Welcome, Leah Libresco!

Mark Shea likes to describe blogger Leah Libresco as “my favorite atheist,” and I’m with him. Leah is a fresh respite from the angry, fundamentalist, rhetoric-laced New Atheists like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens.

In contrast to them, Leah is calm and charitable. She’s intimidatingly bright and extremely well-read. And she’s not afraid to objectively examine her beliefs.

She started her blog, “Unequally Yoked,” while dating a young Catholic, using it as a sounding board for arguments about (and against) religion. The blog was eventually picked up by Patheos and grew into a place where other serious-minded seekers could dialogue about the big questions of life. It was truly one of the few online havens where both atheists and believers could converse.

As time went on, Leah inched closer and closer to her boyfriend’s Catholicism. She talked with deacons, priests, and Dominicans, and even attended RCIA classes for a while. She read scores of apologetical books and wrestled with the arguments. But the momentum eventually slowed. Her and her boyfriend ended their relationship after two years of dating and she dropped out of RCIA (or, according to Leah, was “kicked out.”) It looked like Leah would be forever locked in her atheism as, to her at least, it offered the most compelling view of the world.

But the tide shifted again.

This morning, Leah went public with the news that she’s decided to convert to Catholicism, and I could not be more thrilled. I know I’ve prayed for her conversion several times, always thinking she would make a great Catholic. And with this news, it looks like that will happen.

Today heaven is roaring with joy. I’m sure Leah’s forebearers are cheering loudest, those great intellectual converts who have paved the way for Leah and so many others—Augustine, Newman, Lewis, Chesterton, and Edith Stein.

As with most conversions, Leah’s will not just be interior. It carries external changes, too. As a digital sign of her inward reality–an online sacramental?–Leah’s Patheos blog will be moving from the Atheist channel to the Catholic channel tomorrow. In her last post today at the Atheist channel, she recounts some of the thinking that has led to her conversion:
 

“I believed 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. I asked my friend what he suggest we do now, and we prayed the night office of the Liturgy of the Hours together (I’ve kept up with that since). Then I suggested hugs and playing Mumford and Sons really, really loudly.”

 
If you get a chance, pop over to Leah’s blog and offer some encouraging words. Conversion, as I well know, is tough enough from one Christian tradition to another. But when you move from atheism to Catholicism, the critics are ruthless. Undoubtedly the atheists will flock to Leah’s blog today with their usual critiques:

  • “You were never really an atheist in the first place.”
  • “Why are you abandoning your reason?!”
  • “You don’t need to convert to live a moral life.”
  • “You’re just doing this because of (insert name) or (insert vain incentive.)”

 
But don’t listen to them, Leah (as if I had to tell you.) Truth is a master who must be followed wherever he leads–even into unlit rooms and somber chambers. Yet when the lights come on and the music plays, you’ll recognize home.

So welcome, welcome, welcome! The Church needs you, Leah, and will be so graced to have you. From one blogging convert to another, enjoy the adventure!
 

“And so for a time it looked as if all the adventures were coming to an end; but that was not to be.”
― C.S. Lewis, “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”