Tech guru Larry Sanger posts new video version of testimony

Larry Sanger, who was influential in the founding of Wikipedia, detailed his decades-long journey to Christianity in a video posted Thursday. Sanger described receiving a flood of comments and emails after publicly sharing his faith in a blog post last week. The best way to share the gospel is by sharing one’s conversion story, he said in the opening of the 90-minute video.

What did he discuss? Sanger gave greater detail on circumstances surrounding his conversion story that began in his early childhood. Sanger described growing up as an overly curious child in a conservative Lutheran church with parents who were also committed Lutherans. Despite receiving his confirmation, Sanger said he lost his faith during his teenage years and became an agnostic by the time he went to college.

The philosophies of Ayn Rand were influential to Sanger throughout his teens and into his 20s, and he described his unbelief in God as an extension of her philosophical ethics. Sanger said his marriage and the birth of his first child eventually convinced him to reject Rand’s positions on self-interest and also to unknowingly open himself up to faith. Sanger said he came to respect Christians for their intelligence and kindness to others and began defending them in online forums. He described his faith truly sparking once he began reading the Bible with an open mind. He ended with a summary of the gospel for his audience and shared his ambition to read The Apocrypha: The Lutheran Edition with Notes for the first time, which he acknowledged is not considered canonical by Protestants or Jews.

Dig deeper: Read Josh Schumacher’s report on Sanger first announcing his faith.