Feeling hopeful about my brother
A surprising conversation with my brother about faith and doubt
A Note From Megan | Publication Date: January 12th, 2026
I saw my youngest brother over the weekend for a belated holiday get together.
He’s 17 years old and still lives with my mom and step-dad. While he’s technically a half-sibling, I never really think of him this way. We’ve always shared a special bond.
Watching him grow up has been truly fascinating, as well as a bit harrowing, because I’ve been able to observe from a distance my mom’s attempts to indoctrinate him using many of the same tactics she once used on me and my other brothers.
It was touch and go there for a while, and I honestly thought he would get sucked completely in—mostly because his social group is primarily made up of youth group friends, and he’s very into his weekly Bible study with “the guys.”
However, during almost every visit over the past year or so, he says something surprising. Something that indicates that he has both developed and is actively exercising critical thinking.
Like the time he told his friends he didn’t want to accompany them to CRC (Christian Retreat Center) because it reminded him of a cult (which it is!).
Or the time the pastor of their tiny little cult church told my brother if he ever has questions about any of his teachings, he can always ask. So my brother showed up to a lunch with the pastor with a written list of detailed questions. (He later told me the answers were not fully satisfactory…).
And he seems to have no end of frustrations with mom when he challenges one of her rigid rules about things like tithing or pre-marital cohabitation because she won’t engage with him beyond saying, “because the Bible says so.”
But perhaps the thing that surprises me the most, and the thing I’m the most grateful for, is that he has never stopped confiding in me.
Despite the fact that I’m no longer a “believer,” and I was even “living in sin” for a few years before Michael and I got married, he still seems to feel safe opening up to me about his big frustrations and his big questions.
When I was his age, I never would have trusted someone like me. I had fully absorbed the teaching that unbelievers were dangerous and should be kept at arm’s length.
But somehow, my precious brother has managed to stay open-hearted and curious and engaged with humanity, regardless of individual beliefs.
Yesterday on the drive home from lunch, we started talking about parts of the Bible he finds confusing and various teachings that he doesn’t feel are clearly supported by the Bible.
That’s when I finally shared with him, for the first time, what the original crack in the foundation of my belief had been.
I told him one day, sitting in a Bible class in college, it dawned on me that it was extremely unlikely that out of all the Christian denominations, our tiny little church in Central PA was the only one who got it exactly “right” (although this was their claim). How could it be that we somehow got it “right” while everyone else was “wrong.”
And then I told him the next thing that dawned on me was that out of all the major religions around the world, how unlikely it was that Protestant Christianity was the “right” religion.
And do you know what he said to me in response?
He said, “I know! That’s what I was thinking! There’s no way to know that we have the ‘right’ religion. For all we know, Muslims might have the right religion. Or some other group.”
“Or,” I said, “maybe there’s no ‘right’ religion at all.”
I then went on to share with him that I found it more worthwhile for my own life to try to live according to a few core values rather than figuring out which religious rules I was supposed to be following. Values like ‘loving your neighbor’ and ‘caring for the poor.’
And here’s the best part—he said, “I totally agree.”
If I’m perfectly honest, I still carry a great deal of anger towards my mom for the way she raised me and my brothers. And over the years, that anger has periodically flared as I’ve watched helplessly from the sidelines as she tried to implement the same playbook with my baby brother.
But watching my brother move through adolescence without becoming fully indoctrinated or radicalized has been an absolute balm to my soul.
He’s so different than I was at his age, and I find it truly remarkable that two people can react to similar environments in such starkly different ways.
But I’m beyond grateful that he’s held on to his curiosity and his willingness to challenge the teachings that don’t make sense.
And even though he’s still “in it” to a certain degree, I now feel certain that he really is going to be ok.