Some time ago I wrote about Mark Oppenheimer's nytimes article "The Turning of an Atheist," in which oppenheimer accuses Antony Flew of turning senile, which would mean that Flew's book There Is a God is the result of deceptive and manipulative Christians who are using the mentally incapacited Flew for their own apologetic ends.
HarperOne publisher Mark Tauber responded to the Oppenheimer essay: "We were pretty upset and frustrated by the piece. It's one thing to review, question and debate the arguments of a book, but Oppenheimer didn't do that—he went after the integrity of our author and our integrity. It seems like he just saw this as an opportunity to make a name for himself, and it was out of line."
Flew himself made a statement: "My name is on the book and it represents exactly my opinions. I would not have a book issued in my name that I do not 100 percent agree with. I needed someone to do the actual writing because I'm 84 and that was Roy Varghese's role. The idea that someone manipulated me because I'm old is exactly wrong. I may be old but it is hard to manipulate me. This is my book and it represents my thinking."
