# From conversion to apologetics: eight examples

**By:** David Hahn  
**Published:** 2026-08-30T15:00:00.000Z  
**Source:** [The Catholic Herald](https://thecatholicherald.com/article/from-conversion-to-apologetics-eight-examples)

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David Hahn

Joe Schmid has been criticised for pivoting from agnostic to Catholic apologetics. There are people claiming he isn’t yet in a stable enough place to play a public role in promoting Catholicism. They say he should leave apologetics to the folks who have been Christian for longer. Some of this criticism comes from Protestant apologists with an obvious stake in how Schmid’s definitively Catholic conversion is received. Even so, the underlying question is worth considering: should recent converts – and particularly former public critics of Christianity – play a public role in defending the Faith?
Contrary to his critics, Joe Schmid is joining a fairly illustrious company of converts who, once persuaded of the truth, boldly proclaimed it in the public square. Scripture and history contain numerous converts who soon turned their existing intellectual and rhetorical gifts towards defending the Faith. Here are eight examples from scripture and history of converts who began publicly promoting the Gospel.
1. The Samaritan Woman at the Well
There is the Samaritan woman from John 4. She not only encounters Jesus and becomes convinced that he is the Messiah, but also turns around and shares that discovery with whomever she can. “Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?’” Her testimony was effective: verse 39 tells us that “many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony”.
2. The Gerasene Demoniac
In a similar vein, Luke 8 tells us of a demoniac in the region of the Gerasenes opposite to Galilee. Upon meeting Jesus, the unclean spirits in him enter a herd of swine which they drive into the sea. The people of the surrounding region are much afraid of Christ and ask him to leave. The Gerasene demoniac, however, remains and proclaims throughout the city what Jesus had done for him.
These examples don’t prove that new converts are qualified to teach on every matter of doctrine, but likewise conversion does not demand silence. The following examples concern converts who brought existing intellectual and rhetorical formation to the more sustained work of apologetics.
3. St Paul of Tarsus
In Acts 8 and 9, we hear about the Pharisee Saul who is actively persecuting the Church – even approving Stephen’s martyrdom. After encountering Christ, Paul was baptised by Ananias and “began at once to proclaim Jesus” in the synagogues (Acts 9:20). Paul would go on to establish numerous churches and preach the Gospel even in Rome, the capital of the empire. He became perhaps the most consequential evangelist in Christian history.
4. St Augustine of Hippo
St Augustine spent approximately nine years as a Manichaean and had helped persuade others to accept the sect’s criticisms of Catholicism and scripture. After his conversion in 386, he began composing Christian philosophical works. By 388, Augustine was publicly arguing against his former religion and writing works such as On the Catholic and Manichaean Ways of Life and Genesis Against the Manichaeans. He remains one of the most influential theologians in Christian history.
5. St John Henry Newman
John Henry Newman was a prominent Anglican preacher and theologian who had made severe criticisms of Rome before his conversion. His study of the early Church produced the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, which helped lead him into the Catholic Church in 1845. Rather than abandoning public theology after being a critic of the Church, his preaching and writing made him one of the most important Catholic defenders not just in England but of the whole 19th century.
6. Orestes Brownson
Orestes Brownson was a prominent American preacher, essayist and religious controversialist who had moved through Presbyterianism, Universalism, Unitarianism, Transcendentalism and periods of unbelief. He was received into the Catholic Church in 1844 and almost immediately redirected Brownson’s Quarterly Review, his existing journal, towards Catholic apologetics.
When he considered abandoning journalism, the bishop of Boston encouraged him to continue because the American Church needed a forceful public defender. Brownson consequently became the leading Catholic lay apologist in 19th-century America.
7. CS Lewis
CS Lewis became one of the 20th century’s most influential defenders of Christianity. He abandoned Christianity during his adolescence and remained an atheist into adulthood. This all changed in 1931 when the established Oxford scholar reverted to the Faith of his youth. He went on to publish The Pilgrim’s Regress, an allegorical account of his conversion, and answered common objections to Christianity in The Problem of Pain, Miracles and his wartime BBC broadcasts, which were later collected and expanded into Mere Christianity.
8. Scott Hahn
(Call me biased for including this one.) Dr Scott Hahn was a Presbyterian minister and trained theologian who regarded Catholicism as gravely wrong and took pride in disabusing Catholics of what he understood as their theological errors. However, his study of scripture, particularly covenant typology, gradually convinced him that his objections to Catholicism were mistaken. He was received into the Catholic Church at Easter 1986, although several years passed before he began giving his conversion testimony and became widely known as a Catholic apologist. His subsequent teaching and many books on Catholic theology have made him one of the most influential Catholic biblical scholars and popular apologists of recent decades.
A categorical demand that recent converts remain silent about the Faith is neither biblical nor historical. Much of the knowledge that once equipped someone to oppose the Faith can, after conversion, aid others in making the same journey. St Paul’s knowledge of scripture, St Augustine’s experience of Manichaeism, St Newman’s Anglican theology and Dr Hahn’s biblical formation all became instruments of evangelisation.
There is certainly prudence in first grounding oneself in the sacramental life of the Church and establishing a firm habit of prayer before engaging in public apologetics – which it should be noted that Joe Schmid has reportedly done. A convert’s arguments, like those of a lifelong Catholic, should be accepted or rejected on their merits. In either case, the proper response is examination and correction if needed, not an arbitrary waiting period imposed upon someone already demonstrably qualified to discuss these matters.