The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and PracticeIn a frank expose of the Teresa cult, Hitchens details the nature and limits of one woman's mission to the world's poor. He probes the source of the heroic status bestowed upon an Albanian nun whose only declared wish is to serve God. He asks whether Mother Teresa's good works answer any higher purpose than the need of the world's privileged to see someone, somewhere, doing something for the Third World. He unmasks pseudo-miracles, questions Mother Teresa's fitness to adjudicate on matters of sex and reproduction, and reports on a version of saintly ubiquity which affords genial relations with dictators, corrupt tycoons and convicted frauds. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - LynnB - LibraryThingI've heard of Christopher Hitchens for years, but this is the first time I've read anything by him. In this book, he takes on the iconic Mother Teresa and exposes the duplicity in her messages. His ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - adam.currey - LibraryThingPerhaps a little short - as others have said, it would have been good to see Hitchens take twice as many pages to eviscerate Mother Theresa. Nevertheless, Hitchens is always a great read and he covers the topic reasonably completely. Read full review
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The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice Christopher Hitchens Limited preview - 2012 |
The Missionary Position: Mother Theresa in Theory and Practice Christopher Hitchens Limited preview - 2012 |
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Page ix - Philosophers stretch the meaning of words until they retain scarcely anything of their original sense. They give the name of "God" to some vague abstraction which they have created for themselves; having done so they can pose before all the world as deists, as believers in God...