I was such a good little Christian boy. In fact, i was more than a good little Christian boy. I was a good little Jehovah's Witness boy, which, as anyone will tell you, is harder. For instance, since every good Witness family arrives at the meetings at least fifteen minutes early, I had some time to kill. Now, some of the other youths in my congregation would waste this time talking about skateboards or television. The accepted term for this sort of conversation and the people who do it is "worldly", which is an ubiquitous term among Witnesses. Anything not directly related to preaching was "worldly", and therefore highly suspect. After school sports were worldly. Any movie rated worse than PG-13 was worldly, and according to some arbiters, including my Grandpa, even those deserved the W-word. Spending too much money on clothes, say more than ten dollars for a shirt? Worldly.

But I digress. As those W____ other kids were enjoying their lives, I decided that the most useful/unworldly thing I could do was to teach Bible verses to the younger kids. In time, I became quite an attraction. The little five and six year olds would come up to me (I was a mere nine or ten) and recite verses in exchange for approval. My biggest fans were Jared and Justin S., and my highlight of my career as an alternative to worldly was shortly before the meeting when their Father came to claim them. My natural charm was so addictive that the refused to go with him. Well, this called for a liberal dose of unworldly! "Justin," I reprimanded, "What does Ephesians 6:1 say?"
"Children, be obedient to your parents," he recited, "But . . ."
"Then don't you think you should go with your Dad?" I didn't even wait for him to finish. He relented and followed his Dad back to their seats. At the time, I thought of myself as a saint. Little did I know that a demagogue was born.