Atheist Christopher Hitchens Has Cancer: Should Believers Pray For Him?

News that the pugnacious atheist Christopher Hitchens is battling a life-threatening cancer has led to an outpouring of sympathy from believers who, in better times, have clashed mightily with the author of the best-selling book, "God Is Not Great," as well as many other blasts against religion.

But even as Hitchens' foes lament his suffering, they also raise questions about the appropriate response: Should believers pray for an atheist, and one who is an active opponent of belief? What if Hitchens does not want such intercessions, or appreciate them? And what should one pray for? A healing? A conversion? Or simply peace of mind in the face of mortality?

It is a testimony both to the charity of numerous believers and to Hitchens' legendary ability to charm his foes that there seem to be relatively few ugly comments about his illness from religionists, and that there are so many who will pray for Hitchens -- whether he'd welcome it or not.

"I will, in part to piss him off," Andrew Sullivan, a Catholic and popular blogger at The Atlantic, wrote in a post whose language perfectly reflects the bully bonhomie that Hitch (as many call him) inspires in those who disagree with him.

"I don't believe in treating the sick as suddenly tender souls who cannot enjoy humor and debate -- and that would apply in truckloads for my dear friend," Sullivan, who is gay and HIV-positive, continued. "I'm delighted that no one ever pulls a punch with me on the grounds of chronic disease and I'm sure Hitch would feel the same way."

William Donohue, president of the Catholic League and a vocal church defender who has also mixed it up with Hitchens -- and downed a few drinks with the famously bibulous writer -- likewise expressed no reservations about invoking the aid of the Almighty.

"I feel confident that Christopher would be neither shocked nor displeased" that he was praying for him, Donohue told me. "Hope and pray he rebounds so we can down a few pints. On me!"

Donohue said he was upset at the news that Hitchens, 61, is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer of the esophagus, a particularly virulent form of the disease, and he said, "Everyone who believes in prayer should pray for him, notwithstanding any objections he may have."

Hitchens revealed the diagnosis and treatment on June 30 in a brief statement on the website of Vanity Fair magazine, where he is a columnist. "I have been advised by my physician that I must undergo a course of chemotherapy on my esophagus," the British-born journalist and bon vivant wrote, adding: "This advice seems persuasive to me."

Hitchens has not commented publicly since then, leaving it to friends and foes alike to conjecture on his reaction to the pleas for intercession from a divinity with whom Hitchens himself would have no truck, even if such a divinity exists.

Jeffrey Goldberg, another writer at The Atlantic, was e-mailing Hitchens in the days after his announcement and said that at one point he wrote his friend, facetiously: "I'm thinking of you and (insert prayer joke here)."

Goldberg did not include Hitchens' response, if any, but added that his friend "undoubtedly doesn't want my prayers, and since I don't necessarily believe, in any case, that God sits in heaven keeping track of the sick and deciding for whom chemotherapy should work and for whom it should not, I don't feel overly compelled to pray for him."

"Though I might anyway," he added.

That seems to be a common temptation, and an understandable one, for believers and non-believers alike, though the nature and purpose of such prayers vary considerably.

Conversion is the goal of Chris Riddick, a graduate of Liberty University, the Baptist school founded by the late Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell. Riddick launched a Facebook group asking members (there are more than 80 so far) to pray that Hitchens "will come to know the wonderful love and grace of Jesus Christ."

"He seems to be a very intelligent man who has taken a dark path through life. Hearing him speak is very frustrating, but we must remember that God loves him just as much as anyone else," Riddick writes. (He even includes a link to Hitchens' appearance on Fox News after Falwell's death, when he calls the pastor "a vulgar fraud and crook.")

Others make the argument that prayer is a practical response because some studies have shown that patients who are being prayed for sometimes cure more quickly or at least feel better. But taken together, studies on the medical benefits of intercessory prayer are inconclusive on this point. Some research even indicates that the condition of those who know that others are praying for them may worsen, while the placebo effect of believing in God or believing others are supporting a patient can account for improvements.

In any case, most believers seem content to let God do the heavy lifting. "I do believe in miracles and I pray Chris Hitchens gets his miracle," a self-described conservative Christian commented at The New York Post.

Beliefnet blogger Rod Dreher also said he would be "praying for his healing, body and soul...[H]e suffers, and has more to suffer, and needs us to stand with him in whatever way we can."

Dreher expressed faith that the "humbling" experience of cancer might soften Hitchens' attitude toward believers and their prayers, and praying for Hitchens' conversion may not be a fool's errand, since his recently released memoir, "Hitch-22," details the various transformations he has undergone in his remarkable life.

But Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, a regular debating foil for Hitchens, said he expects Hitchens to face the disease with his usual "stoic courage" -- and without changing his convictions.

"I have undergone neurosurgery and chemotherapy with my faith unshaken -- why assume he could not emerge with his unbelief unchanged as well?" Wolpe wrote in The Washington Post.

Atheist allies of Hitchens have, in turn, been vocal in their rejection of what they see as the condescension of believers praying for Hitchens, echoing opinions Hitchens himself has expressed many times.

"Hitchens doesn't need prayers, as there is no god," a commenter on Dreher's post wrote. "No doubt, there will be contrived rumors of his requests of contrition and apologies. I can assure you, this will not be the case with this great man."

But traditional believers say the objections shouldn't stop them from praying anyway.

Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest and popular writer on all things spiritual, noted Jesus' admonition in the Gospel of Matthew not only to love your enemies but to "bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." God sends "rain on the just and on the unjust," Jesus said, and anybody -- even the pagans -- can be nice to people they like.

"The mark of a Christian is if we pray for those we dislike or disagree with," said Martin, author of "The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life." He said the late Mother Teresa, who Hitchens vilified in a number of writings and commentaries, was certainly in heaven praying for him. "Which is probably driving him nuts."

If all this supplicating is irritating Hitchens, then, isn't that a reason to at least keep quiet about one's prayer intentions -- because they might backfire and turn Hitchens further away from belief?

"Frankly, I don't think he could be any further away from God than he has been," Martin said.

Rabbi Wolpe also argued that the Jewish tradition advocates prayer for everyone, no matter what.

"I would say it is appropriate and even mandatory to do what one can for another who is sick; and if you believe that praying helps, to pray," Wolpe told The Atlantic's Goldberg. "It is in any case an expression of one's deep hopes."

"So yes, I will pray for him, but I will not insult him by asking or implying that he should be grateful for my prayers."

Nor would Wolpe necessarily ask Hitchens what he would like the goal of his prayers to be.

As Wolpe recalled, at one of their public debates, when Hitchens was asked if he had ever prayed, he surprised everyone by confessing that indeed he had.

"Yes," Hitchens said, "once, for an erection."

Wolpe said his then-12-year-old daughter was sitting in the front row, so "I decided not to pursue the question of the efficacy of prayer."