present in each moment by simply paying attention. 

As humans we have a tendency to get caught up in theory and abstraction, but this should not be the focus in any belief system. Direct experience is what matters. In Living Buddha, Living Christ, Vietnamese Buddhist and social activist Thich Nhat Hanh writes, "[Christian] theologians spend a lot of time, ink, and breath talking about God. ... [But] it is risky to talk about God. The notion of God might be an obstacle for us to touch God as love, wisdom, and mindfulness. ... The Buddha was not against God, he was only against notions of God that are mere mental constructions that do not conform to reality, notions that prevent us from developing ourselves and touching ultimate reality." Instead of debating ideas, Buddhism would have us move deeper into our own experience. Instead of focusing on doctrines and belief statements that we must affirm and adhere to through sheer willpower, Buddhism directs us to simply observe the thoughts and emotions that arise within us and notice where they come from.

Paul wrote something similar in 1 Timothy (I'm paraphrasing): "Stop wasting time on speculations and religious arguments. You are promoting controversy, when you should be living in love. Love grows from a pure heart and a good conscience and the sincere belief that it's all going to work out. As soon as you step away from love, your talk becomes meaningless." 

It is easy to get caught in a debate or argument that has nothing to do with our personal experience. We even trick ourselves into beliefs and positions that fundamentally contradict our experiences, but if you take the time to pause and be silent, to sit in zazen, you may find that what you were arguing for meant nothing to you at all. Instead of wielding doctrines and ideas as weapons, try looking inward to find the source of your beliefs. When you feel like speaking up in an argument, pause and explore the source of your feelings. Are you defending something just because you are "supposed to" defend it? Are you just enjoying the feeling of being "right?" Or do your words, actions and beliefs genuinely grow out of love and compassion?

Love as an experience changes us. Not all at once, and never perfectly, but it does transform us. Buddhism, mindfulness, offers a practice to help us explore the source and reality of what we say and what we are. Christians do not need to be leery about Buddhism when it is understood this way. In fact, we can embrace it. 

(Want more from Suzuki? Click here)

​             G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk around the whole world til we come back to the same place.” Some people seem to be content at home with their beliefs and traditions, but for others, familiarity breeds contempt. A person can be so intimate with his/her tradition that they can no longer see the truth, beauty, and goodness that has preserved it (just ask a member of the clergy who has burned out). When we feel this way, drinking from other streams can help us find refreshment at home.
             On my journey around the world, I have been reading Buddhist texts. Most recently, a book by Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki (1905-1971) called, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. It is a collection of informal talks given at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center near San Francisco (the first Zen monastery established outside of Asia). What follows is a talk called “The Waterfall” that I have replicated in its entirety:

​Well here it is, my December reading list. Being a holiday month, and the end of the year, I chose books that intrigued me on a deeply personal level. All are highly recommended.

The Worldly Philosophers by Robert L. Heilbroner
Philosophy has been an obsession for me ever since I read Plato's Republic in high school. If you were to ask for my favorite authors, philosophers like Charles Taylor, C.S. Pierce and Nancey Murphy would be high on the list.

Philosophy is intriguing, not for the answers it provides (answers are rare in philosophy), but for the way it sharpens the mind, helps us understand the framework through which we view the world, and aids us in asking better questions. If that sounds abstract, that's because philosophy is abstract (which makes it a lot of fun). But here's where The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner is different than your standard philosophy textbook. Instead of focusing on standard philosophy topics like metaphysics (what is real?), epistemology (how do we know?), ethics (what should we do?), or logic (how should we think?), The Worldly Philosophers is concerned with a much more grounded subcategory of philosophy; economics. 

In point of fact, economics is not, strictly speaking, philosophy. It is rather a marriage between science and philosophy. Heilbroner calls the great economists worldly philosophers because they "sought to embrace in a scheme of philosophy the most worldly of all of man's activities-his for wealth."

Today we take for granted that economics is a discipline (even if we don't understand what it is), but this was not always the case. There was a time in history when humanity did not have a discipline devoted to predicting supply and demand. Instead, the survival of people groups was assured either by following tradition (do things the way your ancestors did them) or obeying authority (our rulers will whip us if we do not produce enough grain). It was only with the gradual development of the market system, in which individuals could pursue gains however they saw fit, that economics as a discipline became possible. 

In The Worldly Philosophers, Heilbroner us on an engaging and enlightening journey from ancient times to the present, tracing the development of economics. The most brilliant aspect of this book is its narrative form. Economics can be confusing, tiresome, or downright boring to those who do not have a general understanding of mathematics. This book tells the story of economics through the lives and contributions of great thinkers like Adam Smith, Parson Malthus, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen and John Maynard Keynes.

Whether you are a business owner looking to brush up on economic theory to stay competitive, or simply an interested consumer who is curious about the unseen forces driving everything from spending habits to international relations, The Worldly Philosophers is a must read!

I picked up Cry, The Beloved Country several years ago at a library sale, put it on a shelf and forgot about it. Then this summer, while backpacking in Asia, I befriended a couple from South Africa in Patong. They intrigued me with their stories, and when I found myself with some spare time I finally decided to read it. I knew nothing about the plot, but was quickly drawn in by Paton’s descriptions of a beautiful people on the verge of apartheid and a beautiful land ravaged by drought.

On the surface, Alan Paton’s 1948 novel, Cry, The Beloved Country, is about Africa, South Africa in particular, and the drought-plagued province of Natal, on the eastern side of the country. Paton writes movingly about rolling hills, deep, river-fed valleys, and grassy plains that for millennia served as sustenance for the people of Africa. The geography features so prominently in the narrative, that other reviewers have called the geography “one of the book’s most important characters.” But this novel is set during a period of physical and cultural drought. The land is as barren as the tribal system that European colonialism has broken, uprooted and tossed aside. Beneath the surface is a story larger than Johannesburg, larger than Africa itself. It is a story of heartache and hope amid racial tension, and the possibility of reconciliation.

Cry, The Beloved Country tells the story of two men, both fathers. One black, the other white. Their lives collide through the actions of their sons. Stephen Kumalo, the primary focus of the novel, is an African reverend. He makes the long journey from his rural village of Ndotsheni to the overflowing slums of Johannesburg in search of his sister Gertrude and his son Absolom. Kumalo represents the village elder—wise in his humanity, naïve to the ways of the city, rooted in community and tradition—faced with a rapidly changing world. As he embarks on the train for his first visit to the great city, we read: “The journey had begun. And now the fear back again, the fear of the unknown, the fear of the great city where boys were killed crossing the street, the fear of Gerturde’s sickness. Deep down the fear for his son. Deep down the fear of a man who lives in a world not made for him, whose own world is slipping away, dying, being destroyed, beyond any recall” (44).
In Johannesburg, Kumalo discovers that the city has broken his family, stolen their innocence. His sister is a prostitute, his son, Absalom, a killer with a pregnant fiancé. The city tries to break Kumalo too, but he is strong, and resists. He longs for his village, where the tribal rhythms promise peace and safety, and tries to convince his sister and his son’s fiancé to return home with him. His sister will not come.
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James Jarvis is a well to-do white farmer. His son Arthur lives in the city where he fights for the civil rights of the black South Africans. It was Arthur that Absalom killed. Jarvis travels to Johannesburg to understand what happened to his son. Jarvis did not know Arthur well, and in mourning, begins to read the articles and speeches he had written in his fight for justice. He meets Kumalo, the father of his son’s murderer, and they realize they live near each other in rural Natal. When Absalom is sentenced to death, both Jarvis and Kumalo return home to the barren countryside.

But something has changed. These men, so separate in wealth, status, culture and race, have both lost sons, one at the hand of the other. Their paths, always parallel, have now come together. Jarvis, who before was content to avoid thinking about the injustice in South Africa, begins using his wealth to help the tribes people in the village. He sends an engineer to show them how to plow the land in new ways that will prevent erosion. He begins work on a dam that will keep water through the next drought. His men show the African farmers how to corral their cattle and collect dung for fertilizer. But why is this progress necessary? Because colonials have segregated society, and pushed the tribes onto smaller and smaller pieces of land, where traditional farming causes erosion, and where water supplies quickly run out.

The novel closes in the early morning on the day of execution. Kumalo goes to a mountain to pray, and meets Jarvis at the foot of the hill, where they mourn together. On the final page, dawn breaks.

​Why dawn? Jarvis and Kumalo have come to embody a future South Africa that Arthur wrote about in one of his papers, a future made possible not through power or law, but through sacrifice and love. “There is only one thing that has power completely, and that is love. Because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power. I see only one hope for our country, and that is when white men and black man desire neither power nor money, but desiring only the good of their country, come together to work for it” (71).

Cry, The Beloved Country is not a utopian dream of easy answers and quick solutions. Rather, Paton reveals the complex nuances of racial and cultural tension and hints as the painful, tedious work that must be done to bring about reconciliation and open the floodgates for the rising tide that raises all ships, waters all fields, and provides nourishment for all our children. The title is derived from a passage where Paton warns about the danger of loving the familiar too much:
              “Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deply. Let                  him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red                  the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a                    mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.”

When we love our home, our culture, the things that make us feel familiar, too much, that love may turn to fear and violence in the face of a perceived threat to our norms. Cry, The Beloved Country offers a sober, beautiful reminder that another way is possible. ​

Last time, I mentioned that to be secular is not to lose faith in God, or even to make ontological claims about God (if you're just joining, you may want to start reading here). Secularism is simply a lived statement of disenchantment: We no longer conceive of God as “outside” the universe in a primitive sense, dragging the sun through the sky with his chariot, nor “outside” in the sentimental sense, sitting on a golden throne in the sky looking down on us. Formerly mysterious and magical occurrences like freak weather patterns or catastrophic disease outbreaks are no longer attributed to magic or the supernatural, but rather to natural patterns of cause and effect.

In a letter dated June 8, 1944, Bonhoeffer put it this way:
The movement that began about the thirteenth century (I'm not going to get involved in any argument about the exact date) towards the autonomy of man (in which I should include the discovery of laws by which the world lives and deals with itself in science, social and political matters, art, ethics, and religion) has in our time reached an undoubted completion. Man has learnt to deal with himself in all questions of importance without recourse to the "working hypothesis" called "God." In questions of science, art, and ethics this has become an understood thing at which one now hardly dares to tilt. But for the last hundred years or so it has also become increasingly true of religious questions; it is becoming evident that everything gets along without "God"--and, in fact, just as well as before. As in the scientific field, so in human affairs generally, "God" is being pushed more and more out of life, losing more and more ground.

This post is part 2 in a series on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, nones, dones and religionless Christianity. Part 1 can be found here.

In the last post, we left off with the question, "Can we speak meaningfully about God without religion?" For Bonhoeffer, religious language is often a mask or a shield that protects us from saying what we actually mean. It allows us to hide ignorance behind certitude:

“Religious people speak of God when human knowledge (perhaps simply because they are too lazy to think) has come to an end, or when human resources fail — in fact it is always the deus ex machina that they bring on to the scene, either for the apparent solution of insoluble problems, or as strength in human failure — always, that is to say, exploiting human weakness or human boundaries. Of necessity, that can go on only till people can by their own strength push these boundaries somewhat further out, so that God becomes superfluous as a deus ex machina.”

Deus ex machina literally translated is, “God from the machine.” This is a reference to ancient Greek plays, where at the end of a play, sometimes a god would be lowered from onto the stage by a crane to resolve loose plot twists. If Bonhoeffer was writing today, he might use the phrase “God of the gaps.”

An illustration may make this clearer: Prior to modern medicine people thought illness was caused by the “black magic” of the devil. Spiritual problems require spiritual solutions, so of course, people appealed to God for help through the “magic” of the church: taking communion, being anointed with holy water or oil, or being blessed by a pastor or priest (for more on this, Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age is a must-read). When the germ theory of disease was finally accepted in the late 1800s, it changed the way people thought about God. We no longer needed to appeal to the devil to explain why we were sick, and we no longer needed direct intervention from God to explain our recovery. The gap we once filled with God, we now fill with knowledge.

But a God of the gaps is no God at all. If we appeal to the divine to explain things we don’t yet understand, what will happen when human knowledge increases and we gain a scientific explanation? When doctors perform thousands of surgeries flawlessly, when antibiotics turn once fatal illnesses into minor inconveniences (take two pills, twice a day for three weeks), desperate prayers for miraculous intervention are gradually replaced with lesser prayers that God would “guide the doctor’s hands,” or that “the medicine would work,” until ultimately, these prayers disappear completely.

he was offered sanctuary in the U.S., Bonhoeffer believed that he needed to be present in Germany during the war to have any role in healing and rebuilding the nation when it was over. He was eventually imprisoned by the Nazi regime for avoiding military service ​(his interpretation of the gospels led him to be a pacifist)* and executed. His Letters and Papers from Prison have been collected into book form. Put it on your reading list.

In April, 1944, Bonhoeffer wrote: ​
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We are moving toward a completely religionless time; people as they are now simply cannot be religious anymore. Even those who honestly describe themselves as "religious" do not in the least act up to it, and so they presumably mean something quite different by "religious."

Some days, you just need to turn off social media, avoid the news, and get lost in a good novel. I find that reading fiction by someone long gone from this life helps with perspective. Librivox.org is my go-to for free audiobooks. They have most of the classics. Right now I’m in the middle of 20 Years After, the sequel to Alexandre Dumas’ Three Musketeers. Like most sequels, it’s not as good as the original, but I was in France last summer and I love a good destination novel (for francophiles dreaming of the streets of Paris, you'd be better off with Les Miserables or The Hunchback of Notre Dame).

You’ll find a few more suggestions here. You can also download the app for iOS and Android.


If you're a Librivox user (or if you're just into classic fiction), what's your favorite book? I'm looking for recommendations for my next read.

In an emotional gathering July 12th, President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush delivered challenging speeches, calling for unity and progress in light of the Dallas police shootings. Below is a collection of highlights from the speeches of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Some of these remarks are long and sermonic, but are well worth the read. I recommend listening to at least portions of each speech to get a sense of the gravitas with which they spoke.

George Bush:
“Most of us imagine if the moment called for it, we would risk our lives to protect a spouse or a child. Those wearing the uniform, assume that risk for the safety of strangers. They and their family share the unspoken knowledge that each new day brings new dangers.” 
 
“Too often we judge other groups by their worst examples, while judging ourselves by our best intentions.” 
 
“To renew our unity we only need to remember our values. We have never been held together by blood or background. We are bound by things of the Spirit, by shared commitments to the common ideas. At our best, we practice empathy, imagining ourselves in the lives and circumstances of others. This is the bridge across our nation’s deepest divisions.” 
 
“It’s not merely a matter of tolerance, but of learning from the stories of our fellow citizens and finding our better selves in the process.”
 
“At our best, we honor the image of God we see in one another. We recognize that we are bothers and sisters sharing the same brief moment on earth and owing each other the loyalty of our shared humanity.” 
 
“We do not want the unity of grief or the unity of fear. We want the unity of hope, affection and high purpose.”

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Barack Obama:
"Scripture tells us that in our sufferings, there is glory, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. Sometimes the truths of these words are hard to see. Right now, those words test us because the people of Dallas, people across the country are suffering."
 
"Like police officers across the country, these men and their families shared a commitment to something larger than themselves. They weren’t looking for their names to be up in lights. They’d tell you the pay was decent, but wouldn’t make you rich. They could have told you about the stress and long shifts. And they’d probably agree with Chief Brown when he said that cops don’t expect to hear the words “thank you” very often, especially from those who need them the most. No. The reward comes in knowing that our entire way of life in America depends on the rule of law, that the maintenance of that law is a hard and daily labor, that in this country we don’t have soldiers in the streets or militias setting the rules.
Instead, we have public servants, police officers, like the men who were taken away from us."
 
"Despite the fact that police conduct was the subject of the protest, despite the fact that there must have been signs or slogans or chants with which they profoundly disagreed, these men and this department did their jobs like the professionals that they were."