Musings of a Recovering Lutheran: Interview: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, 

Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?

Then said I, Here am I; send me.

Isaiah 6:8 (KJV)

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Interview: Ayaan Hirsi Ali

This is an interesting interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali. But what I found particularly fascinating was her call for Christians to try to convert Muslims living in the West:

Next to every mosque, build a Christian centre, an enlightenment centre, a feminist centre. There are tons of websites, financed with Saudi money, promoting Wahabism. We need to set up our own websites—Christian, feminist, humanist—trying to target the same people, saying, we have an alternative moral framework to Islam. We have better ideas.


Hirsi Ali is a self-professed atheist, so it is odd that she would be calling for Christians to proselytize to Muslims. She believes that the West is at war with Islam, and that non-Muslims need to fight Islamic ideas with other ideas.

There is some truth to what she says. Contrary to what many multiculturalists would like to believe, Islam is a imperialistic religion that is radically intolerant of opposing points of view. Isolated cases aside, Muslims living in predominantly Christian nations do not face (even remotely) the same level of persecution and abuse that Christians face living in predominantly Muslim countries. Some sort of opposition can and should be mounted.

But converting Muslims to escape the excesses of the Islamic faith is a barren goal. Christians should proselytize to Muslims (and non-Muslims) because everyone need to hear the Gospel and decide for themselves about Jesus.