This is the only normal response to her conversion to Christianity.
This is the only normal response to her conversion to Christianity.
S he was a refugee from Somalia, where she was subjected to female genital mutilation. A Dutch filmmaker she worked with on a documentary was murdered, and she was warned she would be next. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has seen a bit of the world and the evil that men are capable of. Recently, amid headlines about Israel and U.S. political madness and all the rest, she announced she has become a Christian. She was born a Muslim and became an atheist — as anyone might do after living under a perversion of religion. Her testimony ought to be listened to and she and her family prayed for. What continual courage she manifests.
It’s not easy to convert while in the public eye. She’s being criticized by atheists and Christians. Christians?! Some worry that her initial essay announcing her embrace of Christ sounded more intellectual than spiritual. That she didn’t tell us more about having an actual relationship with Christ. My response to that is: People, give the woman some breathing room! People are strange, aren’t we? Not one of us is perfect, and yet we tend to expect perfection in others — especially public figures. Hirsi Ali is one of the most courageous people in the public square today. And people — fellow Christians — nitpick? We can do better than that.
Looking at the world today, Hirsi Ali writes: “What is it that unites us? The response that ‘God is dead!’ seems insufficient. So, too, does the attempt to find solace in ‘the rules-based liberal international order.’ The only credible answer, I believe, lies in our desire to uphold the legacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition.”
She recounts part of what she learned under the Muslim Brotherhood when she lived as a Muslim in Kenya: “We cursed the Jews multiple times a day and expressed horror, disgust and anger at the litany of offenses [the Jew] had allegedly committed. The Jew had betrayed our Prophet. He had occupied the Holy Mosque in Jerusalem. He continued to spread corruption of the heart, mind and soul.”
Contrast that with the Liturgy of the Hours in the Catholic Church just in recent days. We prayed from Scripture: “If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand wither.” And: “The Lord will make a river of peace flow through Jerusalem.” Also: “Rejoice, Jerusalem, for through you all men will be gathered to the Lord.” And: “Let all men speak of the Lord’s majesty and sing his praises in Jerusalem.”
For a Christian praying these, it is a constant reminder of the communion we have with our elder brothers, the Jewish people. It was far from a heroic act, but I went to Caffè Aronne in Manhattan recently. It’s the one where the staff quit because the owner declared support for Israel. Like others, I wanted to offer my thanks by becoming a customer. It was beautiful to see a healthy crowd there on a Sunday night. But there must be a NYPD presence, too. It’s so wrong that this has to be the case. And yet, that didn’t keep people — mostly Jewish — from enjoying kosher wine and fellowship.
The scene suggested that what drew Hirsi Ali to atheism is a lie. As she writes: “You can see why, to someone who had been through such a religious schooling, atheism seemed so appealing. Bertrand Russell offered a simple, zero-cost escape from an unbearable life of self-denial and harassment of other people. For him, there was no credible case for the existence of God. Religion, Russell argued, was rooted in fear: ‘Fear is the basis of the whole thing—fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death.’”
What I saw at the café — and we see in Jews everywhere these days — is a people whose insistence on living won’t be extinguished. This is a people who have a future. And one that attracts. That’s at the heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition. And Hirsi Ali’s conversion witnesses to it.
Hirsi Ali also made, even if unintentionally, an invitation that could save lives at a time when loneliness has been declared an epidemic: “I have also turned to Christianity because I ultimately found life without any spiritual solace unendurable—indeed very nearly self-destructive. Atheism failed to answer a simple question: What is the meaning and purpose of life?” Assessing the world today — the woke and their ideologies and not least the terrorists — she quotes English writer G. K. Chesterton: “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”
What is right and just and true? Young people who in recent days have taken to making Osama bin Laden their viral hero on TikTok are lost beyond anything we should be able to tolerate. Clearly, we have not been transmitting our patrimony. Our young deserve better than what so many of their schools are quite obviously communicating to them. If you think the U.S. and Israel are the worst of civilization, you should consider what life is like for a Catholic priest in Nigeria. Kidnapping and murders are par for the course there. Never mind, say global organizations like the United Nations — it just has to do with climate change. Climate change? They can’t get themselves to criticize Islamic extremists because they know that puts them on the same kind of hit list Hirsi Ali has been on.
To honestly pursue the truth transparently is a beautiful thing. And Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been doing that. I’m overjoyed she’s found some solace in Christ, and I pray that it only ever increases. Some cities in the West are already awash in Christmas decorations. As the parties and all commence, may we reflect on what it’s actually about. And how it connects us. Or may my right hand wither!
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.