In 1988, 16-year-old Piyush Jindal totaled his father's new car a few weeks before graduating from Baton Rouge High School. Piyush -- who then and now prefers the nickname "Bobby" he adopted from "The Brady Brunch" sitcom -- had to assess more than fender damage with his parents. "Which God do you have to thank for your safety?" Mr. Jindal, now governor of Louisiana, remembers his mother, Raj, a practicing Hindu, inquiring after he escaped from the wreck. For the child of Punjabi immigrants who had announced his Christian beliefs the previous summer, the question was difficult. Twenty years later,...