Lauren Jackson

And he said, well, here's what you do.

Just start reading the Gospels.

And I said, well, no, I've read all those, right?

And he's like, no.

He did what the priest said, and he continued to try.

And she goes, why?

That's weird.

He buys a Bible and he starts going to church.

But he does all of this very quietly.

And how do you account for his impulse to keep it all a secret?

Is it just as simple as not wanting to come off as a hypocrite to his family?

I think potentially, in part.

He said as much.

You know, he'd spend much of his life making an intellectual argument against the church, that there was no value in prayer or church attendance on Sunday.

But what really mattered instead were political commitments to progressive causes that he felt would reform society.

So—

You know, as flawed as Nick thought the church is, and as much as he rebelled against it, he started to see Christianity as something that he thought could make the world just a little bit better.

Yeah.

And this reconciliation of his past worldview with a new one, it wasn't easy.

But he did keep trying.