List of converts to Christianity from nontheism

This is a list of notable converts to Christianity who were not theists before their conversion. See Nontheism for specifics of what encompasses nontheism. All names should be sourced and the source should indicate they had not been a theist, not merely non-churchgoing, before conversion.

See also List of former atheists and agnostics

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; estranged brother of the late outspoken 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]
• 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]
• Dawn Eden Goldstein – rock journalist of Jewish ethnicity; went from an agnostic to a Catholic, who was particularly concerned with the moral values of chastity^[35][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]
• 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^[40]
• Gabriel Marcel – leading Christian existentialist; his upbringing was agnostic^[41]
• Claude McKay – bisexual Jamaican poet who went from Communist-leaning atheist to an active Catholic Christian after a stroke^[42][43]
• 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"^[44][45][46]
• Czesław Miłosz – poet, prose writer, translator and diplomat; was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and in 1980 the Nobel Prize in Literature^[47]
• Malcolm Muggeridge – British journalist and author who went from agnosticism to the Catholic Church^[48][49]
• Bernard Nathanson – medical doctor who was a founding member of NARAL, later becoming a pro-life proponent^[50]
• 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^[51][52]
• Giovanni Papini – went from pragmatic atheism to Catholicism, also a Fascist^[53]
• Joseph Pearce – anti-Catholic and agnostic British National Front member who became a devoted Catholic writer with a series on EWTN^[54][55]
• Charles Péguy – French poet, essayist, and editor; went from agnostic humanist to a pro-Republic Catholic^[56]
• Sally Read – Eric Gregory Award-winning poet who converted to Catholicism^[57]
• 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^[58][59]
• Peter Steele – lead singer of Type O Negative^[60]
• Edith Stein – Phenomenologist philosopher who converted to Catholicism and became a Discalced Carmelite nun; declared a saint by John Paul II^[61]
• 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^[62]
• R. J. Stove – raised atheist, converted to Catholicism^[63]
• Allen Tate – American poet, essayist and social commentator; Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress^[64]
• Victor Turner – A British cultural anthropologist best known for his work on symbols, rituals and rites of passage.^[65]
• Sigrid Undset – Norwegian Nobel laureate who converted to Catholicism from agnosticism^[66]
• Evelyn Waugh – British novelist who converted to Catholicism from agnosticism^[67]
• John C. Wright – science fiction author who went from atheist to Catholic;^[68] Chapter 1 of the book "Atheist to Catholic: 11 Stories of Conversion", edited by Rebecca Vitz Cherico, is by him^[69]

Converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity

• Emir Kusturica – filmmaker, actor, and musician; although of Muslim ancestry, his father was atheist;^[70] took the name "Nemanja" on conversion in 2005^[71]
• 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^[72][73]
• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – Nobel Prize-winning dissident author who converted to Russian Orthodoxy^[74]

Converted to Protestantism

• Steve Beren – former member of the Socialist Workers Party (United States) who became a Christian conservative politician^[75]
• Kirk Cameron – actor noted for his role in Growing Pains^[76][77][78]
• Francis Collins – physician-geneticist, noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes; director of the National Human Genome Research Institute; former atheist^[79]
• Bo Giertz – Swedish Confessional Lutheran Bishop, theologian, and writer^[80]
• Simon Greenleaf – one of the main founders of Harvard Law School^[81][82]
• Keir Hardie – raised atheist and became a Christian Socialist^[83][84]
• Paul Jones – musician, of Manfred Mann; previously atheist; in 1967 he argued with Cliff Richard about religion on a TV show^[85][86]
• Kang Kek Iew (also known as Comrade Duch) – Cambodian director of Phnom Penh's infamous Tuol Sleng detention center^[87]
• Akiane Kramarik (and family) – American poet and child prodigy raised as an atheist and converted to Christianity^[88][89]
• 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^[90]
• Chai Ling – Chinese student leader of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989; converted to evangelical Christianity in 2009^[91][92]
• 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^[93]
• William J. Murray  – author and son of atheist activist Madalyn Murray O'Hair^[94]
• Marvin Olasky – former Marxist turned Christian conservative; edits the Christian World magazine^[95][96]
• George R. Price – geneticist who became an Evangelical Christian and wrote about the New Testament; later he moderated his evangelistic tendencies and switched from religious writing to working with the homeless^[97][98]
• Mira Sorvino – Academy Award-winning actress who had been on Humanist lists^[99][100]
• 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^[101][102]
• Lacey Sturm – musician, former vocalist and lyricist for alternative metal band Flyleaf^[103]

Converts to the Quaker faith

• Whittaker Chambers – former Communist turned conservative writer^[104][105]
• Gerald Priestland – news correspondent who discusses having once been the "school atheist" in Something Understood: An Autobiography; became a Quaker after an emotional breakdown^[106]

Unspecified or other

• Peter Baltes – former heavy metal musician, member of Accept^[107][108]
• Anders Borg  – Sweden's Minister for Finance^[109]
• Julie Burchill – British journalist and feminist^[110]
• Nicole Cliffe – writer and journalist who co-founded The Toast^[111][112]
• Jeffery Dahmer – serial killer and convict who was baptized by Churches of Christ minister Roy Ratcliff^[113]
• Bruce Cockburn – Canadian folk/rock guitarist and singer/songwriter (former agnostic)^[114]
• Karl Dallas – British music journalist, author and political activist^[115]
• Larry Darby – former Holocaust denier and former member of the American Atheists^[116][117]
• Nina Karin Monsen – Norwegian moral philosopher and author who grew up in a humanist family, but later converted to Christianity through philosophic thinking^[118]
• Rosalind Picard – Director of the Affective computing Research Group at the MIT Media Lab; raised atheist, but converted to Christianity in her teens^[119]
• 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."^[120]
• 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^[121]

References