Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Conversion to the Wrong Christianity for the Wrong Reasons
We now have incompatible strategies for defeating the Axis of Genocide.
This is the 12th installment of the new “Axis of Genocide” series at this Zionist Substack, the successor to the “Antisemitism and Culture” series which can be read in two 30-essay collections here and here.
This new series will document and analyze the antisemitic genocidal war waged against Israel by the Hamas terrorist group and its primary supporter, the Islamic regime in Iran. The accomplices in this attempt at a second Holocaust — Vladimir Putin’s criminal-gangster state in Russia and the authoritarian regime in China — will also come in for scrutiny and loud condemnation, as will the non-state actors supporting them, particularly the international Muslim Brotherhood propaganda network, and radical activists of both the far left and the far right. Other evil states and terrorist groups will also receive scrutiny. You can find a list of previous installments at the end of this post. Thank you for your support.
The most important feminist activist in the world recently announced her conversion to Christianity at Unherd, reprinted at
’s .Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of the writer-activist-intellectuals who has most influenced me over the last 15 years. Her writing and advocacy deeply shaped my views on Islam, the treatment of women in the Middle East, and the ideology of Islamism. I have admired her tremendously. I still do, though, honestly, not quite with the same intensity I did previously. It seemed as though she was continuing her ideological journey and not especially in directions which interested me. (I didn’t get around to reading her last book - Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights - a subject which I already had familiarity.) She’s often come to more and more just seem like another right-wing voice, rather than the heterodox ideological identity she formally cultivated, transcending both Right and Left.
As deeply as I've appreciated some of Ali's ideas, there have been others I've just as deeply disagreed with and rejected. In particular: for years, just as she was a figure opposing radical Islam, she was also in the Hitchens-Dawkins New Atheist camp.
In a sense, it seemed as though she had moved from the Muslim Brotherhood Islamism in which she was raised - a type of fundamentalism - into atheist/secularist fundamentalism, which tries to improve the world solely by political and intellectual means. As a result, because of this secularist bias, the impact of Ali's writing, arguments, analysis, and the testimony of her own autobiographical journey could only hit skin-deep.
Well, now she has finally announced her conversion to a new religion, the one which I was raised in and continue to embrace in my own admittedly oddball way, with its infusions of hippie mysticism and a very pronounced Jewish influence. Ali now proclaims herself to be a Christian, too.
I wanted to be excited at this news. But instead, going into her explanatory essay, I felt trepidation instead. As I read, I began to suspect that this brilliant intellectual, who I respected so much, had simply shifted from one fundamentalism to another. She'd been raised in Muslim fundamentalism, had later adopted New Atheist fundamentalist, and had now embraced some form of Christian fundamentalism or another.
(A quick aside for those new to the publication: I am a mystic/occultist who blends religious traditions with a foundation in Judeo-Christian moral values and Biblical belief. Throughout history, the tiny minority embracing the mystic tradition has perpetually been oppressed, slaughtered, and demonized by those who embrace more "orthodox" or fundamentalist/literalist/too-damn-simple beliefs. In Muslim countries operating under Shariah law, they still execute witches to this day. The Nazis also put freemasons into concentration camps, as Hitler believed the esoteric society was in a conspiratorial alliance with Jews. Long story short: I do not tolerate any form of religious fundamentalism or humor those arguing for it. And this especially applies to my own faith of Christianity, where I understand with depth and nuance just how damaging fundamentalist beliefs are - and how illegitimate, too. They are dangerous misinterpretations of the Bible and they come in many forms.)
And now Ali has chosen to embrace one of the more destructive, blood-soaked forms of Christian fundamentalism: Crusading Christian Nationalism.
Here's a trick I've learned as an editor: search for a specific word or term within a piece, then see if a writer is using it too much or not enough.
Do that with Ali's essay laying out her conversion and something odd appears. The “Muslim Brotherhood" is mentioned 5 times, but neither "Jesus" nor "Bible" appears even once.
Ali's entire story of choosing to become a Christian is not a testimony of searching oneself or being stunned by the amazing person of Jesus Christ, or recognizing the divine inspiration of scripture.
No, Ali makes a political and historical argument. She has decided to become a Christian because she believes that she has to encourage people to embrace Christianity rather than secularism, or else the West will not be able to defeat its authoritarian opponents in the East. (With this, she refers essentially to the same idea I do with my concept of the Axis of Genocide, except now, it is abundantly clear that we have conflicting ways of trying to win this war.)
So, what changed? Why do I call myself a Christian now?
Part of the answer is global. Western civilization 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 mobilize a vast population against the West; and the viral spread of woke ideology, which is eating into the moral fiber of the next generation.
Ali sees Christianity as a unifying force that can give the West the moral strength and emotional energy to defeat its ideological and geopolitical enemies. She sees Christianity as "on the right side" in the fight, whereas atheism largely sits on the sideline. And in so doing, she surrenders her sense of individualism and contrarian thinking - the very traits that made her such a remarkable and important voice - to join a collectivist ideology once again.
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.
The Christian tradition Ali is embracing goes way, way, way back. Perhaps it was Constantine who really pioneered the use of Christianity as a kind of glue to hold together one violent empire or another. This would become a common formula: holding up Christianity as justification for inflicting violence on others. This is the Christianity of the sword, not of the heart.
Many across the political spectrum want to think that the "Christian nationalism" rearing its head on the American Right today is some sort of new phenomenon. It's not. Letting that form of Christianity take hold, which they often advocate very explicitly and openly, would be to return to a time of nation-states when there was no division of church and state or religious freedom. These norms belong to a time when heretics were burnt at the stake and when Jewish communities were slaughtered as blood libels ran wild across medieval Europe.
But using religion as a cudgel is not what Jesus came to do. That is not what his life and the gospels are all about. It is a sick perversion - a story of a man who sacrificed himself and preached peace and forgiveness and absolute love - becoming the basis for war, or really in Ali's case, it's just a fucking TOOL of war.
Ali sees Christianity simply as a convenient tool for strengthening public support for the war that she and I both recognize is happening.
In this nihilistic vacuum, the challenge before us becomes civilizational. We can’t withstand China, Russia, and Iran if we can’t explain to our populations why it matters that we do. We can’t fight woke ideology if we can’t defend the civilization that it is determined to destroy. And we can’t counter Islamism with purely secular tools. To win the hearts and minds of Muslims here in the West, we have to offer them something more than videos on TikTok.
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 mobilize the Muslim masses. Unless we offer something as meaningful, I fear the erosion of our civilization will continue. And fortunately, there is no need to look for some New Age concoction of medication and mindfulness. Christianity has it all.
I don't see it that way at all. And I've argued that point passionately in podcasts on this Substack and in my previous series on antisemitism. The idea that "the West" must unify around “Christianity” is oversimplified horse shit, and I genuinely have no respect for it whatsoever. It falls apart with a simple question:
Which Christianity?
We Christians cannot even agree what the best way is to practice the faith, or to follow Jesus, or how to interpret the Bible. We are not unified at all. While one may want to think that Christianity somehow unified Western thought, it did not. It divided it, and it oppressed opposing views which still have validity. Many of these ideas, which Christian nationalists of the past sought to destroy with violence, have been preserved in the surviving mystic traditions - not only in Christianity but throughout the world.
God is not found solely in one religion, and human greatness is not found solely in one culture or this abstraction, "the West." So my prescription runs counter to Ali's, both spiritually and politically:
How Multi-Faith Mysticism & Maimonides Can Bring Peace to Jews, Muslims, Christians, and Everyone
This post is the twenty-sixth in an ongoing series on antisemitism and culture. See the previous installments here: What It Means When the Leader of the Republican Party…
The way forward is to recognize our differences and celebrate them, not to push everyone to conform to some unnamed type of Christianity in a misguided effort to win the war which has been going on and obsessing both Ali and me for the last 20 years.
Again, I will not tolerate a "Christianity" which is not centered around the divine son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, and the path of Him calling us to emulate Him. Any version of Christianity that isn't centered around Jesus I will always label as ideology, rather than an authentic spiritual practice. This is the kind of thinking that gives rise to Christian nationalism and Christian fundamentalism.
Christian nationalism and Christian fundamentalism are not just forms of religious belief. They're forms of what we could call "everything-belief." These ideologies, which are centered not on understanding and emulating Jesus, but instead on how other people can be made to behave, become dangerously oversimplified blueprints for (mis-)understanding the whole world. Thus, someone who takes a fundamentalist or nationalist approach to Christianity will in turn do that about everything.
But perhaps all is not lost for Ali here - she admits that she is only on the surface of Christianity at the moment and is learning more. I was at this stage, once, too... when I was 12. She concludes her essay,
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.
I hope that Ali will dive deeper into the Christian tradition, and maybe if we're lucky she'll discover the pearls of wisdom hidden down here at the bottom. Hint: The Book of Job, Ecclesiastes, and the Hebrew Prophets are a good place to start searching...
The previous pieces in the “Axis of Genocide” series:
Mainstream Political Positions Argued in Extreme Ways: A Manifesto of Sorts
The Vicious Vladimir Putin Is a Disgusting Antisemite Who Is Helping Hamas
Click here to read Volume 1 of the “Antisemitism and Culture” series and volume 2 here. Ten of the most important installments from this series for better understanding this Substack’s approach to fighting hate include:
7 Reasons This Christian Hippie Became a Zealot Against Jew Hatred
2 Numbers Which Reveal the Overwhelming Level of Human Devastation Wrought by the Holocaust
7 Great Counterculture Authors Who Inspire My Writing and Zionist Activism
How to Revive King & Heschel's Black & Jewish Anti-Racism Prophetic-Activist Partnership
Christianity has always been a religion of coercion and force. That's what this article fails to understand, in my opinion. "What death is worse for the soul than the freedom to err" (St. Augustine)
I’m a lifelong atheist/agnostic but in the last 2 years have become fascinated with the growth of early Christianity, I mean say what you will about the religion it’s just a fact that about 20 illiterate peasants (a dozen men and a few women) from the backblocks of empire got so upset at the unfair state murder of their friend that they started a movement that changed the world, that is just objectively a fascinating story
But for Ali, she seems only interested in embracing bullying Christianity, doesn’t seem to believe in God, let alone the Trinity or any other of the fascinating theological interpretations but just is a political Christian and there is nothing more boring