I was a HG kid raised as a Southern Baptist in the Bible Belt. When I went to college, someone had to explain to me about believing in God but not believing in a literal interpretation of the Bible. I asked, "How do you know which parts of the Bible to believe?"
I was confirmed an Episcopalian after college. It probably helped that I knew a couple of ordained Anglican priests who were also Rhodes Scholars.
These days I don't attend church regularly for reasons I don't entirely understand myself. They seem to have much more to do with my difficulty of breaking into crowds than any matter of principle.
But I also teach world history to 6th graders, and part of that is teaching them about major world religions. I'll be showing them the documentary "Promises" (2002) this January. In that video, Jewish and Palestinian children (9-12) both cite scripture when saying Jerusalem belongs to them, not those other people! We'll also see how different members of the same group have different opinions, and how people--sometimes--change their minds as they get older.
It's part of my game in that class to keep students guessing as to my own religion. One of them asked me the other day if I was Hindu! If they guessed based on sheer volume of material, they should probably guess that I am Muslim. I just think that learning to recognize and live with the diversity of Islamic beliefs and believers will be one of the major challenges of their age.
