by
Damien F. Mackey
“Dawkins was shocked that his former atheist ally [Ayaan Hirsi Ali] had switched. He is a cultural Christian. He likes the fruit of the Gospel,
but he doesn’t like the root of the Gospel. …”.
Tony Davenport
Introduction
Tony Davenport has called this year of 2024:
https://vision.org.au/news/year-of-celebrity-conversions/
Year Of ‘Celebrity’ Conversions
And he writes:
Despite the increasingly anti-Christian culture we live in, it seems more and more celebrities from the entertainment, intellectual and business world are having the courage to speak up about how they are embracing the faith and acknowledge that they are not celebrities in the eyes of Jesus, that they are just like everyone else.
Steven McAlpine who’s an award-winning Christian author, commentator, pastor and national consultant for churches and Christian schools, has been investigating the phenomenon.
He told Vision Radio’s 20Twenty program: “It’s certainly not a time to keep your head up if you are Christian. You would lose a lot of followers I would have thought if you were a celebrity at the moment. But at the same time, there’s a tension in our culture that has seen [actor and comedian] Russell Brand, in particular, over the past 3 or 4 years, lean into spirituality.
“It’s very easy to use the ‘God’ word. But Russell Brand’s become more and more focused and eventually got baptised in the River Thames [by adventurer Bear Grylls] about 4 or 5 months ago. And on every Tik Tok, Instagram or YouTube video, he’s talking about something from the Scriptures as none of those other things that he was pursuing seemed to satisfy him. It went from an intellectual curiosity to: I need something in myself as I look at the way the world is, but also as I look at how I am.
And that’s the same with Ayaan Hirsi Ali.”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a former figurehead of the New Atheism movement, a global activist, social commentator, women’s rights advocate, author, podcaster and fierce critic of Islam. The Somalia-born Dutch American intellectual is a former Netherlands MP and a researcher for the Hoover Institution at Stanford University as well as the American Enterprise Institute. Her conversion is remarkable as she publicly expressed regret for her previous critiques of Christianity, openly recanting her past assertions that all religions, including Christianity, were equally damaging.
Stephen McAlpine told Vision Radio: “There’s a deep interest in cultural Christianity at the moment, that the Christian framework gave the West something that we’re now losing.
And even if they’re not becoming Christian, a lot of other intellectuals particularly, are going: There’s something in the framework that we would not want to give out too easily, but people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Russell Brand have gone the whole hog, I think.”
“Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote an article last year which was called Why I am Now a Christian. And it blew categories out of the water. She said that she’d moved to Christian frameworks because of the cultural stuff as she read history, but she stopped and looked and said it’s something about her that needed to change. [Fellow New Atheism champion] Richard Dawkins was so upset about this that they had a public debate and at the end of the conversation he said: I came here today Ayaan to convince you that you’re not a Christian. Now, I see that you are a Christian and Christianity is stupid. It makes no sense.”
“Dawkins was shocked that his former atheist ally had switched. He is a cultural Christian. He likes the fruit of the Gospel, but he doesn’t like the root of the Gospel. …”.
[End of quote]
It’s happening in Australia as well.
The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, whose three great loves in life are, he has said, the Labor Party, the South Sydney Rabbitohs, and the Catholic Church, has been seen slipping off to Mass lately.
‘Albo’, who has forever been telling us how he grew up in public housing in inner city Sydney, has just bought himself a $4.3 million dollar mansion, leading to speculation that he will soon be seeking new pastures. Tent cities for the homeless have sprung up.
And another Socialist and Labor man of long-standing, journalist and TV show host, Joe Hildebrand, now writes frequently about Jesus, including an article yesterday in The Saturday Telegraph (Nov. 16, 2024): “Original superstar found path to peace”.
Without judging the intentions or motives of any of these celebs, one must wonder to what extent do they realise who Jesus really is.
He himself was at pains to know, asking this loaded I AM question (Mark 8:27):
‘WHO DO PEOPLE SAY THAT I AM?’
No one seemed to know for sure (v. 28):
“And they told him, ‘John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets’.”
Finally, Peter came to the rescue (v. 29):
“And he asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’
Peter answered him, ‘You are the Christ’.”
Joe Hildebrand, an exuberant and entertaining writer, will give his own opinion about Jesus Christ, as we shall be reading. In the case of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, on the other hand, critics have noted that she rarely seems to mention Jesus Christ.
To give some examples of this, taken from:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/17sw1z1/ayaan_hirsi_ali_why_i_am_now_a_christian/
As a Christian, I am very glad for Ms. Ali to become a Christian herself.
As a reader analyzing her essay however, she seems to be making a cultural/ political choice. It’s clear why she rejects the Islam with which she was raised. She is less clear about the “God hole” and emptiness of atheism and secularism as opposed to “Western culture” being under threat. What I don’t see is any mention of Jesus or the Gospel. Christianity isn’t (or shouldn’t be used as) a cultural/political solution to Islam or secularism, it is (or should be) a response to Jesus and how he reconciled us wayward humans to God. ….
The subtitle of the article explains all "Atheism can't equip us for civilisational war". Hirsi Ali doesn't seem to believe in the resurrection, the Trinity or the need for salvation in Jesus. In fact she seems to be returning to the Islam of her youth minus the nasty bits. What she's doing isn't becoming a Christian, she's joining the Christian team because she thinks it's more capable of fighting against Islam. ….
…. She doesn't even mention Jesus once in that long essay for why she converted. Instead, she presents it all as wanting to join the winning team in a civilizational conflict because she married a far right ultranationalist and chauvenist [sic] who is literally a Scottish lord. ….
Whatever about all that, could one confidently follow Hildebrand’s presumably well-intentioned version of Jesus as the Saviour upon whom one ought to base one’s life?
Jesus Christ as Superstar
Joe Hildebrand has written glowingly of Jesus Christ Superstar in The Sat. Telegraph:
I was going to write about so many things this Saturday, but then I went to the opening night of Jesus Christ Superstar and now I can’t think about anything else.
First, let’s just get the housekeeping out of the way - it’s a ball-tearing banger of a show. Cancel your plans, abandon your family and get on it. That is literally what Jesus would have wanted.
We don’t talk about religion much in Australia. We do it, but we don’t talk about it.
Even when great clashes emerge - such as the tragically recurrent self-destruction of Israel and Palestine - we disguise religion as politics, as though they are the same thing.
They are not, and that is why we fail. And so countless UN resolutions propose endless and meaningless diplomatic and technocratic pathways to peace that have no end or meaning to those who are standing in the way of it.
Meanwhile, there is the sorrowful loneliness of the poor old folk in the middle who will get obliterated by the bombs of both sides as they wonder in their final moments why we can’t all just get along.
We can’t. As long as there is fanaticism and ideology and fundamentalism, we just can’t. Not to be too much of a Negative Nancy about it, but yes, everyone will die.
This is hardly hysteria - on the contrary, it is literally happening right now. The only question is why and how to stop it.
For Joe Hildebrand, Jesus can point out for us the path to peace.
For the answer, let’s turn to Jesus.
Both in the Bible and in the mountains of historiography about the most famous man on Earth, there is a mass of penetrating insights, confounding contradictions and soul-turning moments of inspiration.
The reason for all of this is Jesus himself. He was notoriously oblique.
He spoke in parables instead of dictates. He was a pragmatist in the face of radicals.
And in the octane-fuelled world of Roman-occupied Jerusalem, he preached peace instead of revolution - perhaps upsetting Judas.
Just pay your taxes to Caesar, he said. It hardly mattered anyway because the kingdom of God was at hand. As it turned out, the kingdom would be a long time coming.
While most of what Joe Hildebrand has written here does not concern me overmuch, and I would agree with some of it, what follows this suggests a Jesus, who - while apparently impressing our journalist - strikes me as being one who did not know if he was Arthur or Martha – or, to put it more in context, did not know if he were Coming of Going.
Joe Hildebrand continues:
It is clear from the New Testament alone that Jesus expected a huge and imminent metaphysical deliverance that failed to materialise and that scared and confused early Christians scrambled to make sense of this.
But here is the rub. Despite his repeated predictions that the new kingdom was at hand, Jesus constantly demanded that his followers give their money to the poor and embrace the socially despised; that they love their neighbours as themselves and do unto others as they would have done unto them; that they turn the other cheek in times of violence and - in times of judgment - they not commit the ultimate hypocrisy by casting the first stone.
This to me is the most beautiful paradox of Christianity. It at once says that nothing matters in this life, only the next, and at the same time says we must care for people in the here and now. ….
Joe Hildebrand will continue on to make some other worthwhile observations about the world and peace for the remainder of his article.
It is just that section: “It is clear from the New Testament alone that Jesus expected a huge and imminent metaphysical deliverance that failed to materialise and that scared and confused early Christians scrambled to make sense of this”, that really worries me.
It suggests that Jesus and his followers had not grasped in what times they were living.
For what follows, let us take Mark 13, because this was the version that was read at Mass a day or two ago (today being the 19th November, 2024).
Note that Jesus says at the end of this section that “all of these things”, these extraordinary things listed in the text, will have occurred before the end of the present generation, the generation that He was then physically addressing.
This is a point that Joe Hildebrand has, in his article, completely missed and misunderstood. And I suspect that most of us today have, too.
As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!’
‘Do you see all these great buildings?’ replied Jesus. ‘Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down’.
As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked him privately, ‘Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?’
Jesus said to them: ‘Watch out that no one deceives you. Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.
‘You must be on your guard. You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues. On account of me you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them. And the Gospel must first be preached to all nations. Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.
‘Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. Everyone will hate you because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.
‘When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the housetop go down or enter the house to take anything out. Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that this will not take place in winter, because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now—and never to be equaled again.
‘If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them. At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.
‘But in those days, following that distress,
“the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken”.
‘At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.
‘Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away’.
For a very clear explanation of what Jesus was talking about here, see the excellent commentary on it of Justin (as he simply calls himself) as presented in my recent article:
Jesus in his Olivet Discourse was talking to his present generation
(7) Jesus in his Olivet Discourse was talking to his present generation | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
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