Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, has made headlines not for his tech legacy but for a deeply personal milestone: his conversion to Christianity.
On February 5, 2025, Sanger announced his salvation in a detailed essay on his personal website, marking the end of a 35-year journey from skepticism back to faith.
His story, which includes an unexpected influence from Hollywood’s darker underbelly, offers a compelling look at how intellectual rigor and spiritual seeking can converge.
Sanger, now 56, is best known for co-founding Wikipedia in 2001 with Jimmy Wales. A philosopher by training, he envisioned a “free and open” internet where knowledge could be shared globally. However, he left Wikipedia in 2002 over disagreements about its direction and has since criticized its editorial biases, focusing on projects like the Knowledge Standards Foundation.
His intellectual background—rooted in analytic philosophy, a field often skeptical of religious claims—shaped his early life and his eventual departure from faith.
Raised in the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, a conservative denomination, Sanger was steeped in Christian teachings as a child. But his inquisitive nature led him to question those beliefs as a young adult.
In a March 2025 Fox News interview, he explained that his doubts began shortly after his confirmation in the Lutheran church. The rigid answers he received from church leaders didn’t satisfy his philosophical mind, and by his late teens, he had walked away from Christianity, embracing skepticism. For decades, he identified as an agnostic, believing that the Christianity he’d been taught couldn’t address the questions that mattered to him.
What brought Sanger back to faith was a combination of intellectual exploration and personal reflection. In his February 5 essay, he described how he began re-examining arguments for God’s existence, such as the First Cause, Contingency, and Design arguments.
These philosophical frameworks, which he found fit together “like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle,” challenged his skepticism. A pivotal moment came in 2020 when he read the entire Bible in about 100 days. Sanger told Fox News that the Bible “could withstand his questioning,” and this intensive engagement with scripture solidified his belief in God, leading to his conversion.
An unexpected influence in Sanger’s journey was his exposure to what he called “Hollywood’s demonic secrets.” This refers to his growing awareness of moral and spiritual corruption in politics and the entertainment industry. In his essay, Sanger hinted at being disturbed by revelations of systemic immorality—tied to high-profile scandals involving abuse, occult practices, and ethical decay in the halls of power and Hollywood.
This exposure, he wrote, pushed him to seek a moral anchor, drawing him closer to the Christian faith he’d once rejected. The contrast between Hollywood’s darkness and the hope he found in scripture became a catalyst for his salvation.
Sanger’s announcement on February 5, 2025, was a candid reflection on his 35-year journey. Titled “How a Skeptical Philosopher Becomes a Christian,” the essay detailed his Lutheran upbringing, his decades of doubt, and the intellectual and spiritual steps that led him back to faith.
He wrote about the First Cause argument’s role in opening his mind to God’s existence and how reading the Bible in 2020 brought him to a personal relationship with Christ. The essay also addressed his surprise at his own conversion, given his long history as a skeptic, and his hope that his story might encourage others wrestling with doubt.
The announcement resonated widely, with outlets like Fox News and The Gospel Coalition covering his story. Sanger’s conversion joins a wave of high-profile faith journeys, such as actor Mark Wahlberg’s, signaling a trend of public figures embracing Christianity.
For Sanger, the journey was deeply personal but also intellectual—a testament to how faith can withstand rigorous questioning.
At 56, Sanger’s salvation marks a new chapter. His story challenges skeptics to reconsider faith and offers believers a reminder of scripture’s transformative power. From Wikipedia’s co-founder to a follower of Christ, Sanger’s path shows that even the most questioning minds can find their way home.
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