List of converts to Christianity from nontheism

See also: List of former atheists and agnostics

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
• David Wood (Christian apologist)^[108] - former sociopathic atheist convicted for malicious wounding; process of conversion began by arguing with a Christian friend in prison; head of the Acts17Apologetics ministry.

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]
• Larry Sanger – American Internet project developer and philosopher who co-founded Wikipedia along with Jimmy Wales.^{[131][132][133]}
• Fred Severud – American structural engineer and founder of Severud Associates^[134]
• Rodney Stark – a formerly agnostic sociologist of religion.^[135]
• František Vyskočil – Czech neuroscientist^[136]
• 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^[137]
• Ryan Trahan – American YouTuber. Trahan came to faith through his then girlfriend, and now wife, Haley Pham.^[138][139]

Notes

1. See "Nontheism" for specifics of what encompasses nontheism.