the wedge that is religion

I'm involved in a slight ethical/religious dilemma.

My husband has a little half-brother, Walt, who is barely 22, making him 11 years younger than my husband. Husband's always thought of him as his baby brother, even now at 22, because he was old enough when Walt was born to change diapers and babysit and calm his tears in the middle of the night. Walt is an only child in a lot of ways-- because his half-brother was 11 and half-sister was 14 when he was born, they were out of the house by the time he was really old enough to remember, and he is the only child of his mother, who essentially spoiled and coddled him.

Walt just moved out of the house last year. Of course my husband didn't understand this-- when he was 18, he was the first person to move into the dorm, and at Christmas and summer break, he was the last person to move out. He only spent that first Freshman summer at home, afterward always finding places to rent.

Walt, on the other hand, is a little bit of a momma's boy. He's shy, quiet, and not particularly keen on independence just yet. He's handsome, with his father's Roman nose (that his brother somehow missed) and his mother's tan, somewhat-Native American, skin. He's so smart, was taking lots of history courses last semester (down to just one astronomy class this spring) and he's a hard worker too, holding down a nearly full-time job at a furniture store. He's sweet, kind, and funny, and he's the best brother-in-law I could ask for. He loves his family and especially his big brother.

But he's a bit of a follower. This has always bothered my I'll-do-it-myself husband. He's tried so hard to get Walt to think for himself, to form his own opinions, to go out and meet people and have some fun. Fun for Walt, this wall-flower, is to stay at home and play video games. Or lately, and this is where the dilemma starts, to go to Baptist Student Union meetings.

Religion is one thing, Christianity is one thing, but Baptist? My atheist husband wriggles uncomfortably when this gets brought up. He's trying hard not to push Walt away, but at the same time he's always been one to express his opinions, and so now to have a brother who just last week went on a mission trip to Peru and then this week to post a new-age Christian song lyric as his facebook status... it's just too much.

We feel like he's slipping away from us, like someone has got his claws in him and is taking him into the uneducated darkness, away from the light of sanity and rationality. He's never had a big interest in religion before, so why now, and why Baptist? He can't tell us. He's not eager to tell us anything about it because he knows already how we feel. He's avoided his brother since he got back from Peru, and we all know why.

I don't want this to tear us apart or even put the tiniest of wedges between us. Even though my husband and I have fought so hard for our families to accept our beliefs, I'm having a hard time accepting his newly found religion. It's so completely opposite of who we are, even his mother is a little wary, and we don't understand it. I feel a little hypocritical, bashing his beliefs when I know how it feels to have your beliefs belittled. But it feels like he's regressing, and that if he just stopped and thought about it for a minute, out of the clutches of the BSU, he'd go back to the way he was-- interested in history and literature and learning and not just the b-i-b-l-e.

But even if he doesn't, even if he can't, I need to find a way to make this ok for my husband, some way to keep the two of them from drifting apart.