Hail Marys for Hitch

One of the last things Thomas Peters does each day is face the Cross of St. Benedict that hangs over his bed and say his evening prayers. The sobering final phrases of the Hail Mary prayer have recently taken on a unique relevancy: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen."

A month ago, the conservative Catholic writer challenged readers of the American Papist website to join him in praying one Hail Mary a day on behalf of the iconoclastic atheist Christopher Hitchens, who has been stricken with esophageal cancer, a disease which leaves few survivors.

"I am going to begin praying ... for the salvation of his eternal soul," wrote Peters, "that God will be with him 'at the hour of his death,' that God will help his unbelief in this life, and that those he has led away from God will come back to His infinite love and mercy. I am in no way praying for him to die, I am praying for him to live eternally."

Peters is not alone and Hitchens knows it. While some believers hope that he suffers and dies, post haste, the author of "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" told CNN that he has been surprised that others -- who are "much more numerous, I must say, and nicer" -- are praying for his healing, both body and soul.

This has been one of the strangest side effects of Hitchens' journey across the "stark frontier that marks off the land of malady." This is a zone in which almost everyone is politely encouraging, the jokes are feeble, sex talk is nonexistent and the "cuisine is the worst of any destination I have ever visited," wrote Hitchens, in a blunt Vanity Fair essay. The native tongue in "Tumorville" is built around terms such as "metastasized," phases such as "tissue is the issue" and quotes from the writings of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.

Most of the inhabitants also do quite a bit of praying -- for themselves, for their loved ones and even for suffering people they have never met.

Hitchens told evangelical broadcaster Hugh Hewitt that he remains convinced these prayers "don't do any good, but they don't necessarily do any harm. It's touching to be thought of in that way."

The bottom line, explained Peters, is that his faith asks him to "pray for everyone, even those who hate us. ... Hitch just happens to be a famous public enemy of the faith, so more people know what is happening in this life, so more people are talking about why it's good to pray for him."

While it is "absolutely horrible" that anyone would pray for Hitchens to suffer and die, he added, many believers may find it hard to do more than pray for "God's will to be done." That is the "safe prayer" that is always appropriate.

Meanwhile, a quick Internet scan reveals that some believers are, predictably enough, praying for Hitchens to be converted to Christianity for the sake of his own soul. Others are specifically praying that the scribe who -- with Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins -- is called one of the "four horsemen" of the New Atheism will not only convert, but also become an apologist for faith. That happened decades ago with an atheist named C.S. Lewis, after all.

"Ultimately, I simply will pray that Hitch has a good and holy death," said Peters. "I really do not care if he has a public conversion. I care that he, somehow, has a private conversion and that he will be reconciled to God."

As much as believers love these kinds of "foxhole conversion" stories, Hitchens is convinced he will not surrender. However, should rumors spread that he has "hedged his bets," the writer has made several public statements warning his admirers that if such cry to the Almighty were to take place, they should ignore it.

"If that comes it will be when I'm very ill, when I am half demented, either by drugs or by pain and I won't have control over what I say," he told CNN. "I can't say that the entity that by then would be me wouldn't do such a pathetic thing. But I can tell you that -- not while I am lucid. No, I could be quite sure of that."

Define 'religion,' please

Ask Southern Baptists to name their "religion" and most of them will simply say, "I'm a Baptist."

Ask Roman Catholics the same question and most will say, "I'm Catholic." Odds are good that most Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians and occupants of other name-brand pews will take the same approach.

However, some of these believers may choose to define "religion" more broadly and say, "I'm a Christian." A researcher would certainly hear that response in scores of independent evangelical and charismatic churches across America.

This may sound like nitpicking, but it's not.

Confusion over defining the word "religion" almost certainly helped shape the most controversial results from the new U.S. Religious Landscape Survey produced by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

In one of several questions probing the role of "dogmatism" in American life, interviewers asked adults which of two statements best fit their beliefs: "My religion is the one, true faith leading to eternal life" or "many religions can lead to eternal life."

The results leapt into national headlines, with 70 percent of those affiliated with a religion or denomination saying that "many religions" can bring eternal salvation.

In fact, 83 percent of those in liberal Protestant denominations affirmed that belief, along with 79 percent of Catholics, 59 percent of those from historically black churches and a stunning 57 percent of believers in evangelical pews. In other world religions, 89 percent of Hindus polled said "many religions" can bring eternal life, along with 86 percent of Buddhists, 82 percent of Jews and 56 percent of Muslims.

But there's the rub. It's impossible, based on a straightforward reading of this research, to know how individual participants defined the word "religion" when they answered.

"We didn't have a set of interview guidelines or talking points that we used when asking that question," said Greg Smith, a Pew Forum research fellow. "The interviewers didn't say, 'Well, that means someone who is a member of a different denomination than yours' or 'that means someone in a completely different religion than your religion.'

"So people may have answered that in different ways. There may have been Baptists that interpreted that question as simply referring to members of other churches. Others may have answered with a more universal concept of 'religion' in mind. That's possible. In fact, it's highly likely."

There is no way -- based on this round of research -- to know precisely how many believers have decided to reject what their faiths teach, if those faiths make exclusive truth claims about salvation and eternal life. Thus, said Smith, the Pew Forum is planning follow-up work.

For example, it's one thing for evangelicals to say they believe salvation can be found through "religions" such as Catholicism, Lutheranism, Pentecostalism or other forms of Christianity. It's something else altogether to say a majority of American evangelicals now believe that salvation can be found through Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Wicca and various non-Christian "religions."

Meanwhile, many traditional Christians may believe that all people will -- somehow, in this life or the next -- face some kind of spiritual decision to accept or reject Jesus. However, when asked if that means that only Christians will "be saved," these believers may say that only God can know that. The Rev. Billy Graham has given this kind of answer on many occasions.

The bottom line: It's hard to write a question that will reveal how many Christians now believe that Jesus was mistaken when he said, as quoted in the Gospel of John, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

In fact, a new survey by the Southern Baptist Convention's LifeWay Research team specifically asked Protestants if they believed people can find eternal life through "religions other than Christianity" and only 31 percent agreed "strongly" or "somewhat."

"The problem is that all religions make mutually exclusive truth claims," noted evangelical activist Charles Colson, in a radio commentary criticizing the Pew Forum survey. "What Christians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus say about the person and work of Jesus Christ cannot be reconciled. They may all be false, but they cannot all be true.

"It's called the law of non-contradiction. It goes back to Aristotle. If proposition A is true -- that is, if it conforms to reality -- then proposition B, making a contrary claim, cannot be true as well."