No, Ayaan Hirsi Ali isn’t a Christian
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, formerly one of the world’s foremost critics of religions fundamentalism and leading atheists, has come out of the spiritual closet to pronounce her turn toward Jesus Christ.
In her recent essay, entitled “Why I am Now A Christian”, I think Ali explains her reasoning behind this apparent conversion quite succinctly in the following quote:
The lesson I learned from my years with the Muslim Brotherhood was the power of a unifying story, embedded in the foundational texts of Islam, to attract, engage and mobilise the Muslim masses. Unless we offer something as meaningful, I fear the erosion of our civilisation will continue. And fortunately, there is no need to look for some new-age concoction of medication and mindfulness. Christianity has it all.
Before continuing, definitely give the essay a read. As a Christian myself, it feels quite bizarre, for reasons I’ll discuss below, but I think its indicative of an increasingly authoritarian and uncomfortable trend that I, and others, are seeing from the religious right and their apologists.
Quickly: What’s Christianity Again?
If you’re a Christian (like me!), you probably don’t need this section, but for those who are non-practicing, didn’t grow up in Church or a religious household, here’s a quick over view:
Christian’s believe in a couple of core tenets:
- There is only one God and he created everything that exists.
- God exists as a Trinity: The Father (God), the Son (Jesus Christ) and the Holy Spirit
- Jesus Christ was born, taught and spread the word, showing humanity how to live a good life, was crucified and then was resurrected before ascending to heaven.
- Jesus will come again as dictated thru the Book Of Revelations
- The Bible is the Word of God and provides lessons and teachings on how we should live our lives.
Various Christian denominations might quibble about some of the details and nuances of these points including but not limited to the role of each parts of the Trinity in theology and the role of the Bible in relation to the church, but these are generally the most important concepts to erm…nail down.
Now back to Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Maybe Atheism Doesn’t Sell Like It Used To
Out of curiosity, press Ctrl+F and then type ‘Jesus’ into the search box to see how many times any mentions of Jesus pops up Ali’s article.
Now try ‘Jesus Christ’.
Or ‘Holy Spirit’.
If you’re reading the same article as I am, you’ll probably get grand total of 0 mentions of any of the above keywords.
I’m not the only one to pick up on this. Atheist reddit has cynically dove into the grifter accusations with one commenter noting:
She started hanging around with right-wing conservative Christians and realized, opportunistic grifter that she is, that there’s money to be had in parroting their nonsense. She’s basically Candace Owens all over again. Look for her to get a job with some far-right news source any day now.
(From u/DarrenFromFinance)
But more interestingly, Christian Reddit, unlike many in the Religious Right, have also expressed pretty intense skepticism:
The subtitle of the article explains all “Atheism can’t equip us for civilisational war” Hirsi Ali doesn’t seem to believe in the resurrection, the Trinity or the need for salvation in Jesus. In fact she seems to be returning to the Islam of her youth minus the nasty bits. What she’s doing isn’t becoming a Christian, she’s joining the Christian team because she thinks it’s more capable of fighting against Islam.
As a Christian, this comment hits at the heart of the disconcerting nature of Ali’s “conversion”, if we can even call it that. It’s fundamentally and primarily political in nature. It isn’t about a realization of the truth of the Good News of Jesus’ Resurrection, the salvation of our sins, or even any theological understanding of the Bible, its based on a type of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” logic.
As for why Ali has decided to come out as a “Christian”, I feel like I don’t have enough evidence to come to any solid conclusions. I’ve seen some of the Q&A sessions she has done with UnHerd where she openly advocates specifically for the closing of all Muslims schools becasue she believes that the quality of education is not only inferior, but unlike Christian schools, it fails to equip its students with proper morals. But she doesn’t give much of an explanation that demonstrates any understanding of Christianity.
Most of her reasons boil down to the logic of Tom Holland’s Dominion, Enlightenment values came from Europe and were started among Christians, therefore Enlightment values necessarily follows from Judeo-Christian ethics.
Nevermind that those who argued against Enlightenment values were also Christian.
My Verdict
I am skeptical. I do not think that Ali is a Christian. In truth, she’s an anti-woke atheist who believes, either for convenience, money and/or both, that believing in freedom of speech, women’s rights, equal opportunity or even, listening to opera music (no really), makes you a Christian.
Now, I might seems like I am pulling a “No True Christian” fallacy here, but I think there is a compelling case that her increasing interaction with the likes of Jordan Peterson, Candance Owens. PragerU and other very clearly right-wing activists might have influenced her heavily. She mentions it quite often that many Christians think that since she behaves and talks like a Christian, she must already be one (nevermind the idea of “behaving like a Christian” means vastly different things for a lot of different people).
In moments like this, it’s wise to open up your Bible and turn to John 3 (starting at verse 14):
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
The requirement for salvation is the belief in the resurrection and the divinity of Christ.
Full stop.
Behaving, acting, smiling, and defecating in the same manner as religious Christians doesn’t bring you any closer to God.
Till next time.
