Why Ayaan Hirsi Ali is Now a Christian - The Book of Love

Agape is the gravity drawing Ayaan Hirsi Ali into Christianity

Dove from Mordor

Yesterday (November 11, 2023), UnHerd published an essay written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali entitled, “Why I am now a Christian”. This follows her participation in Dr. Jordan Peterson’s ARC conference wherein she all but came out as a Christian who doesn’t quite believe some of the dogmatic aspects (see this video from the aforementioned conference). In the UnHerd article, Ayaan details her journey from Muslim to atheist to Christian, and I will provide some reflections on the role agape love is playing in her attraction to and participation in Christianity. First, I’ll provide a very brief background on Ayaan and her relevance to the contemporary cultural/political landscape.

Ayaan has been a voice somewhat adjacent to Dr. Jordan B. Peterson (here) and Joe Rogan (here) since at least early 2021, sharing her experiences as a former Muslim (at the time of the earliest of those conversations, an atheist). She has been unapologetically critical of Islam and the threat it poses to what Ayaan sees as the virtues of the Judeo-Christian culture(s) of the West. In her discussions, she references her lived experiences under oppressive, abusive Islamic forces both formal (by law) and informal (by cultural pressure).

As such, she’s been a lightning rod for criticism from the compassionate xenophiles of the left and support from the boundary-reinforcing conservative right (and of course all variations in between). I find her to be an authentic voice of meek disposition but firm conviction, akin to a dove coming to the west not to drop off an olive branch, but to bring evidence of fruits of an existentially threatening kind. Perhaps in keeping with the arc imagery, she comes bringing evidence not that the flood is receding, but is building up mortally tumultuous waves.

Home Sulfuric Home

I will begin to explore agape’s role in Ayaan’s newfound attraction to Christianity by way of her rejection of Islam. She recalls her disgust and resulting desire to distance herself from Islam in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001:

I was a Muslim then, although not a practising one. If I truly condemned their actions, then where did that leave me? The underlying principle that justified the attacks was religious, after all: the idea of Jihad or Holy War against the infidels. Was it possible for me, as for many members of the Muslim community, simply to distance myself from the action and its horrific results?

Note her specification that it was an act in accordance with the Muslim concept of Jihad: a war against infidels. She goes on to describe such acts as “horrific results.” To tie this explicitly to agape, I’ll first provide one more excerpt from Ayaan’s article where she describes elements of what she was taught as a Muslim:

We were told in no uncertain terms that we could not be loyal to Allah and Muhammad while also maintaining friendships and loyalty towards the unbelievers. If they explicitly rejected our summons to Islam, we were to hate and curse them.

She desired to distance herself from a way of life that compelled religious belief under the threat of violence, death, and damnation not only for the infidel who refuses to believe, but for any believer who dared to maintain any positive relationship with non-believers.

Ayaan was repulsed by an apparent lack of patience, kindness, forgiveness, mercy, and so on (characteristics of Agape Himself). She found herself in the midst of a religion whose God’s love is conditional, bounded, limited, and dependent. She sought to move away from a culture of that nature, toward whatever is found in the other direction (which, we will see, is drawing her to the God who is Love (Agape) Himself).

Floating About Untethered from Islam

Before she finds herself pulled to Christianity, Ayaan finds herself liberated from Islam, and floating about in atheism. She found comfort in the minds of Bertrand Russell, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins. This comfort, however, did not last long. She started to notice that the tools available within the atheist worldview are insufficient against the sorts of threats facing the values she found so virtuous in the west:

Western civilisation is under threat from three different but related forces: 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 mobilise a vast population against the West; and the viral spread of woke ideology, which is eating into the moral fibre of the next generation.

Notice some of the specific characteristics she points out as threats: authoritarianism, expansionism, Islamism against the West, woke ideology. Each of these is anti-agapic at its core.

Authoritarianism: agape love listens, hears, understands, empathizes. Agape is intent upon the othermoreness of the beloved. Christ Himself was so intent upon the othermoreness of His Heavenly Father and those whose redemption He came to secure, the He embodied the epitome of selflessness to do so. In the process, He did not exercise authoritarianism (at least not in the sense that we view a government or politician as authoritarian). He came with and indeed did employ His authority, but He executed His will for othermoreness by selflessness.

Expansionism: as with authoritarianism, agape is expansionist in a sense: agape wills to beget agape. It wills that the world would be agapically oriented en masse, individually and collectively. But, again, the nature of agape is rooted in othermoreness. Agape wills the enemy to be likewise agapic, but it does not will to invade and push out the enemy. It wills the true utmostness of the enemy, which could only occur if the enemy were to become agapically oriented himself.

Islamism Against the West: I’ve already referenced the anti-agapic nature of the Islamism Ayaan seeks to distance herself from.

Woke Ideology: Though cloaked in compassion and tolerance, woke ideology runs almost perfectly contrary to agape as laid out in 1 Corinthians 13. Wokeness, in relation to those whom its adherents view as enemies, is anything but patient and kind. It is loud, boisterous, proud, puffed up, seeks its own and seeks the lessness (even the nothingness) of others. Whereas agape is intent upon othermoreness at the cost of selflessness, wokeness is intent upon selfmoreness at the cost of otherlessness.

Atheism, for Ayaan, could not provide adequate solutions or responses to those above listed problems.

We endeavour to fend off these threats with modern, secular tools: military, economic, diplomatic and technological efforts to defeat, bribe, persuade, appease or surveil. And yet, with every round of conflict, we find ourselves losing ground. We are either running out of money, with our national debt in the tens of trillions of dollars, or we are losing our lead in the technological race with China.

It was only a matter of time before Ayaan found herself dissatisfied with atheism, and gravitating toward Christianity.

The Gravitational Pull of Agape

So, Ayaan asks herself an existentially critical question, and finds an answer:

But we can’t fight off these formidable forces unless we can answer the question: 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’s looking for something that unites us. She finds it in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Given the name of her article, it’s reasonable to say that she personally more specifically finds it in Christianity. How did she come to find this uniting force in Christianity? Ayaan finds in Christianity a legacy consisting of:

an elaborate set of ideas and institutions designed to safeguard human life, freedom and dignity — from the nation state and the rule of law to the institutions of science, health and learning.

Note what she perceives the design of the Christian legacy as built to safeguard human life, freedom, and dignity. These concepts are deeply agapic in nature.

Safeguard Human Life: agape inherently seeks not only to safeguard human life, but to redeem it and sanctify it. Agape Himself, in fact, seeks to imbue with eternal life.

Freedom: agape in any meaningful sense does not compel against will. It does desire the utmost for the other, which may often be contrary to what that other wills himself, but that - perhaps - is why patience is a key characteristic of agape. It does not force and insist upon its own way. It is patient, kind, understanding.

Dignity: Not only does agape permit freedom, but it sees positive value in the other by virtue of the other’s human-beingness, regardless of whether that other deserves that agapic valuation. That doesn’t mean that the agapic lover does not discipline, correct, teach, edify, punish, disagree with, or otherwise have some sort of conflict with his beloved. It means that - whether or not the other views himself with dignity or acts in a dignified manner - the agapic lover maintains an agapic orientation toward his beloved.

Ayaan came to Christianity as a result of finding that:

Atheism failed to answer a simple question: what is the meaning and purpose of life?

The very question implies glorification of agape above all else. That is, to identify the critical deciding factor as “What is the meaning and purpose of live?” is to inherently acknowledge something utmost about life itself, and agape is that which unconditionally wills the maximization of life. Agapic love is intent upon othermoreness. It must then preserve itself in some sense in order to maximally execute othermoreness (both murder and suicide are the immediate death one’s (or another’s) potential for future othemoreness).

Christ’s teaching implied…compassion for the sinner and humility for the believer.

Agape is the source and substance and sustenance of life. By extension, it is likewise the source, substance, and sustenance of all of life’s virtues.

Ayaan’s Agapic Will for Her Enemies

To win the hearts and minds of Muslims here in the West, we have to offer them something more than videos on TikTok.

The first eight words in that quote reveal Ayaan’s agapic will for her enemies. Unlike their will to compel conversion under penalty of death, she wills the winning of their hearts and minds in as meaningful way as possible. She now finds that in Christianity.

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.

Though she doesn’t specifically point out agapic love as that which draws her in to Christianity, it is at the heart of all the reasons she lists for leaving Islam and atheism, as well as the reasons she gives for settling on Christianity.

I find great joy in reading of Ayaan’s newfound relationship to Christianity. Though it might currently consist primarily of social/cultural/political motivations (so far as we can tell from the article), the source and substance and sustenance of those social, cultural, and political motivations is agape. I pray that she would be blessed by deeper and deeper knowledge of and relationship with Agape Himself as she spends more time, energy, and attention on Christianity. She seems a kind, gentle, genuine person of moral conviction and intellectual prowess. I am certain she will be a great conduit for the expression and expansion of agape in the world around her.

More Meditations to Come

I sincerely hope and pray that these meditations have been as much a blessing for you as they have been for me. I will publish more meditations on love in the coming days, covering several subtopics, including:

• Greek/Hebrew words for love (Philia, Storge, Eros, Ahava, Chesed, more on Agape, and so on)

• More of the painful/uncomfortable aspects of love, including discipline, justice, judgment, honesty, etc.

• What does “God is love” mean?

• All acts of God being acts of love (even His most severe actions)

• Love of enemies being central to Christianity

• Love as the source and substance of the law and the prophets (including a look at how love is the motivation behind each of the 10 commandments)

• The relationship between love and free will

• The sermon on the mount being a more detailed idea of what love is.

• More on love as the evidence of God’s existence.

Until then, consider enjoying some of my other articles: