Christoper Hitchens is an accomplished writer and an entertaining speaker who has truly made his mark in a wide variety of disciplines. Unfortunately, as many have pointed out, he has an embarrassing lack of sophistication and very narrow approach when it comes to religion and especially when it comes to religious people. While he is not wrong that various forms of fundamentalist faith do promote, "violent, irrational, intolerant," etc behavior, there is tremendous depth and diversity among theological and spiritual traditions and many of the people who thoughtfully and carefully call themselves adherents.

The recent trend in agnostic/atheist books, of which "God is Not Great" is currently one of the centerpieces, has over the past year or so become very much a part of our national, cultural conversation. While some of these authors understand, write and speak about the nuances, depth and even ambiguity of old and even more recent religious approaches and traditions very well, others -- Hitchen's included - simply caricature all faiths, doctrine, tradition, spirituality and lived practice according to the narrow set of the worst and most suspect beliefs, events and religious figures of the past and present.

So while Hitchens and some of the others are wonderful writers and even accomplished reporters on many topics, their approach and thinking to religion and religious people throughout the ages and today lacks the depth one would expect to see from them on other topics. I understand there have been and will be debates set up for Hitchens and some of the other trendy "new atheists" and this is a good thing. Some journalists, scholars, practitioners and writers with seasoned histories and credentialed expertise in religion sitting across the table from Hitchens would make for a helpful conversation and would definitely be entertaining.