Bringing home the message of God

For senior Joe Lorenz, the first stirrings of passion came years ago. He toyed with the idea, researched his crush and prayed every night before going to bed. Then, last January, curious flirting escalated into infatuation. As he asked his friends for answers, he sensed an emerging intimacy and felt his fears fade away.

Lorenz was in love with God, and he was sure that God loved him back. He experienced God's love in the Bible and breathed it in everyday subtleties, like an uncollected homework assignment that he had never started. Lorenz's conversion to Christianity relied on a self-described, self-discovered "highly irrational" belief - he comes from a nonreligious family.

Lorenz belongs to the 80 percent of teens today who follow one of the world's major religions, according to the ongoing National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR). The study reported that teens' religious choices tend to follow those of their parents. But first-generation religious Blazers like Lorenz stand apart from the rest in their personal need for faith and their pioneering relationships with God.

The light in the distance

One Sunday six months ago, God reached down and found a convert to Christianity in junior Andres Recinos. Recinos, whose father was nonreligious, was reluctant to go to church, but on that morning, he succumbed to his mother and sister's insistence. At church, he remembers, the preacher spoke about sin and asked the congregation to feel the Holy Spirit. Recinos fell to the ground. He felt a hand pressing down on his face, keeping him flat - except it wasn't a hand, he says. It was God.

For Recinos, that moment held a revelation. "It was like a cleansing. It was insane," Recinos says, recalling the tears he cried. "I felt like I was missing something, and then God touched my life."

Spirituality revealed itself more gradually to junior Jordan Turner. Jordan had contemplated conversion ever since the summer of 2004 when, out of curiosity, he started reading an English translation of the Qur'an and browsing through pamphlets about Islam. He began to pray regularly in February. By July, he had made up his mind.

Jordan took his shahada, the declaration of belief required of all converts to Islam, in an office at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, the mosque he now attends several times a week. He stood in front of a few other Muslims and the imam, the leader of the mosque. "I bear witness that there is no god but God; I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God," Jordan recited after the imam, first in Arabic and then in English. Minutes later, his certificate of conversion bore four signatures: his own, the imam's and those of two witnesses.

As the witnesses shook Jordan's hand and one gave him a hug, he felt grateful for his new sense of belonging. "It wasn't like I had totally become a new person, but it was a great feeling that I was being welcomed into a new community," he says.

Adil Khan, the imam, whose home, work and cell phone numbers are all stored in Jordan's cell phone, has taught Jordan prayers and customs over the past few months. Khan describes Jordan as enthusiastic and mature, pointing out that his conversion was a voluntary and well-informed decision. "The most important thing is to understand what he's doing and not to have any false notions," Khan says. "That's what we teach. We don't force people [to convert]."

Breaking with tradition

Clergy usually carry less weight than family when teens make religious choices, according to Christian Smith, a lead investigator for the NSYR. In his book "Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers," he writes that "the single most important social influence on the religious and spiritual lives of adolescents is their parents."

But Jordan comes from a family of "casual Christians"; his parents have not gone to church in years. The void of religious influences in his family allowed him to research Islam with an open mind. He realized that Islam resonated with his developing philosophy - his disapproval of smoking and alcohol, for example - and that the true religion reflected none of its violent portrayal in the media.

His mother, Roma Turner, was less confident in his choice. She had reservations about Islam's treatment of women and Jordan's speedy submission to the faith at age 16. Still, she accepted the invisible newcomer to the family that came in the shape of the Qur'an and the language of Jordan's prayers. As the metaphysical presence taught her more about the global reach of Islam and about her son, she gradually made peace with his decision.

While his parents had qualms about his conversion, Jordan believes it was right for him. "My parents and relatives said that I should have done more research before converting, but I can't picture myself as anyone else. You don't have to try on all the shoes at the store before you know that what you're buying is the right one," he says.

Coming from a liberal and nonreligious family, Lorenz can testify to a similar ideological divide between himself and his parents. "My family is united in being baffled by faith," he remarks, explaining that religion tends to attract negative stigma in politically liberal areas. This social pressure makes some people afraid to associate with Christianity, he says.

Most teens with nonreligious parents adopt a faith because their friends practice it, says Lisa Pearce, another lead investigator for the NSYR. According to Pearce, only a small percentage of teens actively seek a religion to help themselves understand life. Teens in this subgroup tend to convert when they face traumatic situations - a death in the family, an accident, a divorce - that make them reflect on why events happen or whether a God exists, Pearce says.

Embarking on the journey

That question no longer troubles Jordan, who believes that Islam has shown him a new direction for his life. "As a nonreligious person, it didn't feel like there was a purpose, just living day by day. As a Muslim, the purpose is to serve Allah," he says.

Every morning, Jordan wakes up at 5:30 a.m. to say the first of five prayers required of Muslims daily. Although he is "not at all fluent" in Arabic, he has memorized the basic parts of each prayer so he can recite them faster. Prayers that used to take him 20 to 30 minutes now take five to 10 minutes. He has not missed a single prayer since taking his shahada.

His commitment to Islam was put to the test when he visited his relatives in Boston. Religious law holds that devout Muslims cannot shake hands with people of the opposite sex. Jordan refused handshakes from several of his uncle's friends, and his uncle took offense, not knowing that Jordan's new religion forbade the gesture.

The search for truth

Back in Maryland on a Friday afternoon, these teens depart from their daily lives into their separate worlds of faith. Lorenz goes to a Bible study group at the Marvin Memorial Methodist Church, across the street from Blair, while Jordan attends the Friday prayer at the Muslim Students' Association's weekly meeting.

For Jordan, this is the most important prayer of the week. He went to the Friday prayer at his mosque during the summer, when school did not intervene. Every time he entered the doors, he took off his shoes and joined the men sitting on the floor in silence, their ears tuned in to the imam's voice. After the half-hour sermon, he and the other men stood in lines facing the same direction, their feet and shoulders touching, in preparation for prayer.

Jordan cherishes the unity at the mosque, where people wish each other "as-salaamu alaikum," or "peace be upon you," in greeting. "When I go to the mosque, everyone treats me as an equal. They say hello as if we've been friends forever," Jordan says.

Lorenz believes that at the core of Christianity lies a very similar feeling: love. Reading the Bible moved him to admire God's compassion and capacity for forgiveness. God shows this forgiving attitude, Lorenz says, in that Christianity has no strict moral or behavioral code. "All you have to do is believe," he says. "The desire to become a better person comes naturally."

As a result of converting, Recinos curses less, puts more effort into school and does not skip class anymore, he says. He now goes to church from Friday through Sunday, attends a Christian teen group on Wednesdays and plans on starting a Bible study group on Saturdays with a friend.

Most of all, Recinos feels a true personal connection with God. "What's the point of life without God? You live, you procreate, you die," he says. "There's a truth out there with God."

Seventy-one percent of teens said that they feel "extremely," "very" or "somewhat close" to God.
• At least 80 percent identify themselves as followers of a major religion.
• Sixty-five percent said that they prayed alone at least a few times a week.
Information compiled from the National Study of Youth and Religion