Talk:List of converts to Christianity from nontheism
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From Former Atheists article[edit]
- Mortimer J. Adler – Philosopher who co-founded Great Books of the Western World. Agnostic convert to the Catholic Church.[1][2]
- Steve Beren – Former member of the Socialist Workers Party (United States) who became a Protestant conservative politician.[3]
- Anders Borg – Sweden's Minister for Finance.[4]
- Paul Bourget – French author who became agnostic and positivist at 15, but returned to Catholicism at 35.[5]
- Ferdinand Brunetière – Rationalist and freethinking writer who became a Catholic.[6][7]
- Julie Burchill – British journalist and feminist.[8]
- Kirk Cameron – An American actor best-known for his role as Mike Seaver on the television situation comedy, Growing Pains, as well as several other television and film appearances as a child actor. Today he is a Protestant Evangelical. Recently, he portrayed the lead roles in the Left Behind film series and in the 2008 drama film, Fireproof.[9]
- Whittaker Chambers – Former Communist turned conservative writer.[10][11]
- Francis Collins – Geneticist who was an atheist until age 27, but then converted to Christianity.[12]
- Larry Darby – Holocaust denier and former member of the American Atheists.[13][14]
- Joy Davidman – Poet and wife of C. S. Lewis.[15]
- Avery Dulles – A Jesuit priest, theologian, and cardinal in the Catholic Church. He was raised Presbyterian, but was an agnostic before his conversion to Catholic Christianity.[16][17]
- Dawn Eden – Rock journalist of Jewish ethnicity who went from an agnostic to a Catholic writer, who was particularly concerned with the moral values of chastity.[18][19]
- André Frossard – French journalist who was atheist, but converted to the Catholic Church in 1935.[20]
- Maggie Gallagher – Conservative activist and a founder of the National Organization for Marriage.[21]
- Eugene D. Genovese – Historian who went from Stalinist to conservative theist.[22]
- Bo Giertz – Atheistic in youth he became a Lutheran bishop and writer.[23]
- Tamsin Greig – British actress.[24]
- Nicky Gumbel – Raised atheist and became an Anglican. He is known for his work with the Alpha course.[25]
- Keir Hardie – Raised atheist and became a Christian Socialist.[26]
- Anna Haycraft – Raised as a member of Britain's Comtist and atheistic "Church of Humanity", but became a conservative Catholic Christian in adulthood.[27]
- Ammon Hennacy – Initially an atheist labor activist he became a religious pacifist in the Atlanta Penitentiary.[28]
- Peter Hitchens – Journalist who went from Trotskyism to Traditionalist conservatism, and estranged brother of outspoken anti-theist and Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens.[29][30]
- Paul Jones – Musician, of Manfred Mann. Previously atheist and in 1967 he argued with Cliff Richard about religion on a TV show.[31][32]
- Mary Karr – Memoirist and poet who switched from agnosticism to Catholicism in 1996.[33]
- Ignace Lepp – French psychiatrist whose parents were freethinkers and who joined the Communist party at age fifteen. He broke with the party in 1937 and became a Catholic priest.[34]
- Félix Leseur – Doctor turned Catholic priest. His conversion, in part, came by efforts of his wife who was declared a Servant of God by the Catholic Church.[35]
- C. S. Lewis – Writer who became an atheist as a young man, later paradoxically describing himself as being "very angry with God for not existing". He later returned to Anglicanism and wrote many books about his faith.[36]
- Arnold Lunn – A skier, mountaineer, and writer. As an agnostic he wrote Roman Converts, which took a critical view of Catholicism and the converts to it. He later converted to Catholicism due to debating with converts, and became an apologist for the faith, although he retained a few criticisms of the faith.[37]
- Gabriel Marcel – A leading Christian existentialist. His upbringing was agnostic.[38]
- Alister McGrath – Biochemist and Christian theologian. Founder of 'Scientific theology' and critic of Richard Dawkins in books like Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life and The Dawkins Delusion?[39][40]
- Claude McKay – Bisexual Jamaican poet who went from Communist atheist to a devout Catholic Christian.[41]
- Czesław Miłosz – Poet who won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature.[42]
- Nina Karin Monsen – A Norwegian moral philosopher and author who grew up in a humanist family, but later convert to Christianity through philosophic thinking.[43]
- Malcolm Muggeridge – British journalist and author who went from agnosticism to the Catholic Church.[44][45]
- William J. Murray – Son of Madalyn Murray O'Hair who became a Born again preacher.[46]
- Bernard Nathanson – A founder of NARAL Pro-Choice America who dubbed himself a "Jewish atheist", but later became a Pro-life activist within the Catholic Church.[47]
- Marvin Olasky – Former Marxist turned Christian conservative, he edits the Christian World Magazine.[48][49]
- Giovanni Papini – He went from pragmatic atheism to Catholicism, also a Fascist.[50][51]
- Joseph Pearce – An anti-Catholic and agnostic British National Front member who became a devout Catholic writer with a series on EWTN.[52][53]
- Charles Péguy – French poet, essayist, and editor. He went from agnostic humanist to a pro-Republic Catholic.[54]
- Rosalind Picard – Director of the Affective computing Research Group at the MIT Media Lab. She was raised atheist, but converted to Christianity in her teens.[55]
- Enoch Powell – Conservative Party (UK) member who converted to Anglicanism.[56]
- Kirsten Powers – News commentator, raised Episcopalian who drifted to atheism but eventually began to "view everyone as God's child and that means everyone deserves grace and respect."[57]
- George R. Price – Geneticist who became an Evangelical Protestant and wrote about the New Testament. Later he moderated his evangelistic tendencies and switched from religious writing to working with the homeless.[58][59]
- Gerald Priestland – News correspondent who discusses having once been the "school atheist" in Something Understood: An Autobiography. He became a Quaker after an emotional breakdown.[60]
- Michael Reiss – British bioethicist and Anglican priest.[61]
- Dame Cicely Saunders – Templeton Prize and Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize winning nurse known for palliative care. She converted to Christianity as a young woman.[62]
- E. F. Schumacher – Economic thinker known for Small Is Beautiful, his A Guide for the Perplexed criticizes what he termed "materialistic scientism." He went from atheism to Buddhism to Catholicism.[63][64]
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – Nobel Prize-winning dissident author who converted to Russian Orthodoxy.[65]
- Edith Stein – Phenomenologist philosopher who converted to the Catholic Faith and became a Discalced Carmelite nun; declared a saint by John Paul II.[66]
- Peter Steele – Lead singer of Type O Negative.[67]
- John Lawson Stoddard – Divinity student turned "Scientific humanist" turned Catholic. His son Lothrop Stoddard remained agnostic and would be significant to Scientific racism.[68]
- Lee Strobel – Writer, Christian apologist, a former journalist and megachurch pastor.[69]
- Lacey Sturm – Vocalist and lyricist for alternative metal band Flyleaf.[70]
- Allen Tate – American poet, essayist and social commentator, and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.[71]
- Evelyn Waugh – British novelist who converted to Catholicism from agnosticism.[72]
- Simone Weil – Raised by agnostic Jewish parents, and a Marxist for a time, she became a religious mystic.[73]
- Fay Weldon – British novelist and feminist.[74]
- A. N. Wilson – Biographer and novelist who entered the theological St Stephen's House, Oxford before proclaiming himself an atheist and writing against religion. He announced his return to Christianity in 2009.[75]
- John C. Wright – A science fiction author and libertarian atheist[76] who later converted to the Catholic Faith.[77]
References
- ^ Grand Forks Herald
- ^ Free Inquiry
- ^ Seattle Times "In 1975, he threw off his atheism and became a Christian."
- ^ Wall Street Journal ... left the Church of Sweden when he was about 18. For years he considered himself an atheist. In a recent interview with Dagens Industri, he said he'd reconsidered: "Lately, I have decided to consider myself a Christian."
- ^ Career stories: Belle Epoque novels of professional development by Juliette M. Rogers, pg 55
- ^ The end of the soul: scientific modernity, atheism, and anthropology in France by Jennifer Michael Hecht, 172-180
- ^ Catholic world, Volume 97 by Paulist Fathers, 580-582
- ^ The Guardian "I grew up, and stopped being an atheist, in my 20s, in the 1980s."
- ^ Houston Chronicle
- ^ Heritage Foundation
- ^ TruTV: "He had been an atheist and had been kicked out of Columbia University for writing a play considered blasphemous."
- ^ Sunday Times "Collins was an atheist until the age of 27, when as a young doctor he was impressed by the strength that faith gave to some of his most critical patients."
- ^ Ohio Atheists
- ^ [http"//www.mathaba.net/news/?x=539389 Statement disavowing Atheism]
- ^ San Francisco Chronicle: At 8, she read H. G. Wells' "The Outline of History" and pronounced herself an atheist.
- ^ Obituary at the Guardian
- ^ Newsweek obituary
- ^ St. Petersburg Times
- ^ MSNBC
- ^ Time Magazine obituary
- ^ "The making of gay marriage’s top foe" by Mark Oppenheimer; Salon: "I was an atheist from the youngest age. When I was 16, I became a Randian. Becoming a Catholic began as an intellectual thing."
- ^ Interview in the National Review: FMG:You've mentioned that you now believe in God. How recent is that? Eugene Genovese: It's in the last two years. You know, in The Southern Front I still spoke as an atheist; one reviewer said that I protest too much. When the book came off the press and I had to reread it, I started wrestling with the problem philosophically, and I lost.
- ^ Concordia University
- ^ The Independent:Greig, who was brought up an atheist, but converted to Christianity at 30, pauses. "You could," she says, "say that that's because I believe there's a personal God, but I think it's got more layers than that. What we have to do is receive the things that happen with grace, and I'm so glad I've got someone to thank."
- ^ The Telegraph "He was an atheist until he was 18 and his conversion sprang from a desire to rescue two friends from church."
- ^ Spartacus Schoolnet "Although raised as an atheist, Hardie was converted to Christianity in 1897."
- ^ Telegraph "She reacted strongly against her parents' beliefs and became a Catholic at 19, because she 'no longer found it possible to disbelieve in God.'" (pg 2)
- ^ Obituary at the Catholic Worker
- ^ Near Christianity: "Hitchens describes his tumultuous journey from atheist to Christian and the moral reasoning that caused his conversion," book description
- ^ I couldn't paint golden angels by Albert Meltzer, pg 319
- ^ Stockport Express 17 May 2006
- ^ Cotswold Journal 14th October 2010
- ^ "Finding My Religion" in the San Francisco Chronicle: "I don't think I look like the pope's favorite Catholic— at least not under close scrutiny." "Both my parents were agnostic. My mother was kind of a Buddhist."
- ^ Time Magazine from July 19, 1963 "Lepp has the credentials to explain the mind of the atheist: he was one himself for 27 years."
- ^ Catholic Net
- ^ PBS special"His pre-university tour of duty in World War I only solidified his atheism,"
- ^ Catholic Converts: British and American Intellectuals Turn to Rome by Patrick Allitt, pg 199-201
- ^ Phenomenological approaches to moral philosophy By John J. Drummond, Lester E. Embree; pg 269
- ^ Beliefnet article by McGrath Quote "When I was growing up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during the 1960s, I came to the view that God was an infantile illusion, suitable for the elderly, the intellectually feeble, and the fraudulently religious"
- ^ North County Times
- ^ A Fierce Hatred of Injustice By Winston James, Claude McKay: "Prior to his conversion to Catholicism in 1944, his atheism was one of the most powerful and enduring threads of continuity in his outlook on life."
- ^ Czesław Miłosz: conversations By Czesław Miłosz, Cynthia L. Haven; pg 145: Miłosz says that in his youth he came to take a "scientific, atheistic position mostly." Now he calls himself a Catholic who does not want to be thought of as a Catholic writer "Because if you are branded as a Catholic you are supposed to testify with every work of yours to follow the line of the Church, which is not necessarily my case."
- ^ Norge IDAG – Monsen med bok om sin tro
- ^ Malcolm Muggeridge: A Life by Ian Hunter
- ^ Chicago Sun-Times obituary
- ^ Austin Chronicle
- ^ Catholic Herald
- ^ Marxism and Me by Marvin Olasky: My communism was based on atheism, and when I could no longer be an atheist, I resigned from the party.
- ^ Creators Syndicate Profile
- ^ Wallace Stevens: A Poet's Growth by George S. Lensing, pg 219
- ^ Fleeing the universal: the critique of post-rational criticism by Carl Rapp, pg 170
- ^ Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture
- ^ The American Spectator
- ^ Political ecumenism: Catholics, Jews and Protestants in de Gaulle's Free ... by Geoffrey Adams, pg 85
- ^ The Record
- ^ The Guardian's obituary of Powell
- ^ http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/16/q-and-a-with-kirsten-powers-of-fox-news/
- ^ University of Bielefeld
- ^ Chronicle of Higher Education article obituary(Copied by Gametheory.net) has the following "Because George was a fire-spitting atheist and Julia a devout Christian, their relationship was contentious from the beginning. After eight years, the marriage ended in acrimony." "On June 7th [1970] I gave in and admitted that God existed," he explained to friends.
- ^ Antiqbook
- ^ Dallas Morning News: Interviewer "You were raised as an atheist, trained as a scientist, came to Christianity as an adult and eventually became an Anglican priest."
- ^ Article from the University of Wollongong
- ^ Sustaining the earth by John Young, pgs 96-112
- ^ New Scientist Jul 26, 1984. pg 38
- ^ The Australian
- ^ University of Chicago "made a spiritual journey from atheism to agnosticism before eventually converting to Catholicism"
- ^ Decibel Magazine
- ^ Race: the history of an idea in America by Thomas F. Gossett, pg 390
- ^ Daily Herald
- ^ Interview for Christianity Today: I was so outspoken about not believing in God. I had real problems with Christians.
- ^ "...he was an atheist arguing for religious values, a man writing an essay on religion 'in a spirit of irreligion.'... He would not convert to Catholicism for two decades, but his need for religious authority was acute even in 1930." Allen Tate: Orphan of the South, p. 167, biographer Thomas A. Underwood, Princeton University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-691-06950-6
- ^ Six Modern British Novelists by George Stade, pgs 53-55
- ^ PBS
- ^ The Guardian Quote: Even though she was raised an atheist, in the past three or four years she has been going to church. In her eighth decade, she has even submitted to being baptised.
- ^ New Statesman
- ^ Advocates for self-government (A Libertarian site) says of him "A lifelong 'vehement, argumentative, proselytizing atheist,' Wright suffered a heart attack in 2003 and soon afterwards had a 'supernatural' religious experience that made him, he wrote, 'aware of a spiritual dimension of reality of which I had hitherto been unaware... I was altered down to the root of my being.' Wright at first became a Protestant Christian
- ^ John C. Wright's livejournal "After three years of prayer, thought, and debate, and an honest attempt to follow where the spirit leads me, I am joining the Catholic Church this Easter."
Moved back[edit]
Although I understand the idea of the move if you feel people are improperly being labeled" former atheists" than you can remove them. Also the move name was a bit clunky as it could seem to have indicated they were raised non-religious and that wasn't always the case either. I intended to be on my Christmas break, but noticed this and felt it couldn't wait.--T. Anthony (talk) 02:43, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
Move ideas[edit]
As there are some issues with the article here are some ideas on a move.
- List of converts to Christianity from nontheism
- List of converts to Christianity from atheism or agnosticism
- List of converts to Christianity from irreligion
- List of converts to Christianity from non-religious backgrounds (The move I undid)
- Keep as is, don't move again.
If you don't like any of these feel free to think of something else. This is sort of an informal brainstorming.--T. Anthony (talk) 05:30, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
- It's not Epiphany yet, but I made the move. I wish there had been some discussion, that's why I objected to the one move, but I had opened it for such for around a week. If there are any objections that's fine.--T. Anthony (talk) 01:33, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
Sub-category[edit]
Hello, I think this list is very interesting, but I that it would be better to categorize by denominations... especially to put together catholics and in other sub-category non catholics. --Goose friend (talk) 02:13, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
- I'd work on that, but alas I mostly give up the Internet for Lent so I'm not sure I'll have the time. Maybe. Also when you add a name it's better to have a source. Was Tolstoy not a theist before his religious awakening?--T. Anthony (talk) 06:16, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
- Okay I did after all. I don't know if I did it right, but I'll look at it later. I'm sorry to you for taking out Tolstoy, but I haven't found a source. I may put him back when/if I do.--T. Anthony (talk) 13:13, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
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why is this a wikipedia page?[edit]
I think this page is nothing but a christian apologetic page: its only purpose it to make the impression that important people converts to christianity. As a list it has no place at wikipedia., 92.34.244.166 (talk) 14:55, 10 February 2022 (UTC)