The Pentecostal Boy

This remarkable memoir recounts the varied experiences – in childhood and adolescence, in church and out – that eventually led the author to move from Pentecostalism to spiritual humanism. He grew up with “one foot in everything worldly and the other in everything religious, spiritual, and Pentecostal.”

The most dramatic and moving aspect of this story is that Weatherby retains a deep and abiding respect, even affection, for the religious community he was raised in, despite his choice of separation from it. He knows not only that membership in that community sustained his family, especially his father, but that it deepened his own experience in unexpected ways.  Whatever flaws he recognized at the time or saw only in hindsight, he now views through a complex lens.

Though this story is grounded in a particular time and place, it conveys a universal search for personal meaning that will appeal to readers of many backgrounds and interests.