By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
LONDON, UK (ANS) -- World famous atheist, Christopher Hitchens, made a surprising revelation recently that his former debate opponent, outspoken evangelical scientist Francis Collins, is behind a new experimental cancer treatment that he is using.
This has been revealed in a story written by Ethan Cole in the Christian Post (www.christianpost.com).
Cole wrote that in an interview with U.K. Telegraph Magazine, Hitchens said that Collins, who was formerly the director of the National Center for Human Genome Research and now serves as director of the National Institutes of Health, is partially responsible for developing a new cancer treatment that maps out the patient’s entire genetic make-up and targets damaged DNA.
“Hitchens, author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, said that he was asked a few weeks after he was diagnosed with cancer last year to be a guinea pig for a new genome sequencing treatment that could possibly cure cancer,” said Cole.
Francis Collins
In June 2010, Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. The cancer is at stage 4.
“And the thing to note about stage four is that there is no stage five,” commented Hitchens during the interview.
Although he was told to not have any expectations for the treatment, he found out earlier this year that there was already medicine out for the genetic mutation expressed by his tumor.
“I want more Christian news!”
Cole went on to say that prior to falling ill, Hitchens had debated Collins, author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, about the existence of God. Hitchens said he and Collins have become good friends despite their religious differences.
“It is a rather wonderful relationship,” said Hitchens. “I won’t say he doesn’t pray for me, because I think he probably does; but he doesn’t discuss it with me.”
Hitchens added, “He agrees that his medical experience does not include anything that could be described as a miracle cure – he’s never come across anything.”
Cole went on to say that Hitchens “has been polite about the idea of Christians praying for his cancer treatment. But he has remained resolute that his cancer battle will not sway his religious opinion on God.”
Last year, Collins wrote in a special piece for The Washington Post for “Everybody Pray for Hitchens Day”: “My prayer is not so much for a supernatural intervention – as a physician I have not seen evidence for such medical miracle in my own experience.
“Instead I pray for myself and for Christopher along the lines of James 1:5.”
The verse James 1:5 says: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”
Cole concluded his story by saying that Hitchens has said that he will not convert on his deathbed unless he is “very ill” or “half demented, either by drugs or pain where I wouldn’t have control over what I say.”
Dan Wooding, 70, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 47 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC. He now hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on KWVE in Southern California which
is also carried on the Calvary Radio Network throughout the United States. The program is also aired in Great Britain on Calvary Chapel Radio UK. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 200 countries. You can follow Dan on Facebook under his name there or at ASSIST News Service. He is the author of some 44 books. Two of the latest include his autobiography, “From Tabloid to Truth”, which is published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, press this link. Wooding, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, has also recently released his first novel “Red Dagger” which is available this link.
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