Atheist-Turned-Christian Filmmaker Makes the Case for God in New Documentary
For years, filmmaker Michael Ray Lewis was an atheist who viewed Christianity as a religion for people who rejected reality and distrusted science.
But then Lewis began looking at the evidence. And then he converted to the faith he once ridiculed.
Lewis is the director behind a new documentary, Universe Designed, that releases on home video Dec. 13 and examines the evidence for God’s existence with interviews from some of the world’s top apologists, theologians, and thinkers, including Frank Turek, Hugh Ross, J. Warner Wallace, Alisa Childers, and Sean McDowell.
Essentially, it presents the evidence that persuaded Lewis, beginning with life’s big questions – where did the universe come from? – before transitioning into questions about truth and then the evidence for Jesus.
It’s aimed at two audiences – skeptics like Lewis once was, but also Christians who want to better articulate and defend their faith.
“I grew up in a home where I'm pretty sure most of us would say that they believed in God, had a Bible under their bed – but we never talked about God, we never talked about Jesus,” Lewis told Crosswalk Headlines.
As Lewis aged, he rejected Christianity and embraced atheism, even watching documentaries by Bill Maher and others that poked fun at people of faith. His beliefs, though, began to change when his wife started going back to church, and then again when he encountered a YouTube video by Ross, an astrophysicist and the founder of Reasons to Believe, a Christian ministry.
It took Lewis roughly three years to journey from atheist to Christian, a process capped by a face-to-face conversation with a theologian – a family friend – who addressed every objection he raised.
“On the way home, I remember thinking to myself, I actually think this is true, and that's when I realized the evidence isn't what was holding me back – it was the fact that I didn't want it to be true,” Lewis said. “... I threw my hands up and I said, ‘Alright, Jesus, what's next?’ I gave my life to Christ.”
Lewis was now a Christian, but he still held a lingering suspicion that many believers were unprepared to defend their faith or explain why they believed what they did. Universe Designed is his gift to the body of Christ to help equip believers with thoughtful, evidence-based answers.
The roughly 90-minute documentary was crafted from 36 hours of footage. It unites two central themes: the evidence for an unnamed Designer and the historical case for Christianity.
“There are big questions that we all have, but we've all stopped asking them because we get distracted, we get busy with life, and so we need to start asking these big questions again,” he said.
“If you watch the film, it takes you a good 20 minutes before you realize you're even watching a Christian film. I did that intentionally because I want people to not reject it on the basis of it being a Christian film, and so my primary audience is those non-believers who are open to hearing the arguments, who are open to taking a second look at Christianity and hopefully pique their curiosity and challenge them.”
But the documentary is also for Christians, he said.
“This is a film that if you've grown up in the church and you've always pP that it's true, but maybe not necessarily why it's true – this is the film for you, because this will encourage you to know that everything we believe about Jesus is actually real,” he said. “There are good arguments for it. There is good evidence for it. There are facts.”
Related Audio
A Filmmaker’s Journey from Atheism to Evidence-Based Faith: Michael Ray Lewis
Photo Credit: ©Universe Designed
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
Listen to Michael's Podcast! He is the host of Crosswalk Talk, a podcast where he talks with Christian movie stars, musicians, directors, and more. Hear how famous Christian figures keep their faith a priority in Hollywood and discover the best Christian movies, books, television, and other entertainment. You can find Crosswalk Talk on LifeAudio.com, or subscribe on Apple or Spotify so you never miss an interview that will be sure to encourage your faith.
Originally published December 10, 2025.
