I've heard similar stories (each one at least second-hand); there seems to be a binary split in the kind of people who go on to study theology in university: those who believe hard and those whose faith is already teetering.
It's also similar to my own experiences; while I never took a university-grade theology class, I did go through the Finnish school system and the associated nine years of exposure to religion.
I'll say this for religion and teaching it at school in a predominantly secular country: it's a great way to get people thinking. It was because of those religion classes that I first went out to find out about (read: "scratch the surface of") logical argumentation and fallacies of reasoning.
If only there were a way to predictably accomplish the same effect without all the collateral damage.
Have you ever convinced a religious person to become atheistic? How did you do this? How long did it take? Were the people in some sort of life crisis, or were they just living along?
This is probably a quite difficult task of persuasion. So stories how people were successful at it could be very interesting to improve ones' persuasion abilities.
Relatedly, it might be interesting to know what religious groups have gathered on techniques to convert people to their religion - are there some manuals/techniques floating around?