“When these two boys, identical twins, were asking deep theological questions, who was there to help them?” Mohler asked. “Who was there to guide them? Who was there as an evangelical thinker, apologist, theologian, friend, pastor and guide to help them to understand these questions?”

A recent Wall Street Journal story profiling twin brothers who followed separate spiritual paths — one to become an Anglican bishop, the other a Catholic priest — represents failure by the Southern Baptist church in which they were raised, according to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler.

Mohler, who posts a daily podcast commenting on current events on his personal website, said March 6 he has no firsthand knowledge of First Baptist Church in Elkin, N.C., home church of the men now in their 40s featured in a March 3 article headlined “When We Leave One Religion for Another: How two brothers, raised Baptist, found their way to two different faiths.” But the story of young seeking answers outside their evangelical upbringing is all too common.

“We are losing far too many evangelical young people as they reach older ages because they are simply not adequately grounded theologically in the Christian faith,” Mohler said. “They may go to vacation Bible school, and they may go to Sunday school, but the question is, are they really grounded in the Christian faith? Are they well-grounded in the beauty of Scripture? Are they well-grounded in a knowledge of the deep theological convictions that define us as Christians?”

According to the Wall Street Journal piece, 43-year-old Brad Jones, a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Charlotte, N.C., and Bishop Chad Jones, rector at St. Barnabas Anglican Church in Dunwoody, Ga., grew up in the Baptist congregation where their parents remain faithful members. Both felt something was missing in the Baptist church, and they embarked on different paths to find it.

Wall Street Journal photo posted on philorthodox, blog of the Right Reverend Chandler (Chad) Holder Jones.Like many kids, the story says, in their early teen years the boys began questioning things, including the teachings of the Baptist church. Their interest piqued when an older cousin converted to Catholicism and took them to Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church in Greensboro, N.C., when they were about 12 or 13.

The article describes the scene:

“The beauty of the building itself — the vaulted ceilings, marble steps, intricate woodwork, statues and stained glass — the smells of burning incense and the sounds of bells had a mystical quality that is hard to explain, says Father Brad. What struck Bishop Chad was watching the priest standing in front of the altar and elevating the Communion host.

“For them, the Catholic liturgy made the invisible God palpable and tangible to the senses. Their own Baptist church, where the walls are white and flat, the altar austere, and the worship focused largely on Scripture alone, didn’t. ‘We weren’t theologians. We were children. But as children we had open hearts and minds to it and were very receptive,’ says Bishop Chad. He remembers painting a picture of Jesus during vacation Bible school, hanging it on his bedroom wall and wishing his church had pictures.”

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