This is a list of notable converts to Christianity who were not theists before their conversion. 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
Converted to Catholicism
- Mortimer J. Adler â American philosopher, educator, and popular author; converted to Catholicism from agnosticism, after decades of interest in Thomism
- G. E. M. Anscombe â analytic philosopher, Thomist, literary executor for Ludwig Wittgenstein, and author of "Modern Moral Philosophy"; converted to Catholicism as a result of her extensive reading
- Benedict Ashley â raised humanist; former Communist; became a noted theologian associated with River Forest Thomism
- Maurice Baring â English author who converted in his thirties
- Mark Bauerlein â English professor at Emory University and the author of 2008 book The Dumbest Generation, which won at the Nautilus Book Awards
- Léon Bloy â French author who led to several notable conversions and was himself a convert from agnosticism
- Paul Bourget â French author who became agnostic and positivist at 15, but returned to Catholicism at 35
- Alexis Carrel â French surgeon and biologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912
- Salvador DalÃÂ, 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 â Jesuit priest, theologian, and cardinal in the Catholic Church; was raised Presbyterian, but was an agnostic before his conversion to Catholic Christianity
- Alice Thomas Ellis â born Anna Haycraft, raised in Auguste Comte's atheistic "church of humanity", but became a conservative Catholic in adulthood known as Alice Thomas Ellis
- Edward Feser â Christian philosopher and author, wrote The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism
- Charles de Foucauld â French soldier and explorer, who was an atheist for many years before becoming a Catholic priest. He was canonised as a saint in the Catholic Church in 2022.
- André Frossard â French journalist and essayist
- Maggie Gallagher â conservative activist and a founder of the National Organization for Marriage
- Eugene D. Genovese â historian who went from Stalinist to Catholicism
- Bill Hayden â 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. Baptized September 2018.
- Mary Karr â 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
- Ignace Lepp â 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
- Leah Libresco â 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. Her blog readership has increased significantly since her conversion.
- Arnold Lunn â 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
- Gabriel Marcel â leading Christian existentialist; his upbringing was agnostic
- Claude McKay â bisexual Jamaican poet who went from Communist-leaning atheist to an active Catholic Christian after a stroke
- Vittorio Messori â 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"
- CzesÃ
Âaw MiÃ
Âosz â poet, prose writer, translator and diplomat; was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and in 1980 the Nobel Prize in Literature
- Malcolm Muggeridge â British journalist and author who went from agnosticism to the Catholic Church
- Bernard Nathanson â medical doctor who was a founding member of NARAL, later becoming an anti-abortion activist
- Fulton Oursler â 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
- Giovanni Papini â went from pragmatic atheism to Catholicism, also a fascist
- Joseph Pearce â anti-Catholic and agnostic British National Front member who became a devoted Catholic writer with a series on EWTN
- Charles Péguy â French poet, essayist, and editor; went from agnostic humanist to a pro-Republic Catholic
- Sally Read â Eric Gregory Award-winning poet who converted to Catholicism
- E. F. Schumacher â 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
- Peter Steele â lead singer of Type O Negative
- Edith Stein â Phenomenologist philosopher who converted to Catholicism and became a Discalced Carmelite nun; declared a saint by John Paul II
- John Lawson Stoddard â 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
- R. J. Stove â raised atheist, converted to Catholicism
- Allen Tate â American poet, essayist and social commentator; Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
- Victor Turner â A British cultural anthropologist best known for his work on symbols, rituals and rites of passage.
- Sigrid Undset â Norwegian Nobel laureate who converted to Catholicism from agnosticism
- J. D. Vance â The writer of Hillbilly Elegy.
- Evelyn Waugh â British novelist who converted to Catholicism from agnosticism
- John C. Wright â science fiction author who went from atheist to Catholic; Chapter 1 of the book Atheist to Catholic: 11 Stories of Conversion, edited by Rebecca Vitz Cherico, is by him
Converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Converted to Protestantism
Converted to the Quaker faith
- Whittaker Chambers â former Communist turned conservative writer
- Gerald Priestland â news correspondent who discusses having once been the "school atheist" in Something Understood: An Autobiography; became a Quaker after an emotional breakdown
Unspecified or other
- Ayaan Hirsi Ali â activist and author (former Muslim-turned-atheist)
- Peter Baltes â former heavy metal musician, member of Accept
- Anders Borg â Sweden's former Minister for Finance
- Julie Burchill â British journalist and feminist
- Nicole Cliffe â writer and journalist who co-founded The Toast
- Bruce Cockburn â Canadian folk/rock guitarist and singer/songwriter (former agnostic)
- Karl Dallas â British music journalist, author and political activist
- Larry Darby â former Holocaust denier and former member of the American Atheists
- Robert Davidson â 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".
- Terry A. Davis â 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."
- Andrew Klavan â Jewish-American writer who went from atheist to agnostic to Christian.
- Nina Karin Monsen â Norwegian moral philosopher and author who grew up in a humanist family, but later converted to Christianity through philosophic thinking
- Rosalind Picard â director of the Affective computing Research Group at the MIT Media Lab; raised atheist, but converted to Christianity in her teens
- Joseph Franklin Rutherford â American lawyer, became an atheist in , baptized as Bible Student in 1906, later Watch Tower Society president
- Allan Sandage â 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."
- Fred Severud â American structural engineer and founder of Severud Associates
- Rodney Stark â a formerly agnostic sociologist of religion.
- FrantiÃ
¡ek VyskoÃÂil â Czech neuroscientist
- A. N. Wilson â 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
- Ryan Trahan â American YouTuber. Trahan came to faith through his then girlfriend, and now wife, Haley Pham.
Notes
References