On Ayaan and Niall

Intellectuals coming to Christ:

On who?! OK, not household names for everyone, but these two are important individuals that you should be aware of. I refer to Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Niall Ferguson – two authors and intellectuals. And now – more importantly – two Christians. They have been married since 2011, and each one has recently made moves toward Christ. Both of their stories are worth briefly recounting.

But let me first mention that there seems to be a bit of a move of God here when it comes to various public intellectuals and writers who seem to be on very real faith journeys. Two years ago I discussed this, saying in part:

A few months ago I wrote about the surprising decline of the new atheism. In it I mentioned several key volumes, including this one: The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God by Justin Brierley (Tyndale, 2023). See that piece here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2024/01/17/where-have-all-the-angry-new-atheists-gone/

 

Here I want to look a bit further at this book, as well as a new article he has just written. With a number of public figures either becoming Christians recently or at least moving in that direction – Tom Holland, Jordan Peterson, Douglas Murray, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Naomi Wolf to name a few – his ongoing work of engaging with others, including many non-believers, is a crucial ministry indeed. https://billmuehlenberg.com/2024/04/01/hope-for-the-secular-west/

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Born in Somalia in 1969, she has gone through three distinct religious phases. Born into a Muslim family, she renounced Islam while living in Holland. She proclaimed herself to be an atheist in 2002, but late in 2023 she came out and surprised her atheist buddies like Richard Dawkins by saying she is now a Christian. One article at the time said this about her new-found faith:

Hirsi Ali attributes her turn to Christianity to a broader concern for the challenges facing Western civilization. She cites threats from authoritarian regimes, global Islamism, and “woke” ideology as catalysts for seeking a unifying force. Christianity, in her view, offers a foundation of values and traditions that uphold human life, freedom, and dignity, and counters the divisiveness she associates with atheism.

 

Responding to her embrace of the Christian faith, conservative Christian philosopher Dr. Robert George wrote on Facebook: “Two decades ago, under the influence of the writings of Bertrand Russell, she became an atheist. Her thought was that atheism was smart and sophisticated — it was allegedly what really intelligent people believed (the ‘brights,’ as Daniel Dennett embarrassingly labeled himself and his fellow unbelievers). It was the way to a world of rationality and civil liberty. Hirsi Ali is not the first to have gone down that misguided path. She now sees that it is indeed misguided and that there is, if I may quote scripture, ‘a more excellent way.’”

 

Hirsi Ali’s embrace of Christianity also stems from a personal quest for spiritual solace and meaning in life. Hirsi Ali critiques atheism for leaving a “God hole,” which she believes has led to the rise of irrational ideologies and the erosion of Western values. She argues that Christianity provides a unifying story and foundational texts, similar to those in Islam, that can engage and mobilize people. https://www.christianpost.com/news/ayaan-hirsi-ali-says-shes-now-a-christian.html

Here are books of hers that are worth being aware of:

The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam (2004, 2006)
Infidel: My Life (2007)
Nomad: From Islam to America (2010)
Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now (2015)
Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights (2021)

I have discussed some of these volumes previously, including here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2026/01/02/what-we-should-know-about-islam-and-women/

Niall Ferguson

Born in 1964, the British-American historian has authored a number of very important volumes, including these:

Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (2003)
Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire (2005)
Civilization: The West and the Rest (2011)
Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe (2021)

I have discussed him in various articles over the years, including this one: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2015/11/16/lessons-from-paris/

In a recent piece in First Things, Jonathon Van Maren spoke about the “great Christian reset”. He especially focuses on Ferguson. The piece begins as follows:

If it is true that social shifts begin first among the elites, something may be stirring in the West. While taking questions at an appearance at the MacDonald–Laurier Institute in Vancouver last month, historian Niall Ferguson offered a surprising prediction. “I have a view that we’re probably in the very early phase of a Christian revival, and this reawakening will be an antidote to the great ‘awokening’ that has caused so much harm,” he said. “I very much hope that will be the case. I look around me in England where I’m spending much of my time and think: How many unhappy people … would be so much happier if only they went to church and opened their hearts to Christ? It’s that simple.”

 

Ferguson, with sixteen books to his name, is one of the world’s most influential intellectuals. Twenty years ago, during the heated, raucous New Atheist moment, it would have been difficult to imagine a figure of his stature making such a statement, much less calling it “simple.” Ferguson’s wife Ayaan Hirsi Ali was a prominent atheist back then, but in 2023 she declared in a viral column that she had become a Christian.

 

Hirsi Ali was criticized at the time for making a primarily civilizational argument for conversion in her column; Richard Dawkins even wrote her an open letter informing her that she was not really Christian. In a subsequent conversation with Alex O’Connor and an onstage discussion with Dawkins, she explained that her conversion came on the heels of a devastating personal crisis that included a struggle with alcohol. A visibly chagrined Dawkins took it back.

 

Ferguson and Hirsi Ali were baptized with their two sons in 2023, and he told the Vancouver audience that they are now “practicing, devout Christians, and it has made a profound change to my life.” He describes himself as a “lapsed atheist,” having been raised in a secular home after his parents left the Church of Scotland. But in the “first phase” of his coming to faith, he realized that from a historical perspective, “no society had been successfully organized on the basis of atheism.” As a conservative or, as Dawkins once described himself, a “cultural Christian,” he occasionally patronized churches as a nod to tradition.

 

In his “second phase,” it became personal — although in a 2024 interview with The Australian, Ferguson said that one cannot know for certain that Christ rose from the dead. But he also observed that “Jesus taught us … there were things we couldn’t know…. One can’t reason one’s way to God, at least I don’t think one can. The nature of faith is that one accepts that these apparently far-fetched claims are true. That’s the nature of faith.” https://firstthings.com/the-great-christian-reset/

Biblical Christians might find that last paragraph a bit concerning. There is no Christianity without the resurrection of Christ. Yes, faith is needed, but some things we need a bit of certainty about. As the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19:

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But my purpose in mentioning this couple is twofold. First, to let you know that many people who once wanted nothing to do with Christianity are now making real moves toward it. Second, it is hoped you will join with me in regularly praying for folks like this. They need our prayers as they continue in their spiritual journeys.

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