Glasgow-born historian Niall Ferguson is perhaps the most influential historian – and certainly one of the most influential public intellectuals – in the world. In 2004, Time magazine named him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Ferguson recently spoke publicly for the first time about his rejection of atheism in favour of Christianity. He now describes himself as a ‘lapsed atheist’. Fellow-historian Sarah Irving-Stonebraker similarly appropriates language usually reserved for those leaving the faith to describe how she ‘deconstructed’ her atheism. An Australian from a completely secular background, she came to the UK to get a PhD at Cambridge, before moving on to post-doctoral work at Oxford – where her atheism was shattered.
What led to them losing faith in the atheism of their childhood? For Ferguson it was firstly historical – for Irving-Stonebreaker, primarily ethical. Ferguson says that he came to realise that ‘no society had been successfully organised on the basis of atheism. All attempts to do that have been catastrophic’. The next step on his journey was the realisation that ‘no individual can be fully formed or ethically secure without religious faith’.
Irving-Stonebreaker’s faith in atheism was shattered when she attended some guest lectures at Oxford by fellow Australian – and fellow atheist – Peter Singer. She describes feeling like the carpet had been pulled from under her feet when Singer made it clear that atheism provides no basis for believing in the inherent or equal value of human life. As she went back and read his philosophical work, her atheism continued to unravel. She came to see that her deepest moral intuitions, the things she thought were most important about human life (its dignity and value), couldn’t be sustained by atheism. It didn’t make her a Christian – but it raised questions. Still reluctant to pick up a Bible, she found herself working in the theology section of the library one winter in Oxford, and began to read a book of sermons. A sermon on Psalm 139, gave her a completely different perspective on human existence, with its teaching that we are each formed by God himself. She found it utterly compelling. Upon taking up a job in the United States, a fellow faculty member gave her a copy of ‘Mere Christianity’ by C. S. Lewis, who himself had made the journey from atheism to Christianity. It spoke to her like nothing ever had, and led her to go to church for the first time. She realised she had been living a life of self-fulfillment – and yet it had left her ‘empty’. She describes herself as walking into church that day with not only an intellectual, but a spiritual yearning. As she observed those present taking the Lord’s Supper, she realised that she had been running from God her whole life. She came to see the Bible’s story of sin as profoundly true – as well as what God had done through the cross to draw people back to himself. A few months later she gave her life to Christ.
Niall Ferguson’s wife, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, has a similarly dramatic story. In the early 2000s, she was one of the most prominent ‘New Atheists’, alongside Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens. Brought up as a Muslim, she became a prominent critic of Islam, opposing forced marriage, honour killing, child marriage and female genital mutilation. In a recent interview, she said ‘the god I grew up with was a horror show’. But she came to see that not all religions are the same. Her therapist once asked her what she thought that God should be like if he existed; the answer she came up with was a description of Jesus Christ. Ali says that she once hated God – but the ‘god’ she hated was not like Jesus.
Such stories are increasingly common. What is behind this ‘vibe shift’?
Barney Zwartz explains: ‘Christianity in the West has been in decline for long enough for people to see what the post-Christian world looks like, and it’s not pretty. Today’s rising secular orthodoxy can be just as judgmental and censorious as the worst of the 1950s churches, but without the compassion, the community, the forgiveness, the self-deprecation, or the humour’.
Neither can it give us what we truly crave: ‘Many who had been tempted to believe Dawkins’ claim that “the universe has no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference”, find that it conflicts with their human yearning for lives that have meaning and purpose’. Instead, they are finding that desire met by the one who said: ‘I came that they may have life and have it abundantly’ (John 10:10).
Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 3rd April 2025
