When I first heard about and read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s essay on converting to Christianity, I have to admit I bristled a bit. It read, at first blush, like a political conversion rather than a spiritual one, the kind of argument a neoconservative might make. “False but convenient” is the Straussian take on Christianity, and it strongly suggests that faith is simply an organizing tool for society. It keeps the masses in line, tamps down their earthly expectations, and inculcates socially useful virtues. “Atheists for Christianity” is, in fact, a pretty good synopsis of neoconservatism. And Ayaan has, after all, long been a neoconservative.
Her defense of the Christian faith therefore makes almost no mention of Jesus of Nazareth, nor of the Creed — the core of Christian belief. There are no saints or pilgrims or miracles in her account. We don’t know which denomination Ayaan has joined. We have no discussion of the Incarnation, or the Resurrection, let alone the Trinity. We don’t even have a first-person testimony of the process of conversion, how it happened, and when. There is not a trace of the supernatural or the eternal. We do not know the key religious texts that moved her; or the prayers that might sustain her; or about the voice she may or may not have heard.
What we do have, in Ayaan’s case, is the civilizational challenge of defending the West against the latest axis of evil: Russia/China, Islamism, and critical theory, the latter via the madrassas of the Ivy League. And Christianity, Ayaan argues, is the primary unifying force that can stiffen our sinews against all these threats to the West, dispatching Xi, Putin, Hamas and Kendi into their respective historical dustbins. And wouldn’t that be lovely?
The book that seems to have had the deepest impact on Ayaan is not the Bible but Tom Holland’s Dominion, on the civilizational gifts Christianity bestowed on the West: concepts of universal love, individual dignity, freedom of expression, reason, and toleration. Ayaan notes that this was not always the case — centuries of sometimes brutal sectarian conflict somewhat complicate things — but that Christianity has long since left its “dogmatic” phase toward an emphasis on logos, of reason, as inextricable from the divine.
And Ayaan is right that Western elites have been far too sanguine about the collapse of Christianity in the West, and have overlooked its role in inculcating the virtues essential for liberal society to work. The God-shaped hole left by Christianity’s demise has been filled by the cults of Trump and wokeness, or the distractions of mass entertainment and consumption, in our civilizational heap of broken images.
All of which is well taken. But none of it is a reason for an individual soul to convert to Christianity. Such a person would be more suitable, perhaps, as Zohar Atkins writes, for converting to Judaism, which is more based on earthly goals and achievements. But for a Christian? Jesus rejected exactly that kind of Judaism (which is why anyone who uses the term “Judeo-Christian,” as Ayaan does, misses the entire point). Ross Douthat, in turn, notes the absence of supernatural magic in Ayaan’s vision, key to his view of Christianity, even in post-modernity. Shadi Hamid is even more dismissive toward what he sees as “political conversions”:
It’s a new form of identity politics that’s about signaling virtue. It’s when someone has preconceived political preferences and commitments and then tries to find a religion that aligns with their politics. In other words, politics determines religious “belief” rather than the other way around.
When Andrew Tate explained why he chose Islam, he didn’t mention theology, salvation, the Quran, the Prophet Muhammad — or anything to do with spirituality or faith. It was because Islam was “uncrushable.”
Freddie is the most brutal, but he makes a vital point:
In its own way this is a bigger insult to religion than anything Richard Dawkins could cobble together; it treats religion as less than wrong. Dawkins and those like him evaluate the truth claims of the world’s religions and say, no, these are not correct. Hirsi Ali is so busy marching towards Armageddon that she scarcely has time to get to know what the truth claims of Christianity even are.
All of these critiques have bite, even if Shadi’s Tate analogy is a bit de trop. And Ayaan’s abandonment of Islam was similarly strange. It was because she associated all of Islam with Osama bin Laden, and her own experience of the religion had been fundamentalist and foul: “Bertrand Russell offered a simple, zero-cost escape from an unbearable life of self-denial and harassment of other people.” She lost faith, in other words, not because she became convinced it wasn’t true, but because she wanted a new life.
The atheists currently lambasting Ayaan for proffering no arguments as to why atheism is false miss this, I think. Her atheism was never genuine or deeply argued. It was a social stance, a way to leave Islam behind emphatically, which eased her internal tensions for a while. She lost her Muslim faith in a spasm of justifiably righteous rage and in order to be cool; and the New Atheists, for a time at least, were the new cool:
I found an entirely new circle of friends, as different from the preachers of the Muslim Brotherhood as one could imagine. The more time I spent with them — people such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins — the more confident I felt that I had made the right choice. For the atheists were clever. They were also a great deal of fun.
If these are the reasons Ayaan lost faith, it is not surprising that she has rediscovered it so easily. And both times, her conversion to atheism and to Christianity were uncannily attuned to the changing currents of the culture. To oppose Islamism in 2002, being a “new atheist” was the edgiest position; becoming a Christian in 2023 is exactly the same — a career move to make Jordan Peterson cream his pants. “She didn’t convert for Christ,” Shadi writes. “She converted for the culture wars. As one tweet described it, the whole charade boils down to ‘I am unable to justify my right wing positions without also affirming a religion and this one is far nicer than my old one.’”
Ouch. And yet this critique, while very much worth making, is surely lacking in charity when it comes to Ayaan, a human being with a life, rather than to Ayaan, an intellectual with a rather brief, shallow essay. And in a subsequent interview yesterday with the great Freddie Sayers, Ayaan filled in some of the blanks. She was, we find out, converted by her therapist! Money quote:
I continued to have this big spiritual hole or need. I tried to self-medicate. I tried to sedate myself. I drank enough alcohol to sterilise a hospital. Nothing helped. I continued to read books on psychiatry and the brain. And none of that helped. All of that explained a small piece of the puzzle, but there was still something that I was missing. And then I think it was one therapist who said to me, early this year: “I think, Ayaan, you’re spiritually bankrupt.”
The therapist asked Ayaan about the kind of God she might be more open to — not defined by the brutalism of her Muslim past. A light bulb went off, and “as I was going on I thought: that is actually a description of Jesus Christ and Christianity at its best. And so instead of inventing yet another new God, I started diving into that story.”
This, then, is her actual conversion story, or the beginning of it. It was spiritual desolation that led to exploring the story of Jesus, and discovering — surprise! — that she was, in ways she hadn’t fully appreciated, already a kind of Christian, a person who values love and forgiveness over judgment and pride, who tries to be indifferent to the lure of power and wealth, who is concerned about the poor and marginalized, humble, knowing what she cannot know, believing what she can, and accepting of others in whatever stage of the journey they are in. And I wish Ayaan had started there, with her personal search, rather than in the essay she wrote. She left out the heart of the matter, which may be why some of the attacks on it have been so heartless.
And Ayaan is no different than the elite Romans who converted because Constantine did, or because they were impressed by the way Christians led their lives. She’s no different than many cultural Christians in which the meaning of the faith is less salient than the fact that you were just brought up that way, and your parents were too. She’s not that different than many Westerners who are already Christians in the lives they lead and the values they cherish but who don’t regard themselves as religious.
And the path to faith is not usually a simple, Damascene leap, like Saint Paul’s or Pascal’s, let alone a crude obeisance to an “inerrant” text, but a meandering process of discovery, and reflection, and the living of life itself. It is, especially in modernity, more like Ayaan’s evolution than Pascal’s revelation. Demanding of modern humans an instant acceptance of the supernatural, let alone a set of esoteric doctrines, is rarely going to work. And in this respect, Ayaan is showing us the way.
Start with the spiritual sense all humans have and currently do not feel; and start to explore it. Merely seeking faith, however fitfully, is itself a form of faith, as Pope Francis has said. Pick up one of the Gospels and read it. (I’m amazed by how many super-educated people haven’t.) Understand, as I have through some dark, dark moments, that this is not something you can ultimately control. It’s something greater and more ineffable than anything we can understand, and leads in due course to both mystery and revelation.
And it’s worth adding that those of us who call ourselves Christians are also often bereft of spiritual comfort and hope, our doubts and fears overwhelming us, our worldly distractions always beguiling us. We are in no place to cast judgment on anyone sincerely seeking the truth, even if we can rightly criticize certain arguments they make. All I can say, as a human being and friend, is that I’m thrilled Ayaan is on that journey, and will pray it continues for her, and that she will also come to see that those with the deepest faith never write essays about it, never declare themselves anything, and do not try to believe in order that Western civilization can endure.
They believe because it’s the deepest truth about our human existence. And in the face of that truth, in the eyes of eternity, sustaining and protecting any temporary civilization — Roman, Western, or Anglo-American — is utterly, completely irrelevant.
(Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a subscriber, click here to read the full version. This week’s issue also includes: a convo with Judis and Teixeira on how the Dems can redeem themselves; a ton more dissents over Israel and my talk with Graeme Wood; my chat with Meghan Daum on transqueer vs. gay; seven notable quotes from the week in news; 20 pieces we enjoyed on Substack on a variety of topics; an Yglesias Award on race and IQ; a Mental Health Break of something much too silly; a fine window in Philly; and, of course, the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. Subscribe for the full Dish experience!)
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New On The Dishcast: John Judis & Ruy Teixeira
John is an editor-at-large at Talking Points Memo, a former senior editor at The New Republic, and an old friend. Ruy, after a career in progressive institutions, is now a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a contributing columnist at the WaPo, and politics editor of the fantastic substack The Liberal Patriot. In 2002 they wrote The Emerging Democratic Majority, and their new book is Where Have All the Democrats Gone? The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes.
Browse the Dishcast archive for another convo you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Matthew Crawford on anti-humanism and social control, David Leonhardt on his new book about the American Dream, Cat Bohannon on Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, Jennifer Burns on her new biography of Milton Friedman, McKay Coppins on Romney and the GOP, and Alexandra Hudson on civility. Please send any guest recs, dissent and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
I just finished listening to your conversation with Brooks and once again felt such warm fondness towards you. Your thoughts and conversations are very important for my intellectual life, and I feel deep connection with the Dish. And the $5 that I pay every month for the privilege of listening to the full Dishcast are the best $5 spent.
Regarding “genocide,” I totally agree on the label inflation point. However, consider the ethics of the situation: regardless of religion, politics or personal opinion on this specific issue, how can it be ethically justified to target your enemy whilst knowing that innocents will be collateral damage in such numbers?
And ask yourself if this same scenario was being played out anywhere else in the world, particularly by a wealthy, First World, democratic country: there would be far more outrage, condemnation and intervention. You can hardly blame Muslims for thinking that a different rule is being applied to this specific situation, and that for whatever reason Palestinian lives are not as valuable as others. It’s only a short intellectual hop from here — supported by the nuclear-option statement from the Israeli cabinet member, and clear motive to take over land previously belonging to Palestinians — to considering it to have the hallmarks of what could potentially become a “genocide.” The motive is there — even if the technical bar is not met. So please have some consideration as to heightened sensitivities, context and ethical inconsistencies.
My last point: friends don’t let friends do things we know they’ll regret when they awake from the shock of extreme trauma. Cooler, strategic heads in the US and UK should be doing right by Israel and helping them see beyond the red mist.
Read my response here. For more dissent over my views on the godawful situation in Israel and Gaza, head over to this week’s pod page. Follow more Dish discussion on the Notes site here (or the “Notes” tab in the Substack app).
I recently went on Meghan Daum’s podcast to talk about how transqueer activism threatens gay rights:
In The ‘Stacks
This is a feature in the paid version of the Dish spotlighting about 20 of our favorite pieces from other Substackers every week. This week’s selection covers subjects such as the abortion issue for 2024, the sacking of Suella Braverman, and poisonous plastics. Below are a few examples:
Nikki Haley’s move against anonymous speech is almost as awful as her neoconservatism.
Heather Heying reviews a book by Phil Illy, an autogynephile — a straight man attracted to the idea of himself as a woman. He also has a substack.
You can also browse all the substacks we follow and read on a regular basis here — a combination of our favorite writers and new ones we’re checking out. It’s a blogroll of sorts. If you have any recommendations for “In the ‘Stacks,” especially ones from emerging writers, please let us know: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
The View From Your Window Contest
Where do you think it’s located? (The beagle cartoon is hiding an obvious clue.) Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The deadline for entries is Wednesday night at midnight (PST). The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a free month subscription if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the contest). Happy sleuthing!
The results for this week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. Here’s a sleuth on last week’s contest:
Sorry if this bears the air of ratting someone out, but it’s just too funny to pass up. During my search for the window, I found a short video file uploaded to Instagram that almost matched the VFYW precisely. That, in and of itself, is not altogether uncommon. What is uncommon, however, is the comment section to this particular image/video. Take a look:
It appears to have been posted at least 37 weeks ago, as this is when the second comment is dated. Then, nothing for about 36 weeks — not until contest #397 went live, when no less than three other comments landed, all within the past week, and all asking the name of the hotel from which the video.
