Exceptional people that realized Jesus died and Rose again.

The most unlikely people to turn speak for the validity of Christ are some of the most influential in the history of Christian apologetics. 

World Leaders

 Abraham Lincoln – Served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Read the incredible story of Abraham Lincoln’s Journey From Atheism To Christianity

Bill Hayden – Australia’s second longest-serving Governor-General and was a renowned atheist for all of his life. Bill Received Jesus At 85

Lesbian Professor

Rosaria Champagne Butterfield: Former Lesbian, Feminist, Atheist Professor. In what she describes as a train wreck, Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, a former tenured professor of English and women’s studies at Syracuse University, shares the incredible story of her journey to Christ, laying aside lesbianism, feminism and Atheism.

Wealthy God Hater

Michael McIntyre – Multi-Millionaire Atheist Who Hated God But Now, He Radically Accepts Jesus

Best Attorney ever? 

Sir Lionel Luckhoo (1914-1997) is considered one of the greatest lawyers in British history. He's recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "World's Most Successful Advocate," with 245 consecutive murder acquittals. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II -- twice. Luckhoo declared:

I humbly add I have spent more than 42 years as a defense trial lawyer appearing in many parts of the world and am still in active practice. I have been fortunate to secure a number of successes in jury trials and I say unequivocally the evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt.3

Detective 

"I'm not a Christian because it ‘works’ for me. I’m a Christian because it’s true." A retired cold case homicide detective, J. Warner Wallace was a vocal atheist for many years - until he applied his investigative training to the Gospels and determined that Christianity is demonstrably true. You may recognize him from NBC's Dateline, where he’s appeared more than any other detective in the country. 

His mother helped Get the Bible out of Schools

William J. Murray III, son of infamous atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair, who filed a lawsuit that ended compulsory Bible reading in schools. The family business was atheism. 

This son of America’s high-profile atheist, evolutionist and religion-hater read Taylor Caldwell’s book “Dear and Glorious Physician,” about Luke, one of the Bible’s Gospel writers. William rushed out at 3 o’clock one morning in a desperate search for a Bible. He found one in an all-night store. He said that as he read about why Jesus Christ had lived and died, it finally put meaning into his life. 

“I got down on my knees and repented of my sins and asked Jesus Christ into my life as Lord and Savior,” he said. 

C.S. Lewis, perhaps the most cited Christian

You must picture me alone in that room at Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."

Scientist

Hormon Shariat (Research scientist in artificial intelligence)
Shariat was born in Iran as a Muslim. He came to the United States in 1979. He realized that “Jesus didn’t look like the prophet in the Koran.” Jesus seemed strong and confident and he liked the teachings of Jesus, especially the Sermon on the Mount. He asked Christians and finally accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior in 1980. He became an evangelist. He is famously known as The Billy Graham of Iran.

Saul to Paul

Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. 3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”  

Days later, Paul began his journey to become the most influential Christian man to ever live (besides Jesus).  

The list is exhaustive of converts.