Nicole Shanahan, the vice presidential running mate of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the 2024 presidential election, recently shared that she was baptized as a Christian after more than a decade of practicing Judaism.
“Sometimes life has this way of turning down the volume on all the chaos, and in that stillness, we get a clear glimpse of what truly matters. One of these moments occurred in my life last month,” Shanahan wrote in a post on X Tuesday titled “My Baptism Story.”
— Nicole Shanahan (@NicoleShanahan) February 25, 2025
Last month, a few days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, she offered a “silent prayer” to God after feeling a “heaviness” settle over her when she woke up in the middle of the night to comfort her 6-year-old daughter who had suffered a “night terror,” The Christian Post reports.
Shanahan, 39-year-old patent attorney, Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur and ex-wife of Google founder Sergey Brin, also shared how a bishop named Diane Robinson led her to Christ following “a heart-wrenching loss” in September 2024.
Diane, who is also the lead chaplain at Santa Rita Jail, the fifth-largest jail in the country, “prayed with me after my loss and was the first to ask me if I wanted to be saved,” recalled Shanahan.
Shanahan met the bishop through her masseuse, Ade, who is also a Christian, after which she asked him if he knew “anyone who can help keep ‘bad energy’ away from people? Basically an exorcism.”
Last month, a day before Trump’s inauguration, Shanahan and her husband, John, were baptized in their backyard swimming pool by Diane and her husband, bishop Peter Robinson in Atherton, California.
“During that meeting, Diane opened her worn and well-loved Bible—filled with highlights, underlines, and Post-it tabs. A book that had been studied and prayed over thousands of times. She moved through it with laser precision, guiding me to verse after verse as I struggled to read through my blurry, tear-filled eyes,” Shanan said.
“The pain of life sometimes can consume your entire reality, and the injustice, the loss, and the extreme nature of it all can feel genuinely unbearable,” she added. “The weight of the world, perpetuated by greed, lies, and indifference, can often feel hopeless. Diane looked at me and said with absolute certainty that Jesus could save me—that His blood is able to wash away sins and defeat the darkness that haunts the innocent.”
Despite stating she “always” believed in God, Shananan pointed out that she “never fully grasped the reality of the devil.”
“Growing up with a father who seemed overcome by his demons, I try to avoid ‘bad energy.’ He was addicted to alcohol and would fall into manic rages, yelling profanities at the wall. He would scream, laugh, cry, and wail all in a single evening, alone downstairs in our home in Oakland. I was taught that my father was a ‘sick’ person, but I never seriously considered whether demons were real—until recently.”
“Honestly, my last year in politics changed that,” she continued. “Learning just how far some will go to inflict atrocities on innocent Americans has shocked me awake. Other unexplainable events have also forced me to reconsider whether we are waging a war not merely with flesh and blood but with spiritual forces.”
Shanahan had previously practiced Judaism after her conversion in 2014 and has had a history of spiritual practices including “meditative prayer,” influenced by years of practicing yoga, studying Eastern religions, and engaging in “personal development” through programs like the Hoffman Process.
“But now, my prayers are directed toward Jesus. He is the bridge between us and heaven—our Intercessor before the Divine Creator”, she wrote.
“For over a decade, I identified as Jewish. But now, with the New Testament in my hands, I see the world’s spiritual pain in a way I never could before,” she noted. “It’s like a veil has been lifted, revealing a deeper understanding of the struggle between light and darkness. Today, I am a Jew for Jesus.”
Shanahan’s post concluded with the “Nisi Dominus aedificaverit domum, in vanum laboraveunt qui aedificant eam,” which is Latin for “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it,” taken from Psalm 127.
Photo Credit: ©Facebook/Nicole Shanahan
Originally published February 27, 2025.
