Unlike most of her fellow New Atheists, Ali rarely aimed her criticisms at religions other than Islam. Her public conversion to Christianity, announced in an essay in UnHerd titled “Why I Am Now a Christian,” is therefore not entirely shocking, especially since the bulk of her essay focuses on the political instrumentality of Christianity over its truth claims.
In Ali’s view, Western civilization is under attack by existential threats at home and abroad: global Islamic terrorism, the geopolitical power of China and Russia, and the spread of “woke ideology.” Secular tools are insufficient to combat these threats. The only credible defense is “our desire to uphold the legacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition,” a tradition which consists of “an elaborate set of ideas and institutions designed to safeguard human life, freedom, and dignity.” These ideas and institutions are, for Ali, unprecedented in human history—a defining achievement and bequest of Western civilization.
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