For a number of reasons, it’s rather easy to feel despair at this moment.
From whatever you’re dealing with personally, to the bloody war instigated by Hamas terrorists in the Middle East, to the general state of this country … it’s easy.
That’s why it’s so important to periodically be reminded that God provides genuine good in this seemingly bleak world.
A stark and beautifully written reminder of that came from Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a columnist for British news site UnHerd and a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, as well as an author and podcaster, who described her journey from self-described “atheist” to a woman of faith in an essay for UnHerd. (She was also an observing Muslim at one point.)
In a piece titled “Why I am now a Christian,” Ali offered her thesis right off the bat: “Atheism can’t equip us for civilizational war.”
Ali argues that so much of what ails the world currently — all of those potential points of despair — are being addressed only on a superficial level.
“We endeavour to fend off these threats with modern, secular tools: military, economic, diplomatic and technological efforts to defeat, bribe, persuade, appease or surveil,” Ali wrote. “And yet, with every round of conflict, we find ourselves losing ground.
“We are either running out of money, with our national debt in the tens of trillions of dollars, or we are losing our lead in the technological race with China.”
Those are fair, if alarming, points.