Atheists Finding God: Unlikely Stories of Conversions to Christianity in the Contemporary West

This book explores the factors that lead intellectually-driven atheists to believe in God and become passionate followers of Christ in a Western culture that is becoming increasingly skeptical towards conservative Christianity. It draws from PhD-based research evaluating a broad range of functional and substantive variables influencing religious conversion and includes in-depth narrative analysis to reveal the integrated, transformative nature of religious conversion in areas such as sense-making, identity, experience, meaning and purpose, community, language, and spirituality. The book advocates for using an inclusive, transformational perspective in future descriptions, conceptions, and modeling of religious conversion for atheists to conservative forms of Christianity.

Format: Hardback
Length: 240 pages
Publication date: 15 March 2023
Publisher: Lexington Books

In the face of growing skepticism towards conservative Christianity in Western cultures, what drives intellectually-driven atheists to believe in the reality of God and become passionate followers of Christ? A review of social science literature suggests that a predominant functional approach to religious conversion reduces a complex and substantive phenomenon to a partial functional explanation. In response, this book takes a broader look at religious conversion to determine the precursors and pathways from atheistic disbelief to belief in God and Christianity within an educated population.

Findings are drawn from PhD-based research that evaluated a wide range of functional and substantive variables influencing religious conversion. Data was collected through surveys and interviews with fifty educated, skeptical atheists in the contemporary West who once held belief in God and Christianity as implausible, unattractive, and irrelevant. However, they became utterly convinced that the Christian faith was true and good, worth a personal life commitment.

These former atheists not only experienced a change in their worldview but also a dramatic transformation of their "whole world." In-depth narrative analysis revealed the integrated, transformative nature of religious conversion in areas such as sense-making, identity, experience, meaning and purpose, community, language, and spirituality.

Overall, this book advances the case for using an inclusive, transformational perspective in future descriptions, conceptions, and modeling for religious conversion of atheists to conservative forms of Christianity.

Weight: 494g
Dimension: 237 x 157 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781793641328