What we can learn from Larry Sanger's journey to faith

On February 5, just last week, Larry Sanger — a former philosophy professor and a co-founder of Wikipedia — announced his conversion to Christianity. He accompanied it with a long account of how that happened.

What’s going on? A vibe shift? A revival? A surprising rebirth of belief? Whatever is happening at a cultural level, I give thanks for Sanger’s testimony. Reading it was a delightful, encouraging experience; there were moments in Sanger’s story which struck me with a wonderful freshness, as well as others which resonated with my own coming to faith. It’s long, but I recommend reading it for yourself.

Either to whet your appetite, or to spur some discussion after you’ve read it, I thought I’d share some of my reflections on his story. While Sanger is commendably keen to avoid presenting himself as an authoritative Christian voice, and while one person’s journey to faith in Christ is just that, there are some valuable lessons to shape our praying and our practice in making Jesus known.

1. How hostility to questions is toxic (especially for young people)

One of the dispiriting moments during Sanger’s teenage years was an encounter with a pastor whom he had contacted in order to ask some sceptical questions: ‘It felt bold for a teenager to do, but I was not merely being rebellious. I really needed help thinking these things through. But the pastor had no clear or strong answers. He seemed to be brushing me off and even to treat me with contempt. It seemed to me he did not care, and if anything, I had the impression that he felt threatened by me. This was a surprise.’

This is something I myself found, when I began asking questions about faith and God as a teenager. Hostility to questions—and a sense that, like Sanger, I was asking too many—merely confirmed for me that Christians were not thoughtful people.

Let experiences like Sanger’s (and mine) convince you that when young people ask questions, their curiosity should be taken seriously. Even if it feels like they’re being awkward (and even if they’re trying to be!), very deep damage is done by pouring cold water on their attempts to find out more. Even if issues seem important to them which do not trouble you, feel the weight of their objection and respond to it as honestly as you can.

2. How apologetics does and doesn’t work

It’s fascinating to see what Sanger made (and, perhaps, still makes) of Christian apologists like William Lane Craig and their skill in debate. His verdict is quite striking: ‘glib’, ‘earnest, but ultimately intellectually dishonest’.

I value much of the thinking and communication of people like William Lane Craig, so Sanger’s opinion of them was a little surprising. It’s worth bearing in mind—debates like these are often well received by believers (grateful to see their side defended with consummate skill), but may not have the impact we assume they will with those who aren’t believers.

This comes out in how Sanger evaluates the classical arguments for theism; we can read the effect they had on him as someone sitting outside the Christian worldview (however thoughtfully and honestly he attempted to understand it), and the way they left him cold.

But, in a later section, he writes with some awe and urgency as he points out how these arguments impressed him when combined: ‘Taken together, the arguments point to a necessary being that exists apart from space, time, and matter.’

In many ways, Sanger’s later reflections on these arguments is truer to their actual status— not shallow proofs of God’s existence to bludgeon unbelief, but careful contemplations on the intelligibility of reality and what that implies.

Thus: ‘Such a designer would not work against or within the order of the universe. That is not the point at all. Rather, such a designer would create the order of the universe…The emergent scaffolding of order in the universe is the miracle.’

‘If this being may be said to have a “will,” this will is not in place of rational physical explanations; rather, he willed all the physical explanations, and they are rational because they are the handiwork of the logos of the universe.’

3. How real life has a seismic impact

Sanger’s piece is cerebral and full of intricate twists and turns in outlining how his thinking has changed.

One significant paragraph dwells on two life events which, Sanger says, ‘mattered later for my conversion’—his marriage and the birth of his first child. Becoming a husband and then a father gave the lie to Ayn Rand’s (in retrospect) ridiculous notion that we can somehow justify our moral obligations toward other people in terms of our own self interest, no matter how 'enlightened.’

Entering these relationships opens our world; they are like skylights for the transcendent in previously dingy, dark-ceilinged lives. This is the beautiful metaphor used by Seamus Heaney as he dwells on marriage, and I read it to my wife at our wedding celebration. It remains beautiful and true.

But I say that this was a ‘seismic’ impact because our real lives—marriage and parenting—are like tectonic plates. Movement at that level set in motion changes which, as Sanger points out, would later have visible and unmistakable effects.

When unbelieving friends get married or have children, we should pray that it would have the skylight effect on them.

4. How Christian witness can be attractive

Blaise Pascal would delight in reading Sanger’s testimony. His famous injunction, from the Pensées, is to ‘make religion attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is.’

Sanger records exactly that process; in trying to set out his own ethical position, he found himself mentioning Christian connections to the ideas he set out, a sign of ‘a change in attitude’: ‘Whereas before I had been merely skeptical and cool toward Christianity, I now felt warm toward it. I had come to morally approve of it—it was not just tolerable, but positively likable.’

Especially as many in our culture (following the lead of Tom Holland among others) are increasingly aware of how deeply indebted they are to Jesus for the moral intuitions they value most highly, there’s every possibility they will do the same thing.

And instead of being quick to dismiss them, or hurry them along in their reflection (or worse, just resenting them for their partial grip on the gospel), we might pray that they find themselves wishing the Gospel were true and then, in God’s kindness, being shown that it is.

In passing, Sanger notes Christians who were thoughtful and respectful interlocutors, and we can surmise that they made the whole process easier than if they had been as shrill as the various atheist luminaries he mentions. This is the fruit of people living out 1 Peter 3:15 and its call for ‘gentleness and respect.'

5. How the darkness creates a longing for the light

There’s an intriguing moment where Sanger comes to grips with abhorrent criminal activity and begins to take up the thread connecting it with occult practices. He found himself disturbed by the possibility of occult knowledge, but a friend pointed out that much of it constituted a perversion of biblical themes.

'I thought that if I were going to learn anything about the occult, then it stood to reason that I should first read the Bible cover-to-cover, this time for reasonably good understanding,' he said. 'I wanted merely to understand it on its own terms, that is, as its believers understand it. That would, I thought, help me to understand what the occultists were reacting to. I did not, of course, set out to convert myself.

'But one thing I told myself (and my friend) is that, if I started believing a spirit world actually existed, I would immediately believe in God, and I would certainly want to be on his side.'

I’ve previously written about our twisted (but real) longing for the light. There’s a remarkable moment in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal; one character, interrogating a witch, asks if they have consorted with the devil because he wants to meet him. The witch asks why—and he responds, ‘I want to ask him about God. He must know. He, if anyone.’

Sanger’s curiosity didn’t lead him further down the avenue of occult exploration — but it did send him to the Bible, and thank God for that.

6. How the Bible is so compelling

Perhaps what I found most moving in Sanger’s story was his discovery of the Bible.

He puts it very clearly: 'When I really sought to understand it, I found the Bible far more interesting and—to my shock and consternation—coherent than I was expecting. I looked up answers to all my critical questions, thinking that perhaps others had not thought of issues I saw. I was wrong. Not only had they thought of all the issues, and more that I had not thought of, they had well-worked-out positions about them. I did not believe their answers, which sometimes struck me as contrived or unlikely. But often, they were shockingly plausible. The Bible could sustain interrogation; who knew?'

Who knew indeed? I remember reading John’s gospel while procrastinating away from some English homework, and the electrifying experience of reading Jesus’ words: ‘Before Abraham was born, I am!’ I knew this was both bad grammar and the voice of One who was not confined by time the way every other human being is.

Twenty or so years on from that, I continue to find the Bible shockingly interesting and coherent. But Sanger’s reflection on his earlier dismissal of the Bible brings home just how necessary the Spirit’s illuminating work is: ‘I know now that I simply did not understand what I was reading very well. I merely assumed there wasn’t anything terribly deep to understand.’

It takes God’s merciful intervention to humble us, so that we read Scripture seeking to understand it. And we ought to pray for Him to instil that curiosity in our friends who are seekers and sceptics! And be unashamed of inviting them to read the Bible for themselves, and perhaps with us.