This is a list of notable converts to Christianity who were not theists before their conversion.[a] All names should be sourced and the source should indicate they had not been a theist, not merely non-churchgoing, before conversion.
 |
Converted to Anglicanism or Episcopalianism
- Joy Davidman – poet and wife of C. S. Lewis[1]
- Tamsin Greig – British actress raised as an atheist; converted at 30[2]
- Nicky Gumbel – Anglican priest known for the Alpha course; from atheism[3]
- Peter Hitchens – journalist who went from Trotskyism to Traditionalist conservatism; brother of the anti-theist and Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens[4][5]
- C. E. M. Joad – English philosopher whose arguing against Christianity, from an agnostic perspective, earned him criticism from T. S. Eliot;[6] turned toward religion later, writing The Recovery of Belief a year before he died and returning to Christianity[7]
- C. S. Lewis – Oxford professor and writer; well known for The Chronicles of Narnia series, and for his apologetic Mere Christianity[8]
- Alister McGrath – biochemist and Christian theologian' founder of "scientific theology" and critic of Richard Dawkins in his book Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life[9]
- Enoch Powell – Conservative Party (UK) member who converted to Anglicanism[10]
- Michael Reiss – British bioethicist, educator, journalist, and Anglican priest; agnostic/secular upbringing[11]
- Dame Cicely Saunders – Templeton Prize and Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize-winning nurse known for palliative care; converted to Christianity as a young woman[12]
- Fay Weldon – British novelist and feminist[13]
Converted to Catholicism
- Mortimer J. Adler – American philosopher, educator, and popular author; converted to Catholicism from agnosticism, after decades of interest in Thomism[14][15]
- G. E. M. Anscombe – analytic philosopher, Thomist, literary executor for Ludwig Wittgenstein, and author of "Modern Moral Philosophy"; converted to Catholicism as a result of her extensive reading[16]
- Benedict Ashley – raised humanist; former Communist; became a noted theologian associated with River Forest Thomism[17][18]
- Maurice Baring – English author who converted in his thirties[19]
- Mark Bauerlein – English professor at Emory University and the author of 2008 book The Dumbest Generation, which won at the Nautilus Book Awards[20][21]
- Léon Bloy – French author who led to several notable conversions and was himself a convert from agnosticism[22][23]
- Paul Bourget – French author who became agnostic and positivist at 15, but returned to Catholicism at 35[24]
- Alexis Carrel – French surgeon and biologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912[25]
- Salvador Dalí, Spanish painter, raised atheist by his father but later converted to Catholicism
- Alfred Döblin, German novelist, essayist and doctor, a former convert from Judaism to atheism
- Avery Dulles – Jesuit priest, theologian, and cardinal in the Catholic Church; was raised Presbyterian, but was an agnostic before his conversion to Catholic Christianity[26][27]
- Alice Thomas Ellis – born Anna Haycraft, raised in Auguste Comte's atheistic "church of humanity", but became a conservative Catholic in adulthood known as Alice Thomas Ellis[28]
- Edward Feser – Christian philosopher and author, wrote The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism[29][30]
- André Frossard – French journalist and essayist[31][32]
- Maggie Gallagher – conservative activist and a founder of the National Organization for Marriage[33]
- Eugene D. Genovese – historian who went from Stalinist to Catholicism[34]
- Bill Hayden – The 21st Governor-General of Australia. In 1996 he was recognised as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies.[35] Baptized September 2018.[36]
- Mary Karr – author of The Liars' Club; Guggenheim Fellow; once described herself as an "undiluted agnostic", but converted to a self-acknowledged "Cafeteria Catholicism" who embraces Pro-Choice views, amongst others[37][38]
- Ignace Lepp – French psychiatrist whose parents were freethinkers and who joined the Communist party at age fifteen; broke with the party in 1937 and eventually became a Catholic priest[39]
- Leah Libresco – popular (former) atheist blogger; her search for a foundation for her sense of morality led her to Christianity; she continues her blog under a new name, Unequally Yoked.[40] Her blog readership has increased significantly since her conversion.[41]
- Arnold Lunn – skier, mountaineer, and writer; as an agnostic he wrote Roman Converts, which took a critical view of Catholicism and the converts to it; later converted to Catholicism due to debating with converts, and became an apologist for the faith, although he retained a few criticisms of it[42]
- Gabriel Marcel – leading Christian existentialist; his upbringing was agnostic[43]
- Claude McKay – bisexual Jamaican poet who went from Communist-leaning atheist to an active Catholic Christian after a stroke[44][45]
- Vittorio Messori – Italian journalist and writer called the "most translated Catholic writer in the world" by Sandro Magister; before his conversion in 1964 he had a "perspective as a secularist and agnostic"[46][47][48]
- Czesław Miłosz – poet, prose writer, translator and diplomat; was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and in 1980 the Nobel Prize in Literature[49]
- Malcolm Muggeridge – British journalist and author who went from agnosticism to the Catholic Church[50][51]
- Bernard Nathanson – medical doctor who was a founding member of NARAL, later becoming an anti-abortion activist[52]
- Fulton Oursler – writer who was raised Baptist, but spent decades as an agnostic before converting; The Greatest Story Ever Told is based on one of his works[53][54]
- Giovanni Papini – went from pragmatic atheism to Catholicism, also a fascist[55]
- Joseph Pearce – anti-Catholic and agnostic British National Front member who became a devoted Catholic writer with a series on EWTN[56][57]
- Charles Péguy – French poet, essayist, and editor; went from agnostic humanist to a pro-Republic Catholic[58]
- Sally Read – Eric Gregory Award-winning poet who converted to Catholicism[59]
- E. F. Schumacher – economic thinker known for Small Is Beautiful; his A Guide for the Perplexed criticizes what he termed "materialistic scientism"; went from atheism to Buddhism to Catholicism[60][61]
- Peter Steele – lead singer of Type O Negative[62]
- Edith Stein – Phenomenologist philosopher who converted to Catholicism and became a Discalced Carmelite nun; declared a saint by John Paul II[63]
- John Lawson Stoddard – divinity student who became an agnostic and "scientific humanist;" later he converted to Catholicism; his son Lothrop Stoddard remained agnostic and would be significant to scientific racism[64]
- R. J. Stove – raised atheist, converted to Catholicism[65]
- Allen Tate – American poet, essayist and social commentator; Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress[66]
- Victor Turner – A British cultural anthropologist best known for his work on symbols, rituals and rites of passage.[67]
- Sigrid Undset – Norwegian Nobel laureate who converted to Catholicism from agnosticism[68]
- J. D. Vance – The writer of Hillbilly Elegy.[69]
- Evelyn Waugh – British novelist who converted to Catholicism from agnosticism[70]
- John C. Wright – science fiction author who went from atheist to Catholic;[71] Chapter 1 of the book Atheist to Catholic: 11 Stories of Conversion, edited by Rebecca Vitz Cherico, is by him[72]
Converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity
- Emir Kusturica – filmmaker, actor, and musician; although of Muslim ancestry, his father was atheist;[73] took the name "Nemanja" on conversion in 2005[74]
- Seraphim Rose – Hieromonk and religious writer; in early adulthood he considered non-theist ideas of God and the Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche that God is dead; became Russian Orthodox in 1962[75][76]
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – Nobel Prize-winning dissident author who converted to Russian Orthodoxy[77]
Converted to Protestantism
- Steve Beren – former member of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party who became a Christian conservative politician[78]
- Kirk Cameron – actor noted for his role in Growing Pains[79][80][81]
- Francis Collins – physician-geneticist, noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes; director of the National Human Genome Research Institute; former atheist[82]
- Bo Giertz – Swedish Confessional Lutheran Bishop, theologian, and writer[83]
- Simon Greenleaf – one of the main founders of Harvard Law School[84][85]
- Keir Hardie – raised atheist and became a Christian Socialist[86][87]
- Paul Jones – musician, of Manfred Mann; previously atheist; in 1967 he argued with Cliff Richard about religion on a TV show[88][89]
- Kang Kek Iew (also known as Comrade Duch) – Cambodian director of Phnom Penh's infamous Tuol Sleng detention center[90]
- Akiane Kramarik (and family) – American poet and child prodigy[91][92]
- Jonny Lang – blues and rock singer who professed to once "hating" Christianity, before later claiming to have a supernatural encounter with Jesus Christ which led to his conversion[93]
- Chai Ling – Chinese student leader of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989; converted to evangelical Christianity in 2009[94][95]
- Josh McDowell – evangelist and Christian apologist.[96]
- John Warwick Montgomery – renowned Christian apologist, Lutheran theologian, and barrister; as a philosophy major in college, he investigated the claims of Christianity "to preserve intellectual integrity" and converted[97]
- William J. Murray – author and son of atheist activist Madalyn Murray O'Hair[98]
- Marvin Olasky – former Marxist turned Christian conservative; previously edited the Christian World magazine[99][100]
- George R. Price – geneticist who became an Evangelical Christian and wrote about the New Testament; later he began to engage less in evangelism and switched from religious writing to working with the homeless[101][102]
- Mira Sorvino – Academy Award-winning actress who had been on secular humanist lists[103][104]
- Lee Strobel – former avowed atheist and journalist for the Chicago Tribune; was converted by his own journalistic research intended to test the veracity of scriptural claims concerning Jesus; author of such apologetic books as The Case for Faith and The Case for Christ[105][106]
- Lacey Sturm – musician, former vocalist and lyricist for alternative metal band Flyleaf[107]
- J. Warner Wallace – American homicide detective[108]
Converted to the Quaker faith
- Whittaker Chambers – former Communist turned conservative writer[109][110]
- Gerald Priestland – news correspondent who discusses having once been the "school atheist" in Something Understood: An Autobiography; became a Quaker after an emotional breakdown[111]
Unspecified or other
- Ayaan Hirsi Ali – activist and author (former Muslim-turned-atheist)[112]
- Peter Baltes – former heavy metal musician, member of Accept[113][114]
- Anders Borg – Sweden's former Minister for Finance[115]
- Julie Burchill – British journalist and feminist[116]
- Nicole Cliffe – writer and journalist who co-founded The Toast[117][118]
- Bruce Cockburn – Canadian folk/rock guitarist and singer/songwriter (former agnostic)[119]
- Karl Dallas – British music journalist, author and political activist[120]
- Larry Darby – former Holocaust denier and former member of the American Atheists[121][122]
- Robert Davidson – Australian composer and bassist. Atheist until the age of 48, when a self-described "revelation of divine love" led him to describe himself as an "ex atheist".[123]
- Terry A. Davis – American computer programmer who created and designed an entire operating system, TempleOS, by himself. Davis grew up Catholic and was an atheist before experiencing a self-described "revelation". He described the experience as seeming "a lot like mental illness ... I felt guilty for being such a technology-advocate atheist ... It would sound polite if you said I scared myself thinking about quantum computers."[124]
- Andrew Klavan – Jewish-American writer who went from atheist to agnostic to Christian.[125][126]
- Nina Karin Monsen – Norwegian moral philosopher and author who grew up in a humanist family, but later converted to Christianity through philosophic thinking[127]
- Rosalind Picard – director of the Affective computing Research Group at the MIT Media Lab; raised atheist, but converted to Christianity in her teens[128]
- Joseph Franklin Rutherford – American lawyer, became an atheist in c. 1891, baptized as Bible Student in 1906, later Watch Tower Society president[129]
- Allan Sandage – prolific astronomer; converted to Christianity later in his life, stating, "I could not live a life full of cynicism. I chose to believe, and a peace of mind came over me."[130]
- Fred Severud – American structural engineer and founder of Severud Associates[131]
- Rodney Stark – a formerly agnostic sociologist of religion.[132]
- František Vyskočil – Czech neuroscientist[133]
- A. N. Wilson – biographer and novelist who entered the theological St Stephen's House, Oxford before proclaiming himself an atheist and writing against religion; announced his return to Christianity in 2009[134]
Notes
- See "Nontheism" for specifics of what encompasses nontheism.
References
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.