The Will to Believe – Dr. Molly Worthen’s Story

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Sep 12, 2025

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Molly Worthen is an academic, a historian of religion, a Yale-educated professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, and was an agnostic for decades. She studied Christianity, wrote about it, and even lived alongside devout believers. But belief itself? That always felt just out of reach. In this conversation, Molly shares how God gently disrupted her intellectual framework, used unexpected relationships (including Pastor J.D. Greear), and led her on a rigorous investigation of the resurrection that changed everything.

Listen as she unpacks:

Why she resisted religion growing up
How studying Orthodoxy and evangelicalism fed her curiosity
Why most scholars don’t take the resurrection seriously, and why she did
How she moved from detached study to full surrender

If you’re a skeptic, seeker, or a believer walking with one, this is an invitation to deeper reflection.

Guest Bio:

Molly Worthen is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a freelance journalist. She received her BA and PhD from Yale University. Her research focuses on North American religious and intellectual history. Molly writes about religion, politics, and higher education for the New York Times and has also contributed to the Atlantic, the New Yorker, Slate, and other publications.

Resources Mentioned:

Molly’s Resources:

• Website: mollyworthen.com

• Book: Spellbound (2025)

• Book: Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism

• Book: The Man on Whom Nothing was Lost: The Grand Strategy of Charles Hill

• Great Course: “History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch,”

• Course on Audible: “Charismatic Leaders Who Remade America.”

Molly’s recommended resources:

• Reasons for God, Tim Keller

• Resurrection and the Son of God, NT Wright

• Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Richard Bauckham