Reposted from:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2109068,00.html

It is dangerously wrong to lay the blame for the world's evils at the feet of organised religion as Christopher Hitchens does in God Is Not Great, says Richard Harries

First Dennett, then Dawkins and now Hitchens: and of these three recent diatribes against religion, Christopher Hitchens's is the fiercest. For him religion is an evil that poisons everything and must be extirpated. And, as he has reported from some of the most violent places on earth (Rwanda, Beirut, Sri Lanka, Baghdad and so on), he has plenty of horror stories with which to depress his readers.

The evils perpetrated in the name of religion are real enough, and the intellectual crudities of some of its defenders obvious enough, to allow atheism to pass for a purification. But how is it that the majority of the world's great philosophers, composers, scholars, artists and poets have been believers, often of a very devout kind? Hitchens avoids facing that question by three less-than-subtle sleights of hand.

First, he redefines in his own terms what it is to be a Christian. The faith of Dietrich Bonhoeffer - a passionate follower of Jesus if there ever was one, who met execution for his part in the plot to assassinate Hitler with the words that for him death was a beginning - is described by Hitchens as "an admirable but nebulous humanism". Martin Luther King, whom he greatly admires, is assessed primarily on the grounds that his religious rhetoric was a tool required to galvanise the Bible-reading South against racism.

Second, Hitchens dismisses most of the great intellectual believers of the past on the grounds that their cosmology was outdated. But here he is involved in a fundamental contradiction. He recognises, rightly, that our present scientific understanding of the universe is only at the beginning. In a thousand years' time, if we humans are still around, no doubt our cosmology will be regarded as childish fumbling. But Hitchens's moral outrage against racism, cruelty to children and bigotry will be as valid then as now. Similarly, the philosophical arguments of Kant or Hume or Aquinas and the aesthetic judgments of Plato or Augustine can and ought to be considered in their own right, irrespective of the limitations of their scientific knowledge.

Third, he refuses to consider any modern writing that queries his relentless onslaught. Take just one example, his fifth-form argument that religion is the cause of war. The view of distinguished sociologists such as David Martin is that in the modern world wars are usually caused by factors other than religion, but that because religion is such a crucial marker of identity, it can be used by unscrupulous people to exacerbate conflict. This is a much more plausible account of the relationship between religion and conflict in the modern world than that of the usual pub atheist, and one that you would at least have thought worth examining.

Hitchens acknowledges the example of the schoolfriend who first made him inwardly resist school prayers, leading him to vow that "all postures of submission and surrender should be part of our prehistory". But this misses the point. Religion is rooted in our capacity to recognise and appreciate value; in our search for truth; in our recognition that some things are good in themselves. We may think this is not true, just whistling in the dark. But it is in this capacity to recognise, appreciate and respond to what is of worth that religion has its origin. If "submission and surrender" have a place, it is only in the final insight that, if there is an ultimate goodness, it will by definition make a total difference to the way we view life.

If doctors make the wrong diagnosis it can be disastrous, and this is what Hitchens has done in relation to the ills of humanity. He seems to think that religion is the root of all evil. It isn't. The problem lies with us, especially when we are organised in groups with a dominant ideology, whether secular or religious. His misdiagnosis is not just a baleful intellectual error, it has very serious consequences in the modern world, where religion is now such a major player. It reinforces fundamentalists in their sense that they are a beleaguered, righteous minority, whereas what is needed is some way of getting them into dialogue with others. More seriously, it alienates the millions of ordinary, decent, moderate religious believers who look to their religion to help them in the struggle to live a better life. Most seriously of all, it hinders the alliance that should be forming between people of all shades of belief and unbelief in the basic struggle going on in every country for human rights, peace and economic justice against fanatics of all kinds.

Hitchens looks to a new enlightenment in which religion will disappear (ignoring the fact that the actual enlightenment was the work of Christians and Deists as much as atheists). But even if religion did disappear, which of course it won't, we human beings would still be here, organised in groups of various kinds, still beset by the same lack of self-knowledge, viciousness and moral weakness. Most urgently needed are political arrangements that can best contain, mitigate and overcome the worst effects of this, and here all people of wisdom need to cooperate, whatever the springs of their moral outlook. Hitchens has written a book that is seriously harmful, not because of his attack on religion, some of it deserved, but because he will divert people away from the real problem: which is we human beings, both religious and irreligious.

· Richard Harries was Bishop of Oxford and is an honorary professor of theology at King's College, London. His latest book, The Re-enchantment of Morality: Wisdom for a Troubled World, will be published later in the year by SPCK