Posted on 06/20/2012 5:39:30 AM PDT by Petrosius
Denver, Colo., Jun 20, 2012 / 04:17 am (CNA/EWTN News.- Blogger Leah Libresco, known for writing about ethics and religion from her perspective as an atheist, announced June 18 that she now believes in God and intends to enter the Catholic Church.
“For several years, a lot of my friends have been telling me I had an inconsistent and unsustainable philosophy,” the Washington, D.C.-based author of the “Unequally Yoked” blog wrote in a post announcing her intention to convert.
The 22-year-old Yale graduate says she came to believe “that the Moral Law wasn’t just a Platonic truth, abstract and distant. It turns out I actually believed it was some kind of Person, as well as Truth. And there was one religion that seemed like the most promising way to reach back to that living Truth.”
“When I was talking to a post-modernist friend afterwards,” Libresco said to CNA on June 19, “I told him, 'I guess you were right. (The concept of) “Truth” was a gateway drug.'”
“He replied, not very much in jest: 'Told you so.'”
In recent years, the writer and researcher had – despite her atheism – developed an interest in Christian accounts of morality, developed by authors like C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and Alasdair MacIntyre. Her blog, “Unequally Yoked,” chronicled her engagement with Christian theological claims.
Raised in a non-religious household, Libresco explained in a biographical statement that she “met smart Christians for the first time” during college. She was “was ready to cross-examine them” from her perspective as an atheist, but found there were “some big gaps in my defense of my own positions.”
“I realized I didn’t have a clear enough idea of what Christianity entailed to be able to imagine a world where it was true. I felt embarrassed and told my friends to take their best shot at convincing me.”
Through her blog, the atheist thinker looked to test her arguments against belief, seeking out “people to ask me tough questions and force me to burn off the dross in my philosophy.”
The odyssey was personal as well as philosophical, involving a romantic relationship with “one of these smart Christians.”
“I talked with deacons, priests, and Dominicans and attended RCIA classes – until I got kicked out,” she wrote in the biographical statement, composed before her conversion.
“Neither my boyfriend or I looked likely to switch teams in the near future, and, after two years of dating, we were at the point where a relationship that was incompatible with marriage seemed foolish, so, regretfully, we had to split up.”
But she continued “seriously exploring Christian claims,” in light of her own belief in philosophical concepts including objective morality. Her blog featured a “test” in which atheists and Christians swapped roles, composing answers to questions from the perspective of the opposing worldview.
Libresco's atheism finally ended after a recent Yale alumni debate, where a friend “prodded me on where I thought moral law came from in my metaphysics.”
“I talked about morality as though it were some kind of Platonic form, remote from the plane that humans existed on. He wanted to know where the connection was.”
Pressed to define the connection between humanity and the moral order, Libresco came up short: “I don’t know. I’ve got nothing.” Then she remarked: “I guess Morality just loves me or something.”
In Monday's blog entry, the “Unequally Yoked” author said her writings, hosted by the Patheos website, would move from the service's “atheist channel” to its “Catholic channel.”
Libresco said she had been using the Church's Liturgy of the Hours, as well as the ancient “Breastplate of Saint Patrick,” for most of her “prayer attempts.” Despite lingering “confusion” about some Catholic teachings, Libresco has begun RCIA classes at a Washington, D.C. parish.
The former atheist summed up her feelings about her announcement with a quotation from Tom Stoppard's play “Arcadia”: “It’s the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is wrong.”
Somethings missing from this woman’s testimony. Anyway I hope she’s sincere.
That an atheist would find herself embracing the Church headed by Pope B16 is proof that Fellay is right. /sarc
...I guess you were right. (The concept of) “Truth” was a gateway drug...
This is the key. Christ's opposition has been asking "what is Truth?" for two thousand years, and in doing so have ceased to believe that anything is true. Because of it, they have nothing to offer their followers but lies and emptiness. We can pray that more of them tire of it and seek the Truth.
Sooooooooooo much is missing from EVERY alleged atheist’s testimony. That’s the point - atheism is incompatible with human personhood.
Very interesting. In 20 odd years of being a part of the “skeptic” community I believe this is the first time I’ve heard of an informed atheist (as opposed to your garden variety disbeliever-by-default) converting to Christianity.
Oh well, she’s young and has proven she’s amenable to reason. We’ve got plenty of time to get her back ;)
The new atheists are going to hit her hard. They don’t tolerate dissent very well.
I hate to sound cynical, but she didn’t mention Christ.
not gonna happen....she belongs to Christ now.....reason and thoughtfullness, and logic led her home.....which is a huge part of the christian faith to begin with......
That was my thought as well. As much as they deny it, atheists practice a rigid orthodoxy of their own, and have a tendency to come down hard on apostates who leave their fold.
You have no idea what she mentioned, beyond what the author and editor of the piece conveyed.
Obviously.
Even Saul became Paul.
Finally a positive news story
Praise the Lord!
:^)
The skeptic community cannot win over informed reason. They (sic) do not have the tools.
The skeptic community must be pretty self-limiting. I have heard personally from and read the accounts of plenty of people, literary and otherwise, who went through exactly that conversion.
It's getting late and We, the Lost, need to be called home.
Yes he did. However, when Saul became Paul, it was accompanied by such statements:
"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." - Galatians 2:20
"...as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." - Philippians 1:20, 21
There is no doubting the power of conversion. The question being asked HERE is: Is this woman converting to a Savior...or a System that has "God" in it...
If she is converting to a SAVIOR...the halleluiah! If she is seeking a system because she now believes in God...but is not ready to devote her life to a Savior...then she STILL doesn't get it and will still spend eternity separated from God in a place called Hell.
“That was my thought as well. As much as they deny it, atheists practice a rigid orthodoxy of their own, and have a tendency to come down hard on apostates who leave their fold.”
She sounds like an old school atheist who believed in morality and basic human decency, just without G-d. The new atheists have no use for such things and they will go down cursing and screaming.
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