By Ron F. Hale, Special to the Baptist message
JACKSON, Tenn. (LBM) — Ayann Hirsi Ali, former Dutch politician, apostate Muslim and now defector from the “new atheism,” professes Christianity as her new religion, and the recent change of path in her belief journey has shocked the world. world of elite thinkers and writers.
His recent article, “Why am I now a Christian“, does not offer any sort of reference to a conversion experience. The closest thing to a declaration of faith in Jesus is to state that “Christ’s teaching did not imply only a limited role for religion as something distinct from politics. It also implied compassion for the sinner and humility for the believer.
“I also turned to Christianity because I ultimately found life without any spiritual comfort unbearable – even almost self-destructive,” she added. “Atheism has failed to answer a simple question: what is the meaning and purpose of life?
Yet his declaration of adherence to Christianity has sparked deep discussions at high levels, especially among atheists, around the world.
Ayann’s life story began in Somalia in 1969, where she was born to Hiri Magan Isse, a leader of the Somali revolution. During his imprisonment, Ayann was subjected to female genital mutilation when he was just five years old. After escaping from captivity, he took his family to Saudi Arabia and then Ethiopia before settling in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1980.
Ayann received an excellent education in Nairobi, where she learned English and discovered a radical version of Islam, that of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. She wore the traditional burqa and rejected Western fashion and makeup. However, she refused to give in to a forced arranged marriage and fled to the Netherlands in 1992.
There, her disillusionment with Islam increased significantly after the Al-Qaeda attacks on America on September 11, 2001. Soon she renounced Islam completely and withdrew into the world of atheism, absorbing the writings of Betrand Russell and his 1927 lecture, “Why I Am Not a Christian,” and finding communion with astute and angry atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins.
With her ability to speak six languages, she served in the Dutch Parliament, gaining fame and infamy as a compelling critic of Islam, earning her threats and attacks. She now resides in the United States and has written a series of bestselling books: Infidel (2008), Nomad (2011), Heretic (2015) and Prey (2021).
Ayann admits she has “a lot to learn about Christianity.” But for now, after fifty years of living according to other ideological paradigms, she now considers Christianity as “a better way to manage the challenges of existence than Islam or unbelief had.” to offer “.
Ayann asks and answers the rhetorical question: “Why do I consider myself a Christian now?” » by distilling the world’s woes into three Goliath-like dangers: “the resurgence of great-power authoritarianism and expansionism in the forms of the Chinese Communist Party and Vladimir Putin’s Russia; the rise of global Islamism, which threatens to mobilize a vast population against the West; and the viral spread of woke ideology, which is eating away at the moral fiber of the next generation.
Ayann explains in testimony: “We cannot resist China, Russia and Iran if we cannot explain to our populations why it is important that we do so. We cannot fight woke ideology if we cannot defend the civilization it is determined to destroy. And we cannot counter Islamism with purely secular tools. To win the hearts and minds of Muslims here in the West, we need to offer them something more than videos on TikTok. »
A civilizational warning is described to us by Ayann Hirsi Ali. Bullets, bombs and ballistic missiles will not topple this evil trinity of ideological giants. The lies and half-truths of radical Islam, atheism and communism will survive once the smoke clears to sow the seeds of hatred among the survivors.
Taking up the reasoning of GK Chesterton, she drives the point home by saying: “When men choose not to believe in God, they no longer believe in anything, they then become capable of believing in anything. »
Christians in the West must join in the spiritual warfare to combat the forces of deconstruction that are deliberately destroying our values, morals, and biblical beliefs. We must unite against the “cultural Marxism” that weaves a wicked web of deception around the three global Goliaths that Ayann described as global threats.
We must understand the goals of the men of the Frankfurt School in Germany as they fled Europe before, during and after World War II and found refuge in Ivy League universities to formulate and foment their “long “walks” through the cultural structures of American society. Things like religion, family, media and education must be disrupted and radically transformed. The invasive philosophy of Cultural Marxism is now more clearly visible and includes a cabal of constructs known as critical theory, multiculturalism, political correctness, intersectionality, identity politics, white privilege, critical race theory – in short, wokeness.
We must change the new stubborn narratives that irritate and push our young people to flee our historic capitalist market economy and our Judeo-Christian moral foundations. Those who pit the “oppressed” against the “oppressors” must be confronted with truth, hope and facts.
Thank you for publicly professing these new religious beliefs, Ayann Hirsi Ali, and using them to address these looming global threats through the lens of a Christian worldview. My prayer for you will be that as you learn more about Christianity, you will develop a deeper relationship with the author of these teachings, but more so as the Savior of the world.
Ron F. Hale is a pastor and writer who has published articles in The Stream, The Christian Post, American Thinker, The Christian Index, and state Baptist newspapers.
