THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:
Former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali was once the most celebrated female ally of the male “Four Horsemen” leading the militant “New Atheism” movement. But in 2023 she posted a surprising column on unherd.com headlined “Why I Am Now a Christian,” echoing Bertrand Russell’s 1927 booklet “Why I Am Not a Christian.” See https://unherd.com/2023/11/why-i-am-now-a-christian/?edition=us/ She emphasized that Christianity is essential for a moral civilization, but embraced the faith personally “because I ultimately found life without any spiritual solace unendurable – indeed, very nearly self-destructive.”
Where does her quest stand now? We’ve learned more from an April 23 podcast interview available at https://biologos.org/podcast-episodes/ayaan-hirsi-ali-the-shape-of-belief/ It was conducted by BioLogos, the Christian scientific think tank founded by another prominent adult convert, Francis Collins. He led the Human Genome Project during its climactic years and was director of the National Institutes of Health under Presidents Obama and Trump.
Here are some basics on Hirsi Ali’s turbulent life story, taken from interviews and her popular autobiographies Infidel (2007), Nomad (2010), and Heretic (2015). She was born in Somalia, but due to her father’s political activism and imprisonment the family moved as exiles to Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and then Kenya, where a puritanical version of Islam prohibited the novels, music and movies that she loved as a teen. In 1992, she relocated to the Netherlands in order to escape her family’s arranged marriage.
Then Death Threats
There she was a university student, won election to parliament, and migrated into atheism while becoming an outspoken critic of Islam, especially regarding women’s status. Due to persistent death threats, she moved to the United States in 2006, developed a career of speaking and writing, and established the AHA Foundation to defend human rights. In 2011, she married prominent British-American historian Niall Ferguson, also an atheist. (She and Ferguson had both appeared on Time magazine’s annual lists of the world’s 100 most influential people.) Hirsi Ali became a U.S. citizen in 2013 and is currently a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
Despite fame and success, she was plagued by depression. Psychological counseling and medication failed to help, and she fell into alcohol abuse. At a rehabilitation center in January, 2023, a counselor told Hirsi Ali “you are spiritually bankrupt,” and suggested various Eastern and Western religions that might fill the void.
Then, she told BioLogos, “having lived through Islam, I made my choice, and it was Jesus Christ. And when I did that, and I fell to my knees and I started to pray in total and utter despair, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. I felt at peace. I felt as if someone had switched on a light. . . . I didn’t have visions and dreams and all of that. But I have just got this quiet awareness. I became aware. It’s almost like becoming alive again.” The following September, Hirsi Ali, Ferguson, and their two sons were baptized together as Christians.
Every Sunday
In Ferguson’s case, he told an Australian journalist that conversion was a “protracted process” that started from reflection upon the dire results when a nation’s Christian heritage weakens or atheism gets control. Now a regular churchgoer, he is struck by “how much one learns every Sunday morning. Every hymn contains some new clue as to the relationship between us and God. I think the educational benefit of going to church almost equals the moral benefit.”
Hirsi Ali told BioLogos that it’s important for her to openly confess that two years after her conversion “I relapsed. I started drinking again. And I had a moment when I thought, Why is God doing that? Why? And, you know, kind of get angry. And then realized, no, you put your faith and your trust in God. It’s not God who’s doing that, it’s you who’s doing that.”
“I took an interest in the Christian concept of sin and brokenness, and that is where I am now.” At the center of her exploration is persistent study of the Bible. “My problems have not disappeared. But instead of that deep, dark tunnel, I have hope and I feel at peace.” Her key mentor is John Lennox, an emeritus professor of mathematics at Oxford University with a lifelong avocation of explaining Christian belief to seekers.
In her original UnHerd column, Hirsi Ali said “of course, I still have a great deal to learn about Christianity. I discover a little more at church each Sunday. But I have recognized, in my own long journey through a wilderness of fear and self-doubt, that there is a better way to manage the challenges of existence than either Islam or unbelief had to offer.” She finds herself even more intellectually engaged with scientific reasoning “because Christianity demands curiosity.”
“I Choose”
Less than a year after her baptism, Hirsi Ali joined an unusually intriguing debate on God with biologist Richard Dawkins, one of those atheistic “horsemen” who remains a good friend. https://unherd.com/watch-listen/the-god-debate/?edition=us/ “I choose to accept Jesus Christ, the teachings of Jesus Christ, the story of Jesus Christ,” she told him. “I choose to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. … If you come ’round to the idea that there might be something much more powerful than we are, something that caused everything else, then something like Jesus rising out of the dead and these other miracles, Jesus being born out of a virgin, for that higher power is not a big deal.”
Hirsi Ali is now working on a book that will have three segments, depicting life as a Muslim, as an atheist, and as a young Christian. She is a fine writer and it will surely be fascinating to read. She has written and spoken widely about Islam. As for atheism, she told BioLogos, “You toss God out, and you say, I’m just going to go for what pleases me. And at some point, you achieve that, and you hit a wall. And as a Christian, I’m discovering something else entirely. I’m discovering joy. I’m discovering peace. My life has meaning. My life has purpose now. At the end of church, at the end of the church service, we say ‘Go in peace and serve the Lord.’ That’s my purpose, to serve the Lord.”
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In