Ayan Ali Hirst says she is now a Christian

This is massive. Hirst is well known for having rejected Islam and for being an outspoken atheist, she has now written an essay for Unherd explaining the reasons why she is now a professing Christian and attending church. Her reasons boil down to the need to resist evil, coercive forces (essentially jihadism and communism) that are set to take over the de-Christianised West, and the lack of spiritual fulfilment in atheism.

SO, I am not the only one who believes that it will take more than a secular humanist consensus to resist the newly awakened global jihad. I hope that Hirst will grow in faith, love and grace. C S Lewis wrote (I forget where) that we should embrace Christianity, or rather embrace Christ, because Christianity is true and God is good, and that we should beware of embracing Christianity as a means to various ends, even good ends. And yes it is true that societies where there is a high level of authentic Christian belief and people acting on it are better societies. But we must not prostitute faith in order to get things.

Read this on Unherd.

Why I am now a Christian

https://unherd.com/2023/11/why-i-am-now-a-christian/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3

My own feeling is that it is probably too late for the West. People who want the benefits of Christianity without repentance and faith are likely to be disappointed. But these last few weeks in England I have never heard so many people express real anxiety about the future and ask ‘How did it come to this?’

I am hearing people say ‘Glad I’m old, but I fear for my grandchildren/glad I don’t have grandchildren’ I’m 67 with a good memory, and I have never heard people say that kind of thing before.

I think our society ifs failing because we have abandoned Christian morals, faith and shared belief. More to it than that of course, but if you just consider that since 1967 we have done over 10 million abortions and imported 10 million immigrants to do jobs we didn’t have people to do…it rather looks as if we set out to abolish ourselves as a nation, and that’s just the bare logistics.

More on this theme later.

Shame, shame, shame, shame shame.

A Tory candidate for the position of Mayor of London, Daniel Korski, has been forced to pull out of the contest following a denunciation concerning an event alleged to have taken place 10 years ago.

Korski said

Daniel Korski pulls out of race to be Tory candidate for London mayor, blaming ‘false’ groping claim

Daniel Korski has pulled out of the race to be the Tory candidate in the mayoral race in London after a TV producer accused him of groping her a decade ago.

In a statement reported by the Telegraph, Korski said:

>>> I have decided, with a heavy heart, to withdraw from the Conservative mayoral contest.

I categorically deny the allegation against me. Nothing was ever put to me formally ten years ago. Nor seven years ago when the allegation was alluded to. No investigation has ever taken place. I have been clear I would welcome and constructively participate in any investigation.

However, the pressure on my family because of this false and unproven allegation and the inability to get a hearing for my message of ‘The London Dream’ makes it impossible for my campaign to carry on.

I am proud of having run a positive campaign that championed new ideas, technology and talent, and the years I have campaigned for the Conservative party and to make the lives of Londoners better.

I believe strongly that Londoners deserve an uplifting and positive vision for their city. I tried hard to offer that.

The news agenda is becoming a distraction from the race and the Conservative party.

<<<<<

Now I do not know whether or not Korski is guilty of an unwanted touch of a woman’s breast 10 years ago as accused. And nor do people reading this. But an unproveable charge about an unproveable event in the distant past has in fact destroyed his political career beyond hope of recovery. He might have done it, but he denies it, she can’t prove it, and the timing looks like a targeted political career assassination.

Alan Price had a song about it many years ago, called ‘Shame’. The chorus goes ‘It doesn’t bother anybody no more, life has closed the door, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame.’

If someone is accused of doing something wrong, there ought to be due process. But as far as ancient ‘She said, he said’ sexual allegations which by their nature can never be proved or disproved, it is hard to see how any investigation can be reliable so long after the alleged event. As things seem to stand, if you are a conservative politician (it doesn’t seem to work the other way), you are innocent until you are accused-after that, you are finished. Daniel Korski ain’t anybody no more, life has closed the door, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame.

We live in a highly oversexualised hook up culture where sex with many partners over a lifetime, regardless of marriage vows, has become normalised. I don’t approve, but millions of us live like this all the time. Liberal politician Nick Clegg admitted to sex with some 30 women, and it didn’t do his career any harm. And unless he had a success rate of 100%, which I’d have thought unlikely, he must have made sexual approaches to some women who didn’t want them. So should an accusation of making an unwanted sexual advance to a woman (short of an assault) disqualify a man from being considered for public office even if it is true? And should there be some kind of statute of limitations, where you have, say, 2 years to report the alleged offence or else let it go? (I’m talking adults here obviously not children). Again, I don’t approve, but are we talking about a permanent career-disqualifying event here? Only one person as far as I know has ever lived a perfect life, and they crucified him, so if we are going to have politicians at all we will have to have imperfect ones.

And is making an unwanted sexual advance a worse disqualification that having held or maybe still holding abhorrent political views which have been responsible for mass murder during the memory of people still alive today? Keir Starmer, for example, is alleged by former Trotskyite Peter Hitchens to have been a member of a radical communist organisation (as were many recent Labour MPs and ministers including Mandelson and Blair) and despite appearances to the contrary, has not changed his radical views. Should that disqualify him from being considered for high office? I would certainly never vote for anyone who had been a member of a communist organisation unless they had distanced themselves from it and denounced that tyrannical, failed, murderous, lying political philosophy. There are many things about our rulers and potential rulers that we don’t know about that might influence us if we knew them. So, those who are expert liars or who are favoured by news agencies like the BBC (who have at least potentially the power to decide which stories are reported prominently and which stories are killed) will have an advantage.

Are we going to put a gun in the hand of every woman that can assassinate at one shot the political career and reputation of any and every conservative politician on either side of the Atlantic? If so, we will be radically altering the pool of people who are able and willing to stand for public office. And we will also be handing enormous power to the main stream media who decide which stories get reported and which don’t.

This bothers me very much.