List of converts to Christianity

The following is a list of notable people who converted to Christianity from a different religion or no religion. This article addresses only past voluntary professions of faith by the individuals listed, and is not intended to address ethnic, cultural, or other considerations such as Marriage. Certain people listed here may be lapsed or former converts, or their current religious identity may be ambiguous, uncertain or disputed. Such cases are noted in their list entries.

Converts to Christianity

Total population

There are approximately 2.7 million conversions to Christianity every year, according to the World Christian Encyclopedia.[1] In a 2015 report , there were about 10.2 million Muslim converts to Christianity according to the study with 6 million of them coming from Indonesia however the 6 million figure also include's descendants of those converts.[2] Scholar David Radford from the University of South Australia estimated in 2015 that "between 8 and 10 million former Muslims have converted to Christianity in the past two decades".[3] Due primarily to conversion, the Chinese Christian community has experienced significant growth over the last 70 years, gaining approximately 63 million new adherents just since 1949.[4][5] Due primarily to conversion, Christianity has grown in South Korea from 2.0% in 1945[6] to 29.3% in 2010[7] Protestantism continues to experience steady growth as a result of conversion in Asia,[6][8][9][10][11] Latin America,[8][12][13] the Muslim world,[14] and Oceania.

From major religions

• List of converts to Christianity from nontheism
• List of converts to Christianity from Buddhism
• List of converts to Christianity from Confucianism
• List of converts to Christianity from Hinduism
• List of converts to Christianity from Islam
• List of converts to Christianity from Judaism
• List of converts to Christianity from Paganism
• List of converts to Christianity from Sikhism

Baha'i Faith

• John Ford Coley — American artist and author.[15]

Cao Dai

• Phan Thị Kim Phúc — subject of a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph by "Nick" Ut,[16] she now heads a fund for children victims of war.[17]

Druze faith

• Abi-Lamma clan - a prominent noble Levantine family and clan, converted from the Druze faith to Christianity.[18]
• Khazen family - a prominent noble Levantine family and clan based in Keserwan District, they converted to the Maronite Church.[19]
• Selwa Roosevelt - was Chief of Protocol of the United States for almost seven years from 1982-1989—longer than anyone has ever served in that position, she is from Lebanese Druze background, and converted to Methodism.[20]
• Mohamed Alí Seineldín - was a Lebanese Argentine army colonel, he converted from Druzism to Roman Catholicism during his youth.[21]
• Nada Nadim Prouty - is a Lebanese former intelligence professional, She was born into the Druze faith,[22] later in life, she converted to Catholicism.[22]

Manichaeism

• St. Augustine of Hippo — was an early Christian theologian and philosopher.[23]

Rastafarian

• Judy Mowatt — Jamaican reggae singer [24]
• Papa San — Jamaican reggae singer [25]
• Bob Marley — Jamaican reggae singer and musician[26]

Zoroastrianism

• Mar Abba I — Metropolitan bishop and saint of the Assyrian Church of the East[27]
• Anastasius of Persia — was originally a Zoroastrian soldier in the Sasanian army, later converted to Christianity.[28]
• Babowai — was Catholicos of Seleucia-Ctesiphon and Patriarch of the Church of the East from 457 to 484, during the reign of the Sassanid King Peroz I.[29]
• Bademus — was a rich, noble citizen from Persia, who founded a monastery nearby.[30]
• Behnam, Sarah, and the Forty Martyrs — were 4th-century Christians who suffered martyrdom during the reign of Shapur II.[31]
• Christina of Persia — was a Sasanian Persian noblewoman and Christian martyr.[32]
• Nadir Dinshaw — was a British Parsi philanthropist, businessman and accountant, he converted from Zoroastrianism to Christianity in the early 1960s.[33]
• Shapurji Edalji — probably the first person from South Asia to be made the vicar of an English parish.[34]
• Eustathius of Mtskheta — was an Orthodox Christian saint, executed for his apostasy from Zoroastrianism by the Sasanian military authorities in Caucasian Iberia.[35]
• George of Izla — was an East Syriac martyr, theologian and interpreter.[36]
• Golinduch — was a noble Persian lady, She converted from Zoroastrianism to Christianity in the reign of Khosrau I.[37]
• Gregory the Commander — was a Sasanian military leader from the House of Mihran, who converted from Zoroastrianism to Christianity.[38]
• Varaz Grigor — was the Mihranid king of Caucasian Albania from 628 until his death in 638.
• Daisy Irani — an Indian actress in Hindi and Telugu language films.[39]
• Ishoʿsabran — was a Persian Zoroastrian convert to Christianity who was martyred in the Sasanian Empire in 620 or 621.[40]
• Javanshir — was the prince of Caucasian Albania from 637 to 680, hailing from the region of Gardman.
• Joseph Hazzaya — was an 8th-century Syriac Christian writer, ascetic and mystic.[41]
• Miles — was the bishop of Susa in Sasanian Persia from before 315 until his martyrdom in 340 or 341.[42]
• Mirian III of Iberia — was a king of Iberia or Kartli.[43]
• Niketas the Persian — was a 7th-century Byzantine officer.[44]
• Peroz — was king of Gogarene and Gardman, ruling from 330 to 361. He converted to Christianity during his rule in Caucasus.[45]
• Piran Gushnasp — he was appointed as the new governor (marzban) of Iberia. Between 540-542 he converted to Christianity.[46]
• Razhden the Protomartyr — was a 5th-century Persian nobleman in the service of the Georgian king Vakhtang I of Iberia and a convert to Christianity who was executed by the Sassanid military in Iberia.[47]
• Sagdukht — was a 5th-century queen consort of Iberia.[48]
• Salome of Armenia — was an Armenian princess.[49][50]
• Sinharib — was an Assyrian king who controlled Nineveh in the fourth century AD.[51]
• Sultana Mahdokht — was the daughter of Pholar, the Prince of Dorsas.
• Theophobos — was an Iranian commander of the Khurramites who converted to Christianity.[52]
• Tiridates III of Armenia — he proclaimed Christianity as the state religion of Armenia in 301, making the Armenian kingdom the first state to embrace Christianity officially.[53]
• Yazdin — was an influential Iranian aristocrat.[54]

Yezidism

• Zarifa Pashaevna Mgoyan — Russian pop singer, model and actress convert to Eastern Orthodoxy after marriage.[55]

Satanism

• Jason Massey — American murderer
• Sean Sellers — American murderer.[56]

Skepticism

• Chip Ingram — American author and pastor of Venture Christian Church in Los Gatos, California.

Undetermined

• Kim Dae-jung — President of South Korea from 1998 to 2003, and the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize recipient.[57]
• Tony Fontane — popular recording artist in the 1940s and 1950s[58]
• Wernher von Braun (1912-1977) — German aerospace engineer and space architect considered a "father of rocket science". Von Braun's religious conversion occurred in 1946 after he visited a church in Texas.[59]
• René Girard (1923-2015) — philosophical anthropologist[60]
• William Onyeabor — Nigerian funk musician.
• Barbara Jones — Jamaican singer who after becoming a Christian gave up her secular career and released four Gospel albums.[61]
• Gloria Gaynor — American singer, best known for her disco era hits, notably "I Will Survive". After what she referred to as a sinful lifestyle, and a search in different faiths, she became a Christian and rejected several things from her former musical career.[62]
• Tony Orlando — American producer who reached fame as the lead singer of the group Tony Orlando and Dawn in the early 1970s. Interviewed on The 700 Club, he explained that he became a Christian in 1978, after life struggles.[63]
• Lou Gramm — lead singer of 80's band Foreigner. He struggled with sex, drugs and rock n'roll, and in 1992, after having completed a stint in a rehab center, he became a born again Christian.[64] After surviving a brain tumour, he released a Christian rock album The Lou Gram Band (2009).[65]
• Lord Kenya — pioneer of Ghanaian Hiplife and multiple award-winning musician who in 2010 became a Christian after visiting a Church where he said he had an experience with the Holy Spirit and a warning of repentance.[66][67][68] He changed his life direction and became an evangelist under his real name Abraham Philip Akpor Kojo Kenya.[69]
• Nicko McBrain — drummer of heavy metal band Iron Maiden.
• Jin Au-Yeung — Chinese-American hip hop rapper, songwriter and actor. Became a born again Christian in 2008.[70]
• Spencer Chamberlain — lead vocalist of the Christian metalcore band Underoath, was not raised in a religious home.[71]
• Dave Mustaine — former lead guitarist of Metallica and co-founder and lead guitarist of Megadeth. Though raised as a Jehovah Witness, he left religion early in his youth and later practiced satanism and occult practices. In 2002 he became a born-again Christian.[72]
• Kunle Ajayi — Nigerian saxophonist and veteran of Gospel music in his country. He became a Christian when he was in High School. Later, along with his musical career, he also became a Pastor.[73]
• Abraham Laboriel — prominent Mexican bassist who has participated in over 5,000 studio albums along with international musicians. He became a Christian and recorded several Gospel albums and he has continued to play along with Christian and secular musicians.[74][75]
• G.E.M. — notable Hong Kong singer who was baptized and became a Christian in 2011.[76]
• Vanity — former front woman of Vanity 6 who after becoming a Christian renounced her stage name and music and started to preach in different parts of the U.S.[77][78][79]

See also

• Conversion to Christianity
• List of people by belief

Notes and references

1. David B. Barrett; George Thomas Kurian; Todd M. Johnson, eds. (February 15, 2001). World Christian Encyclopedia p.360. Oxford University Press USA. ISBN 0195079639.
2. Johnstone, Patrick; Miller, Duane Alexander (2015). "Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background: A Global Census". Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion. 11: 8. Retrieved 30 October 2015.
3. Radford, David (2015). Religious Identity and Social Change: Explaining Christian conversion in a Muslim world. Routledge. ISBN 9781317691716. between 8 and 10 million former Muslims have converted to Christianity in the past two decades
4. MIller, 2006. pp. 185-186
5. China accused of trying to 'co-opt and emasculate' Christianity, The Guardian, Tuesday 17 November 2015
6. Korean Overseas Information Service, A Handbook of Korea (1993) p, 132
7. "Global Christianity: Regional Distribution of Christians". Pew Research Center. December 19, 2011. Retrieved August 11, 2013.
8. Ostling, Richard N. (24 June 2001). "The Battle for Latin America's Soul". TIME.com. Retrieved 14 February 2015.
9. Phillips, Tom (19 April 2014). "China on course to become 'world's most Christian nation' within 15 years" – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
10. "In China, Protestantism's Simplicity Yields More Converts Than Catholicism". International Business Times. 28 March 2012. Retrieved 14 February 2015.
11. Miller, 2006. pp. 185-186
12. Chris Arsenault. "Evangelicals rise in Latin America". Retrieved 14 February 2015.
13. "Religion in Latin America, Widespread Change in a Historically Catholic Region". pewforum.org. Pew Research Center, November 13, 2014. Retrieved March 4, 2015.
14. Miller, Duane A. "Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background: A Global Census". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
15. Bruce 2000.
16. "Canadian Christianity.com".
17. Kim Foundation Archived 2007-06-12 at the Wayback Machine
18. Gábor Ágoston; Bruce Alan Masters (2009-01-01). Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. Infobase Publishing. p. 530. ISBN 978-1-4381-1025-7. Retrieved 2013-05-25.
19. Matti Moosa, The Maronites in History, p. 283. Quote
20. "Council of American Ambassdors". Archived from the original on 11 March 2012. Retrieved 3 May 2013.
21. Irigaray, Juan I. (2009-09-11). "Mohamed Alí Seineldín, ex militar golpista". El Mundo (Spain). Retrieved 2010-06-17.
22. Prouty, Nada (2011). Uncompromised: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of an Arab American Patriot in the CIA. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-34124-1.
23. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-05-03.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link); Archived 2012-03-06 at the Wayback Machine
24. "Judy Mowatt Biography". musicianguide.com.
25. http://194.154.164.100/[email protected]/4artisttrackdb/showarticle.php?id=86%5B%5D
26. Booth, Martin. Cannabis: A History. pp. 366, 367, 368.
27. Holweck, F. G. "A Biographical Dictionary of the Saints". St. Louis, Missouri: B. Herder Book Co., 1924.
28. Payne 2015, p. 195.
29. Wigram 1910, p. 151. sfn error: no target: CITEREFWigram1910 (help)
30. Butler, Alban (1894). "April 10.—ST. BADEMUS, Martyr". Lives of the Saints. sacred-texts.com (Benziger Brothers). Retrieved 2007-07-23.
31. Rassam (2005), pp. 31-32. sfnp error: no target: CITEREFRassam2005 (help)
32. Jean Maurice Fiey, Saints Syriaques (Darwin Press, 2004), pp. 59–60.
33. Holloway, Richard (2003-01-02). "Obituary: Nadir Dinshaw". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-10-29.
34. John Wilson, The Star of Bethlehem and the Magi from the East: A Sermon Preached on the Occasion of the Baptism of a Parsi Youth 31 August, MDCCCLVI, Smith Taylor & Co, Bombay, 2nd ed, 1857
35. Lang, David Marshall (1976), Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints, pp. 95-99. Mowbrays: London and New York.
36. Howard-Johnston 2010. sfn error: no target: CITEREFHoward-Johnston2010 (help)
37. Michael G. Morony, Iraq after the Muslim Conquest, p. 299
38. Payne, Richard E. (2015). A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity. Univ of California Press. pp. 1–320. ISBN 9780520961531.
39. "I knew nothing about Jesus Christ earlier: Daisy Irani Shukla". The Christian Messenger. 8 November 2013. Retrieved 17 December 2013.
40. Jean Maurice Fiey, Saints Syriaques (Darwin Press, 2004), pp. 100–102.
41. Robert A. Kitchen (2011), "Yawsep Ḥazzaya", in Sebastian P. Brock; Aaron M. Butts; George A. Kiraz; Lucas Van Rompay (eds.), Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage, Gorgias Press.
42. Wood 2013, p. 266. sfn error: no target: CITEREFWood2013 (help)
43. Thomson, Robert W. (1996), Rewriting Caucasian History, pp. 83-90. Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-826373-2
44. Kaegi (2003), pp. 188–189, 206
45. Toumanoff, Cyril (1963). Studies in Christian Caucasian history. Georgetown University Press. pp. 1–599.
46. Pourshariati, Parvaneh (2008). Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire: The Sasanian-Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran. London and New York: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84511-645-3.
47. Machitadze, Archpriest Zakaria (2006), "St. Razhden, Protomartyr of the Georgian Church (†457)", in The Lives of the Georgian Saints Archived 2008-06-14 at the Wayback Machine. pravoslavie.ru. Retrieved on 2011-12-18.
48. Toumanoff, Cyril (1969). The Chronology of the Early Kings of Iberia. Fordham University Press. p. 28, n. 31.
49. Wardrop 2006, p. 71. sfn error: no target: CITEREFWardrop2006 (help)
50. Rapp 2003, p. 218 & 295. sfn error: no target: CITEREFRapp2003 (help)
51. Karen Radner (1 March 2015). Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-19-871590-0.
52. Venetis 2005. sfn error: no target: CITEREFVenetis2005 (help)
53. Binns, John. An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 30. ISBN 0-521-66738-0.
54. Morony 2005, p. 171. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMorony2005 (help)
55. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-10-18. Retrieved 2014-10-18.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) До 2004 года Зара исповедовала езидизм, затем приняла христианство.
56. Clay and Thornton, "Sellers Executed For 3 Murders", The Daily Oklahoman, February 4, 1999.
57. "John Paul II's appeal saved future Korean president from death sentence". Catholic News Agency. 21 May 2009. Retrieved 25 June 2012.
58. Wonderful Words of Life: Hymns in American Protestant History and Theology By Richard J. Mouw, Mark A. Noll (Accessed 14 June 2007)
59. Mallon, Thomas (October 22, 2007) "Rocket Man", The New Yorker, Access date: January 8, 2015.
60. "In the winter of 1959 [René Girard] experienced a conversion to Christian faith which had been preceded by a kind of intellectual conversion while he was working on his first book." René Girard:A Biographical Sketch, by James G. Williams
61. Limited, Jamaica Observer. "Musical tributes for Barbara Jones". Jamaica Observer.
62. "Gloria Gaynor: Surviving in Christ". cbn.com.
63. Tony Orlando's Brush With Death, cbn.com; accessed June 23, 2014
64. "Legendary Voice of Foreigner Lou Gramm Discovers What Love Is". cbn.com.
65. "Lou Gramm Knows What Love Is (Extended Version)". cbn.com.
66. solutions, skills and. "all Ghana data Home Page - Your Research Portal". allghanadata.com.
67. CosmoGhana (29 July 2011). "Lord Kenya - A new Man" – via YouTube.
68. "Truly Born Again! Lord Kenya says he cannot stand the smell of weed and alcohol now - AmeyawDebrah.Com". 17 October 2013.
69. "Stations and DJs are not helping my cause - Lord Kenya". ghanaweb.com.
70. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2010-03-27. Retrieved 2010-05-16.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
71. The best interview ever with the lead men of UnderOath Norma Jean As I Lay Dying — Buzznet Archived 2007-09-22 at the Wayback Machine
72. Stone, Rolling (10 December 2010). "Top 10 Rockers Who Found God".
73. NAIJ.com Kunle Ajayi speaks on music, rising from poor background. H. Igwe. March, 2016
74. Sevilla, María Eugenia. 2016. Abraham Laboriel, el discreto brillante. El Financiero.
75. Toma Tu Lugar Conference (Official Youtube Channel). Conferencia TOMA TU LUGAR — Reforma 2015 — Entrevista Abraham Laboriel. Sep 15, 2015
76. China Christian Daily. "Christian Singer G.E.M. Nominated on the 2016 Forbes 30 Under 30 for Music". Grace Zhi. January 12, 2016
77. Goblanerías.com. Muere a los 57 años de edad la cantante Vanity. 16 de febrero de 2016.
78. Rettenmund, Matthew (1996). Totally Awesome 80s: A Lexicon Of the Music, Videos, Movies, TV shows, Stars, and Trends Of That Decadent Decade. Macmillan. p. 57. ISBN 0-312-14436-9.
79. "Denise "Vanity" Matthews Of Vanity 6 Dead At 57". 16 February 2016.