I once began a book review with a story about two brothers. Let me give you two more.
These ones are twins. As kids, they memorize scriptures and pray daily with their family. They’re at church every week. They count cute pennies to pay tithing. Born later, they’d have been poster boys for Come Follow Me.
But freedom’s mysteries are deep, and at fifteen one brother turns away—he doesn’t stop believing, exactly; at first he just stops caring. He tells his parents he’s done with church and they don’t push the issue, hoping it’s a phase. It isn’t. Soon he gets a job, so he can get a phone, so he can do exactly the things with his phone that his parents don’t want him doing. He tries marijuana with friends, drinks at parties, and generally behaves like an ordinary irreligious American teenager.
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