Exploring Atheism, Buddhism, Satanism – Finding Jesus

Dominic Mortenson sharing at chapel

By the time he was in sixth grade, Dominic Mortenson considered himself an atheist. By the time he was 13, he was so depressed that he considered suicide. Searching for meaning and peace, he explored Buddhism and even Satanism. He found Jesus.

On October 30, Dom shared at chapel about how Jesus miraculously saved him — through the witness of his grandmother, his best friend, and the sun. Here is what he shared:

I’m not the type of person to be vulnerable and transparent. But Jesus is changing that. Today, I will share how I came to faith, what God has saved me from, and what I have been doing since I started following Jesus.

I grew up with a single mom who had to provide for both of us. My mom is an advanced practice registered nurse, and she used to work night shifts at the hospital, sleeping during the day and working at night. So I spent most of my time with my grandma. We lived with my grandma until I was 10 years old. She was the person I was with for most of my childhood, and she played a huge part in raising me.

My grandma was very forward about her faith in Jesus, and I started at Judah in second grade. So the concept of Christianity was not new to me. I was raised with the belief that there was no other choice than to be Christian, that God is real, and that I must believe that.

After fifth grade, my mom and I moved from Champaign to Sidney, about 20 minutes away, without my grandma, and I transferred to Unity for middle school. It was completely different from everything I was used to. I wasn’t around Christianity all the time, and I wasn’t actively pursuing my faith. So it began to diminish. I began to wonder why things are the way they are. Mainly, I questioned why I believed in God. 

As I kept thinking about it, I realized that I really didn’t believe in God; I had just been raised to believe that was the only way to think about it. There were so many other religions that I hadn’t even taken into account. So how could I know that the one I “believed in” was the right one? 

This was the moment when I first called myself an atheist. Since I had no people around me who believed in God, it made it easier to fit in with the crowd and seem “normal.” Yet, even fitting in at Unity didn’t work so well. There were multiple instances where people whom I called my friends would call me racial slurs. Even teachers would isolate me and automatically associate me with trouble. 

Sixth-grade spring break was when the COVID lockdown happened. I had no friends around me in Sidney, and my mom still had to work, so most of the time I was alone. All I would do all day was mindlessly play video games, from 11 am to 4 am. I had also struggled with pornography since I was 7 years old. So now that I was alone and free to do whatever I wanted, I indulged in it worse than I ever had.

With all my sins building, I ended up with severe depression, so bad that I almost attempted suicide at 13 years old. After that incident, my mom had my grandma come out to watch me during the lockdown, so that I wouldn’t be alone and hurt myself. She continued to watch me whenever my mom was working. So it was just like old times.

It was good for her to be in my life again. But I had no direction. All my sins were digging me a deeper hole. I started to research other religions to find meaning, specifically Buddhism and even Satanism. For a while, I said I was Buddhist. I told people that it was more of a way of life than a religion. I believed it would help me have peace and happiness. After trying it for a while, I started picking it apart too, and I couldn’t believe it anymore. 

A family member talked to me about Satanism, and I was curious as to what that really meant. Apparently, it’s different from all the rituals and sacrifices that you might imagine. Satanism is the worship of self and just enjoying life and doing whatever you want. It prioritizes freedom and individuality. While it interested me, it never felt right, so I left it at that. Looking back on this now, I realize this feeling is what C. S. Lewis describes as “the moral law,” the inner conscience that tells us right and wrong. We can’t escape it, no matter how much we try.

Because of my situation at Unity, my mom sent me back to Judah for eighth grade. Josh Kursell, my best friend since fifth grade, would always share God’s Word with me and challenge me on my ignorance. We got along and had great times, but we couldn’t see eye to eye when it came to God. Whenever he would challenge me, I would have no response. It would be so annoying and infuriating, because I didn’t want to think about it. But he always made me. 

One time, Josh, Jack Dalbey, and I were hanging out, riding our bikes while the sun set in the Walmart parking lot. Josh asked me, “How can something this beautiful come from nothing? How can a greater power not have made this?” And all I could say was “I don’t know.” 

All the times he questioned me forced me to have God on my mind all the time. So eventually, I gave in and started looking into it for myself. The first book of the Bible I read was Ecclesiastes in 2022, right before freshman year. I had read the first few words, which said that everything was meaningless without God, and I knew that book would resonate with my life because of how depressed I was.

The morning after I finished the book, I randomly woke up just in time to see the sunrise. And I had the sudden urge, for the first time in my life, to see a sunrise. I went out at 5:30 am, with no one else around. But I felt like I wasn’t alone. While I was walking among the cornfields, seeing the sunrise for the first time, I felt an unexplainable comfort and relief. It felt like all the depression, stress, anxiety, and pain was being washed away. I was the happiest I had been in years. 

Words don’t do justice to that experience. But to me, that moment made me realize that God was real. I knew that I would be a fool to believe otherwise. 

After God revealed Himself to me, I spoke to my grandma about it. She knew that I was an atheist before, and she prayed for me nonstop that this day would come. I continued to share with her how I was growing in Jesus, and she became a source of wise counsel, the only person I really talked to about my faith. 

A pivotal moment in my faith came when my grandma passed away. Throughout my whole life, she showed me what God’s love really looks like, unwavering and overflowing. My grandma had dealt with cancer for a lot of her life, but it was never life-threatening. In the summer of 2023, she was hospitalized with a type of cancer called metastatic soft tissue sarcoma. This one was way more serious. I thought that she would be okay, because she had dealt with things like this before, but there came a point when I was scared. 

After spending two weeks in the hospital, she went to a nursing home. My grandma spent a year in the nursing home, fighting the cancer, before the doctors said she had only a year and a half left to live. The thought that she wouldn’t see me grow up and have a future, after she raised me and taught me so much, was enough to make me break down and cry, when I hadn’t cried in years.

Throughout that whole time in a nursing home, in Newman, Illinois, 40 minutes from everything, my grandma was rejoicing in God and as happy as ever before. Of course, there were struggles, but since she was so full of God, Jesus was the only thing that truly mattered to her.

By living her life that way, she taught me many things about my walk with Jesus too. I started driving out to see her on weekends and talk for hours. The one thing she complained about was how she couldn't go to church anymore. I hadn’t been to church for years, but I told her that I would take her to church every Sunday, driving a minimum of three hours every time. Going to church helped me learn the importance of community, fellowship, and continual growth. 

That only lasted for a little while though, before she became too weak to even want to go to church anymore. She didn’t really want visitors either, but we would still text. The last text we had, she said she loved me, and I said it back, not knowing what was about to come. The night before she passed, the whole family met in her room because we got a call from the nurse that she probably wouldn’t last much longer. The next morning, she passed away.

I lost the person whom I could always talk to about God. But now that I look back on it, I see the purpose God had. Losing my grandma helped me grow to call my faith my own and pursue Jesus of my own will. Seeing my grandma rejoice in God while she was slowly dying helped me keep high spirits through this time and after. I never got mad at God, because I trusted His plan and what He was leading me to in growth.

When my grandma was in the nursing home in 2023, I spent the summer with my grandpa and his wife. I had been distant from him before this, so spending time with him rekindled that bond. He has been a follower of Jesus the whole time I have known him, so he became another role model for me. He and his wife would read a chapter out of the Bible every night. I wasn’t too deep into reading the Bible at this point, so at first I just skipped out on it and let them do their thing. After a couple of weeks, I asked if I could join in their reading and conversation, and it was truly a blessing to have daily Bible studies. I learned how important fellowship and reading the Bible with other believers and mentors really is. 

Many talks with both of my grandparents and others led to my baptism. I kept going back and forth, until Josh reached out to me and wanted to get baptized together. We got baptized on August 11, 2024. The moment my face lifted from the water, I felt new, like I was going in the right direction for once in my life.

Living out my faith hasn’t been a straight or easy path. I have fallen many times to temptations and have made many mistakes. But I see how God uses everything for His glory and how He molds me to be the best version of myself. The biggest thing that God has saved me from is my lust. Pornography used to be deeply embedded in me. It took me three years of actively trying to break the cycle. I leaned on God. He gave me a new perspective to finally get past the addiction and new eyes that when I saw those things, I felt disgust. 

It helped immensely to surround myself with believers and get rid of all temptations and distractions. I was so focused on God and so close to Him that I had no desire for anything besides growing closer to God. I wanted to share that closeness with my friends and family.

Last month, God pointed out a huge flaw in my character that needed growth. That flaw is the root of every sin, which is pride. There are so many forms of pride that I would struggle with, and I’d be completely oblivious that it was the real problem. A few of those are overthinking, stress, jealousy, and especially comparison. All of those things have one common denominator: they are all focused on you. 

Once I realized this, I smiled with joy that God revealed more to me of how I can grow and be more like Jesus. It took me having many conversations with Mr. Himick and other followers, and especially reading my Bible, and allowing quiet time for God to speak to me and reveal my flaws. 

When God revealed those flaws to me, it wasn’t a sudden change. I still struggle with some things sometimes. But I remember Jesus and root my identity in Him. That gets me through. I am continually learning to keep my identity rooted in Jesus. When we do this, we are complete in God and need nothing from anyone else. 

We live for what God has for us, and that is the most important thing we can do as followers of Jesus. We follow His commands and do His will. We don’t compare ourselves to others; we compare ourselves to Jesus; that is our standard. When my identity is not rooted in Him, that is where most, if not all, of my problems come from. I have no reason to overthink, be stressed, or compare myself to anyone else when my eyes are set on Jesus. 

We need to be all in on following God and obeying His commands. As Mr. Himick likes to say, “You can’t have one foot in the world.” And as I like to say, “The devil owns the fence you are sitting on.” Jesus says in Revelation 3 that He will spit lukewarm Christians out of His mouth. I don’t want to be lukewarm.

We show our love for God by obeying His commands. That is why rooting our identity in Jesus is so important. Mr. Huff explained how Jesus should show up in your entire life. If you’re an athlete, you’re a Christian athlete. If you’re a student, you’re a Christian student. I have put Jesus first in every part of my life, not just when it’s convenient. 

For example, at the high school retreat this year, I was convicted when Josiah Barlow spoke about how he and his girlfriend were honoring God and centering their relationship around Jesus. In my relationship with my girlfriend, we both follow Jesus, but we didn’t always live it out how we should. As soon as I got back from the retreat, I told my girlfriend that I wanted to focus our relationship fully around God and bring honor to Him in all that we do. Now, two months later, we can both testify that having a relationship built on Jesus is so much better than anything else. 

Also, I don’t intentionally spend time with people who aren’t like-minded and don’t have the same values as me. 1 Corinthians 15:33 says, “Bad company corrupts good character.” In the past, I have been prone to being a follower and wanting to fit in, but now in Jesus, I realize that I need to stand out and be the light that shines in the darkness for all to see. 

As I reminisce on my life, I see how God has directed it. He used small parts of my life to lead to bigger things now. He was active in my life even before I followed Him, and being able to see that makes me trust in God and love Him more and more each day.

Dom’s journey shows that the path to finding Jesus is not always a straight line, but that meaning and peace can be found and that God will make Himself known. Like his grandma, his best friend, and the sun, now it’s Dom’s turn to shine. Already he has become a role model for younger students, who tagged Dom’s speech “inspiring” and “meaningful” in classroom conversation.

—Eiralys Unzicker, class of ’27