I don’t want you to miss a hot-off-the-press story: Larry Sanger, a co-founder of Wikipedia (that I use a lot!) has become a Jesus follower after a lifetime of being a skeptic. Here’s the introduction to his story on his own blogsite:

It is finally time for me to confess and explain, fully and publicly, that I am a Christian. Followers of this blog have probably guessed this, but it is past time to share my testimony properly. I am called to “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”¹ One of the most effective ways to do so is to tell your conversion story. So, here is mine.

If you did not know this change, and if you knew me before 2020, this might be a surprise. Throughout my adult life, I have been a devotee of rationality, methodological skepticism, and a somewhat hard-nosed and no-nonsense (but always open-minded) rigor. I have a Ph.D. in philosophy, my training being in analytic philosophy, a field dominated by atheists and agnostics. Once, I slummed about the fringes of the Ayn Rand community, which is also heavily atheist. So, old friends and colleagues who lost touch might be surprised.

For one thing, though I spent over 35 years as a nonbeliever, I will not try to portray myself as a converted “enemy of the faith.” I never was; I was merely a skeptic. I especially hope to reach those who are as I once was: rational thinkers who are perhaps open to the idea, but simply not convinced.

I pray that this exercise in autobiography is not too vain. So I will try to state the unvarnished truth, on the theory that a story with “warts and all” will ring truer and persuade better. But if I am going to tell this story properly, I must start at the beginning, because my experience with God goes back to my childhood, and many waypoints in my journey since then have been relevant to more recent developments. – Larry Sanger, February 5, 2025

He goes on for 12,000+ words! I commend the story in its entirety. If you need a bare-bones summary, I asked ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence service, to summarize it. You can access that summary here.

A friend of mine, upon beginning to read the story, may have come up with the most succinct summary of all (epistemology is the theory of knowledge):

It looks like Sanger’s epistemology came head to head with God’s epistemology. – Ray Bandi, thinking of Ephesians 3.19

…to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge…

As a pastor said recently, “No one’s past is past the grace of God.” The Apostle Paul wrote:

And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life. (1 Timothy 1.12 – 16, NKJV)