At church camp, testimonies are predictable. Tears, promises, a verse from the Gospel of John. But once, a kid gave us something else, and none of us knew what to do with it.
In my former Evangelical life, I used to run youth camps. Every year, during the final night, we’d gather the older kids — the ones about to graduate — and they’d stand in front of everyone to share their personal testimony. The idea was simple: tell your story, declare your undying commitment to Jesus, and hopefully light a holy fire under the next batch of campers. It was predictable but moving in that way only youth camp can be.
I remember one year in particular. There was this kid — lanky, gentle-eyed, maybe fifteen or sixteen, always scribbling notes in the margins of his Bible, never the loudest voice but always the first to help pack up the chairs.
Let’s call him Caleb.
When Caleb stepped up to tell his story, it was textbook perfect. He started with the standard opener: “I grew up in church, but it didn’t mean anything to me until…” — pause for effect. Then he shared about some struggle, probably a vague addiction to video games or a fight with a friend — enough to make him relatable but not scandalous. Next came the dramatic turning point at last year’s camp: the big cry, the altar call, the feeling that Jesus himself whispered in his ear. You could feel the leaders nodding along, almost mouthing the words with him. It was, by all accounts, the perfect Christian testimony.
Then he said it.
“I’d like to share my favourite verse with you all.”
He paused just long enough for every youth leader to nod in approval. The younger kids leaned in, expecting something from Psalms, maybe Philippians if he was feeling adventurous.
He took a deep breath, grinned like he was about to let us in on a secret, and then:
“It’s from the Qur’an.”
You could feel the room snap to attention. Someone laughed — a bit too loud— hoping maybe it was a joke. A cup hit the floor at the back. Somewhere in the crowd, a youth pastor’s eyebrow twitched so hard it nearly sprained itself.
And there was Caleb, completely oblivious, smiling as he read a beautiful passage about mercy and forgiveness from a holy book that — up until that second — none of us were supposed to even admit existed.
We wanted to raise radical Christians.
But Caleb, it turns out, was a bit too radical for us all.
The Fallout
After Caleb sat down, we did what any good evangelical camp leaders would do: damage control.
That night, when the kids finally stumbled off to their cabins, the leaders huddled in the staff lounge. Someone cracked an awkward joke about interfaith outreach. Someone else muttered that we should have vetted the testimonies more thoroughly.
I remember feeling half angry, half embarrassed. How did we miss this? We’d spent months planning every worship set, every Bible study, every meal down to the gluten-free muffins — and yet a fifteen-year-old quoting the Qur’an blindsided us completely.
The next morning, we gathered the campers in the chapel for what we framed as a “clarification.” I stood up front and did my best to steer the ship back on course. I reminded everyone that while other religions might say nice things, the Bible is our ultimate authority. Jesus is the only way, truth, and life. I watched Caleb sitting there, head down, fiddling with the zipper on his hoodie.
If I’m honest, we didn’t handle it gracefully. We didn’t pull him aside for a genuine conversation. We didn’t ask him what drew him to that verse or what questions he was carrying. We just patched the hole, repainted the wall, and carried on.
At the time, I thought we were protecting the flock. Looking back, I see we were protecting our own sense of certainty.
What I Wish I’d Known
I wish I could tell you I stayed up all night wrestling with what Caleb shared. I didn’t. I stayed up drafting excuses, justifications, mental arguments for why he was misguided and why I was still safely right.
But somewhere under my defensiveness, a small seed was planted. It lay dormant for years, buried under my certainty. It would take doubts of my own, heartbreaks, leaving my old circles, and learning to listen again before I dared to water that seed.
What I wish I’d known back then is this: fear makes bad teachers. Fear tells you truth is scarce. Fear tells you that if you find something good in another book, another faith, another culture, then your own must be less special, less true. Fear makes you guard the fence more fiercely than you guard your own heart.
I wish I’d known that the love and mercy Caleb found in that verse weren’t competing with Jesus. Maybe, they were pointing straight to him. Maybe, in his quiet teenage way, Caleb was trying to tell us that we’d made Jesus too small, too territorial, too suspicious of wisdom that didn’t carry our brand.
Most of all, I wish I’d known how badly young people want permission to ask big questions, to look under the surface, to believe that the Spirit is not limited to one book or one translation. If I’d known that, maybe I would’ve sat next to him in the dining hall the next day and said, Tell me more about why you love that verse. Maybe I would’ve asked him to pray for us, not the other way around.
The Perennial Tradition
Here’s what I’ve decided, after all these years: If something is true, it’s true — whenever, wherever, and whoever said it.
That’s the heartbeat of what some call the perennial tradition. It’s the stubborn belief that beneath all our doctrines and labels, there’s a deep, living current of truth and goodness that runs through everything. Sometimes obvious, sometimes hidden, but always there for the finding.
Some say it’s the original wisdom, older than any one religion, yet pulsing through them all. It shows up in the compassion of the Buddha, the surrender of the Sufi mystics, the justice of the Hebrew prophets, the self-giving love of Jesus. Different languages, different rituals, different metaphors, but pointing toward the same sacred center.
The perennial tradition doesn’t flatten those differences or pretend all beliefs are the same. What it does say is this: underneath the surface, there is a shared longing, a truth deeper than dogma, that keeps showing up in every sincere search for God.
It’s not a rejection of Jesus. It’s a refusal to believe that God only speaks in one accent.
When I first heard that Qur’an verse from Caleb, it unsettled me because I’d been taught that truth was a scarce and delicate thing. The perennial tradition says otherwise. It says truth is abundant. Resilient. And it often sneaks in through side doors we were told to keep locked.
As Thomas Aquinas once said, “All truth, whoever said it, comes from the Holy Spirit.”
And once you believe that, really believe it, you stop needing to fear unfamiliar voices. You start listening for the sound beneath the sound, the light beneath the words, the river that runs beneath all our wells.
In the End
In truth, Caleb was more advanced in his faith than any of us could see at the time. We thought he was veering off course, maybe flirting with rebellion, or worse, relativism. We whispered about him that night like he’d said something dangerous. Maybe he had but not in the way we assumed.
The real danger was to our sense of control.
He wasn’t backsliding. He was reaching. Reaching across boundaries we had been trained to fear. Reaching beyond the tight, airlocked version of God we’d built — the one who only spoke in King James English and only quoted himself. Caleb’s verse wasn’t a detour from the truth. It was a direct line to it. We just couldn’t recognize it because it didn’t arrive dressed in our language, wrapped in our theology, or wearing our team colours.
Looking back, I think about how quickly we moved to contain the moment. To mop it up. To smooth it over so it didn’t confuse the younger kids or unsettle the volunteers. We didn’t ask Caleb why he loved that verse. We didn’t sit with the possibility that maybe — just maybe — the Spirit had led him there. We were too busy writing him off to listen.
But here’s what I know now: faith is not proven by how tightly you cling to your own tradition. It’s often revealed in how willing you are to let the light in, even when it shines from an unexpected angle.
Caleb, in his quiet, courageous way, was already walking that path. He had seen something true, something beautiful, something good, and he trusted that God was big enough to be found there.
It’s funny how long it takes to recognize a prophet when they’re fifteen, lanky, soft-spoken, and quoting the Qur’an at church camp.
If I could go back, I wouldn’t correct him. I wouldn’t scramble to repair the moment or reassert our boundaries. I’d sit beside him. I’d thank him. I’d ask him to read the verse again, slower this time. And maybe I’d finally hear it for what it was: not a threat, but a gift.
—
This post was previously published on Backyard Church.
***
You Might Also Like These From The Good Men Project
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please join us as a Premium Member today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
Photo credit: iStock
