A reading list
The best Christian conversion & testimony books
The greatest testimonies ever written are old enough to be free — and they read better than almost anything published since. Here are the classic first-person conversion accounts worth your time, each free to read in the public domain and available as a clean, modern edition.
- 1
Confessions
Augustine · 397
Augustine was an ambitious teacher of rhetoric who chased worldly success and followed the Manichaean sect for some nine years. Under the influence of Bishop Ambrose at Milan he converted in 386, was baptized in 387, and became a priest and then Bishop of Hippo.
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- 2
The Life of St. Teresa of Ávila, Written by Herself
Teresa of Ávila · 1565
Born into a wealthy Ávila family, Teresa entered the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation in 1535 and at first lived a comfortable, lax religious life. She underwent a deepening conversion to intense interior prayer and went on to found the reformed Discalced Carmelites.
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- 3
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
John Bunyan · 1666
Bunyan was a tinker who, by his own account, lived a profane and irreligious young life. After his marriage he was convicted of his sin, converted, joined the Nonconformist Bedford meeting, and became a preacher, ultimately spending twelve years imprisoned for refusing to stop preaching.
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- 4
The Journal of John Woolman
John Woolman · 1774
Woolman was a successful Mount Holly shopkeeper and tailor whose work as a conveyancer, asked to write bills of sale for enslaved people, awakened his conscience. He deliberately scaled back his business to free time for itinerant preaching, becoming a leading antislavery voice within the Society of Friends.
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- 5
An Authentic Narrative
John Newton · 1764
John Newton went from a profane seaman and slave-trade participant to an evangelical Anglican clergyman and hymn-writer; in later years he became an outspoken abolitionist.
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- 6
A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Müller, Written by Himself
George Müller · 1837
George Müller turned from a thieving, dissolute university student into a devout philanthropist who cared for thousands of orphans, trusting God for every provision rather than soliciting funds.
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- 7
A Retrospect
J. Hudson Taylor · 1894
J. Hudson Taylor was converted as a teenager in England and answered a call to inland China, founding the China Inland Mission and devoting his life to evangelism there.
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- 8
Memoirs of the Rev. Charles G. Finney, Written by Himself
Charles G. Finney · 1876
A skeptical young lawyer, Charles Finney was converted in 1821 at Adams, New York, abandoned the law for preaching, and became one of America's most influential revivalists.
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- 9
Autobiography of Peter Cartwright
Peter Cartwright · 1856
By his own account a wild, card-playing youth, Peter Cartwright was converted at a camp meeting around 1801 and gave his life to Methodist preaching as a frontier circuit rider.
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- 10
Fifty Years in the Church of Rome
Charles Chiniquy · 1885
After about twenty-five years as a Roman Catholic priest, Chiniquy left the Church and, with much of his French-Canadian congregation, joined the Presbyterian Church, becoming a prominent Protestant minister.
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- 11
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Written by Himself
Olaudah Equiano · 1789
Converted to evangelical Protestant Christianity, Equiano bound his new faith to the abolitionist cause, devoting his freedom to preaching against the slave trade.
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- 12
The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself
Mary Prince · 1831
Taught to read by Moravian missionaries in Antigua, Prince embraced the Moravian faith and was baptized, and her Christian conviction sustained her through bondage and her fight for freedom.
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- 13
Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee, Written by Herself
Jarena Lee · 1849
After conversion and an experience of sanctification, Lee was at last sanctioned to preach by AME founder Richard Allen, becoming the denomination's first authorized female preacher and proclaiming Methodist holiness wherever she traveled.
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- 14
An Autobiography: The Story of the Lord's Dealings with Mrs. Amanda Smith
Amanda Smith · 1893
Smith details her conversion and experience of sanctification within Holiness Methodism, recounting revivals, camp meetings, and a life of faith framed throughout as "the Lord's dealings" with her.
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- 15
Confessio (The Confession of St. Patrick)
Patrick of Ireland · 450
A nominal Christian boy, enslaved among strangers, turned to God in his loneliness on the Irish hills — then chose to go back to his captors' country as their apostle.
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- 16
The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity
Vibia Perpetua · 203
In the squalor of a Roman prison, a new mother chose Christ over family, freedom, and her own child — and her jailer Pudens was won over and converted during their captivity.
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- 17
A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
Mary Rowlandson · 1682
Stripped of home, child, and safety, Rowlandson read her suffering as the hand of a faithful God — and her steadfast scripture-soaked faith became a testimony to all who read it.
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- 18
At the Master's Feet
Sadhu Sundar Singh · 1922
Born into a Sikh family in the Punjab — and so hostile that he once burned a Gospel — he was converted after a vision and baptized in 1905, becoming a wandering Christian sadhu who preached for some twenty-five years until he vanished heading into Tibet.
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- 19
How I Became a Christian
Kanzo Uchimura · 1895
Raised in a samurai family in the practices of Shinto, Buddhism, and Confucian duty, he was baptized in 1877 and became a leading Japanese Christian author, pacifist, and founder of the indigenous Non-church (Mukyokai) movement.
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- 20
From the Deep Woods to Civilization
Charles Eastman · 1916
Eastman took the name Charles when he embraced Christianity, then trained as a physician and served at Pine Ridge. His autobiography measures the new faith and the new world against the Dakota values he was raised in, refusing easy answers.
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