The Sean McDowell Show - Surprising Stories from Former Atheists (Dr. Jana Harmon)

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

Why would 50 atheists leave naturalism behind and become Christians? What experiences or arguments convinced them? And what can we learn from them? Sean interviews Dr. Jana Harmon about her compelling book ATHEISTS FINDING GOD. READ: Atheists Finding God (https://amzn.to/47DvDGn) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

Why do some atheists convert to Christianity? What experiences often challenge and motivate atheists to rethink their understanding of reality and choose to follow Christ? Our guest today, Dr. Jana Harmon, has written a fascinating new book that we're gonna get into. And that's the beautiful thing about Christianity

is it's something you can actually invest in it. I'm grateful for that because as an investor here, that's exactly how I can do faith. Our guest today, Dr. Jana Harmon, has written a fascinating new book that we're going to get into based on her doctoral dissertation in which she interviewed 50 former atheists, now Christians, and it's simply called Atheist Finding God. Jana, you are a former adjunct professor at Biola in apologetics, and yet we never met for different reasons until today. Thanks for sending me your book. I so enjoyed it. Can't wait to get an interview.

But good to finally meet you. It's fantastic to meet you, Sean. I've long admired you from a distance, even though we were around Biola together. Our paths never crossed, but it is such an honor to meet you virtually and maybe one day in person. I would love that. We're certainly going to have a follow-up. Well, on a big picture, before we get into some of the data, tell me what motivated you to pursue this study. Are you a former atheist? Do you have friends who are former atheists? Why this for your dissertation? That is a terrific question. It actually stems from my time at Biola as a student. When I attended Biola to get a master's degree in Christian apologetics, I really

wanted to know what was true and how to defend my Christian worldview. And through that experience and that education, I came out of that with a confidence in the Christian worldview that it was robust, it was explanatory, and I thought it would be easily explained and believed by the skeptic. As you know, Sean, the naturalistic worldview and the theistic worldview are often juxtaposed side by side to compare you know this is what the naturalistic or atheistic worldview believes this is what theist or christianity believes and and they were very stark stark differences but it

it seemed to me and i was fairly convinced that the evidence, reason, arguments were on the side of the Christian worldview. But after leaving Biola with that confidence, I began to really recognize, especially in the lived apologetic world, as you well know, it seems that, or it seemed to me that despite the robust nature of the Christian worldview, it didn't seem as interesting or compelling or believable to the skeptic. It seemed that through debates and writing that it just seemed to bounce off. The rational argument seemed to bounce off many times without convincing. So I wanted to take a closer look at that. I thought, well, if the evidence is on the side of the Christian worldview, and, you know, why is it

not compelling? Why do people not believe it? Why are they not attracted to it? I also around that time began reading a bit of Blaise Pascal, understanding the passions that form our reasons, and reading Schaeffer, and really thinking about that there are a lot of moving parts, as it were, influences, motivations, towards why we believe what we do. And I wanted to take a closer look, a holistic look at all the different things that inform our beliefs, our resistance to other beliefs, what actually might allow someone to become open to another perspective and even change their beliefs. So I came at it at a very, I guess you could say in a very human way. It was a sociological study to really look into the lives of people who had actually made that kind of change. and it was something on learning from young skeptics. Now, these aren't former atheists. They went on college campuses and interviewed a ton of skeptics in atheist clubs and just asked them about their journeys.

A lot of that intersects with some of your research in terms of when and why they became atheists. But you go a step farther and talk to 50 people and just let them tell their stories and then try to piece together their themes. But it is totally balanced relationally, sociologically, emotionally, volitionally. Love that about it. Now, maybe just give us a little insight without getting too much in the weeds that interest

academics like you and I. How did you find these atheists? How did you compile their research? Give us a little bit of a backdoor that before we probe into some of your specific conclusions. Yeah, it was it was interesting when my when my supervisor said you need 50 former atheists. And in my experience, I knew, you know, the famous ones like your dad, Josh McDowell, or Lee Strobel. And I thought, OK, well, I know who they are. I don't know anyone personally. I thought, how in the world am I going to locate 50 former atheists? And really,

it was the Lord's provision. It was almost as if he said, put your net on this side of the boat, you know, and I'll fill it up. And that's what he did. Paul Copan was a tremendous advocate for this research and connected me. A lot of apologists connected me with Brian Otten, who I have to really kudos to because he had actually in his desire to investigate former atheists had a former atheist project. And the beauty of his work is that he had a whole Excel spreadsheet, a former atheist, almost a hundred or more. So I started working down that list.

Interesting. Yeah. So, and it's not surprising that former atheists actually want to talk about their story. It's a tremendous story. It's life changing. So many of them were very willing to come forward. But, you know, Justin Briarley helped me. William Lane Craig helped me.

I had friends and family who were saying, hey, I know someone. And so I would just reach out. Or even on social media, if someone identified themselves as a former atheist, I would reach out and ended up with more than 50. It was not, at the end of the day, not that hard, thankfully. It's actually more interesting to me that these aren't the famous atheists that we know and we hear about, whether it's my dad, who's probably technically more of an agnostic, but Lee Strobel was an outspoken atheist. These are just normal people trying to make sense of their lives, willing to share, but not trying to build some platform, just talking about their lives and their experiences. So I think that's

a lot of the value that says the people in our own lives who are atheists, what can we learn just to better relate to them as human beings and or potentially share our faith? What would that look like? Love that about your research. Now, one of the questions that's going to come up when you say atheist finding God, tell us what you mean by atheist, because there's a huge debate about what exactly that even means. Do some of the people that you interviewed even differ over how they defined being an atheist? Yes, yes, yes. The academics differ on what it means to be an atheist. The atheists themselves differ over what they mean when they say that they are atheists.

It can range anything from there's a strong or sensibility or a positive affirmation that God does not exist and I know that, to the more current seems that people want to say they just lack a belief in God, like they lack a belief in the tooth fairy or santa claus it's it's not something that bears a burden of proof you know it is just something it's a non-issue it's something i don't believe and and uh and so it it's a different kind of thing um atheism used to you know of course course it means no God, but more recently people are trying to remove themselves from a direct affiliation from theism as a subtraction story or a rejection identity and putting themselves forth

as atheism something in and of itself. But there also seems again, to be a pushback against any need for proving an atheistic worldview, the burden of proof goes to the Christian. So you pretty much are interviewing people, however, they define atheists, they're in the boat of somebody you interview, and consider them as a part of the study. Is there a interviewing people, however they define atheists, they're in the boat of somebody you interview and consider them as a part of the study. Is there a pretty wide range? Personally, I wouldn't say atheism is a belief system any more than theism is a belief system,

but atheism becomes secular humanists are a kind of atheist, Marxists a kind of atheist, existentialists can be a kind of atheist. So there still is a world that's behind it. Were there Marxists and existentialists and atheist postmodernists? Was there a wide range of people in this study? Yes, that's again, a good question. Good for clarification. There were a wide variety of atheists, but they all in this particular study, they weren't, say, for example, a Buddhist atheist, there wasn't, they had to adhere to or self-identify as someone who believes only the natural world exists. Now, they're different, you know, there were existentialists, Marxists, those kinds of things, but for the most part, they had to define themselves as not believing in the supernatural or anything beyond the natural

world okay fair enough so let's go back to some of these folks i'm curious when did most of these 50 become atheists is there a certain age or was it all over the map it was surprising. Most of them became atheists in their teenage years. The average age was 15. Some, a few, a handful were atheists as long as they can remember, or as long as they could remember. So for the most part, it wasn't as if they went off to college and then became atheists. The questioning and the pushback against theism or Christianity became much earlier than that. This is the third study I've seen. I'm sure there's many more that say the ages about 12 to 15 are pretty definitive and common for when somebody starts to define and understand themselves as an atheist.

Now, for those, these 50 who were atheists, they become Christians. How long is this journey? Is there some who were like six months and some who are six decades, or is there kind of a common pattern that you tend to see? Some were definitely shorter lived atheists than others say maybe a year or two. Some were atheists for decades, but on average, it was approximately 10 years. They became atheists at an average of 15, and then Christians around the age of 26. Interesting. So about a decade. Okay. That's fascinating. We're going to get into some details of what happened and what motivated that. But for these atheists, why would many of them say that they became atheists in the first place? Were they raised atheists? Were they convinced intellectually? Did they have a bad experience

in church or with a Christian? What was it for most of them? Are there any patterns that kind of emerged of why they became an atheist at 13, 14 years old all of the above I would say that you just you said different different again just as people define themselves differently and everyone has their own reason their own stories right but but as you say there were patterns and there were generalities similarities so some of them just grew up thinking they didn't need it. It was the water in which they swam. I think some of them, although they grew up in expressly atheistic homes, for the most part, half of them actually grew up in atheistic cultures or just a lack of direct experience

with God or religion at all. And so when that's absent culturally, socially, then the only thing that they're receiving in return are the negative cultural messaging and messages they hear from whether it's cultural authorities or social authorities in their life, or even educational authorities. So they're growing up thinking, you know, perceiving Christianity in a negative light. So, so some of them just think that they don't need it. It's for someone else, but not them. Some of them grew up really, again, with a more expressed interest towards intellectual things. They didn't think that it was, you know that it held muster. It didn't cohere with science. They were hearing other messages, again, with education, that Darwin

had answered this problem. We don't need God. Some people actually believed that Christianity wasn't good. And you had mentioned negative or thinking that, you know, religion is bad. There were, there were a lot of, you know, that was a lot of the new atheist rhetoric that people brought bought into. And then you have the cultural affirmation of that, that Christianity is for those who are uneducated for the unsophisticated for the superstitious, they didn't think it was good they didn't think that it held anything for them it wasn't attractive some of them had negative or very difficult life experiences and so they couldn't really on a on a personal level see how god could be real

i mean all they have to do is look at their life. They look around the world. And God couldn't exist if, you know, and then fill in the blank. I think that was when I asked them on survey as well as, you know, pursued it through interview, the most predominant answer of why people rejected belief in God were for subjective or personal reasons and that surprised me especially when atheists when you ask them why you don't believe oftentimes you'll hear a rational you know reason i i don't believe it you know for all of these very thoughtful very intellectual um reasons but but when it gets down underneath the surface, and even when I asked them, what were the reasons you gave for your atheism? And what were the real reasons as a Christian looking back, they could, I guess, be a little bit more honest with themselves.

At least 25% had what I called solely functional reasons, that is non-intellectual reasons that grounded their atheism. And that could be divided in a number of ways, but there's all different reasons why people don't believe. Intellectually, yes, but there's a lot underneath the tip of that iceberg. And it probably overlaps, right? It's not just one or the other. There's probably a host of factors. Yes, it's usually a combination of a lot of things. That makes total sense. Now, I realize your focus is on atheists converting to Christianity, but at the beginning of the book, you read a lot of research and academic studies just about conversion in general, which I appreciate to back it up. In your mind, is there anything

or any things that are unique about atheists coming to the historic Christian faith? If we were doing a book on 50 agnostics or 50 Muslims or 50 Mormons, et cetera, what are some things that might be unique about atheists finding God? I think that atheists, well, I would say that no matter the demographic or the group, identity plays a long, a long, a long, large, can I say that again? You're doing awesome. Depending on the group that you're talking to,

there are obvious differences in worldviews, but there are a lot of similarities. And I would start with identity. The way that you perceive yourself has a lot to do with whether or not you're willing to change, whether it's individually or collectively. Like, say, atheists think, for the most part, there's a sense of rational superiority. There's a sense that they belong to the mature adults in the room. They are the ones who can see life soberly, that they are the ones who are progressive, that they are moving

in the right direction, culturally, intellectually, that they are in many ways the elite, that they don't need the crutch of religion. So there's this sensibility about who they are in their identity. Now, of course, someone can hold fast to their identity as a religious person too but that's um but it's it's an identity in a different way also a community um that your sense of belonging your sense of belonging is is a very strong tie to whatever group you're we're christians i have a very strong experiential spiritual sense of belonging and to to the group that i'm a part of. That's also a part of atheism. They have a strong sense of they are my people. And you have to pay attention to that. Of course, atheists, in a sense, as compared to some other religious sects, have a more rational or reasonable approach to their belief systems.

We, as Christians and as atheists, believe that objective reality exists and that we can know it and that we ground our beliefs in something that's falsifiable, that there is objective truth to be known. Whereas, obviously, in some other religious communities, such as Mormonism, say for example, or Islam, they have some of their own apologetics as it were, but it's not as strongly grounded. So there are similarities, but there are differences as well. That's so interesting. Like if you compare, say, Mormonism and atheism, Mormonism is very much familial. So your identity is deeply rooted in your family itself.

So if you were to leave Mormonism and enter any other different faith, that's going to come at a personal cost. There's a belonging in atheism, but probably in most circumstances is less familial. You have a different kind of group that you still belong to, but in a different fashion. I think you're right. Even Mormonism, the test for Mormonism is read the Book of Mormon, according to Moroni 10.4. And if you have a certain feeling, it's very subjective and internal. So they're not going to focus on or probably pride themselves as much in reason and science and evidence although they'll offer a kind of apologetic as atheists will it's less about feelings as it is where they think the science points those distinctions are really really

interesting and weigh into some of the stories that we're going to get to. Okay. How did most of the atheists you interviewed view Christianity before conversion? Were there common themes that they saw or were they just kind of all over the map from Jesus is a good guy and I have good Christian friends to the Bible is corrupt and bad and we need to expunge Christianity from the secular square? Well, again, I think it depends on their sources of influence. For example, there were some who were heavily influenced by the New Atheists, and the New Atheists were very prone to ridicule of the Christian, to dismiss Christianity out of hand just because, and then raise straw man and

add homonym arguments you know attacking the person and so there was this very negative hue generally speaking whether they were attended to the new atheism or not because obviously a lot of them especially if there wasn't direct exposure and one thing I really came to understand is there is a very strong sense of social distancing between the secular or skeptical community and Christians or is particularly the stronger the religious community is the more separation there is between the skeptic and the believer. So it becomes an us them kind of thinking, the other, we see that a lot in politics and other areas of our world where it's easy to again, erect a straw man in order to tear

them down. And so with the negative caricaturing through film through music through social media there there's a when you have a lack of exposure or direct exposure to the genuine or the authentic or the real then it's easy to take in these negative stereotypes and caricatures of the religious person and so there was this very strong sense of uh christians were intolerant bigoted superstitious deluded was a strong one 72 72 percent thought christians were just deluded people. I think the most striking statistic or answer I got was a non-answer. I put a number of different characteristics, both positive and negative, with regard to Christians that they could tick the box. And one of the boxes was Christians are educated people.

Not one person selected that box. Oh, my goodness. educated people, not one person selected that box. That's quite an indictment in terms of, again, not one out of 50. So I'll leave that there. It was a very negative hue painted over the Christian. Now there was a small percentage who thought you know Christians were moral people or you know they had a positive view of life or something like that but it was definitely the minority by far. In some ways that's surprising you'd think probably people with a more positive view of the Bible and Jesus andians even though they think it false would be more likely to come to believe but you're saying the majority worldview of at least these 50 was antagonistic christians

are uneducated and they had a strong negative view of them and became a christian nonetheless that's interesting we're going to get to what motivated him to do so that's really helpful were these people looking for god were they like or are they saying i'm searching for truth or did most of them just say like wow i was surprised and something happened i wasn't even looking for this and my life just kind of got unsettled so to speak a little bit of both i I will say that for the predominance, two-thirds of them thought, 63%, said they thought to themselves as atheists that they would never change from their atheistic perspective or their naturalistic worldview. They were that resistant end, even if they were willing to consider something else, it would be anything but Christianity. There was a very strong sense of that. I think 12% wanted

to believe something else, but they were so sober minded that they just didn't see how they could. I'm sure you've heard as well as I do. I wish I could believe something else. I wish I could believe in your God. It sounds like a beautiful story. I just can't. Yeah. So I just have to repeat,

you said 63% of these 50 atheists, which would be about 30 of them or so, 32 maybe, 31 of 32, were definitely not looking, had an antagonistic view, said, I'm not going to believe. That's how firmly they were against the Christian faith. And we're not even considering it. Not only said they wouldn't believe in God or become religious, but seemed to specifically resist Christianity as a whole. Did I catch that correct? That's amazing. There's so many ways I want to unpack that, but we'll let that sit for right now and we'll come back to it. That is

fascinating. Now, we're kind of at the point where you have this chapter where you talk about catalysts. Something happens that kind of, to quote you, causes or encourages these atheists to become kind of open to God. You list out, I think it's five different categories. Let's kind of take them one by one, explain what you mean by this category and what took place. The first one, which is obvious, is this intellectual longing. among those who again who are highly resistant you have to think if there's no felt need for anything different if life is going well happy or even sober-minded i'm going to accept this is you know this is true there has to be something disruptive just something that disrupts the status quo in order for for someone to consider something else i believe oscar has said is says it like you know until someone

is dissatisfied with their own worldview they're not willing to become open to look at something else and especially you know the thinking man's journey he says that and so it makes sense that if someone is willing as a naturalist to look in their own worldview, inside their own worldview and see that it's not as comprehensive and as explanatory power as they may have once thought. I think sometimes people reject God. They think they know what they're rejecting, but they don think they know what they're rejecting but they don't entirely know what they're embracing uh particularly if they if they just come along it's just what

everybody else believes the intelligent people believe it i'm going to believe it but they've never really thought deeply about it and so sometimes particularly those who those atheists and again this was a highly educated group seven held phds 43 had master's degrees these are critical thinkers for the most part so they're not gonna they're not going to dismiss their own world view lightly they're not going to accept another world view lightly but they're if they're honest if they're intellectually honest with their own worldview and they think deeply about it some of them came to a place of tension within their own worldview that they weren't able to explain certain things about their not only the things around them, but also within them. So say, for example, some found answers within naturalism lacking, like, what about the origin of life from non-life? What about, I mean, how do we

explain how everything got here in terms of the universe? Or what was interesting too is the sense of this deep intuition that things are really right or wrong, the moral argument. Again, just to be clear, it's not that they didn't know right from wrong or that, but they just couldn't ground it in their own worldview or the concept of free will. Somebody said, you know, I know I'm thinking and I'm acting, but I'm no more than a Coke can fizzing. It's counterintuitive to believe you don't have free will, but yet you experience as if you are choosing constantly or making moral judgments constantly.

And so those kinds of tensions arose a kind of cognitive dissonance, that they had to step back and say, perhaps this worldview isn't providing the intellectual grounding that I thought it would. And so they began to to think well perhaps there's something outside of naturalism that could provide a better or more substantive answer to this dilemma and i'm willing to look you know just because they're willing to open open the door doesn't mean that they will walk down uh towards christian. It just means that they become dissatisfied intellectually with their own worldview, and they're longing for a worldview that will make more sense of what they're thinking and experiencing in the world.

That's super helpful. So at this stage, we're talking about catalysts that these 50 atheists all had a catalyst that motivated them to start thinking, experiencing the world differently, that opened the door to think about faith. Eventually, they were converted, but it starts with a catalyst, so to speak. What blew me away in your research is, and correct me if I'm wrong, it was 6% of this group who said, which I think would be three if I'm doing the math correctly, who said it was solely an intellectual journey for them. Is that right? Yes. Again, we are whole persons, so we are not merely brains or merely rational. And so when we are making our decisions and the things that motivate us and the things

that influence us we are an integrated being and so oftentimes even though things don't make sense intellectually there's usually a personal motivation behind that as well. I mean, existentially, that's very unsettling to say, I'm not choosing. I'm not choosing my own moral choices. That's a bit redundant. But I can't, even if I think I know what's good and bad, I can't even choose it. Now that, you know, that's where theory comes to a lived experience. And so for most of these people, yes, they were somehow willing to move in a rational direction. But again, there was more to it than just two and two. So you mentioned the second one. First was intellectual longing, some tension that atheism could not explain.

Free will, objective morality, origin of life, consciousness, etc. What about existential longing? What does that mean as a catalyst for these former atheists? You know, we hear today all the time there's a meaning crisis, right? That there's something empty, there's something lacking, there's something missing in your life. And so you're willing to look outside the normal box of your own worldview. There was a person in my study, and if anybody reads the book, it's the last story at the end of the appendix. I think it's one of the most compelling stories.

He was very intellectually driven. And he became convinced of atheism at college. Under the auspices of Dan Barker, he found the Freedom From Foundation. And he found an intellectual home for himself. And he was one of the smart ones. He could write his own moral blank check. So this worldview not only gave him an intellectual community to which to belong, but also gave him a free sense of moral choices.

So he could live life however he wanted to live and and he really looked down upon christians he had an animosity but he over time over time and usually longings develop usually again it's not it's not a one and done thing you know it's usually not an aha moment it's usually over time, whether it's intellectually or existentially, he could see the progress of his life. He said, I could see the way that my choices were hurting myself and hurting others. He could see the depravity of his own action. He became disgusted with himself in the same way. He could also see that all of the work that he was doing, all of his striving in life, he said it was like a sand castle that you'd build on the shore and the wave is just

going to come in and wipe it out. What's the point? He reached the point of, he said, am I so steeped in my own intellectualism, which by the way, became over time, he didn't even enjoy that intellectual kind of superiority anymore. He said, it just became where I just, okay, I'm just an atheist. That's what it is. But over time, he didn't lose the desire to live, but he desired something more. He desired something much more. And believe it or not, he found evidently Christians or Christianity attractive in some way because he married a Christian. And so he observed her and her family, the simplicity of their life, their kindness, their positivity, their ability to move through difficulties without too much struggle. I mean, we all struggle, but it was a different way. It was a different manner. So he

had this embodied picture of what Christian life looked like. And so he would contrast that with his own and he got to a point of existential honesty, that he was willing to consider something else in that his intellectualism or morality didn't give him what it once did when he was younger. And so he began questing and began searching for truth then. So it was an existential longing. That's really interesting because there's an intellectual piece of that examining worldview. There's a relational piece with his wife, but the primary driver was this despair and loss of meaning and just existentially finding atheism unsatisfactory. The third one you give is experiential crisis.

What's that? Again, I think we've all experienced it where life is going along just fine. And then all of a sudden you can have a crisis come into your life, a health crisis, a divorce, something out of the blue that is very destabilizing. And so the thought is that your own worldview or way of coping becomes insufficient to the matter of the crisis at hand. And so it's that at that point, you become suddenly opened to other perspectives, other people. You again, are able to consider even ideas and even the love of people that you would have held at bay prior to the crisis. That makes sense. I do appreciate that you point out not every atheist who has a crisis is led to

faith. It can drive some people further into their beliefs, but that is the kind of catalyst. In fact, many ways, it just makes people think about the big questions, slow down and focus, and many will believe in God amidst their pain. Now, the fourth one is social relational. That is oftentimes just no crisis. You know, just someone comes along in your life, change of circumstances, change of, you know, someone you know becomes a christian someone you meet is a christian and it's it it's unsettling in some ways you know i know you know the story of guillaume bignon who met this beautiful girl i've interviewed him yeah yeah i mean he was this happy atheist had everything going on well in his life he didn't desire religion or christianity at

all and met this beautiful girl wanted to disprove you know it set him on a journey to disprove her faith that it was inconvenient for him let's just say and so sometimes just meeting someone else or again someone in your life who becomes a christian it becomes very unsettling and so you're wanting to it's often towards disproving first rather than seeing what's there see this is so interesting because my dad's story is he had deep existential longing for happiness and for meaning found so many things unsatisfactory but met some christ Christians who had a joy about life, who had a passion, who had an authenticity. They loved one another and loved him. And that just motivated him to then look into the evidence, which just got his attention. But it was really about belonging and identity

and experiencing love that was driving a lot of this for him. Now, the last one you described, I like to ask guests what surprises them most in their research, but you flat out said that this next catalyst surprised you the most. And it kind of surprised me too. Looking back, it probably shouldn't, but this is the fifth catalyst and you called it spiritual experiential. What happened to this group of atheists from a spiritual component that just led to a radical shift in their worldview? Well, of course, if the natural world is the only thing that exists, there is no spiritual world. There is no supernatural. So when someone encounters a very surprising dream, vision, encounter with something other worldly it can really set someone on a

journey to figure out who that was what that was and they want to know more about it so you you describe dreams describe visions the one story i think it was a lady if i'm not mistaken was pretty hardcore atheist and has this vivid dream of jesus she did not expect wasn't looking towards wakes up and that just led to a radical change in her worldview this is what you mean by a kind of spiritual experience isn't it yes absolutely yes she was she had didn't want anything to do with God. And when she encountered Christ, she encountered the person who was this holy being, and she felt this, you know, the depth of her own sin, but yet the forgiveness of Christ. And so that was extraordinary for her. Now that set her on a journey.

Spiritual experiences can also prompt, you know, sudden conversion as well. When there was a man who was yelling out, God, are you real? Satan, are you real? He was in a really bad place. And he actually describes encounters with both. But after that initial encounter with Christ, he was completely and utterly changed. Okay, so we're at the point in your book, we're talking again with Dr. Jana Harmon

about our book, Atheist Finding God, which again, I found so interesting for so many different reasons. We're at the point where we're talking about catalysts. Some people, former atheists, are motivated by some intellectual search, some by an existential longing for meaning and purpose, others by experience,

often a crisis, pain and suffering, some relational by just meeting a Christian who has life and integrity and lives authentically. Others have real supernatural experiences. Now, once these atheists had their lives disrupted, so to speak. How do they pursue faith? Do they go to church? Do they read books? Do they find a Christian that they know? Do they study alone? Are there common threads that many of them went down on once they're now trying to figure out what explains reality apart from the naturalistic outlook?

I think that the dominant initial response is to pursue on their own. Because as I mentioned earlier, there's very little communication or interaction or relationships with people who are Christians, unless, you know, again, a disarming Christian comes into their life, and they have that community, and they have that relationship and someone who can help guide them oftentimes though about half of them just started pursuing alone they would listen to podcasts they would uh they would start reading their bible they would read books apologetics books they would you know do everything that they could consume whatever technology had to offer them um some of them didn't have technology at the time honestly but but they would go on a pursuit on their own it is it's risky behavior

for the atheist to do that not um not only intellectually in a sense because it's countering everything you thought you would ever do um but also socially, if people knew that you were pursuing God, and you are in an atheistic community, you would often be, you know, shunned in a sense. And so there was a sense that, you know, I need to figure this out. And so a lot of it was independent. But there were some who would actually venture into the back of church um kind of an approach avoidance thing you know it would be totally shamed if they were seen there but their curiosity perhaps after having read a little bit having read the bible having watched debates you know coming to a place where they think well maybe there's something to this you know they're willing to connect but but a lot of times it was it was an independent search you know it's interesting to

describe it as risky behavior because i would venture to say that's not unique to atheists if christians start questioning their faith it's risky behavior and frankly the church doesn't handle well many times people who question their faith, certainly Muslims and Mormons. There's a cost to all of us that sometimes we miss when we're talking to people of a different faith. And it's certainly there for atheists as well. So that's really helpful to point that out. Now, those who became Christians, are there certain arguments or just evidences that they tended to point towards as most compelling, or was it just all over the map? On survey, I asked him that question, which arguments were the most compelling for you to be convincing? And I would say, first of all, was the person, the historical person, and the resurrection of Christ.

I think that that was extremely compelling. Beyond that, it was the origin of the universe, and the moral argument seemed to be the top, at least intellectual reasons for belief. Because I want to say that even though, and this is very important, I think that even though the door may be open for existential reasons, you know, they find something good or attractive about it and they want to pursue it, that this group of people, this demographic, the atheist will not come to believe unless they believe that it's true. Because again, they're, they're intellectually honest, they, they would not want to compromise themselves in that way. And so they're very convinced, based upon, again, reasons and evidence, and arguments and all of that, that it seemed solid. But also, I must say that it wasn't just that. It was almost the existential truths to be found within Christianity as well. And I think I didn't,

let me just say, at the time that I provided the survey, those weren't answers that I included in terms of reasons. If I had to do it all over again, I would absolutely include that as part of why I think that there is what I deem to be a kind of an existential truth. There's a reality to how we ought, there's a sense about how we see our lives, that it ought be a certain way, that it ought be valuable and meaningful and purpose-driven and those kinds of things that fill and complete us as humans. And I don perceive that those things as totally subjective i think that those are realities that that they can grasp within the christian worldview that are almost just as solid for me as those evidences out there in the world and things that can be grounded as well as you

know the ability to to ground your own free will and moral choices and those kinds of things and feelings of value and meaning and purpose. So I know that they experienced a lot of that. I just didn't assess that as part of the survey. Yeah, that's fair. And that's interesting. That's great reflection back. Every one of us who's written a book is like, I should have included that. I should have asked that. Welcome to the world of scholarship. Maybe you'll follow up at some point and do

another study, but that's really helpful because we're whole beings, the intellectual and existential play a part. You did emphasize that this That's important for people to know, especially for atheists. I think it's true for all of us as human beings, but atheists had to be convinced that it's true. God exists. Miracles are possible. Jesus exists, died, rose from the grave. This is a group of people who see the world rationally, value science, value truth. This is not a post-modern group of people that say you have your truth and I have mine. We share that there's such a thing as truth. You can discover truth and you should believe truth. So apologetics at least tends to be a key component for them

as a part of their journey. And by the way, I love that you said three things. You said the cosmological argument, the moral argument, and the resurrection, which shows the brilliance of William Lane Craig, who typically makes those three arguments. That really hit me. Now, how important was it for many of these atheists you interviewed? You said some of them kind of went alone and studied. How important was it for them to have a positive experience with a Christian, either during that journey, before? How key and commonly does it come up? Either this atheist marrying a Christian who you described earlier, having a friend who's a Christian didn't fit their stereotypes. How big of a role is that relational piece? I think it's huge. That was probably the other most surprising finding in my study, that these atheists, again, former athe% of them had some kind of positive contact or

connection with a Christian that enabled them to see or experience Christianity in a different way that opened them towards seeing the, again, breaking down negative stereotypes and caricatures, and building the plausibility of possible belief. The plausibility factor is, again, a tremendous factor in disbelief and moving towards belief. Because if you don't believe a worldview is plausible, you're not even going to consider it. But if you see in a person or, you know, say in a debate, there was one guy who was actually watching a debate between William Lane Craig and an atheist,

and he said, you know, I came away from that thinking well at least I can't say Christianity is stupid anymore you know that was a step okay in the in the in a positive direction breaking down stereotypes building plausibility so it was encountering a Christian granted not in in person but on a screen sure but it was still um a positive picture of of what who christians are and what christianity actually could hold for someone who believed it so it sounds like a lot of these catalysts are since these 50 none of them said christians are educated and atheists value reason and logic and evidence, meeting a smart Christian. But also to go along with that was not just a smart Christian who's a jerk,

meeting people who are authentic, who were kind, who just had meaning and purpose in their life. Seems like those two are both important if they're not embedded in one person at the same time. It's both those, isn't it? Absolutely. And to your point earlier, I think you mentioned what happened with your father. He was disarmed by the love of other Christians. And that came about for especially those in my study who had more emotionally grounded atheism, that there was some pain, there was some hardship, perhaps some abuse in their life. And they had, and then they encountered the overwhelming love of a Christian. It was very unsettling, but in a good way. Okay. So you described the first, most would define themselves about 15, about as an atheist, about a decade later, they would become a Christian. So from atheist to Christian, a decade.

Did you study how long it was from that catalyst, whether it was intellectual or relational or experiential, once they started opening the door up to finding God, to becoming a Christian? How long was that journey typically? I did not look at the numbers on that, but I can tell you from having listened to the stories, it was typically a process. You can imagine if someone asked you to change your own worldview from Christianity or atheism or anything, it's a process of change. Sometimes that process was short for some, particularly if they had an other worldly encounter.

Um, they were much more readily convinced, but, but for the most part, it could be months, it could be years, it could be decades. So it, it depended on, I think their agent, kind of their stage, their willingness, if you will, to move towards truth, the will has a big part in that. And so, like, oftentimes, it would be like the initial motivation to disprove, and then it turns into the desire to seek for truth. And it depends on how intellectual someone is, if they really have to cross every T and dot every I,

or if they are enveloped with the love of someone and then they have a spiritual experience or whatever, that might come up a bit more quickly. But it varies from person to person and i think that patience is involved in in in the part of if somebody is an onlooker or praying for someone or you just patience is is and not pushiness and not pressing is very important to allow people's space to, you know, for their own worldview to be reconsidered, much less embrace another, because it's not easy to change. Because when you change your worldview, you're changing your

whole world. You know, it's not just taking God off the table or putting God on the table. It changes everything about you if you take your worldview seriously. So it's a process. And again, it just varied from person to person. This was a big takeaway for me that some of those who had a spiritual experience that was dramatic, you would expect a quick conversion, but many was, you know, minimally months, typical years or decades. That's a very big takeaway for people in relationship with atheists or people of other faiths, whatever it is, just to have patience and grace with them along their journey and not try to force things where somebody is not at. Now of these 50, how dramatic of a life change did they describe in their beliefs, in their behavior on any level? Were these dramatic?

Not? Give us a sense of that. And in what ways? Yes. Again, I think that I was just so bowled over with the dramatic ways that these lives have changed. Not only their life changed the way they perceive themselves, their identity, their sense of belonging, having all the humanness that they now are living for a bigger, for a better story. for they they found themselves situated in something much grander than themselves but they also had there was this palpable sense of them moving if i can use spiritual terms from darkness to light it is this it is if if they had found the life that they didn't know that they always wanted, and then it was gifted to them. And so they became tremendous proponents.

These are not nominal Christians. These are extremely passionate about following Christ and helping others to know Christ as well. When I looked at the data in terms of how they described their lives and what they were doing, again, many of them kept their jobs or whatever, but two-thirds of them were in some kind of all vocational ministry or apologetics or actively engaged in helping others on a part-time basis. And a third of them, one-third of them actually kind of quit their life or whatever they were doing and pursued education, academics, teaching, ministry, apologetics, went into full-time, whatever they were doing. You know, it told me, I mean, it just really bespoke the passion by which they found their new life in Christ.

And again, wanted to go out and erase, be the different Christian, be the one who is intelligent, be the one who is winsome, be the one who can help people see what they then saw. So their lives were completely turned upside down. I was amazed at the number who are now passionate pastors or apologists or teachers or whatever. It's mind-blowing to me, honestly. That's pretty cool. And that's fascinating. It makes sense because people

who identify as atheists, they're a minority in the US. And I just saw a poll from Ryan Burge that described kind of how atheists are viewed. And they're like the lowest of the pack below like Congress and religious fundamentalists. So somebody is going to define themselves as an atheist. It's going to probably be in most circumstances, a very intentional thought out decision by that person, at least to maintain it. So if they're going to flip radically, it makes sense that they're going to have some excitement and enthusiasm and commitment to this newfound faith. Now, I'm really curious if, uh, how these atheists viewed their former atheist selves,

because I've talked to with former self-ifying christians who then identify as an atheist they might say things like i was really gullible i was naive i was deluded etc and they might use very different things some atheists look back and say i really miss when i was a christian are there some themes that emerge about how these atheists look back on their former atheist selves um yes their their reflection i think i think the most predominant one that i that i felt from them was there was a sense of you know that they were autonomous they were rational they were rationally superior to all others and through the process of coming to faith they adapted a lot more humility about themselves about others um they they they changed they they saw themselves as oftentimes again the captain of their own ship and and

independent and morally courageous and all of this and and uh that they were making all of the calls and the smartest guy in the room but yet after you know they saw themselves as again it wasn't just their story they were part of a larger story and they were helping others to come and take part of that story it was a real juxtaposition some of them actually in interesting look looking back on their own atheism they they saw themselves as course, having been closed off, inaccessible. Some of them really look back a bit mournful, really, and even angry at not being open or even willing to see

or even have the Christian worldview presented to them as an option. They were a bit resentful of the fact that they had been presented this reductionistic view of the world that really didn't serve them well and and so that they they can now see you know experiences even though, say for example, their life might have been difficult, and there was a lot of reason for contempt. They can look back at that and see perhaps how that shaped them, how that brought them to the place of belief in a way.

They were able to look back in a retrospective way, almost with grace on themselves in some ways and anger in others, you know, like we all do in our lives. Are you aware of any studies like yours, but in the reverse, that says like Christians finding atheism or however that would be worded that are doctoral dissertations kind of as rigorous as yours is that kind of research out there not that i'm aware of now i know people you know of course like john marriott has done work on deconstruction i don't know that he's necessarily, and you would know this better

than I, you know him very well and have written with him, whether or not those who deconstruct actually make their way all the way to atheism. I think some make their way to agnosticism most times, but atheism sometimes, but I don't know of any rigorous studies. It's interesting. I think it's a very open field for those who want to explore even atheist conversions to Christianity or vice versa. There was very little in the literature when I was looking to do the study on religious conversion either way. So it's a very, again, if somebody is interested in this topic or these experiences or just wanting to know more, I would definitely encourage them to go.

I don't know, Sean, do you know of some particular studies that are moving in that direction? I don't. I know there's some popular studies, but I'm curious of a rigorous academic nature. I just haven't probed into that literature. That's why in part I was asking, but fair enough. If you come across them, send them my way. But last question, how did the study affect you personally? Now that you're on the other side about it, talking about you've written a book how did it personally affect you you know when i think back to my former self um coming out of biola i was a bit naive i think and considering that the art you

know the argument would win the day and now i i look at things much more holistically, much more human, in a much more, I would hope, a grace-filled way to understand that there are reasons why people are angry at God, don't want to be associated with Christianity. It's not as easy or simple to write off someone's disbelief. I think we do have to go deeper. I think we have to go broader. We have to be more honest with ourselves and others and appreciate that we are complicated people with complex lives in there and i think it's the lord has given me a bit more not only i guess insight but um but empathy and compassion for for appreciating those who reject god that sometimes they you know they do it for what they feel are very valid reasons and and there's

there may be some great anger or pain or bad experience you know it's just given me it's given me a much more humbled perspective i guess but also hope, I would say, because, you know, before I think I would look at and think, oh, they'll never, oh, he would never, I mean, I'm sure your dad would never, you know, become the proponent of faith that he, you know, he's now become or has been for decades you know i think it's given me hope that we could never we can't see the inside of people's hearts or minds the lord can and and he never gives up on anyone and he draws those who are the farthest um and and i think that it has helped me appreciate that our investment and our prayers and our, you know, our desires and our work with or presence with or love on whatever other people, it's never in vain. Jana, this is the perfect mic drop moment. And I love what you just said.

Again, we've been talking about Dr. Harmon's book, Atheist Finding God, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Thanks for doing it. You are making us proud in the apologetics program as a graduate going out there and doing good work, equipping people, growing and learning. I hope folks will check out your book. Also, before you check away, make sure you hit subscribe.

We've got some other shows coming up on atheism, on other worldviews, including some conversations with atheists and others coming up. That's something I enjoy doing on my program. And if you thought about studying apologetics, you heard it right here, how important and vital this is. We would love to have you in the program with the top rated distance program in the world, fully online now.

Information below if you're like, I'm not ready for a master's, but would love to study apologetics more intentionally. We have a certificate program where we'll kind of walk you through and guide you through just how to grow in apologetics. Jana, thoroughly enjoyed this we will definitely have to do this again sometime in the future thanks for coming on oh you're so

welcome and can i mention one more thing in this that i actually host a podcast of former atheists to tell their stories so if anybody's interested in hearing practical stories of how skeptics move from disbelief to belief they also at the end give advice to skeptics how to take a next step and they give advice to christians on how to engage with those who don't believe it's a wonderful resource we've been doing for three years now amazing stories out there it's called side b stories side b stories subscribe now check it out janna you're a rock star thanks for coming on thank you